Many Nigerians, whether rich or poor, like to play the big man. They like to portray themselves as what they are not in order to create false impression about themselves. The essence of their actions is to make the other party cringe in fear and kowtow to them. They derive satisfaction from so doing, especially with a crowd of onlookers around.

   As the ‘big man’ shouts and curses, the lesser mortal, in most cases, looks askance, wondering how he would get out of trouble. ‘What kind of trouble is this?’ He mutters inaudibly. His case is not helped by those who rather than side with the truth, will be asking him to beg and set himself free. ‘Beg for what?’ He thinks. All the same, he bides his time, hoping that things will sort themselves out.

  This is a common scenario which plays out on the streets virtually on a daily basis. The oppressor may be a nobody but he would have put the fear of God into the oppressed who has turned jelly. As Fela, whose title of the song: “Who are you?” we have borrowed for this piece, noted in another song many years ago, “my people fear too much. We fear to fight for freedom; we fear to fight for liberty…”

    As a result of fear, we suffer in silence in the face of oppression. Last Sunday, somewhere in Abuja this kind of ‘power show’, another one from Fela’s stable, was on display in Abuja when a member of the House of Representatives, Alex Mascot Ikwechegh, decided to dance naked. It was an unnecessary show of shame for which today he has become remorseful. All he needed to do in that situation was to calm down, but the people of his village, as they say, seemed to be after him.

  He lost all sense of reason as he descended on the e-hailing cab driver, Stephen Abuwatseya, who came to deliver an item to him in his home at the highbrow Maitama district. He believes that his stay in Maitama, the billionaires’ playground confers special status on him as a member of the National Assembly. The Bolt driver, to him, was a common taxi driver, who could be abused and tongue-lashed like a slave. 

So, Mascot felt such a man deserves no respect. If only it was really a mascot that treated Abuwatseya that way, people would have seen it as an object that was misbehaving, but this was a human being and a representative of the people, for that matter, treating a person that he should ordinarily have protected shabbily. He was disdainful of Abuwatseya, as he asked the cabman time and time again: “do you know who I am?”

Many public officials suffer from this big man disease. They have a penchant for flaunting their influence and affluence at any given opportunity. They throw it in the face of others and before you ask: ‘Mr who are you?’, the words: ‘do you know who I am?’ would have tumbled out of their mouths. They utter the words with an air of importance, as they cast their look wide look. In all seriousness, they do not need to go to such extent, as bigmanism needs no heralding.

It announces itself without fuss, just as a tiger does not need to show its tigritude. As it was the case in the past, Ikwechegh would have gotten away with his verbal and physical assaults of the poor cab driver, but for the advancement in technology, which enabled his victim to record everything on phone. Despite being aware of the recording, he was not deterred. He continued to boast and declared that he could make Abuwatseya disappear without trace and no Jupiter on earth would do anything to him.

He spoke as if he had the Inspector-General of Police in his pockets. It was all braggadocio. The lawmaker turned lawbreaker now knows better that nobody is above the law. He has publicly apologised and initiated amicable resolution of the dispute. Ikwechegh learnt his lesson the bitter way – pride goes before a fall. He fell because he did not know when to stop, not even  when the driver was cautioning him during the incident: “you have been insulting me and I have been quiet… Are you slapping me? Did you just slap me three times?”

Now, he faces the whole country over this matter. The police have taken it up; so also are his colleagues who have begun investigating him. It is enough that he has admitted his guilt and shown remorse. If an offender admits his crime, the elders say, he does not stay long on his knees begging. He should be allowed to go and sin no more, after going out there to apologise to Abuwatseya as well as duly compensate him for the public assault. The compensation will be besides paying the driver for his services.

  Perhaps, this way, our big men, especially lawmakers, will realise that they cannot just assault commoners and go scot-free. A senator did it to an expectant mother a few years ago, now a representative has followed suit. There may be many other unreported cases that we have yet to know about. It is high time everything was done to stop these people from being law unto themselves.