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Why Soyinka, Gani, Abati, and the Rest of “Them” Are in Panic Mood By S A Spinoza
It is a maxim in scientific parlance that the value orientation of a culture affects how an individual within the culture chooses or is pressured to behave. Therefore to understand a person’s behavior, it’s often critical to consider the limitations imposed on the person by the cultural environment in which he or she was nurtured. Ole Soyinka likened the removal of Ribadu to death and destruction in Pakistan because he believes that Ribadu’s removal means the death and destruction of democracy in Nigeria. He then deduces that the death and destruction of democracy in Nigeria means the death and destruction of the “corporate integrity”, the corporate existence of a nation. According to him, the crippling of EFCC, an “aggressive”, “effective”, and “result-oriented” agency, is an obstacle to “restoration and consolidation” of democracy. All the reasoning here is based on two erroneous assumptions. Soyinka erroneously assumes that Nigeria is in fact a democracy. Second, he erroneously assumes that without Obasanjo’s EFCC and Obasanjo’s Ribadu both democracy and Nigeria are dead.
If Nigeria is a democracy, the death of one individual Nigerian or one institution in Nigeria can never destroy either the democracy or the nation or both. Reasoning does not lead Soyinka to hold this belief. Therefore his assertion therein is rather habitual and mechanical. The nature of a democracy or a nation is not such that the death of even half of the entire population can lead to its death and destruction. The onus is on Soyinka to provide the historical instantiations of such a nexus.
But let’s grant Soyinka his assumptions that OBJ instituted democracy in Nigeria, ruled the nation democratically, conducted democratic elections, and handed over to Yar’Adua democratically. Observe here that Abati agrees with these suppositions when he writes that “this kind of politics shortens the length of our democracy and subverts … the initial gains of the anti-corruption war”.
As you can see here, on the one hand, Abati agrees with Soyinka that Nigeria is in fact a democracy and that only OBJ’s Ribadu as the EFCC boss can save this OBJ’s brand of democracy. Both of them also agree that Yar’Adua’s Administration is illegitimate, a product of “a grand scale”/”compost of corruption”. Keep in mind that this illegitimacy was hatched and perpetrated under Ribadu as the EFCC boss.
On the other hand, Abati also refutes all the suppositions when he claims that the present government in Nigeria “is itself the product of a grand scale of poltical corruption”.
If the present Yar’Adua’s government in Nigeria is illegitimate, then how can the removal of Ribadu (the mastermind of the illegitimacy) destroy that which does not exist in the first place? In other words, if Ribadu and the EFCC were used to fabricate reports to disqualify candidates, to rig the elections, and to create the illegitimacy, how can Ribadu’s presence legitimize this illegitimacy? Twist the last statement around: The Onus is on Ribadu now to provide evidence that he was instructed to fabricate evidence against Atiku and other politicians. Do Yoruba people fear the anger and sudden change of Ribadu?
If the orchestrated presence of Ribadu was used as a catalyst in creating “compost corruption” and “illegitimate government”, how can the removal of the same catalyst help to create the same result which his presence was required to produce and sustain? This is absurd!
Enter Their Present and Future Vis-à-vis Their Past Yoruba distorted thoughts and behaviors wreak havocs to their psyche and contribute to the confusions, divisions, and miseries they help to create for the rest of Nigeria.
Soyinka, Gani, Abati, and the rest of the Yoruba foot soldiers operate under the illusion that Ribadu and EFCC have been very effective and efficient in doing something. What is that something and how do we quantify its efficiency and effectiveness?
To Soyinka and his kind, Ribadu has been very effective and efficient in fighting corruption; he has been “aggressive and result oriented” because his continued existence as the EFCC’s boss will help to unravel the murders of Ige, Williams, and others, thereby consolidating and restoring democracy and dignity to all of us. Gani agrees with Soyinka and joines the debate with the same line of reasoning. Abati agrees with both of them, but stretched the argument into Yoruba cultural bounds by making a list of the corrupt officials which he believes were successfully prosecuted by Ribadu. He mentions the names of Saminu Turaki, Orji Kalu, Chimaroke Nnamani, Joshua Dariye, James Ibori, Ayo Fayose and Jolly Nyame. But he conscientiously and selectively leaves such names as Uba, Adedibu, Adebayo Alao-Akala, Olusegun Obasanjo, Gbenga Daniel, Iyabo Obasanjo, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Patricia Etteh, Anenih, George Bode, Bukola Saraki, Olusegun Oni, Bayo Ojo, and many more. Corruption is therein externalized beyond the bounds of Yoruba culture and projected onto others.
Because corruption is the standard operating procedure in Yoruba culture, it is externalized to others, and by externalizing it and inappropriately projecting it onto others, the Yoruba man does not have to deal with it in his corner of the Oyoyo Jungle. Adedibu, OBJ, Etteh, Uba, and the rest of the corrupt Yoruba governors can continue to practice corruption, unimpeded, unchecked by Ribadu and EFCC.
