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Atiku, Amala Cave Mentality, and Shadows By S. A. Spinoza 19 March, 2007
If after many decades of reading about democracy, running your loud mouth about democracy, and associating with and living among practitioners of democracy, your prevailing Amala Cave Mentality is the best you can muster, then the words of your 80-year-old Olusola Saraki have been conclusively validated. According to Saraki, it is a function of your level of development because nobody feels safe and nobody can get justice. Even your very own Cave Master once said that your supposed "intellectualism" and "education" are no more than useless exercise in shadows and darkness. Your metaphysical shadows and hyperbolic illusions are anything but of use to your own people in Oyo and Lagos States. Your shadows and darkness are anything but mysteries to each of 'us' in the present Nigeria. Your shadows are simply of the Amala Cave people, by the Amala Cave people, and for the Amala Cave people.
If Saraki is incorrect, then Adedibu is not an epitome of your kind. But Adedibu is a true representative of your Cave Nature per your Cave Master. Therefore Saraki is correct, that you are endowed with the mental capacity of an underdeveloped Cave Man, which perpetually impedes your understanding of democratic values. But for the sake of further illustrative arguments, let's continue to assume that Saraki is incorrect.
But safety and justice are the primary values of all democratic societies. Both are the independent and controllable democratic values, upon which social order and social progress depend. Many other dependent democratic values are defined and determined by both. Without justice, there will be no economic and political opportunities since every person would retain and employ equal capacity of pillaging and impounding the properties and rights of others in the ensuing disorderly society. Therefore the two primary democratic values control many other secondary democratic variables such as tolerance, participation and majority rule, minority rights, civil liberties, equality under the law, equal economic, educational, and political opportunities, and the rule of law. As the two primary values are, so will be the other secondary values. If safety is at the rudimentary level of your Amala Cave Mentality, so will be civil liberties. Similarly, when the administration of justice is at the level of your Cave Mentality, you can produce no more than political participation that is at the level of your Amala Cave Mindset. The prevailing Cave Level of your Oyo State politics is illustrative here.
The chief law enforcer is your own son, operating under the same hypothesis proposed by Saraki. The Attorney General of Nigeria is also of Amala Cave School. His legal decisions are guided and defined by the Cave Mentality of your Cave Master. They both produce legal pronouncements and decisions that are consistent with Saraki's hypothesis - of Amala Cave Level and for Amala Cave People. Hence the prevailing Cave Level of politics in Oyo State is not an aberration. Adedibu will never be prosecuted because he acts and thinks at the same Cave Level, consistent with the same Cave Mentality. Saraki's hypothesis is therefore not speculative. It is based on empirical observation. The hypothesis is not new either.
About 800 years ago, King John had similar Cave Mentality at Runnymede. So, he manipulated safety and justice. The results were the same: Cave and Shadows. His Kingdom was not of the people, by the people, and for the people. Instead, his domain was of the Cave thugs, by the Cave thugs, and for the Cave thugs. As in Nigeria today, many innocent humans were seized, stripped of their rights and possessions, and outlawed, exiled, or imprisoned. Whatever the Cave King deemed necessary and appropriate was the practical value deducible from his Cave Shadows. He rummaged his Cave like a big Gorilla, using direct and indirect force, intimidating, killing, and maiming innocent people, against the lawful judgments of the courts and laws of the land.
400 years before the Cave of King John, there was another Cave, the Plato's Cave. The Plato's Cave is known today as the Mother of all Caves and is believed to be the model upon which all other subsequent Caves were designed. The residents of the Plato's Cave were considered prisoners, perpetually chained down, without safety and justice. Electricity, roads, schools, and hospitals were out of their reach. Everything was hidden from them, except metaphysical shadows of the Cave King. Hence they knew nothing about anything else because they only thought shadows, reproduced darkness, circulated ignorance, and survived in ignorance. Their truths were literally nothing but the metaphysical illusions imposed by their condition.
