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Why The Nigerian Political Bourgeoisie Believe You're Worthless. by OneManLegion(m): 2:16pm On Mar 15, 2016 |
B’Aja Ba N Gbo
By Pius Adesanmi
Senator Dino Melaye is a tragic commentary on
Nigerian society. No, scratch that, he is an indictment
on Nigerian society. He is one of those reasons why I
have argued over the years that Nigeria’s
membership of 21st century civilization should be
suspended by the international community until we
have shown sufficient evidence that we are even
minimally aware of civilization and modernity.
It is not what you are thinking. What showcases Dino
Melaye as evidence of the irreparable decay of
Nigeria’s core – if we ever had a core as a people and
a nation-state – is not the luxury car showroom that
he has opened up on the parking lot of the National
Assembly. It is not his constant displays of above-
your-legitimate-income opulence. After all, because
more than 90% of Nigerians live above their means,
we have decided that what is done in civilization is
not for us. What is done in civilization is that at the
slightest hint of living above your means, Big Brother
visits you seeking explanations.
If Bill and Hillary Clinton were to suddenly buy even
three of Dino Melaye’s cars, they could go to jail if
they were unable to account for the cars. Barack and
Michelle Obama have been saying that they want to
hang around Washington, DC after the White House
so that their daughter can complete high school.
Good for them but Uncle Sam is already waiting and
watching. Uncle Sam wants to see what kind of house
they are going to buy in Washington and in which
neighbourhood. Uncle Sam wants to see what kinds
of cars they will use. Uncle Sam has a pretty good
idea of how much they have ever earned their entire
lives. Uncle Sam has a rough idea of what they will be
earning after the White House. If they display half of
Dino Melaye’s opulence after eight years in the White
House, they could go to jail.
As already stated, I am not evaluating Dino Melaye
on this basis because his life above his means does
not violate our ethos and values in Nigeria. He is not
in contravention of our ethics and collective morality.
But he is also a wife molester. He is of a very violent
disposition. Pictures of badgered and battered and
bloodied women who have had the misfortune of
crossing his path litter the internet. Police case files
are readily available if you care to Google. And very
recently, he decided that physical violence against
women is not enough, symbolic violence against
Nigerian womanhood must be added to his tally of
Nigerian cred. On the floor of Nigeria’s rotten Senate,
he urged his colleagues to consider acquiring made-
in-Nigerian women. Evidently, Nigerian women rank
less than his cars in his estimation.
In civilization, it is not possible to have photos of
beaten and bloodied women on your plate and be
elected a Senator. And if such evidence of a long
history of violence against women came to light after
your election, it could mark the end of your career
and, most importantly, your social standing. Does
anybody still remember Senator John Edwards who
nearly became Vice President of the United States?
He is history. He now lives in obscurity. In Nigeria, a
violent woman beater like Dino Melaye is not just in
the Senate, his social and political capital is intact. He
is still a big man – entitled to everything that goes
with that territory in Nigeria.
One thing that goes with the territory of being an
accredited and NAFDAC-certified big man in Nigeria
is your superiority over the citizenship of the
ordinary Nigerian. If you are a big man, the ordinary
Nigerian is your floor mat and your toilet paper
rolled into one. The more you trample upon his
human dignity, the more you empty his citizenship of
meaning, the more he adores and adulates and
worships you. When he sees evidence of all that you
have stolen from him, he admires you and uses you
as testimony: the God that provided Dino Melaye’s
mansions and cars will also provide my own. Dino
has arrived. God has blessed him. That is why you
see these Nigerians forming a football supporters’
club around Dino Melaye’s cars on the parking lot of
the National Assembly. In civilization, citizens would
detain those cars and call the authorities.
When you consider Dino Melaye’s status and
standing in Nigeria; when you consider the fact that
our morality, ethos, and values confer legitimacy on
him precisely because of ill-begotten wealth and his
propensity to beat women, then you will understand
why Sahara Reporters recently sent a white Reporter
to ask him questions that no Nigerian journalist or
media house would dare to ask a “Distinguished
Senator of the Federal Republic”! Nigerians have
been having a good laugh over Dino’s spirited efforts
to escape from that white reporter.
What many Nigerians miss is that the reasons that
made Omoyele Sowore send a white reporter after
Dino Melaye devolve from the worthlessness of the
citizenship of the Nigerian vis-à-vis the Nigerian big
man. Tragically, the worthlessness of his citizenship
is always the handiwork of the Nigerian. He is the one
who maintains and services that worthlessness on
behalf of the big man. You will notice that until the
appearance of that white journalist, Dino Melaye was
having a blast amidst throngs of Nigerian youths
admiring him and angling for selfies.
