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“One egg, one embryo, one adult – normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress.”

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

The above statements were made by the Director of Hatchery in the Brave New World as he took a group of “Alpha plus” students on a tour of the Central London Hatchery And Conditioning Centre. The setting was in year 634 AF (After the Advent of Henry Ford, the successful auto businessman). Translated to our calendar, this would be after 2400 AD.

The Director of Hatchery and conditioning was describing the Bokanovski process, a break through invention that allowed the Brave New World to achieve relative stability in the world by mass production of identical twins, achieving a maximum of 96 individuals from on egg.



The Brave New World did not stop at the Bokanovski process. As soon as the children were born, conditioning started. Learning while asleep was the main tool of conditioning. The goal of the conditioning was to achieve an individual who was happy all the time, an individual who was ready to share everything with everybody, an individual who exists for the rest of the community. Perchance an individual was unhappy, he or she knew what to do: take soma, a drug that puts him or her to sleep to overcome the unhappiness. Subjectivity, that human ability to see the same information and reach different conclusions was alien to the Brave New World, thanks to a very successful conditioning program.

There were no marriages in the Brave New World, neither were there old people. From a very young age, people were conditioned to look forward to death as a matter of fact. There were no fathers or mothers. Nobody got married and people adopt partners as they liked. No giving of birth, every individual came to life at the hatchery in central London.

There was an hierarchy in the Brave New World. Near the top of the hierarchy were the Alpha plus intellectuals: one egg, one individual. At the bottom were Epsilon minus semi morons, bred for menial labour, 72 to 96 semi morons from one egg.

Just outside the Brave New World, was the reservation. That part of the world was reserved for the “Savages”. The savages in the reservation do fall in love and marry, fall sick and were susceptible to diseases, unlike in Brave New World. Subjectivity reign supreme here: every person had his own mind.

When privileged Alpha plus intellectual succumbed to subversive thinking (such as falling in love), they were banished to a part of the reservation. Two Alpha plus fell in love and the woman, Linda became pregnant and was banished to the reservation to live with the savages. Linda, due to her conditioning in the Brave New World, saw nothing wrong with sharing her body with every man in the reservation, even though she had a partner. The partner took out his frustration on Linda’s son by beating him.

John, Linda’s son suffered in the reservation because he was not accepted. Bernard Marks, an Alpha Plus on a visit to the reservation, took John and Linda back to the Brave New World. Linda spent the rest of her days in a drug induced sleep (called soma holiday). John did not fit into the Brave New World, just as Linda struggled in the plantation. John fell in love and wanted to court his woman as it was done in the reservation among the savages. Also, he would like her to belong to him alone. The woman loved him also, but wanted to go to bed immediately as that was what love meant in the Brave New World. John fell out of love immediately and attacked her.

In summary, the conditioning of Linda made the reservation a strange and alien place to her. In the same vein, the conditioning in the reservation made Brave New World a mystery to John who was raised in the reservation.

What is the point of this post? It is to highlight the fact that what we deem as normal is often related to our history of conditioning. it is very important for us to know that since the day we were born, we have undergone conditioning. it starts with our parents, then our primary schools, secondary school, places of worship, places of work. Some of the conditioning we experienced were good. Our conditioning may not be as radical as the one in the Brave New World, but it nevertheless can influence how we think and react to events.

There are two groups of people in the world. in one group are those who are conditioned and are aware of it. in the second group are those who are conditioned and are not aware of it. in short, we have all being conditioned. Are you aware of your history of conditioning? If you are aware of your history of conditioning, at least you can use this to reflect on your actions.

What has this got to do with Sowore and Oby Ezekwesili? I don’t think Nigerians are ready for their Brave New World. Our history of conditioning favours the existing network that both APC and PDP own. Those networks date back to fight for independence when Nigeria had parties such as NPC, AG and NCNC.

The first project that Sowore, Ezekwesili and the other aspirants need to tackle is reversing our history of conditioning which would not allow any other candidate (apart from Buhari and Atiku) to have a chance to win this election. The project of reversing our history of conditioning would require scores of candidates to lay down their personal ambitions, come together to fight the existing political machinery.

Sowore and Ezekwesili do very lofty things. One was an international journalist and human right activists while the other was even nominated for the Nobel Peace prize. However, they speak the language of the Neo Liberals, not the same language spoken by the majority of voters in Nigeria. Their decades of global Neo Liberal conditioning has not prepared them to connect beyond the Neo Liberals of Nigeria (calling them Neo Liberals is not an insult: I have been accused of being the same). A good example of Neo Liberal thinking is Sowore raising the issue of cannabis. In Nigeria, this is a non issue. Those who want to smoke cannabis, what stops them today from doing so? And his comments can only put off the conservatives who would misunderstand his motives.

From inception of our nation, our politics is very tribal. America is now witnessing what we have endured for decades. The “tribe” of Trump will vote for him, irrespective of accusations of crime or moral failure. Virtually all the “tribes” of Nigerian politics have already lined up behind Atiku and Buhari.

Readers, what do you think? Am I being pessimistic?