By institutionalizing it as a way life in his Oyo Jungle and by dumping the blames on others, the Yoruba man collides with his own corrupt thugs and murderers by keeping the corrupt system going his way. Both Adedibu and Soyinka must distort their feelings and the object of their feelings (corruption) for this dubious externalization and projection to work their intended purposes, in Yoruba man’s favor.
Only others are corrupt and only OBJ’s Ribadu can effectively fight these others. Because Soyinka, Gani, and Abati say so and believe so and act as if it is in fact so, it must be so. They help to institutionalize corruption by projecting it as the problem of others, thereby avoiding the need to take responsibility for their own corrupt culture, corrupt governors, and geriatric devils. This blatant distorted thinking is endemic in Yoruba culture of absurd, and Soyinka could not help himself since he is the product of the same environmental forces.
Therefore Soyinka should be looked at from this cultural viewpoint henceforth. He is no more than the product of his culture which teaches that all Yoruba self-created problems and woes must be projected and externalized to others so that the Yoruba people should neither take the blames nor appear as the originators of the woes and problems.
Therefore I suggest that Soyinka should be forced to visit the new and improved EFCC to explain what he means when he writes that fighting corruption is “contingent upon the moral cleansing” of Nigeria political space, including the application of “punitive means”. He should be asked to explain his efforts in cleansing Oyo, Ekiti, Osun, Kwara, and Ogun of this moral burden, since the moral cleansing is needed more in Oyo, Ekiti, Osun, and Ogun than in any other part of Nigeria.
He should also be forced to explain what he means to teach young children of Nigeria when he claims that removal of Obasanjo’s Ribadu will lead to the death and destruction of the corporate existence of a nation. What nation is he referencing here? Does he mean that removal of Ribadu will lead to the exposure of all corrupt Yoruba governors, Adedibu, and OBJ, thereby precipitating a collapse of the entire Yoruba Nation?
The language of death and destruction appropriated by the man is too strong and does not fit squarely into the event that occasioned it or into his irrational deductions. Therefore he should be forced to explain the strange social reality envisioned and feared by him.
He should also explain why he believed that Ribadu was free to act as the boss of EFCC, unmanipulated by Obasanjo and a cliché of Yoruba thugs, to hound the enemies of OBJ while saving the necks of those who funded OBJ's Third Term illegalities. We need to know why he thought and believed that Ribadu was not under the control and spell of external Yoruba forces, carefully orchestrated to protect the interests of all known corrupt Yoruba giants.
Some Nigerians have argued that Soyinka is either senile or slyly or brainwashed or he is suffering from the burden of all three diseases combined together. I believe that Soyinka is a brainwashed, self-interested zombie, suffering from occasional mental breakdown and panic attacks, created by the eight years of mental abuses unleashed on them by the various Yoruba thugs. This is known in scientific community as situational panic attack.
His panic attack is situationally predisposed because it set in the moment the news of Ribadu’s removal broke. Hence he was forced to dribble his meaningless, contradictory psychobabbles.
As I said earlier, notice how they comfortably ignored to mention Oyo or the names of the fat Yoruba corruption cows in their tirades. This is expected because among other symptoms, one important characteristic of a person suffering from panic disorder is that unexpected events seem to create the fear of losing control or going crazy or of sudden death.
The feeling of being detached from one’s social reality (depersonalization) and the feeling that one’s social world will suddenly come crashing down (derealization) are parts and parcels of this mental disease.
Let’s explore further this feeling of losing control of their cultural reality. This is important since it helps us to understand why so many Yoruba people were literally going crazy about Ribadu’s removal.
The Yoruba man is in denial The Yoruba man is disoriented by the psychological abuses caused to him by OBJ and Adedibu. He is suffering an overload of uncontrollable and unpredictable mental distresses caused by the eight long years of psychological abuse by his kind. He is now so fixated upon the traumatic experiences that he seems to be reliving them over and over again. To understand this, consider Adedibu and OBJ and their rumbles in Yoruba Nation.
If OBJ and Ribadu were interested in fighting corruption, they would have arrested and prosecuted Adedibu. Every Nigerian knows that Adedibu is the most corrupt Yoruba man, next to Obasanjo, because he installs Senators, House members, Governors, and dog catchers in Yoruba Land. Recall that the illiterate thug was caught with many voting machines during the last elections. Also recall that Adedibu, urged by OBJ, was involved in the illegal impeachment of Ladoja. Many innocent Yoruba lives were lost in the ensuing siege by Adedibu’s machete-wielding thugs. If these illegal acts were not the highest form of corruption under Ribadu, I do not know what else qualifies as such. If these criminal behaviors did not do more harm to the dignity, economic, and political interests of the majority in Yoruba Nation, I do not know what else did.
