Understanding Social and Religious Behaviour in Contemporary Nigeria
By Moses Oludele Idowu
“For it must be admitted that some are slaves everywhere, others nowhere.”
– Aristotle (384 -322 BCE) POLITICS (350) Book One Part V.
In every society, in every land there are two kinds of men and women – the freemen and the slaves.In NIgeria today we have these two classes of men and women in different walks of life and in every discipline and vocations. The two are easily categorized and discernible by certain dominant traits and behavioral patterns. But that is not my concern now. We shall not bother about the free for now, I want to focus on the slaves.
Among the slaves there are two kinds: those who are slaves by nature and those who are slaves by circumstance.
The slaves by nature constitute the largest number of the population and are the worst and most dangerous to the society and to the nation. It is one of the main reasons why this nation with her vast potentials is still trapped in the mesh of bondage.
Slaves by nature do not understand freedom and cannot understand its concept. It is beyond them. Slavery is inherent in their nature and buried in their system. Education does not help them it only makes them worse slaves and a hazard to society and community of free men.
Slaves by nature are ruled by their bodies, passions, ambitions, desires, greed and other sensual fantasies not by reason, morals, ethics or rules or appeals to sense of honiur. Because they are slaves to their passions and fantasies they are like untamed beasts except that they are clothed in human skins. These are the worst segment of the lot. Some of the worst atrocities are committed by these demographic against their own fellow men and the state. Rapists, ritual murderers, bandits, sellers of human parts etc belong to this demographic.
There are other slaves by nature who are not of this type but are more dangerous to the state and the larger community.
These categories will not engage in physical murder or armed brigandage but they are far more sinister to the collectivity by the way they think, act, and by their attitudes to the state and government.
Slaves by nature are more concerned with mundane considerations – ethnicity, religion, tribes, clans, money, promise of personal gain etc. rather than values. They are the type who support a politician to get into power even if he is the worst of the lot simply because he is of the same tribe and religion with them. And they would defend him in power even if the policies of the government he heads bring them further and further down to ruination and woes. Slaves by nature care more about tribes than values or Honour in public service. They justify corruption and sleaze and see nothing wrong with nepotism. Corruption is only evil if it is perpetrated by others. The Fulani slaves saw nothing wrong when Buhari was perpetrating his own brand of nepotism because it favoured them. Now that a Tinubu is doing his own all hell is loose because the winds are now on their faces. Meanwhile the Yoruba slaves too are justifying that. When Goodluck Jonathan was doing his own brand to favour the Igbos and his Ijaw kinsmen the Igbo slaves saw nothing wrong with it. When he gave the entire finance sector appointments to Igbos the slaves of Igboland saw nothing wrong and even voted for him and rigged for him in 2015.
Do you see what I am saying? There are slaves everywhere. That is what Aristotle was saying: there are slaves everywhere. Only few people have the boldness and the confidence to stick to what is true and just under all circumstances. Unfortunately they are few in Nigeria and they never get into leadership positions because most Nigerians are slaves by nature and they are careful to elect from among their own brand.
Even with the abysmal record of Muhammadu Buhari I saw some of my neighbours in Ibadan calling their fellows to go and vote on the day of election “to put Buhari in power” not because of his performance but because of his religion. I saw the Muslims gathering and mobilizing to go and vote. To them it is a religious issue not a development issue. Even if he has rigged himself into the ballot for a third term they would still have voted for him because afterall he is a Muslim. These are the slaves by nature. They are averse to thinking and rational thoughts. Principles mean nothing to them. Order or rule of law is an albatross to them.
It Is the reason why a social and progressive revolution is impossible in Nigeria.
I read a report a week ago that troubled me very deeply but confirmed this thesis that many even among Christian leaders are slaves. They don’t really understand the Christian Gospel or the Apostolic Gospel as delivered by the Great Lord Jesus Christ and by His Apostles.
A pastor confessed that banks called him to offer him a loan running into billions of naira. He had not requested for a loan but the banks – your slavish financial institutions run largely by natural slaves – are offering him. How would he pay back? I want you to hear him yourself and see why Nigeria is not just a problem, NIgeria is problem itself:
“Then I asked them how they want me to be paying back, and they said when we are doing revivals, crusades, we’ll be paying back monthly.
“And they mentioned some churches who got loans from them ranging from N3 billion to N4 billion. And I asked them how they expected me to pay back such an amount and they said those that collect such loans, that’s why they would never stop doing conferences, crusades, and revivals, and from there, they would get money to pay back,” the pastor said.[ https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/how-bank-offered-me-n1bn-loan-wanted-repayment-through-crusades-program..]
There are industries and manufacturing concerns going through crisis due to a strangulating and vicious policies by a government wedded to the IMF/ World Bank neo-liberal economic framework and needed funds to stay afloat and offer employment to Nigerians but the banks won’t offer them. They prefer churches not because they have any interest in the Gospel but to make the pastors their slaves and through them their churches and Christians. A borrower is a servant to the lender. Pastors who themselves are slaves to greed collect money they do not need and for which they are not entitled to and become slaves of slaves. They then go forth like their predecessors, the Pharisees to make others in their own image and double slaves as they are. Endless crusades and conferences that are not for the promotion of Christ and His Gospel but to raise money for banks. This is how pastors are impoverishing Nigerians and especially Christians because some of them are slaves by nature. Slavery is inherent in their system and internal constitution. That is why they conduct ministry in the reverse order in which the Master Himself conducted it. Jesus and the Apostles used their ministries to build and empower the people, the modern pastors and bishops use people to build and empower and run their ministry. That is why today the modern church is spreading poverty among the masses. It is one of the reasons why poverty is increasing in Nigeria when compounded with a political class that is bereft of ideas and slaves of greed and covetousness who have stolen the nation blind.
