'Mr. Homon Threw A Punch' By Adesina Ogunlana

Vol 1 No 5 24th April 2001

THE LEARNED SQUIB

‘MR HOMON THREW A PUNCH’ By Adesina Ogunlana

I have many friends. Some learned, others not so learned. One of my friends, Mr. Homon fought the other day. Now this fight should interest you. For four good reasons.

(a) Mr. Homon is a legal practitioner.
(b) He fought not only in broad daylight, but right within the premises of the court (Magistrate Court 1 Ikeja).
(c) He fought with a woman
(d) He fought, not verbally, not spiritually nor intellectually…but physically, very physically.

What caused the altercation? There are many versions but I’ll like to believe what my friend told me. He had taken off his coat and hung same on a pole and left the place to see to some other business. Alas when he came back, there lying in an ignoble heap in the dust of mother Earth was his prized habiliment.

Mr. Homon saw red. Sherlock Holming a little, he soon discovered the cause of the downfall of his coat.

The culprit was a woman typist, one of the many who dot the court’s landscape. She had (rather callously) flung off Homon’s coat from the pole which she considered her own, and then set her umbrella over it to commence the day’s job.

It was a question of jurisdiction and locus standi rolled into one. What Mr. Homon did was to correct her impudence with a kick to her table, unwittingly felling her equally prized type-writer in the process.

A mistake. A serious one, for hell hath no fury like an African woman dared. Before Mr. Homon could obtain any prerogative writ of prohibition or secure a restrictive injunction, the lady was at his throat with claw-like hands.

Nonetheless Mr. Homon rose to the occasion but not like a gentleman. He also gripped the woman by the throat, very near, yet far away from the perimeter of her mammary ensemble! Thus joined in combat did the fighters sway in the hot sun, one snorting like a Chinese dragon, the other seething like a Bengal tigress. Honour fled, respect vanished, decency could not be found but shame reigned supreme.

At the end of the shocking show of shame, the crowd of emergency fight managers, referees and judges, gave the fight to the woman, even though her neck, jaws, lips, cheeks smarted from Mr. Homon’s fistic visitation.

Mr. Homon lost face. A ‘whole’ lawyer in a clutch-a-clutch with a woman? In the very premises of the court?

But is Mr. Homon the only “offender?” What about you? And you too? It’s really worrisome the rate learned gentlemen are showing the beast in them in very physical fashion. We fight one another and some even beat up their clients.

I ask – Are we really learned gentlemen or learned thugs? As for my friend Homon, next time you attend our NBA meeting, come in tow with 4 crates of malt drinks, 2 bottles of Elders drink and one fat black she-goat. Otherwise the door shall not open for you.

Olalekan Yusuf Esq., Chairman NBA Ikeja Branch, are you listening?

Related link: http://www.learnedsquib.blogspot.com