Therefore if Ribadu was not actively working against the interests of the Yoruba masses, he would have arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned Adedibu. If OBJ cared about the interests of the Yoruba masses, Ribadu would have done his job according to the laws. Because OBJ was not interested in protecting the interests of the Yoruba masses, he instructed Ribadu to avoid prosecuting Adedibu. Therefore the EFCC under Ribadu did not prosecute Adedibu because Ribadu and Obasanjo were not interested in fighting corruption.
Now, if Soyinka, Gani, and Abati had spent ten percent of the time they now spend on saving Ribadu and his job at the EFCC, Adedibu would have been arrested and prosecuted. These Yoruba foot soldiers failed to go into the same panic mode because the general interests of their own Yoruba masses were not their concern. By implication, they could not care about the interests of any other community in Nigeria if they are callous and numb about the rubbishing of their own people’s interests. War or peace begins at home, so they say.
Further, recall that Soyinka was initially vociferous and combative in seeking the killers of Bola Ige, his boyhood friend. This is obviously the mother of all corruptions, unleashed on the psyche of Nigeria by Yoruba thugs. This assassination is bigger and of wider historical impacts than the murder of unelected Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. If the dignity and safety of the Attorney General of Nigeria were rubbished, then other Nigerians below him and under his constitutional protection could enjoy no such safety and dignity. Ribadu danced around the issue of fishing out the perpetrators of this indignity on Nigeria because he sang the tunes of Obasanjo. This dubious failure to uncover the murder of the highest law enforcement officer under a Yoruba Administration failed to appear in all the articles churned out by Obasanjo’s praise singers because they know that this was the highest form of corruption in OBJ’s destruction of the dignity of Nigeria. According to Soyinka, this highest form of corruption … “will be solved when the anti-corruption project has attained its ultimate goal of unearthing the hidden”. This is what they have been saying for ages. They killed their own for self-interested political motives, but they want the entire nation to remain frozen in time, and beholden to their puppet and corrupt Ribadu until thy kingdom come on earth. This is absurd.
It is also noteworthy that the pains of Ige’s murder did not cause the same panic disorder for Soyinka when Adedibu was arrested and quickly released on his own recognizance. But why?
Again, the answer lies in the trauma meted out to the Yoruba man by OBJ and Adedibu. The emotional blunting suffered by these people at the hands of OBJ and Adedibu is so great that they are now controlled by the same. They are so traumatized by the same that all the more tender human feelings within them have since evaporated.
Although they can speak big grammar and carry on with life as if they are sane and normal, as if they are slyly working on “unearthing the hidden”, deep down into their souls, they are confused and delusional. Their thoughts and behaviors uncover this abnormal emotional numbness, emotional impoverishment. If not, they would have worked up the same panic mood when Etteh, Iyabo Obasanjo, Adedbu’s inlaws, and many fake Senators and House members were illegally imposed on them in the last elections.
The more disturbing aspect of their psychological condition is that they have since developed a rapport with their captors, murderers, and abusers. Hence they now act as if Adedibu and Obasanjo are the best of their kind.
If Obasanjo is the best of their kind, then Ribadu is the best man for the EFCC, since Obasanjo selected and manipulated Ribadu. Obasanjo must also be the best thing ever happened to Nigeria according to these people. Gbenga Daniel and many Yoruba Governors have in fact repeated this, that Obasanjo is the best leader who has ever ruled Nigeria. Therefore, OBJ or Adedibu or Ribadu must not be touched by the EFCC or by the laws of the land. This is what is creating their current panic mood; they worry that these two old Yoruba thugs may no longer be protected from the prying eyes of the next EFCC boss, thereby creating the possibility that their "bests" will land in prisons.
Remember that democracy had nothing to do with security and justice under Obasanjo and Bayo Ojo. Because of the emotional blunting and posttraumatic disorder suffered by these people, do not be surprised when you read next that they brutalize, sodomize, or rape their own mothers and fathers like Obasanjo and Adedibu.
Like Obasanjo and Adedibu, they are no longer humans. They are now like wild beasts and will treat human beings as beasts.
Further, many of them may never snap out of their present dehumanized condition. Do not be surprised when their traumatized mental condition shows in their thoughts and behaviors in near future. In the next few months and years, you will continue to read how they resist efforts and ideas put forward to move Nigeria out of the current malaise created by their own hands. This is an established mental mood of those who are completely broken down by long-term captivity.
The Yoruba people are so thoroughly brainwashed by Obasanjo and Adedibu that for a long time to come they will prefer to remain in servitude in their amala homes, where every whim is catered to and where all is given them in exchange for nothing more than their cries and petulance.
Therefore do not be deceived into the belief that they love Ribadu. They don’t. Rather, they have been brainwashed into compliance, into not giving love and care even to their own Yoruba masses. Their seeming outcries and expressions of love for Ribadu are no more than malignant compliance to their captors’ urging, a poison fed to their psyche as a result of their eight years in captivity.
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