Nip it in the bud.
I was scrolling through my news feed weeks ago and a piece of news item caught my attention. The governing council of a Nigerian university expelled students for protesting certain decisions they found unfavourable. Another school expelled some final year students for protesting hike in school fees. I found it disheartening.
The lecturers who run these schools protest government policies all the time and even protest when they are punished for protesting. Countless times they have shut down schools in this country for months yet they are swift in victimizing any student who dares to protest their policies. It's as though our campus is a centre for suppression of freedom but that's an article for another day.
Nigerians are very flexible people. We can be stretched beyond limit and still adapt. We like to attribute everything to God.
"Na God go judge am, we go survive".
This is because protests here yield little or no result. In saner climes, people in authority seldom shut out opinions contrary to their policies but in an event that this happens, protests are organized and almost certainly the authorities call for dialogue and compromise. Here it is different.
If you wonder why it is so and you'll hear things like, how do you want to protest against a governor or senator and succeed? How do you wish to protest against a president and succeed? They have the power of the police and military. You'd be lucky if they ignore your protests. In these responses I figured out some things I will share here.
Nigerians as I earlier stated are too flexible, to adaptive to our own detriment. Our resolve to adapt to unfavourable situations may safely be likened to the frog in a jar of boiling water, who instead of escaping while it can, kept adapting to temperature changes (in hopes that it will improve in time) till it became too late to escape. We always like to think if we give things time and adapt they will get better. Hence, things only get worse and we continue to do nothing until the situation is beyond us.
We do not have a culture of nipping things in the bud, stopping them before they escalate. Then when the person or situation grows too big for our solution we begin to do what would have been effective if we did it at the early stages of the impunity.
Assume that the presently corrupt governor, senator or president was an individual. This individual started out as a teacher in your child's school. He forces your kids to buy books for an exorbitant price, despite the state subsidizing the book. The typical Nigerian parent will not go and question the teacher nor the school, especially if the child says he is the only one left who has not bought the book yet. In order not to appear broke, he will pay for the book instead of standing up and asking for the right thing to be done.
Bear in mind that this man is just a teacher and a protest against him at this stage in his career will be effective but we let him get away with corruption so easily. A precedence is set.
Years later when this man becomes the principal of the school, he quickly hoists extra levies on the children and again the parents, afraid to be the only dissenting voice conforms or quietly withdraws his kids. Another easy let off. At this stage, this man has only limited authority and a protest would be very effective in tackling his impunity as he wouldn't want his supervisors to learn of his illegal dealings.
This man goes on like this, successfully executing selfish acts of corruption with ease, despite having limited powers in these positions as it were. He becomes a lecturer, Head of department, Dean or Vice chancellor in a tertiary institution. He has relatively more authority and resources to enforce his policies. Then the students protest his decisions.
He doesn't know how to handle this, because he is coming from a background of easy fleecing. Then it hits him, that he fleeced with ease when he had little authority, why can't he do more now. He expells few of the dissenting students. This deters others from challenging his policies. Worse still, the students whose comrades were expelled do not continue the fight, they cowardly bless their stars they were spared.
At this point, another precedence has been set. The people are not used to protests hence, once few are used as scapegoats, the others disband. The man in authority realizes this and adopts it as the perfect response to dissenting voices.
Eventually when he becomes governor, senator or president, with the full military and paramilitary might of the state at his disposal, that is when Nigerians decide that protests will bring him to his knees.
When corruption was just budding in him and he was of lowly state, when protest would have been most effective we did not feel the need to protest. We adapted because it was bearable. Now that the man has become a pine of corruption and in addition money and other resources are at his disposal, we then come to protest. What do we expect, if not tear gas, gun shots and police walls?
Opposing evil and injustice regardless of its magnitude or significance at the moment is very important, even if you lose. The fight may be so strong that the evil one would be too distressed to go through it next time and he will albeit, begrudgingly resort to doing the right thing.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. If we do not nip evil, injustice or corruption in the bud, the cost of uprooting a fully grown tree will be overwhelming over time as we have seen it to be in Nigeria.
It is not only governors,senators and presidents you protest their bad policies. The land lord, teacher, the principal, the priest, the coach, the pastor, the ward councillor, the local government chairman, the women leader, the nurse, the doctor, etc no matter how insignificant, their wrong or right practices set a precedence that when left unchecked will lead to something greater than we can fight.
