If you could get away with breaking the law...

At first I thought of this as a jurisprudential question which only lawyers would be interested in; then I realized that it is also a moral question which most Nigerians would be able to identify with. Because if you are a Nigerian living in Nigeria, then almost daily, you find yourself either observing or facing this dilemma…maybe we face it so often that we no longer recognize it as a dilemma. Maybe our response to this dilemma has been repeated so often that we no longer see that our response has become our character.

What am I talking about? I am talking about a lawless society. Not in our case knowingly lawless, but evolving slowly and taking on a defined shape which will be as hard to change as separating hair from chewing gum.

For most it starts gradually, not with big things but little seemingly insignificant ones…like throwing rubbish out of a car and onto the streets. Maybe you are going so fast you think no one will actually see you do it. Or better still you think, ‘the streets are already dirty so it makes no difference what else I add to it’. And so you do and it becomes a habit that you rarely think about.

Then on the way to or from work for those who live in the big cities, you watch fellow commuters speed past you driving against traffic while you stay in your –watching paint dry slow moving lane. You shake your head at them feeling superior but day after day, maybe even year after year…nothing changes. You obey the rules of traffic and stay on your lane and get to your destination late, and people who breeze past, powered by wrong, get home faster. Then one day, maybe you have had a hard day where anything that could go wrong, goes wrong and as you sit in stand still traffic you think to yourself…’just this once, I’ll drive headlong into oncoming traffic with my hazard lights on and get home early for a change’. It’s exhilarating. You cut out of your lane just as the person two cars in front of you is doing so and together you form your little convoy of brigands and soon you are home. After that, you never sit still in traffic again and it becomes second nature to do so. And so it continues with sir luck shining his beacon on you. You graduate to ‘borrowing’ company funds for a sister’s funeral (surely a good cause) especially since you shared part of it with your religious association and taking that thank-you-in-anticipation-of-the-contract-being-awarded gift and you never even notice that you have stopped having the ‘should I or shouldn’t I discussion with yourself.

At the other end of town is someone who is in a battle with his chi because despite what Chinua Achebe says, no matter how strongly he exerts himself to do something wrong, he just cannot get away with it. He puts one toe out of line and immediately gets a firm slap in the face. The day after his motorcycle license expires and he convinces himself that the odds are for him getting away with it until the next pay day…barely two intersections away from his home, the Vehicle Inspection Officers are all over him, he has to pay a fine, appear in court, and eventually looses his job because his boss wants no excuses and is tired of all the stories about motorcycle licenses.

When this person was younger and was preparing for his school-leaving certificate, many spoke confidently about facilitating their success in the exams. He decided to use this information wisely and prepared his exam aids carefully but unfortunately, only a few including him became the scapegoats for exam malpractice. His paper was cancelled and he was expelled and that was the end of a family’s dreams of finally joining the ranks of the educated.

It is easy to understand why some would think they were born to ‘escape the law’ and that no matter how many laws they deliberately and willfully break, they will never be brought to justice. However, they understand that this entitlement is only valuable and secure if those who were born not to ‘escape the law’ rarely transcend to the other side. And so they speak passionately about justice, law and order and equity but only for the benefit of giving those born not to escape the law with someone thing to look forward to. And it works.

Everyday, he who was born not to escape the law watches enviously as others go scot free for the very same thing he tries to do and gets punished for. Ironically, their invincibility gives him hope. Maybe one day, just one day he will be able to get away with what others get away with so easily.

Published in Thisday's The Lawyer on Feb 1 2011