The Unfair Public Trial of Kayode Petinrin

Many have asked if the social media is a blessing or a negative platform fiends and mischief makers can use against enemies, perceived or otherwise.
Sadly, as much as social media and the media in general has favoured both the common and the elite, they have also become tools in the hands of anyone who means to harm his neighbour or even someone he has not met before and because the traditional media has migrated into the world wide web, it has also many times, fallen victim of hounds who are after an innocent prey. Traditional media can also be said to be victims of the rush to publish without due diligence.

The case of a young naval officer who had a brush with a motorist in Lagos, is the typical story of the dog who’s given a bad name so it can finally be hanged.
Kayode Petinrin, son of former Air Chief, Air Marshal Oluseyi Petinrin, could be your son, could be my son, could be just anyone’s child but it is beginning to seem like the major crime he has committed is that of birth. It is good fortune to have a noble birth but when people single an individual out to hunt down, nobility becomes their target and what should be a blessing is turned around to be used against the individual, again and again.

If his father was not Chief of the Nigerian Air Force, also known as Chief of Air Staff, if his father wasn’t former Chief of Defence, perhaps he would have been like you and I or like my son or your son. Things would be handled differently and rifts settled amicably but now, how dare he, how dare he be of such privileged birth and still come to the forte to compete with us. Can a man reject his roots or deny his destiny? This is the predicament young Kayode has been unwittingly thrust into and a puzzle he may still be trying to unravel.

Just last Wednesday, Kayode, a naval officer got into a slight traffic accident with another young motorist.
What was a usual occurrence in Lagos traffic has now been blown beyond unprecedented proportions.

Of course as soon as news hit the streets that he was the son of so and so, the story changed.
A case which had been reported as a simple traffic accident changed to battery and assault which was concertedly spread to the press, with the respected Oba Elegushi’s name dragged in, to give it traction.

A careful unbiased reader going through the story in a top Nigerian publication will discover more questions than answers.
First suspicion is in the released pictures themselves.

Let’s look at the so called victim who said his face was bashed and lip bruised with a deep gash. In today’s world of smart phones, the first thing anyone who’s been attacked would do, is take a selfie of his or her fresh injuries as soon as it takes place, with the blood, cuts, bruises and any other evidence. What was published however, was a cut which did not seem new.

Secondly, the victim did say he just bought the car and was taking it to the revered Oba Elegushi for blessings. He said it was a BMW. The newspaper did not produce the picture of a new or Tokunbo car, what it did, was edit out the car presenting only the allegedly dented part instead. This is where we begin to notice the name dropping, the cajoling of a royal father into an otherwise slight, everyday, Lagos, motor accident.

I am not a military officer, neither have I met any of the Petinrins in my life. What I do know about the military and even the police however, is that when officers have brushes with civilians, the military does its own investigations before issuing any statement, therefore the statement credited to the Naval PRO, Ayo Vaughn when contacted by the reporter is not only strange but surprising and shocking. That he would allegedly immediately condemn one of his men as a bad egg and even allegedly give the press alleged official details is mostly unprofessional and highly questionable.

What really has Kayode Petinrin done to deserve such a gang up against his person?
Can it really be that his ‘sin’ in the eyes of his traducers is being born by the former Air Chief? Who really is the target here? – By Moji Danisa