Phobia, Police And Seun’s Dirty Slap

By Kunle Awosiyan

You may wonder why a beautiful lady had tattooed a snake on her arm or why a scorpion on her tummy?

“Perhaps she loves snake or she belongs to a cult whose symbol is a scorpion.” This will be the answer many people will give.

However, some tattoos are inscribed to wade off “Phobia” for a particular animal or object.

In other words, a lady with snake tattoo on her arm may had done such to kill the fear by seeing a harmless snake living on her body.

In his book, “You have yourself a deal” by James Hadley Chase, the writer shows how a tattoo in the body of a lady helps the coroner inquest into the death of the lady and why she had lived with the image of what dreaded her the most.

There are millions of people living with one phobia or the other. They do not tattoo the images of their phobia on their bodies but live with it in their minds and brains.

I think Seun Kuti is one of them. Of course what he did by slapping a police officer is condemnable, no one had asked if he has phobia for the police. May be the police had done so in their investigation anyway.

It is either you kill your phobia or allow it to kill you. For those who put the tattoo on their bodies, it is one of the ways of managing the phobia.

Seun had witnessed police brutality in his family and father Fela Kuti. As a child he had lived with the phobia and seen police officer as a potential predator.

Slapping a police officer and boasting to have slapped more than six cops in a viral video is not a sign of bravery but a show of “Phobia” for the police.

You may ask, didn’t Femi and Yeni see more of police brutality, why didn’t they beat up a policeman? It is because of their age at the time their father was passing through that hostility.

Femi and Yeni were in secondary school at the time Kalakuta Republic was raided by the police and soldiers. They witnessed it. They also saw the period in 1977 when their father was the talk of the town during Festac 77. It was a mixed feelings of joy and sadness for them.

However, for Seun who saw most of the police brutality of his father in visuals and stories as were told by older siblings and the society, the thinking is different.

We may not like Seun’s action, we will need to also respect the path he passed through, the idea he grew up with and the phobia that scared him the most.

For me, the psychologist in the police intelligence should not only advise to search Seun’s home, they will need to search his mind and make friend with him to take away the phobia.

The police should not turn to lion that is set to eat up its prey. The law enforcement agent should investigate, allow the law to define this scenario instead of going out for revenge.