Having a good laugh on your BB at law enforcement!

There are many indulgees who now have fingers permanently bent like smoked crayfish as a result of suffering from the Blackberry (BB) associated, and expensive, syndrome that is rather better demonstrated than taking any trouble to find some outlandish name for it.

Yes, the positive but highly abused illness, particularly by ladies who use it as an excuse to cut everyone out of their lives, while keeping those icons-for-humans that show up on the screens of their BBs in their lives, is responsible for a new set of behaviours that have the potential of making this society a huge asylum.

These people are familiar with acronyms like LOL (Laugh Out Loud) or ROTFL (Rolling On The Floor Laughing). And would you blame them? That’s the only time and only place they can do such a thing anyway; that is, in virtual space. If you think that this is not correct, you may want to ask them to stand before you and actually roll on the floor laughing, let them see whether someone wouldn’t call the medics from any of the psychiatric hospitals in the cities where they live, to complain that someone has, indeed, lost it!

And losing it does come in different shapes and forms. You might think that as you focus your gaze on your Blackberry and allow a smile or two to take space on your face, that nobody is watching and wondering what is truly happening to you. Of course, nothing is happening to you, you would like everyone to believe.

But a few years ago, many would recall, before BB ever took root in our country, that if anyone was found wondering about with such focused gaze on an object, ignoring all else around him or her, he or she was quickly dispatched to an asylum. That’s of course, after everything would have been done to ascertain that someone around wasn’t particularly responsible for putting them in such a state; I mean diabolically.

I bet indulgees and non-indulgees who currently suffer from the BB syndrome know what they are getting away with – it’s close to murder! After all, there’s really a thin line between that and being seen as kolo (a slang for losing it). Away from all of that though is the sense you get that there is something to laugh about in all of this. When someone walks back and forth in a space that you share, and they have their two hands held in front of them like an excited horse with two legs raised in front of you, and are not talking to you, but you can see and hear them giggle to nothing in particular, then you must be amused yourself.

If you are not amused, or do not find it remotely amusing, only choosing to steel yourself and not laugh, then someone needs to do a research on you. Who knows, such a research might reveal something of value to the human race and answer the question: “Why is she or he incapable of laughing in the face of pressure induced by a thoroughly amusing atmosphere?”

It is not for us to answer such a question here. It would be enough, though, to just say that may that specie of humans continue to diminish in our country and in the world. Perhaps, that’s what has been happening in the Middle East since the Arab Spring began in 2010, with renewed turmoil in Egypt, and non-stop brigandage in Syria, with the rest of the region on the edge.

But it is not only people who are suffering from BB syndrome that laugh into nothingness. In every city, town, village, and hamlet you find yourself in, indulgees must now begin to take notice of how people just go about their work and make you laugh! Laughter has two sides to it – one is genuine, the other you do when you don’t really know what to make of something. For instance, you have an appointment to visit a friend at work. You set off in your car or by public transport. You get to the gate and your laughter begins. The gateman rushes to the gate, and you think he is going to open up for you to either drive in or walk in. But he does not.

Why? Well, he first takes his time to size you up. “You want to see oga?” You can almost hear him say. “Of course, that’s what got me out and down to this place.”

When this happens, you surely aren’t going to know what to make of it immediately. “Is he having a laugh trying to prevent me from getting in to see X, Y or Z?” At this point you would do one of two things – get angry and make the point that he doesn’t know who you are, but also failing to tell him who really are, so that some fear will come upon him and get him to act appropriately; and if you are the cool and calculated type, who doesn’t allow anything to faze you, you will look at the man and laugh. As a matter of fact, you are likely to turn it into a small study, providing immediate questions and seeking some immediate answers.

You are likely to sit or stand back and wonder what this country is turning people into – a certain kind of hostility is built into the way people behave now, perhaps in the face of the hardship across the country. So when the gateman exerts his powers, he does not only say “I’m in charge here,” but he makes the statement, “Do you think you are better than me?” Or he could really think you are his problem, and it wouldn’t matter if that was the first time you were seeing, talking or dealing with him.

When you have finished dealing with the gateman, should you continue your journey, and come into a police checkpoint, you are likely to find another set of pranksters, whose major reason for mounting the check-point is totally different from the concept for which checkpoints were created.

There would be some serious cases where you would think, and partly be right, if not fully, that these checkpoints are mobile collapsible banks, so nimble that you would have a good laugh if you chose to just let anger be and look on the bright side of the biggest banking corporation in Nigeria. Problem with this bank is that it doesn’t give you a passbook and statement to see what you have in your account. Neither does it give you a cheque book to issue a cheque to someone or to withdraw part of your money from its vaults! In other words, once your money goes in, most times forcefully taken from you, it doesn’t find its way back to you!

If you want to laugh some more, you will have to position yourself to ask one question of the purpose of law enforcement in this country. In Lagos, there are all sorts of people wearing all sorts of uniforms. So are there in other states across the country, by the way. You would think that the number of uniforms alone should be a deterrent. Or put differently, that giving the number of uniformed people, there should be capacity for the orientation of the law enforcers to become deterrent instead of punitive. That’s where your pain ends and your laughter must begin.

It’s really like a tale of two cities or a tale of different uniforms. You are driving on the streets of Ghana. A police or traffic officer sees you about to infringe on the law. He intervenes to let you know and tells you that this is wrong. He then advises you to do the right thing, both now and in the future.

Turn the hand of the clock back to Lagos, where there are a million uniforms on the streets, a LASMA officer sees you about to commit an offence. He turns his eyes away, provides you with no assistance and then lays in wait for you to commit the offence. He then pounces on you and reads out all you have done wrong. He is not interested in correcting you. He is interested in how much you will pay, either into the state’s account or into his pocket. And you don’t think you should just stop in one corner and watch them make you laugh?

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