A viral video on the social media last week of the Kano-based "Sojan Baka" [literally, soldier of the mouth] Alhaji Abdulhamid Danbilki Commander being handcuffed and mercilessly whipped caused shock, consternation and shrug in equal measure all across Northern Nigeria, where Hausa-speaking audiences have been very familiar with his foul-tounged career over the years.
"Sojan Baka" first evolved on the Northern scene in the Fourth Republic. They are extremely eloquent and articulate men, and a few women, who deploy their sharp tongues in the service of politicians, sometimes to defend rulers, other times to tear them apart. The tongue is a very powerful tool in Northern Nigerian politics. It does not have to be backed up by education or knowledge; no. All it requires is eloquence, the ability to say the same thing in many different ways, to throw in barbs and local proverbs, not a little bit of recklessness, often pausing just short of libel and slander, sometimes crossing the boundary just enough to evade legal action, and in many cases flip flopping, praising a politician today, only to turn around and attack him severely, probably because he didn't pay very well for the previous service. Many soldiers of the mouth have surfaced in recent years, but Danbilki Commander is the most prominent of them all. Their coming coincided with the growth of social media; it would not have been possible without Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok and You Tube.
The video I saw [I hear there are longer versions of it] showed Danbilki Commander standing lamely by the side of a jeep, his hands handcuffed. It was nighttime; while he himself could be seen, the men who captured him could be heard but not seen in the video. At first they interrogated him. They asked him where he is from, and he said Kano State. Then then asked him why he attacked the Governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani, when he is not from that state. At first Danbilki tried to be brave; he said he is a Nigerian and a Northerner and could therefore comment on any state in Nigeria. That angered the interrogator, who called for a whip. He then proceeded to whip Danbilki, saying, "Is the governor your mate? Do you think a governor is a joke? All the suffering we did [to bring him to office], you are here attacking him!"
When the whipping continued unabated, Danbilki changed tack. He denied that he insulted Governor Uba Sani. He said he has diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition. When the flogging continued, he pleaded for mercy and promised not to attack the governor again.
Maybe because the video was shot in the dark, I at first thought the flogging was rather tame. After he escaped from the ordeal and returned home however, the victim stripped off his clothes and shot another video, which showed serious bumps and lacerations all over his back, chest and arms. Indeed it was a heavy beating. In its wake, Kaduna State Government House denied that Governor Uba Sani had anything to do with it and called for an inquiry. Some commentators said Danbilki staged the flogging, but it is doubtful if an elderly man could stage his own flogging just to make a political allegation.
Other questions quickly came to the mind. One was, could a state governor stoop so low as to order the flogging of a man who criticized him on social media? To many Nigerians, the answer to that question would be yes, some powerful Nigerians could do that, perhaps even order a murder. But there is no direct evidence right now that Governor Uba Sani ordered the beating. However, if a powerful politician expresses anger in the presence of his aides and supporters at a video, it is enough, I think, for some of them to take the law into their own hands in order to impress him. I am not saying that was what happened, but that it could happen. Many years ago in this Republic, there was a state governor who expressed anger that opposition party supporters were mocking him with a sign on their fingers, and a band of his supporters offered to sever and bring to him on a platter the fingers of anyone who did the offending sign. Mercifully, the governor told them not to. But thugs don't always tell you before they act.
I was at first puzzled that whoever did this crime had the temerity to videotape it. But then, it made sense because if it was done in order to impress a political master, he needed to see the tape of what they did. Why did they allow the tape to leak to the social media? Again, that could be for deterrence purposes; it should serve as a warning to any intending sojan baka, praise singer or party thug who intends to insult the governor to think twice.
Danbilki himself alleged that it was policemen who did the beating. There is circumstantial evidence to support the allegation. One was the handcuff that was clamped on Danbilki's hands; only policemen are supposed to have handcuffs. The other was the rather professional manner of the interrogation, calm and methodical. Some other people say that the Kaduna governor's name was mentioned in the video by the attackers in order to set him up and blackmail him. Well, anything is possible in Nigerian politics, though I had second thoughts about that allegation when I later saw the offending videotape that Danbilki made.
