Tony Elumelu: Big man, thin skin

Around this time last year, the rumour circulated that ex-US president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were getting a divorce because he had had an affair with a famous actress. The news made it across blogs, and even decent news outlets had to address the rumour. Like most fake stories in search of substance, it died out. Now, imagine if Obama were a Nigerian. He would have done the Nigerian big man thing of using the police to heavily descend on a bunch of nonentities grazing the internet for stories that will become food. The Nigerian police, ever willing to lend themselves to any frivolity if it involved a big man, would have driven across state lines to arrest even a village goat for “cyberstalking” an influential figure. If you have read the news about a group of schoolboys arrested by the police for publishing a false story about UBA Group chairman Tony Elumelu and his wife, Awele, you already know where I am going with this example.

The thing is, with Elumelu, a pattern of a big man’s thin-skinnedness is emerging. I recall that in 2024, lawyer and activist Dele Farotimi mentioned during a press conference that Elumelu had filed a petition with the police, alleging that he was defamed and cyberstalked after the former criticised him on Twitter. I remember being amused. Criticising rich people (or capitalists) on social media is routine. They should be too busy being important to take things so personally that they would involve the police. Look, the world we live in now is one where the vast inequalities of the rich holding the wealth of nations in their private hands fuel a lot of disaffection. It is the age of Eat-The-Rich. Since the rich’s relationship with the political class affects the lives of the rest of us, it cannot help but come under scrutiny on the internet, the forum that has bridged the distance between the high and the low. The direct line of communication to them is why an ordinary schoolteacher could cuss at Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, on Twitter, and there is nothing the rich man could do about it other than to probably lick his wounds with $100 bills.

 There is an ongoing art exhibition at a Berlin museum featuring a pack of robot dogs, each with the lifelike head of one of the world’s most powerful figures (such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc.). Those dogs walk around and poop images to the amusement of the audience. Now, I can only imagine what the fate of an artist who makes such art would be in a place like Nigeria, where influential people deem themselves small enough to be insulted by their social unequals. What is worse is that fellow Nigerians, particularly those with their warped understanding of human rights, will cheer them on as they get the police to clamp down on the artist for daring to be irreverent.

Yes, I quite understand and acknowledge that even rich and influential people remain human enough to deeply feel the brunt of insults and attacks lobbed at them. Wealth and fame do not protect you from the hurt of criticisms, fake news, direct insults, satiric jabs, and the many insinuations people hurl at you online or elsewhere. Where I will not yield ground is the high-handedness of people whose resources allow them to summon the police to clamp down on fellow citizens with lesser means.

It does not happen the other way round. From industry CEOS to musicians to pastors to politicians, everyone has now grown a thin skin because there is a constitutional provision they can exploit to silence people. Meanwhile, none of these men put together has endured even half of what one single woman, Meghan Markle, has suffered at the hands of trolls. Hating that woman is a multimillion-dollar industry for YouTubers who are on record for making her the world’s most profitable person to troll. Yet, she steps out every day with the grace and dignity of someone who knows her self-worth cannot be determined by internet lowlifes.

We must insistently condemn this habit of Nigerian big men exploiting an ethically twisted police force to abuse others because what is at play is a self-entitled attitude to public resources. By now, it can be concluded that they find it easy to use the police to arrest people over issues of defamation rather than pursue a civil case, not only because the matter is sometimes too frivolous to take before a judge but also because it is “cheaper” to employ the police. If they were to commit their personal resources to these matters, they would suddenly find it easier to overlook them and move forward with their lives. But the cheapness comes at a cost to fellow Nigerians, from whom valuable resources are being taken away to run the errands of people who are already very rich. When the police use public resources to resolve issues that should otherwise be handled as civil cases, they are distracted from pursuing serious criminal cases.

When the first lady of France, Brigitte Macron, was relentlessly attacked by a media outlet with intrusive and damaging accusations about her body, did she commandeer the resources of France to pursue the journalist? No. She hired a lawyer privately. It is well within her rights to fight for her dignity, but she is also doing so with her own resources. If she were Nigerian, you can be sure her instinct would be to use the power of the state to teach the intrepid person a lesson, as ex-first lady Aisha Buhari did. The police officers she sent to arrest a schoolboy for calling her “fat” testified in court that they spent six months stalking him. The same police are unlikely to commit similar efforts to legitimate cases of criminality but will pursue frivolities. Why are we like this?

We must keep hammering it home to the rich and the self-important that matters of defamation must be resolved through civil process rather than by employing abusive police to make a point. Someone like Elumelu has enough resources to fight his defamation case with his own money; why not use it? It is not enough for the well-heeled class that the police that should be deployed to manage security wash cars in their houses or follow them around carrying their handbags; they must still use them to further settle personal scores. Elumelu is not the first, nor will he be the last, rich man to be hit by cruel comments. His desire for instant justice cannot override societal ethics or what is needful.

Ideally, a man of his status should find it beneath him to respond to a certain level of silliness on social media or elsewhere. The same blogger who supposedly defamed Elumelu has said some things about others with influence, but they ignored it. It must be because they have better things to do with their time; fake news comes with the territory. Or maybe they know that if the previous instances of using the police to abuse people have not stopped others from writing slanderous things, it is wasteful to persist on that path. Now, if Elumelu is sensitive enough to be defamed by boys still writing the UTME and have probably not even grown out their puberty hairs yet, he should take his case to court. He can sue them for a billion naira or more; that is up to him, and the court that will decide on the case. The line in the sand the rest of us must draw is that no one is so important that human rights (and public resources) should be abrogated for their benefit.