The Time to break Silence in Nigeria
I do ask myself why in Nigerian politics the debate of who to be the next president always poses a problem of factionalism. The easy answer is the fact that Nigerian politics in general have a leadership crisis. There are no genuine leaders who inspire independent thinking and self-determination on others. Instead, what you find in Nigerian politics are people who feel threatened by signs of vital intellectual capabilities of those they lead.
Independent thinking and the accompanying power for self-determination thrives only in an environment that is not afraid of constructive critique, and shuns sheepish loyalty. To achieve this, political leadership must be able to empower others to understand complexities of modern human society without ulterior motives, like expectations of blind loyalty. Nigerian political leaders should draw lessons and inspiration from the liberation theology that stimulated thinking for critique against especially a Christian tradition that had distorted ethical and moral standards of the Christian message. The liberation theology proponents went with boldness and assertiveness against a well established Roman church, and in the end their message prevailed with the church structure.
Nigerian politics need to exorcise the demon of fear of internal critique, and learn to question the wrongs done either by leaders or political parties. We should reject the political psyche and tradition that makes citizens to be objects of abuse by those who are in the upper echelons of levers of power. We should be empowered to be masters and mistresses of our fate, taking charge of our life and walking tall without being apologetic for constructively criticising those in power. We should be liberated from ignorance that leads to fear of the other. The culture of self-assertiveness and confidence must be inculcated on us. This process is termed enlightenment, and is a prerogative of any political party that calls itself progressive.
Enlightenment will not come over-night; it is a process that requires self-motivation and moral courage. Enlightened consciousness and the humanistic approach is the path a progressive party must take towards the restoration of moral uprightness within the profound of Nigerian ethos of humanitarian. This is only way to restore a caring nation, fair and just society. Even criticism, no matter how assertive, must also be based on our compassionate philosophy, that “a person is a person through other persons”.
The first steps towards building this country is by liberating our psyche from the psychological distortions the Liberation Movement that wants to exercise hegemony at the expense of the progressive social spirit of our nation. We need to be liberated from being slaves to fear and material gain that comes with following powerful forces within society.
A pro-democracy leader (Mahatma Ghandi) stated very clear when in explaining the fall of the Soviet system, he said:
…the emancipation of humanity can never be permanently halted. It can be temporarily, forcibly, or otherwise adjourned. But it can never be everlastingly arrested. Emancipation is the freeing of people from the covert or overt conditions of constraint, imposed by others, which limit the ability of people to develop their capacities and talents to the full, individually or collectively. It means equal status of individual citizens in relation to the state, equality before the law, regardless of religion, property, and other private characteristics of individual persons. Emancipation also carries in its meaning in tolerance and equality of otherness. For it to find its fuller scope it requires the acknowledgement and coexistence of difference, free association, social interpretation and above all equality.
We Nigerians are not free so long as we still fear to speak our minds without concerns of political retribution. As long as the ruling party speak the language of calling those with different political views by evil names. We generally need freshness and breathing space, and emancipation from fear to air differing viewpoints freely without intimidation. We need peace of mind.
All this is in their power to guard against tendencies of dogmatising views, and accommodating only opinions that agree with them. Nigerian politics need to develop a culture of respect and tolerance for varying views. Leaders who do not want to be criticised tend to be those who follow the path of endemic corruption, moral decay, break down of the rule of law, lagging behind of service and housing delivery. This in turn lead to a chaotic situation where frustrated citizens look like headless chickens, running around venting their anger in one name or the other, like the so called service delivery protests. Meantime government and political leaders opt to put our heads between legs.
Genuine leaders would channel the anger of the people to the right direction. But now in our case opposition parties’ fear to be labelled as counter-revolutionaries and so keep quiet. Those within the ruling party who like to speak are intimidated and closed up. Others are in comfort zones sitting in the middle not wishing to jeopardise their chances with a governing faction. If you talk (think loud) your career is in jeopardy, you may not get a job or prosper or get a tender from government, so many of these choose to let the status quo to remain.
In general the status quo violates the freedom of association enshrined in our democratic constitution? The political uncertainty is rife in Nigeria and this has infected and affected the broader society. Most political leaders have ceased to think out of the box, the struggle is about securing the turf for the sake of comfort zone and all this is not sustainable.