When a man is a slave by nature he acts as he is told. He does not question contrary opinions and has no opinion. Slaves act on the impulse , prompting and opinions of their masters.
They are the ones who will defend a government even against reason and fight you on every social platform for criticizing the government in power and their party.
They can physically attack you for saying anything about their religion even when it is true and their own history confirms it.
Slaves by nature are ruled by hate rather than reason or values. They hate others and sow poison in their own kindred slaves against others. One of such slaves is an Igbo woman by the name of Patience Amaka who resides in Canada whose video came out this week asking for the poisoning of water if necessary to kill Yorubas and Benin of the Southwest. That hate had been growing inside her waiting for release but she had no opportunity. Some people teach their children to hate others and other tribes because they are slaves by nature. They are setting their children for failure and disaster in a future world of diversity and inclusion because they won’t fit.
When you are truly free and know true freedom you will realize that God did not create tribes or ethnicity. He created only man and woman; it was human disobedience that brought about the confusion of tribes and multiplicity of languages.
No tribe is your enemy, no man or woman is your enemy. The greatest enemy you have is inside you – yourself.
When you find inner freedom, when you secure inner liberation and inward fortification no man can enslave you. No man can enslave me because I have found true freedom and liberation. I am not a slave to passion or possessions: I am happy with few and with plenty. And no one can make me hate another human being.
Read Epictetus. It is sad that a man who lived about 2000 years ago knew this and we of today do not know it.
Someone can have great talent and intellect and be a slave. Slaves by nature exist everywhere and in every compartment. When a teacher asks to sleep with a student or he would fail her then you know you are dealing with a slave by nature. When a professor asks a postgraduate student to go to his farm to work and sends him on errands as slaves it os proof that he himself is a slave – slaves by nature. It takes a slave to make a slave of another. Everyone produces after his kind.
A Nigerian politician lures a teenager abroad with the promise of helping him but actually to harvest his organ to save the life of his own child. Slavery.
How many white people have stolen their own public money to bring here to invest? But more than 60% of our resources today are outside these shores. They didn’t fly or dematerialize; they were taken their by Nigerians who are slaves by nature. They do not believe on the cause of Black Emancipation because they are children of bondage. They shackle this nation with debts and enslave the future generations for their greed and for the brokerage they will get from the loan. For their ambition of today they enslave the tomorrow of their children and postpone the glory of Africa. Slaves by nature.
Slaves by circumstance are those who by accident of birth, nativity, environment and other human – imposed limitations found themselves within a cubicle or space that made their lofty ambition unattainable and worthy goals unaccomplishable.
I think it was Macmillan or one of the leaders of Britain who remarked that Awo would have been a Prime Minister of Britain very easily if he had been born in Britain. That same man died without fulfilling the same ambition making him a slave of circumstance.
Ayodele Awojobi died at only 47 because he was born in Nigeria. Another genius of Mathematics in Britain, Betrand Russell died at 97. That is the difference between Britain and Nigeria: one nurture genius, the other destroys it. Awojobi was a slave of circumstance.
So was Aminu Kano, Sam Aluko, Gani Fawehinmi, Bala Usman, and a host of patriots who have fallen without seeing the kind of nation they desired or laboured for. Included in that list is a whole number of clerics, genuine prophets, pastors and even alfas who genuinely prayed and laboured to see a better nation. These too were slaves but they were slaves by circumstance.
I warned Nigerians about the last three administrations that have brought this nation to a zero point. I warned about Goodluck Jonathan that he wasn’t a presidential material. I warned about Muhammadu Buhari that a leopard does not change its spots. And I have warned about the coming of the present Tinubu administration that is busy trying to out- Buhari Buhari. Many compatriots felt the same way but inspite of our misgivings we are still trapped under a government in which we have no hands in installing. We have thus become slaves by circumstance.
The disturbing news now is the arraignment in courts for treason of 10 young protesters whose only crime was complaining about hunger and the suffering in the land which everyone but the blind can see.
In NIgeria.
The same people who claimed to have fought for democracy, who claimed to have fought Abacha have become the new totalitarians in our midst. David Icke is right: we become what we fight. Friedrich Nietzsche has also warned that those who fight monsters should ensure that they too do not become monsters at the end. And Abraham Lincoln has quipped: You don’t know a man until you have tested him with power.
Treason which carries death sentence for merely participating in peaceful protest? All hail the new totalitarians!
Now we are being told that prices will be determined by economic forces and fuel is no longer for the common man. But salaries and wages are not determined by economic forces but regulated. National debts has now ballooned to astronomical levels within only one year while massive sufferings never before seen ravaged the land while the lord of the imperial manor and his wife live in Hollywood style and majestic splendour and opulence. Future generations will now pay debts they did not owe because of three men: Goodluck Jonathan because he did.not save during a boom; Buhari because he mismanaged the economy and Tinubu because he compounded the fatal errors of his two predecessors by his impulsive actions, inattention to details and a lack of capacity to understand the intricate complexities of a national economy.
We are now trapped.
In essence we are all slaves in Nigeria but some are slaves by nature while others are slaves by circumstance.
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© Moses Oludele Idowu
September 7, 2024
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