Nip it in the bud.
The lecturers who run these schools protest government policies all the time and even protest when they are punished for protesting. Countless times they have shut down schools in this country for months yet they are swift in victimizing any student who dares to protest their policies. It's as though our campus is a centre for suppression of freedom but that's an article for another day.
Nigerians are very flexible people. We can be stretched beyond limit and still adapt. We like to attribute everything to God.
"Na God go judge am, we go survive".
This is because protests here yield little or no result. In saner climes, people in authority seldom shut out opinions contrary to their policies but in an event that this happens, protests are organized and almost certainly the authorities call for dialogue and compromise. Here it is different.
If you wonder why it is so and you'll hear things like, how do you want to protest against a governor or senator and succeed? How do you wish to protest against a president and succeed? They have the power of the police and military. You'd be lucky if they ignore your protests. In these responses I figured out some things I will share here.
Nigerians as I earlier stated are too flexible, to adaptive to our own detriment. Our resolve to adapt to unfavourable situations may safely be likened to the frog in a jar of boiling water, who instead of escaping while it can, kept adapting to temperature changes (in hopes that it will improve in time) till it became too late to escape. We always like to think if we give things time and adapt they will get better. Hence, things only get worse and we continue to do nothing until the situation is beyond us.
We do not have a culture of nipping things in the bud, stopping them before they escalate. Then when the person or situation grows too big for our solution we begin to do what would have been effective if we did it at the early stages of the impunity.
Assume that the presently corrupt governor, senator or president was an individual. This individual started out as a teacher in your child's school. He forces your kids to buy books for an exorbitant price, despite the state subsidizing the book. The typical Nigerian parent will not go and question the teacher nor the school, especially if the child says he is the only one left who has not bought the book yet. In order not to appear broke, he will pay for the book instead of standing up and asking for the right thing to be done.
Bear in mind that this man is just a teacher and a protest against him at this stage in his career will be effective but we let him get away with corruption so easily. A precedence is set.
Years later when this man becomes the principal of the school, he quickly hoists extra levies on the children and again the parents, afraid to be the only dissenting voice conforms or quietly withdraws his kids. Another easy let off. At this stage, this man has only limited authority and a protest would be very effective in tackling his impunity as he wouldn't want his supervisors to learn of his illegal dealings.
This man goes on like this, successfully executing selfish acts of corruption with ease, despite having limited powers in these positions as it were. He becomes a lecturer, Head of department, Dean or Vice chancellor in a tertiary institution. He has relatively more authority and resources to enforce his policies. Then the students protest his decisions.
He doesn't know how to handle this, because he is coming from a background of easy fleecing. Then it hits him, that he fleeced with ease when he had little authority, why can't he do more now. He expells few of the dissenting students. This deters others from challenging his policies. Worse still, the students whose comrades were expelled do not continue the fight, they cowardly bless their stars they were spared.
At this point, another precedence has been set. The people are not used to protests hence, once few are used as scapegoats, the others disband. The man in authority realizes this and adopts it as the perfect response to dissenting voices.
Eventually when he becomes governor, senator or president, with the full military and paramilitary might of the state at his disposal, that is when Nigerians decide that protests will bring him to his knees.
When corruption was just budding in him and he was of lowly state, when protest would have been most effective we did not feel the need to protest. We adapted because it was bearable. Now that the man has become a pine of corruption and in addition money and other resources are at his disposal, we then come to protest. What do we expect, if not tear gas, gun shots and police walls?
Opposing evil and injustice regardless of its magnitude or significance at the moment is very important, even if you lose. The fight may be so strong that the evil one would be too distressed to go through it next time and he will albeit, begrudgingly resort to doing the right thing.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. If we do not nip evil, injustice or corruption in the bud, the cost of uprooting a fully grown tree will be overwhelming over time as we have seen it to be in Nigeria.
It is not only governors,senators and presidents you protest their bad policies. The land lord, teacher, the principal, the priest, the coach, the pastor, the ward councillor, the local government chairman, the women leader, the nurse, the doctor, etc no matter how insignificant, their wrong or right practices set a precedence that when left unchecked will lead to something greater than we can fight.
Nip it in the bud.
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