It was a surprise that Nigerian citizens who are flogged literally and figuratively daily were the first to line up in the search for justice for the three-year-old viciously abused by his obviously demented teacher. This is a kind of wokeness that beats rational imagination.
Since this country was born, it has been abused by its leaders. Yet, whenever the opportunity arises to vote at elections, they have never failed to vote in those who would chastise them with more whips and lashes.
Our latest boss, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, campaigned on the premise of a true Rehoboam promise; something that reads like – Buhari messed up your lives a little, and I promise to continue from where he stopped. Explain how a rationale government decides to pull the rug of fuel subsidy on the nation with scant regard to the ripple effect on the life of the average citizen.
As promised, on Inauguration Day, the president proved himself a man of his words with the announcement of the removal of the phantom fuel subsidy. Phantom because, in fact, the so-called subsidy, while it subsisted never benefited the common man. It’s removal has led to a literal Things Fall Apart. The prices of essential commodities hat hit the roof leading into parents asking if their ward have eaten instead of if they are satisfied.
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The remnant of companies hitherto operating in Nigeria moved out, some to neighbouring Ghana. President Tinubu has just returned from a trip to Ghana by the way, where, if he listened attentively even at the inauguration of their new president, he’d have heard that the cedi and pesewa have left the naira and kobo at the curb. It is now a matter of time when even data, the new gold would be beyond the reach of the average Nigerian. Government should be happy when that happens; there would be less insults on social media.
But, why are we so unfazed about the general abuse that has become the fundamental principle of state policy at all levels of governance in our country? Frustrated and sadistic teachers have been abusing the pupils in their care without repercussion for ages. At the tertiary level of education, lecturers abuse their students by insisting on the purchase of handouts, those plagiarised rehash of other people’s research as precondition to passing their tests.
The powerful ones insist on sexual ingratiation as precondition until lately, when the first public case appeared to have driven the nonsense under the table. There is usually a conspiratorial code of silence by peers that seem to tell agitative students to cry out at their own risk.
In a society that blames the victim of harassment by blaming it on provocative dressing and loose morals, these forms of abuse continue with the aggressor running free. Abuse is not limited to campuses alone. Some members of society who believe that they hold society’s moral code in their hands would publicly humiliate members of the opposite sex for their dressing or behaviour. They arrogate to themselves the right to ‘discipline’ supposed errant ones, and we support them whenever such aberrant video is uploaded with sanctimonious superciliousness.
Our conspiracy of silence gave that teacher the audacity to do what she did to that little boy. We are all guilty of collective abuse with our choices at all levels. Collectively, we have kept quiet while public schools ran down to pave way for hardly policed private ones to mushroom across the nation. We have neglected the teacher and told them to expect their rewards in heaven. Yet, we know that the landlord would not reduce their rents for them; the trader would not reduce the prices of her goods for them and the transporter would not give them free ride to and from work. With our conspiratorial silence, we have paved the way for the employment of teachers with doubtful mental acuity.
People with obvious mental challenges have been elected and selected into public office. The same is admitted into public life. Aberrant behaviour has led to people suggesting that our politicians be subjected to psychiatric evaluation as part of the vetting process. Until lately in civilized climes, such vetting is a qualifying process for public office. Thank heavens, America that is the global poster boy for this level of vetting has thrown all that to the Hudson River in favour of MAGA politics.
Psychiatric vetting should be extended to the civil service and even to homes employing maids, cooks, stewards and drivers. It should be extended to foreign missions where Nigeria has lost money because of the extension of the culture of abuse to the missions abroad. Psychiatric evaluation should be extended to public buildings where the working elevators are reserved exclusively for permanent secretaries and ministers while pregnant women and those with prevailing medical conditions are made to climb them several times during the working day.
Abuse is so endemic in the public and private sphere of our society that in scapegoating one teacher we epitomize the principle of seeing the mote in the eyes of others while ignoring the log in ours.
Was it not in this same country that convoys slice through the most chaotic traffic, causing mayhem in their trail while ambulances are hooked in the traffic? A recent video has emerged showing a group of soldiers assaulting a dreadlocked social media prankster for wearing camouflage armless T-shirt and trousers.
As accusers, prosecutors and judges, the soldiers made the citizen sit on the bare floor, acquired a pair of scissors and shaved off his dreadlocks. They stripped him to his underpants divesting him of all his jewelry while slapping and kicking him. They sentenced him to bathe in the sewer before commanding him to swim in the wastewater. When they were satisfied with the humiliation of this citizen, they ordered him to run for his dear life while keeping his personal effects as spoils.
This is so prevalent that many have seen it happen despite Fela Àníkúlápó Kuti reminding these power-drunk uniformed thugs that ‘uniform na clothe, na tailor dey sew am’. Of course, if you asked the army high command, they would tell you that the atrocity was carried out by an Unknown Soldier.
A member of the legislature recently assaulted a rideshare driver before ordering the police to detain him. He later bought the silence of his victim. Senator Isaiah Abo assaulted a pregnant woman he chanced upon at a porn shop and purchased her silence. These are the few cases that lately made it to social media because of the cheap availability of the mobile phone, its embedded camera and the availability of so-called cheap data. That data is set to be priced beyond the reach of the commoner. All these confirm that as Nigerians, we are toddler citizens always at the mercy of our abusive leaders. The question is – are we ready to change it?
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