STRIKER: Paying The Price

IN his seminar writing, “Nigerian, Who Are You?” the Late distinguished philosopher, Pius Adesanmi, wrote, “Because the Nigerian does not know that the tragic backwardness of his country is a direct consequence of the absence of philosophy, because he is blissfully unaware of the costs of Nigeria’s national culture of hostility to any notion of philosophy, theory, and abstract thinking, he becomes this perpetual laughable character, seeking doers who will make Nigeria like Dubai and London overnight, in the absence of thought and dogon turenchi. He does not know that those places he admires and wants Nigeria to be like are products of four hundred years of uninterrupted dogon turenchi – if you limit things just to The Enlightenment and modernity.”

It is not backwardness and human sufferings that automatically give birth to struggles, rebellions and freedom. For humans generally and Nigerians especially, tolerance to backwardness and sufferings has no elastic limit! It is deep sense of indignation against injustice that gives birth to struggle; and it is such struggles that birth men of exceptional honour and dignity. The problem with Nigeria is that the absence of illuminating thought and prevalent contempt for creative thinking (amidst widespread hustle for anyhow-wealth without productions) has led into an intensely corrupt and toxic society where there are only an insignificant percentage of men and women of honour and dignity surviving.

In October 1999, a BBC News Online Poll picked Karl Marx as the Greatest Thinker of the Millennium. Every thinker and philosopher, be he/she in favour or against the fundamental conclusions of Marx’s thinking, must agree that the world is worse off today without the kind of rigor and depth that he brought into critical thinking. If the world is worse off, Nigeria is nowhere to be found in that world, as Adesanmi pointed out. We simply don’t believe that things must be well thought-out to arrive at certain basic truths. How then can we embrace the responsibilities imposed by those truths that we are blissfully ignorant and in contempt of?

Deep thinking must precede actions, in private and public life. In matters of freedom, democracy, and governance, this applies even more rigorously. The price we must begin to pay, one and all in our small ways, is getting deep knowledge and following it up with passionate, organised actions. Otherwise, we will continue to groan amidst endless trials, misery, trauma and tribulations as each wickedly oppressive preceding government, in retrospect, sadly “looks even better” than the current diabolical one: as anti-people, self-serving, anti-democratic vampires continue their stranglehold on our “democratic” process and “governments” because we lack the profound, clarifying  thought (and can never therefore commit to the logical, organised, self-sacrificing actions), to displace them from the governance space and replace them with patriots.

Choices (especially in the face of compound ignorance and grinding poverty that are joined by divisiveness along primordial cleavages), can only be informed, logical, lofty, selfless and patriotic choices if they are anchored on sound philosophical thinking. An inspiring identity that can galvanize the people and catapult them to liberating actions can only be a function of deep thinking and rigorous research that reveals the fundamental truth.

Invariably, when these truths are embraced, so must the courage be found to follow the truths to the dark places where they lead – in order to emerge into the refreshing shine at the other side. Truths impose responsibilities. Among these responsibilities are struggles and self-sacrifices. Like Mandela said, “there is no easy walk to freedom.” Anger and agonizing amidst pain while embarking on spasmodic protests or occasional violent outbursts that hurt the very people more than their oppressors, leads to nowhere good.

Those who desire to be free from age-old and unremitted exploitation and oppression – that they do not want handed down to their children and their children’s children – must begin paying the price through seeking liberating knowledge and philosophy; it is the only road to articulated, organized actions and sustainable freedom in a just society where life more abundant is guaranteed.