What Sowore is telling you is that he understands
that your citizenship is so worthless that had a
Nigerian journalist dared to ask Dino Melaye the
same questions as that white journalist, he would
have ordered him beaten to a pulp right there in
broad daylight, before phoning the Lagos Police
Commissioner and ordering him to come and arrest
the said journalist and nothing, absolutely nothing,
would have happened. The youth looking for selfies
with Dino would even have joined in harassing such a
Nigerian citizen for daring to question “a whole
Senator”. Shior! Useless journalist! You no get
respect?
Many Nigerians have been making that episode
about the race of the white journalist who dared to
ask Dino to account for the source of his opulence.
No, it is not about race. It is about the value and
supremacy of that journalist’s citizenship of a country
in modernity and civilization. What Sowore
understood only too well is that Dino Melaye may be
an arrogant and bullish Nigerian big man used to
trampling on the rights of ordinary Nigerian citizens,
he would not dare to disrespect the supremacy of a
Western citizen. This is what the Yoruba call “b’aja ba
n gbo”.
B’aja ba n gbo is why Dino – an almighty Nigerian
Senator who would have beaten his own fellow
Nigerian to a pulp – was shaking like an antelope who
just saw a lion when confronted with the citizenship
of a Westerner. B’aja ba n gbo means that a crazy
dog may do all the gragra in this world and bark and
harass visitors, such a dog must still bow to the
supremacy of its human owner.
If you still think that this is about race, fast forward to
London and let us encounter Imo state Governor,
Rochas Okorocha, at Chatham House. As we all know,
Okorocha is another misguided oaf ruining a state in
Nigeria and doing big man all over our public sphere.
If you are an ordinary Nigerian and you cross
Okorocha’s path in Nigeria, well, you know what his
aides and guards and thugs would do to you. And
nothing will happen because your citizenship is
worthless before the actors and institutions of
Nigerian statehood.
But in London, a pro-Biafran protester crossed
Okorocha’s path. The protester claimed his right to
protest, to heckle, to proclaim himself a proud
Biafran. For much less in Nigeria, the Nigerian state
is mass shooting people like that Biafran protester.
The Nigerian state has even only recently appeared
to be saying that the cows of Fulani herdsmen are
superior to the citizenship of the Nigerian, hence the
government will import grass from Brazil to sort out
the cows first before addressing the question of lives
lost during protests. To date, nobody has been
arrested for shooting protesters. And citizens who
held a meeting with the police to declare that they
murdered their own fellow citizens because their
cows were killed walked out of that meeting, their
heads held high.
The Biafran who crossed Okorocha’s path in London
and lived to tell the story is not white. Poor
Okorocha! He had no way of telling if the guy has
dual citizenship. You do not want to go and harass a
British citizen in Britain. Okorocha would have been
taught the value of citizenship had anything
happened to that guy. The sad part is that the
protester doesn’t even have to be a British citizen to
enjoy his full rights to human dignity. He would still
have enjoyed full protection of the state had
Okorocha forgotten where he was momentarily and
had the guy assaulted. Okorocha would have been
prevented from returning to Nigeria. He’d be in
London now facing assault charges. Okorocha
respected himself by bowing to the supremacy of the
citizen in London. That is b’aja ba n gbo at work.
So, what unites the pro-Biafra Nigerian protester in
London and the white journalist who accosted Dino
Melaye is that both men confronted two Nigerian
brutes while operating within the orbit of Western
conceptualizations of the supremacy of the citizen.
This is what citizenship is in modernity. This is what
citizenship is in civilization. This is why I can neither
sleep nor rest until the Nigerian attains this level of
citizenship.
But you, Nigerian, must also understand that the
Dino Melayes and Rochas Okorochas of this world
will never grant you this level of citizenship. It is not
in their interest for you to attain the level of
consciousness and enlightenment that could free you
from the hold they have over you. The hold they have
over you is psychological terrorism. That is why you
believe that, as big men, they are entitled to the
things they do to you as citizens of Nigeria. To sustain
their right to empty your citizenship of worth and
trample upon your human dignity, their class has
destroyed education in Nigeria.
But you must remember that in the Yoruba
philosophy of b’aja ba n gbo, there are two actors in
the scenario: a dog and a human being. The Yoruba
are saying that the mad, barking dog must know
when to bow to the superiority of its human owner.
That philosophy encapsulates the relationship
between you and your leaders in a democracy. They
are the dogs who must recognize and bow to the
supremacy of your citizenship.
You, Nigerian citizen, are the owner of the dog. Act
your part! 1 Like |
Re: Why The Nigerian Political Bourgeoisie Believe You're Worthless. by OneManLegion(m): 2:17pm On Mar 15, 2016 |
I know very few people will finish that article. Africans and their allergy to reading. 1 Like |
Re: Why The Nigerian Political Bourgeoisie Believe You're Worthless. by somadinho10: 2:27pm On Mar 15, 2016 |
Why do I keep seeing dino... |
Re: Why The Nigerian Political Bourgeoisie Believe You're Worthless. by ministeriallist: 2:49pm On Mar 15, 2016 |
Lyk say dem go pay me 4 reading. Abeg the article too lonnnnnnng. |
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