As a rule, I do not write when I am very angry.

This is for no reason of undue or due propriety but simply a realization of the futility of such an attempt at times like that. Now it is true that I am given to deep intense anger, which thankfully is usually as brief as it is intense. At such times, I am so consumed by the emotion that I am an incoherent bumbling fool in speech, which only fuels the anger. Can you therefore imagine an incoherent bumbling fool in writing? Why oh why do the smart, cool, cutting, sophisticated one liners never come at just that precise moment of blinding anger when you need it the most? Instead, I am red faced, tongue-tied and weepy. Typically, I get the angriest with people and about issues that are dearest to my heart maybe because I care so much about these. However to maintain the image of an intelligent, rational and mostly happy, well-adjusted female, I never write this column in periods of deep anger, I wait for it to ebb a little so that you do not begin to doubt my sanity, reason or intellect.

Now you must understand how hard this often is for a passionate (nice word for short, sharp tempered, impatient witch) person who cares deeply (as though I had a bloody choice) about this country whose unofficial motto is "why should it be easy if it can be difficult".

Regular emotional lamentations about Nigeria will serve no purpose and mostly damage my health and spirit. So recently, I have been practicing the act of self-preservation.

I had been successful so far until this week when I began to observe closely proceedings at the Oputa Panel. All of a sudden, I want to tear off my non-existent headgear, tie it around my waist and sink my teeth into somebody's throat in arrant display of uncontrolled anger.

Let me state here that my anger (such as is left of it on this subject) is not directed at the persons of the eminent panelists. These are people of proven personal integrity and honor. I am not even disappointed at them for I can imagine the kind of hopeless optimism that would make a true patriot grasp at any straw in a so-called attempt to move the country forward. It must however be stated that this is a stupid straw to grasp at. I am also not angry with the Obasanjo government, which would appear to be employing diversionary tactics (after almost a year of stalling and non funding of the Panel, I hear that the funding is really mostly from the Ford Foundation) to get a breather from their inability to provide any of the so-called social dividends of democracy.

It also eases tension from an executive plagued with innuendoes of misdeeds in high places a la the immovable rock of Abuja that NaAbba and co. have become. As regards all the preceding, I am completely numbed into silence. I am, however, livid at the macabre spectacle that the Oputa panel is fast becoming. I had no faith in it to begin with, what is the use of a panel without legal, judicial or parliamentary backing? A panel without power to try, recommend appropriate justice or even subpoena witnesses. What is the use of reconciliation without preceding justice? I was however content to give the benefit of the doubt that in airing the much vaunted "truths" justice may begin to be served as democratic institutions like the judiciary is strengthened. I, however, did not bargain for the glamorization of alleged (and on trial) rapists, murderers, arsonists and torturers. I did not also foresee the trivializing of the process of healing and the rape on the sensitivities of all the direct and indirect (all long suffering ordinary Nigerians) victims of the evils of the Abacha era.

I know that the good Justice Oputa is a gentle man and a grandfather and that the holy Father Kukah is a minister of God and as such would both preach forgiveness of the divine nature but pray tell what reconciliation is there is in the almost contemptuous, corky and now suspended (I am sure forever), "I want to tell you a story, no bi story o" (God bless Fela) testimonies of Mustapha? How can you tell a man who has lost a promising son, whose alleged killer would not or should I say had not confessed to the dastardly act and thus ask for forgiveness to shake hands with this same enemy when justice has not been done? All those "shake hands and make up", "kiss kiss" reconciliation is good in family squabbles but this touches on gross and un-addressed injustices.

I pitied Onagoruwa and were I he, I would have made to shake ….. then proceeded to deal him a dirty slap, tear his dress and break a bottle on his head in typical Danfo boy style. As for poor Chris Anyanwu I would have hugged Biu and then proceeded, at such vantage position to bite off his ear in Tysonian fashion and then spit the bloody (hopefully uncontaminated) thing in his face. How's that for reconciliation with a brute who claims not to even recall the evils he did but was sorry anyway if these are true, ewu goat! I am sure Omenka also does not recall raping 18-year-old Bunmi Samuel, impregnating her and then trying to procure an abortion which eventually killed the poor girl who was unlawfully detained for two months (that was all the time it took to defile, dehumanize and murder an innocent soul) with the family of Prof. Mokuolu whose only sin was being Obasanjo's cousin. I remember the professor; I had a meeting with him in his Anthony Village office in the presence of his wife in 1996 (or was it late 1995?) about a television programme. Thank God the house was not raided on that day or

I may have suffered similar fate as poor Bunmi who had only been a visitor in the Mokuolus' house when she was arrested, raped and indirectly murdered by Omenka as alleged by Mokuolu. If that had been my lot, I would have from the grave cursed every male of Omenka's line born and unborn with premature, protracted and never to be cured prostate cancer as well as haunted then all, male female and flock to the deepest depths of hell. To forgive is divine; I make no pretensions towards a divine calling, thank you. So how, pray do tell, in the "kiss kiss" and "smile for the cameras" Oputa panel style will Omenka reconcile with the soul of young Bunmi? It is my unrequested but gladly proffered opinion that her bones should be exhumed for him to hug and kiss for the cameras all in the spirit of true reconciliation. Better still, to assuage the gods he should be made to marry her bones in a proper civil ceremony to give her honor in death.

At the end of it all in the spirit of reconciliation, I hope Mustapha will be released to serve to death (his own words) the next mad man (probably one of those it has become a matter of national security to protect as occasioned by the suspension of further, undramatic and frankly anticlimactic revelations from the fine major officer) fate chooses to dump on us, after all we are reconciled to our destiny in this theatre of madness called home.

So well everybody say cheese, the cameras are rolling…leave me bo I dey vex.

The writer is a Lagos based legal practitioner