Unlike sometimes when there is dearth of events in a clime, Nigerian journalists, last week, had their hands full. There was Nigeria’s victory at AFCON in South Africa after 19 years. On air was intended resignation of the highest moral authority on earth, Pope Benedict XVI. These did not detract the folly of a grandiose budget proposal of FCT where a whooping N4 billion is earmarked for the construction of an office complex for Africa First Ladies Peace Mission (AFLPM), N7.4 billion for Abuja city gates and N5 billion for the rehabilitation of prostitutes. Above all, this is month of love, Valentine splash is popping and will end on Feb. 28, the day Papacy will be declared vacant.
Love has primacy in persons and events. Good or bad thing happens because of presence or absence of love. Edmund Husserl insists that every action has a presupposition; nobody acts from nowhere. Man is a product of his givens and un-givens, omissions and commissions. Our presuppositions preempt our behaviours and our actions confirm our past. Regrettably, in our judgments, we expose tyranny of subjectivism. We everybody is the same. We are angry that given all alternatives one chooses kidnapping for livelihood. We largely fail to ask ‘why do some people love to hate and others hate to love?’ We fail to understand that man works to best what instinct he chooses to follow.
At a time the political picture in the country is pretty grim because of Boko Haram uneasy ceasefire, I have chosen to share with you an autobiography I read in 2005, when literature was not yet fully reduced to poverty commentary, a theme for another day. The piece is a reflection on the brilliant career of one of world’s finest criminals. It is a story of love, a consequence of its lack and the effect of its presence.
He was at one point Britain’s most wanted man. His name was Frank Cook, a former armed robber and gangland enforcer in South Yorkshire. He was incarcerated for over half of his life, wreaking havoc in every prison in which he was locked up. It had begun with strings of convictions starting in his childhood, resulting in lengthy spells in children’s homes, approved schools, detention centre and juveniles. As a youth almost all his family and friends were thieves. The more he stole, the more he got patted on his shoulders by his peers. The only way that he had to be normal was to drink, use drugs to commit crime. He was sent to a youth detention centre but it did little to alter his behaviour; instead it provided what he called ‘the biggest launch’ in his career as a criminal. All he learned there was ‘that I could take pain- I came of there fit, thick, homeless and anti-social with no sense of direction.’ The pull of belonging meant that he inevitably went back into crime.
He was not a man, perversely, without ambition. ‘I wanted to be the best gangster. I worked hard in the gym and I challenged people to fight,’ he said. He progresses to more serious crimes involving guns, shooting at people and taking hostages. He served long periods in custody where he said: ‘I mixed with the worst. Brutality was rife. I shaved my head, went to the gym and thought that people wouldn’t hurt me if I was nasty. And that’s what I was-nasty, nasty, nasty.’ He was constantly disruptive which resulted in him spending long periods in solitary confinement.
It was while in solitary that he was interviewed by Dr Ray Gillett, the medical superintendent of Grendon Prison which had developed radical ideas on rehabilitation of prisoners through psychotherapeutic treatment. But when Cook was transferred there he continued to cause trouble. One day, after he assaulted some members of staff, he was summoned to see Dr Gillett. He assumed he would be told he would be sent back to the harsher regime of a conventional prison. Instead Dr Gillett put his arm around the recidivist’s shoulders. Frank Cook burst into tears…
When Frank Cook burst into tears he crossed a threshold of understanding which marks the beginning of real therapeutic activity. Frank Cook believes that the corrupted values of his friends and family set him into a criminal career, and that this deviancy was confirmed by his experiences of penal institutions before he went to Grendon. But in his autobiography he puts his finger on something more than simple deviancy amplification. He describes something deeper and far more resonant. “You can’t love yourself and go around hurting people. It doesn’t work like that,” he writes. “You hate yourself and that’s why you hate everything else”.
Love had been missing all his life. “I can’t remember kissing my mum or cuddling her. My father was evil and wicked, but she would have got us away from there” elsewhere he says: “I can safely say that I have never been in love in my whole life. Mums and dads give love-mine didn’t”. Significantly he comments that “the first person that I felt love from was Dr Gillett.”
That was the beginning of a process which led to the point where he says “the life of a gangster no longer held any appeal. I could make a difference and actually help people, which was a new and satisfying experience for me. Against all odds I had become a role model and that brought with it responsibility.” It was not exactly love, but it was the closest Frank was able to get at that point. He was released from jail in 1996 at the age of 43 having spent all but 16 years of his life in some form of institution. The years since then have been far from easy, but thankfully he has been crime free. He was, he says, “filled with the determination to succeed.” So far he has done precisely that.
Criminals whether politicians, church moguls or otherwise began like Cook. Our first generation politicians were sent to school because they were lazy, they were hated. They got married because of prestige not love, because they wanted an educated spouses like themselves. They never experienced love. Cook writes: “You can’t love yourself and go around hurting people. It doesn’t work like that. “You hate yourself and that’s why you hate everything else”. ‘Mum and dad give love, their didn’t’. Gillett’s touch of love can supply for their miss. We first hated them, now they hate us.
