“I am a baboon, I live in the zoo, Zazooo”
Every Nigerian must have heard of the above rhythmic and poetic line which trended across every social platform throughout last week.
The originator of it was Mr Habeeb Olalomi Oyegbile popularly known as Portable Aka Dr Zeh, the leader of the Zeh nation. He voiced those words over and over again while having a standoff with some police officers who came to effect an arrest on him last week. Portable violently resisted the arrest and attacked the police officers while making so many other uncouth utterances like “he is a liability to the government”.
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People applauded him for the “bravery” and turned the “I’m a baboon, I live in the zoo” into a trend whilst in solidarity with Portable. Some music producers turned that into a hit song and some dancers danced to it while some skit makers and comedians turned it into skit content.
Seeing Portable inside the dock of the court this morning having been arraigned looking all humble, meek and gentle gave me some amount of hope. The first thing I said was so this portable can look this humble and meek, he is obviously no longer a baboon that lives in the zoo. He has learnt a little bit that a civilized society like Nigeria is not a zoo and he is a human, not a baboon.
I know an army of Portable’s fans may likely come for my head for saying this but it really needs to be said that someone like Portable needs to be taught a hard lesson that we live in a civilized society and not a zoo or a jungle where any and every uncivilized act is permissible.
There’s no week that passes since portable came into the limelight that Portable does not trend for the wrong reasons; he regularly gets into street fights, which in some cases have led to the loss of lives and destruction of properties, he has attacked law enforcement agents on numerous occasions. He is always issuing death threats to individuals who get in his way. He once threatened the organizers of the headies award that he must win the category he was nominated for. The other time he claimed to be the founder of a notorious court group (one million boys) that was causing havoc in Lagos while threatening to unleash them.
What led to his recent ordeal was that he assaulted a colleague of his and the victim petitioned him to the police for assault and threat to life. The police officers invited him to come and answer his case at the police station but he blatantly refused to honour the invitation. After the expiration of the invite, the police last Tuesday secured his arrest warrant, and went down to enforce his arrest; Portable being portable resisted the arrest and attacked the police officers while claiming to be a baboon that lives in the zoo and above the law.
The police went back, regrouped and arrested him days later and today they arraigned him in court for the charges around his neck which could possibly send him to jail for some time.
People like portable if ignored will reinforce bad behaviour in our society; he always claims that he is a star and famous, therefore he is untouchable and will always go scot-free. I so much want him to go to jail for a little time so that he will come out rehabilitated and a new man who will no longer be a nuisance in society and most importantly, that those who are learning from him, towing his part of becoming a societal nuisance with the mindset that our legal system is weak will learn and turn a new leaf.