The prevailing Amala Cave in Nigeria is a beautiful rendition of the Plato's Cave. For Amala Cave's prisoners, it is scary to step into the light of democracy; it is easier to continue in metaphysical filths and philosophical illusions, in lockstep with the Cave Master, according to his "iniquitous hands" of chains and shadows and darkness. But then and suddenly, one prisoner is forcefully freed from the shadows of the Cave. Just like in Plato's Cave, we meet the freed prisoner in media res, in Amala world where all he knew were his perceptions of Amala shadows.
He was forced to move out. He looked around, saw the light, and made a turn for 'our' good. To only Amala Scientists, Atiku is insane and paranoid. To them, he should resign or reaffirm his commitment to the metaphysical shadows of their Cave.
But if Atiku is insane and paranoid, then the delusions of your Cave are the true realities of a democratic arrangement. If Atiku must be rejected, we must also reject the real light from the real objects that create your shadows and illusions. If we must reject Atiku, we must also accept those who labor beneath the darkness created by the present government and its conspirators, conjoined in subtle efforts to keep 'us' perpetually chained down in your Dark Cave of Amala Mentality.
But your motivations, policies, and pronouncements have never been of 'our' people, by 'our' people, and for 'our' people. Your shadows and darkness have nothing to do with 'real' democracy. If your intentions and motivations were 'truly' democratic in origin and application, Atiku would have been given the highest award in the land, as a liberated man, free from the chains and darkness of your ignorant shadows. For after moving out from your shadows, through many levels of revelations, Atiku finally acquired the light of 'true' democracy. What he once considered as real he now understands as the illusions of your Cave.
Of course, nobody denies that this particular prisoner was once a part of your Cave. He was! But his epistemic transformation is also real! His presumed corroboration with your Amala prisoners is now a thing of the past. This was 'his reality'. This was also the 'reality' of those around him. While those around him shared the 'limited' view of the world of democracy, none has yet shown any genuine reason to question its validity. None has the clear inclination to even consider this subjective limitation as a possibility. Therefore, if your former prisoner now realizes the difference between the ignorance of your Cave and the light of true democracy, then it can only mean that he is a changed man, capable of accepting his initial ignorance. He has, in fact, accepted and admitted it in order to move forward. What of you? Are you ready to end your participation in the illusions of Cave Mentality?
"The shadows of our Amala Cave must remain unchanged," so you insist.
"Atiku is not a true leader because he refuses to remain in servitude at Obasanjo's iniquitous hands," so you preach.
"Hitler was an effective leader because he had a large following. Similarly, Adedibu is an effective leader because he commands a large following," so you inform 'us'.
"It is a do or die affair," so your Cave Master insists.
But you are still missing the light of democracy! You are still living under the illusions of your Amala Cave Mentality!
Inputs and results in a democratic setting are not shadows, but independent variables defined by the quality of the democratic processes. The democratic processes are, in turn, defined and manipulated by safety and justice.
The Magna Carter was the first political document to formally challenge the illusions of Cave Kings. Incidentally, the American Bill of Rights, which makes you what you are today in America, was the brainchild of the Magna Carter. King John had to be forced out of his self-created shadows. Similarly, you must be forced to abandon the shadows of your Amala Cave, because your world of shadows is such that its nature is blatantly unreal, constantly unstable, and perpetually retrogressive.
Atiku may not be your version of an "effective leader", but it is up to 'us' to decide, according to 'our' own will and according to the rulings of the courts and laws of the land, not according to the shadows of your Cave. Your fellow Amala cronies in the present National Assembly might have joined you in thinking that Atiku is insane and paranoid. They might have lambasted him when he described the Amala conspiracy he uncovered. But did they consider any of the evidence he put forward to support his claims? NO, because they simply asserted that he argued like a 'paranoid', an 'Amala Prisoner' that must be returned to the shadows of your darkness.
Though he is obviously frustrated by a bevy of Amala conspirators therein, he consistently seeks and finds the 'real' truth. His efforts may be geared towards "personal ambitions" as you claim, but he has done more good than bad to keep 'us' all out of the illusions of your Cave. At least, he has taken on the responsibility that needed to be taken, to help millions of Nigerians chained down in your Cave, to become aware of your shadows, to teach 'us' the truth he has learned. 'Our' collective responsibility now is to keep Atiku's Light burning, to bring the truth to everyone, including to those who are still trapped in your Amala Cave Mentality and Shadows.
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