THE NIGERIAN FACTOR PART 1

Note: First published on April 5, 2019. The “published” date on the tab is the date that it was uploaded on this new site. Though some issues in this piece may still be current (depending on…), this info is to avoid your mistaking the piece as current news.

This is “No Bullshiting,” by Harry Agina.

Greetings!

From 1776 to this day, America has championed the concept called democracy. Today, Nigerian politicians come up with all manner of cop-out arguments in attempt to defend their criminal demo-crazy. Rather than plug into the American template and practice democracy for the good of the people, they try to justify their dem-crazy. One of their dumbest excuses is that Nigeria does not have to be as democratic as America yet. “After all, America is 243 years old, and Nigeria is only 59 years.” I have never heard a stupid bunch of bullshitting that is worse that this, meeeeeeeen!!!

America’s Constitution and Declaration of Independence were signed on July 4, 1776 (243 years ago). And, thence, America has championed the progressive development of the concept of democracy to what it is today. She has championed the experimentation, the reforms/revolutions, reviews, and innovations, in effort to perfect the concept for the rest of the world to follow. Indeed, the Americans have become the police of the world in effort to entrench democracy around the world. Surely, we must condemn America for some not-so-wonderful aspects of her “policing” role. But, in my book, whosoever that condemns her for the effort to entrench democracy all over the world as a preferable governance concept is totally bullshitting.

Today, ignorant, hypocritical and mischievous Nigerians are defending all the bullshitting going on in Nigeria’s demo-crazy (as Fela Anikulakpo Kuti called it). They come up with the nonsensical, indeed, stupid excuse, that Nigeria is only fifty nine years as a nation. They argue that we should not compare Nigeria to America, because “America has been in the game for 243 years.” The formula or template for democracy has already been established, developed, and refined to what it is today by Americans. Rather than copy the template and modify sensibly, corrupt Nigerian politicians are busy talking bullshit. They hide under any and every excuse to tell us that Nigeria needs to live up to America’s 243 years before we can copy the democracy template for us. Sadly, they have hoodwinked too many Nigerians to buy into that stupid, corruption-induced argument. A teenager that studies political science in college today can copy America’s template for democracy and implement it in six doggone months, meeeeeeeen!

A couple of days back, a young fan of “No Bullshitting” Blog called me up on Messenger. He is Nigerian, lives in London, and has been “enjoying” my “powerful articles about bad Nigerian leadership,” he said. I soon learned that I had a price to pay for the flattery. He was buttering me up before hitting me with the task to defend my “evil Nigerian politicians,” which he has seen to be recurrent in my blogs. He asked, angrily: “Why do you think your American politics is better then Nigerian politics.” My answer was simple, or, so I thought, until the chap, apparently sharp, got really tasking.

“Politics is globally  declared as a dirty game, because it is fraught with lies and deceits and double-speaks, and dubious wheeling and dealing by politicians,” said he. “For instance, all over the world, politicians are not always expected to keep their political promises; so, what is so different about Nigeria?”

I said to myself; “Self, it sure looks like you’re in for a serious debate here.” Then, I told the young man that there are two types of politics in the world; one type for Nigeria, and the second type for the rest of the world. “Beyond your definition and image of a typical global politician, there’s politics with “The Nigerian Factor,” I said. The words had escaped my mouth just before it hit me that I had just goofed. Um huh, I had just invited further definition-complications into the discourse. Now, I had to define “The Nigerian Factor,” and its relation to my “evil Nigerian politicians theory,” which had started the conversation. But for the fact that the dude “enjoy” my blog, it would have been a major confrontational discourse. Yap, he believed that I should ease up on my American mentality and comparison with Nigeria.

“No, no, no, we have to compare Nigeria to the rest of the world, homeboy,” I retorted, albeit in a very friendly tone. “Nigeria does not exist in a vacuum, homeboy; we have the rest of the world around us. Our acts or actions affect the world, directly or/and indirectly, just as the acts of other nations affect us. Nigerians use the ‘we-are-different’ bullshit as a major cop-out,” I said, and still continue to say.