OLUWATOMILOLA K. BOYINDE
I do ask myself why in Nigerian politics the debate of who to be the next president always poses a problem of factionalism. The easy answer is the fact that Nigerian politics in general have a leadership crisis. There are no genuine leaders who inspire independent thinking and self-determination on others. Instead, what you find in Nigerian politics are people who feel threatened by signs of vital intellectual capabilities of those they lead.
Independent thinking and the accompanying power for self-determination thrives only in an environment that is not afraid of constructive critique, and shuns sheepish loyalty. To achieve this, political leadership must be able to empower others to understand complexities of modern human society without ulterior motives, like expectations of blind loyalty. Nigerian political leaders should draw lessons and inspiration from the liberation theology that stimulated thinking for critique against especially a Christian tradition that had distorted ethical and moral standards of the Christian message. The liberation theology proponents went with boldness and assertiveness against a well established Roman church, and in the end their message prevailed with the church structure.
Nigerian politics need to exorcise the demon of fear of internal critique, and learn to question the wrongs done either by leaders or political parties. We should reject the political psyche and tradition that makes citizens to be objects of abuse by those who are in the upper echelons of levers of power. We should be empowered to be masters and mistresses of our fate, taking charge of our life and walking tall without being apologetic for constructively criticising those in power. We should be liberated from ignorance that leads to fear of the other. The culture of self-assertiveness and confidence must be inculcated on us. This process is termed enlightenment, and is a prerogative of any political party that calls itself progressive.
Enlightenment will not come over-night; it is a process that requires self-motivation and moral courage. Enlightened consciousness and the humanistic approach is the path a progressive party must take towards the restoration of moral uprightness within the profound of Nigerian ethos of humanitarian. This is only way to restore a caring nation, fair and just society. Even criticism, no matter how assertive, must also be based on our compassionate philosophy, that “a person is a person through other persons”.
The first steps towards building this country is by liberating our psyche from the psychological distortions the Liberation Movement that wants to exercise hegemony at the expense of the progressive social spirit of our nation. We need to be liberated from being slaves to fear and material gain that comes with following powerful forces within society.
A pro-democracy leader (Mahatma Ghandi) stated very clear when in explaining the fall of the Soviet system, he said:
…the emancipation of humanity can never be permanently halted. It can be temporarily, forcibly, or otherwise adjourned. But it can never be everlastingly arrested. Emancipation is the freeing of people from the covert or overt conditions of constraint, imposed by others, which limit the ability of people to develop their capacities and talents to the full, individually or collectively. It means equal status of individual citizens in relation to the state, equality before the law, regardless of religion, property, and other private characteristics of individual persons. Emancipation also carries in its meaning in tolerance and equality of otherness. For it to find its fuller scope it requires the acknowledgement and coexistence of difference, free association, social interpretation and above all equality.
We Nigerians are not free so long as we still fear to speak our minds without concerns of political retribution. As long as the ruling party speak the language of calling those with different political views by evil names. We generally need freshness and breathing space, and emancipation from fear to air differing viewpoints freely without intimidation. We need peace of mind.
All this is in their power to guard against tendencies of dogmatising views, and accommodating only opinions that agree with them. Nigerian politics need to develop a culture of respect and tolerance for varying views. Leaders who do not want to be criticised tend to be those who follow the path of endemic corruption, moral decay, break down of the rule of law, lagging behind of service and housing delivery. This in turn lead to a chaotic situation where frustrated citizens look like headless chickens, running around venting their anger in one name or the other, like the so called service delivery protests. Meantime government and political leaders opt to put our heads between legs.
Genuine leaders would channel the anger of the people to the right direction. But now in our case opposition parties’ fear to be labelled as counter-revolutionaries and so keep quiet. Those within the ruling party who like to speak are intimidated and closed up. Others are in comfort zones sitting in the middle not wishing to jeopardise their chances with a governing faction. If you talk (think loud) your career is in jeopardy, you may not get a job or prosper or get a tender from government, so many of these choose to let the status quo to remain.
In general the status quo violates the freedom of association enshrined in our democratic constitution? The political uncertainty is rife in Nigeria and this has infected and affected the broader society. Most political leaders have ceased to think out of the box, the struggle is about securing the turf for the sake of comfort zone and all this is not sustainable.
OLUWATOMILOLA K. BOYINDE
No comments:
Post a Comment