In summary, it appeared to be a hatchet job in the service of former state governor Nasiru el-Rufa'i, Uba Sani's once very chummy friend, political ally and benefactor-turned-deadly foe. It all started, publicly at least, when Governor Sani said at a townhall meeting that his predecessor left behind huge debts in hundreds of billions of naira and hundreds of millions of dollars, deductions on which were making it hard for the state to even pay workers' salaries. It was a wholesale repudiation of his predecessor and an attempt to demolish his entire legacy, which was supposed to be the building of key infrastructure.
While nobody will be happy to inherit a state treasury bedeviled by such huge debts, many people thought that Governor Sani was in no position to complain because he was el-Rufai's very close political associate during his entire eight years in office, four years as Political Adviser, the remaining four years as Senator representing Kaduna Central. He was railroaded into the Senate, people said, in order to upstage Senator Shehu Sani, whose capital offence was that he opposed Senate approval of the Kaduna loans. Malam Uba Sani became Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking in 2019 and speedily helped to approve the loans, so why complain now? Well, the Kaduna State Assembly committee that probed the matter seems to say that the loans were not applied properly, which is a different matter.
Danbilki Commander's viral, acidic, acerbic, bitter and somewhat uncouth video tried to take the governor to the cleaners, saying he owed his entire political success to el-Rufa'i and could not compare himself with his predecessor's towering legacies. This is a watered-down summary of what he said; I am not a Sojan Biro and do not intend to attract flogging a la Danbilki.
In previous Republics in the North, there were no Sojan Baka, most obviously because there was no social media to democratise and amplify political skullduggery. Politicians of the Second Republic, especially, had very sharp tongues of their own and they did not need any surrogates. You couldn't have a sharper tongue, dazzling oratory or a little bit of recklessness more than Sabo Bakin Zuwo, Mohammed Abubakar Rimi, Mamman Abubakar Danmusa, UPN's Mamman Nasir, Gambo Sawaba, Asabe Reza, Muhammadu Danjani Hadeja, Zagi Dass, Zom Maigida Kwoi, Abdulkadir Young-Sidi, Shehu Maigidaje Funtua, Sule Lamido, not to mention the father of Establishment oratory, Yusuf Maitama Sule. In this Republic, politicians have ceded that job to Sojan Baka.
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Should governors, ministers, senators or even presidents organize the flogging of anyone for saying something, however harsh? Of course if it is slanderous, the courts are always there to adjudicate. So far there is none, but it will be extremely embarrassing if the promised investigation ever turns up evidence that the Governor of Kaduna State organized or even knew about the flogging of Danbilki Commander. A governor might have immunity from arrest and prosecution but it could be a very big image dent and a future criminal case. It is bad enough if, for example, a governor becomes an accessory after the fact of flogging. For example, if some people come to him with a tape after the flogging and say they did it, he should immediately hand them over to the police for prosecution, otherwise it could be akin to the "cover up" that consumed US President Richard Nixon in 1974. Nixon didn't know that his re-election campaign team burgled the Watergate Hotel in obtain to steal information from Democratic Party chairman Larry O'Brien's office. But when he learnt about it from his White House counsel, he ordered a cover up. Again there is no evidence that anyone took a tape of the beating to Uba Sani, but just in case!
In turn, what words of advice could we offer the Sojan Baka? It is probably legal to use your wits and sharp tongue as a weapon in the service of a political master in order to feed your family. However, knowing that this country is full of unsolved cases of political murder over many decades, it is good to be wary. Most political leaders will respond to such attacks by unleashing sharp-tongued responses of their own, but a few may not be so patient. Luckily, Sojan Baka are mostly for sale. One can easily turn them around to say the opposite of what they said yesterday. Governors and senators, what is the use of your security votes, constituency and padded project funds?