Another beef I have to grind with Nigerians is the ‘don’t-wash-our-dirty-linen-in-public’ syndrome. My response to this is short and simple: That bullshit is a gimmick by bad leaders to blackmail gullible Nigerians. They don’t want us to expose their evil. They want to continue to hoodwink the world with their deceitful claim to performance in governance, at the terrible expense of the people. Objectively and sincerely expose their evil on roof-tops with trumpets, and shame the devil, I always say!!! And, don’t ever let them blackmail you with the bullshit about patriotism. We are supposed to be patriotic to Nigeria, and not to crooks that are called leaders, meeeeeeeen!!! What is definitely unpatriotic, is the failure to condemn the crooks that are destroying the nation that we are all supposed to be patriotic to.

This was not my first encounter with a fan who criticized ‘my bad’ in blogs that they otherwise see as “great.” They basically enjoy my “No Bullshitting” attitude and character and contents. But they have issues with some of my positions that go contrary to some rubbish mentality that they imbibed in the military days of Nigeria. Today, we have demo-crazy, and some present criminal politicians have hoodwinked the public to carry forward the military mentality of “see-evil-but-speak-no-bad.” This is supposed to be a democracy, goddammit!!!

Mind you, I actually love the ‘love-you-hate-you’ Nigerian fans who critique (sometimes criticize) my blog. I know that I can’t possibly expect everybody to agree with all my views all the time. Above 90 percent approval rate is good enough for me. And, guess what? It often only requires a little patience and appreciation of such fans’ opinions to handle them right. Many times, I have them agreeing with those views that they had rejected.

So, did my Londoner fan have a rethink on his “your American politics is not so different from Nigerian politics”? Um huh, sure did! For a good start, he promptly agreed that the political murders committed by election riggers in Nigeria are exceptionally evil. We agreed that such can never happen in today’s America and UK, not with such evil impunity and government backing. The young dude (23, he said), was sharp in the conversation. He had condemned my position about specific names that I mentioned as my examples when I blogged about political murders-by-proxy. Apparently, he likes those individuals; or, I should say ‘he liked them.’ When he finally bought my “murder-by-proxy” theory, he bowed to my argument. He now agreed that anybody that arms thugs to commit mayhem and kill people in order to win elections, is definitely a murderer, period!!!

We also agreed that such open evil deeds do not commonly happen in the US, nor the UK where he resides. And, most, importantly, we also finally agreed on my basic argument on the evil of criminal impunity in Nigeria. We agreed that evil progressively escalates in Nigeria, rather than diminish. We agreed that it is escalating because perceived, known, and confirmed perpetrators are hardly ever punished. We also agreed that when any evil is committed by politicians in the civilized world and it is exposed, the perpetrator must pay for his evil. Today, we know many Nigerian criminals who are actually rewarded for their criminality. For instance, the current Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives was convicted by the Supreme Court of Georgia in the USA as a criminal. Many Nigerians are aware of this fact; it was debated in the media, but the powers that be insisted, and broke every rule in the book to make him the Speaker. They even spent huge public funds to buy the votes of our so-called Representatives in order to install a convicted criminal as Speaker. In the USA or UK, such candidate would actually immediately withdraw from the Speakership race even before his record was revealed to the public. If he failed to do so, he would be disgraced completely out of the House of Reps. Americans or Brits would never allow him to stay in the House, not to speak of being the Speaker.

Nigeria also presently has several lawmakers who are commonly perceived by Nigerians as crooks. Some have even been indicted by competent authorities as crooks. Same goes for people who are in various positions of leadership in the Federal Government. Indeed, the Chairman of the nation’s ruling political party boldly declared in 2018 that his party is a home of crooks, literally. He told the world on TV that any criminal politician that joins the APC automatically has his/her sins forgiven. Non-Nigerians may find this difficult to believe, but it is recorded fact, meeeeeeeeeen!!!

This is all how far and comprehensive my talk with the young dude got. He was very ready to listen, and I did have the time to spare. At this point, the pendulum of my “hate-you-love-you” fan tilted to the “love-you” end. He threw in the towel, and agreed with my position. All he now wanted was my generic definition of “The Nigerian Factor.” It was my off-peak period of the day, so I had the time to oblige my good young fan. The Nigerian Factor definition that I gave him as it affects all sectors of life, is topic for my next blog…I ain’t bullshiting ya, meeeeeeeeeen!!!

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