APC, HATE SPEECHES, ITS PSYCHOLOGY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NATIONAL STABILITY NORTHERN ELDERS SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBILITY FOR INSECURITY IN NIGERIA By: Idumange John According to Bernard Malamud “ In a sick country or State, every attempt to cure it is an affront to those who feed on its sickness” Hate speeches are remarks and or statements that are violent, provocative controversial and designed to stir people to mutiny. They are speeches and statements titrated to fit with sectional interest, religious ideology, and tribe, sectionalism outside the bounds of rationalism or logic. In 2012, the Inspector General of Police warned against inflammatory statements because according to him they are capable of desecrating our national symbols, identity and integrity. Hate speeches are often made by politicians who have a phobia for failure or are have no reasonable followership hence they take refuge under some pseudo ideology tilted to serve their interest. Recently, a one-time Head of State Gen, Muhammed Buhari asserted thus: “They want to silence me because they know the role I will play in 2015. They have also sponsored reports in Benin Republic that I am the person financing Boko Haram”. Most people believe it was himself who organized the bombing to score political point. At least that is the opinion that has gained currency in the court of public opinion. Earlier, Buhari had asserted: “God willing, by 2015, something will happen. They either conduct a free and fair election or If it what happened in 2011 should happen again in 2015, the dog and the baboon would be soaked in blood” In a similar vein, in March 2014 an APC Chieftain Abu Shuluwa – a Northerner threatened “ Nigeria will descend into anarchy if Jonathan is allowed to contest the 2015 elections”, as if he was INEC to determine who is eligible to contest. On account of these hate speeches, the Catholic Bishop of Ekiti Diocese Rev. Felix Ajakaye called for the arrest of Buhari for his unguarded utterances, Behari had earlier threatened that the 2011 election will witness the flow of blood and that Nigeria would be turned into a theater of war. The same Buhari threatened that Nigerians will not take it easy with them if they rig elections. The result of the statement was an orgy of violence in which scores of Youth Corpers were killed. In October 2010, Alhaji Lawal Kaita said on behalf of the Northern Elders Political Forum. He said: “We’ll make Nigeria ungovernable for Jonathan. Anything short of a Northern President is tantamount to stealing our Presidency. Jonathan has to go and he will go. Even if he uses incumbency powers to get his nomination on the platform of PDP, he will be frustrated out of office” Yes, Kaita was right because now he has rallied the North to reinforce the offal that is Boko Haram to distract President Jonathan and to frustrate and destabilize the nation. By implication elders like Kaita represent a bad example to the youths and a monumental waste to his generation because the real essence of living is preservation of self and future generations. Gen. Marwa had criticized former Governor Murtala Nyanko for writing an ill-conceived letter to President Jonathan alleging that the Federal Government was wagging genocide in the North East. Chief E.K. Clark called for the probe of Buhari, Ciroma and Lawal Kaita. Malam ABU KING SHULUWA tried to take it to a bizarre level of conjuring some teleological inspiration to find a solid grounding on why Jonathan should not contest in 2015. He said this much: “ I saw a vision of the country disintegrating by 2015, but the only person that can save Nigeria from the impending disintegration is President Jonathan and he can do that by not contesting the 2015 Presidential election” SHULUWA was not done yet. He continued to essay his bad verses: “If he does, then he is calling for the total revolution which will affect every household. That revolution will start the day Jonathan is announced as the candidate of the PDP. If he dares win, the election, he will hardly be sworn-in because of the revolution” Bola Ahmed Tinubu also said “No government that wants peoples votes will be doing what they are doing. They are already planning to rig the elections but be ready to protect your votes; nobody serves you freedom ala carte. It is going to be rig and roast” One Dimeji Daniel also made a hate statement and lampooned the President. He said “ The Jonathan Presidency has no strategy other than violence for the June 12 Governorship elections in Ekiti State.On account of insecurity and the incessant killings in the North, the MASSOB leader called on all Igbos residents in the North to return home. One thing about these hate speeches is clear: they are made by ethnic tin-gods, religious bigots, conflict entrepreneurs, political adventurers and economic opportunists and the APC is populated with characters of this nature. Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior. Psychology is a multifaceted discipline and includes many sub-fields of study such areas as human development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior and cognitive processes. In the early days of psychology there were two dominant theoretical perspectives. An American psychologist named William James (1842-1910) developed an approach which came to be known as functionalism. He argued that the mind is constantly changing and it is pointless to look for the building blocks of experience. Instead, focus should be on how and why an organism does something. It was suggested that psychologists should look for the underlying cause of behavior and the mental the processes involved. Structuralism was the name given to the approach pioneered by Wilhelm Wundt. The term originated from Edward Titchener, an American psychologist who had been trained by Wundt. Structuralism relied on trained introspection, a research method whereby subjects related what was going on in their minds while performing a certain task. However, it proved to be unreliable method because there was too much individual variation in the experiences and reports of research subjects. Because psychology is a science it attempts to investigate the causes of behavior using systematic and objective procedures for observation, measurement and analysis, backed-up by theoretical interpretations, generalizations, explanations and predictions. The classic contemporary perspectives in psychology to adopt these strategies were the behaviorists, who were renowned for their reliance on controlled laboratory experiment and rejection of any unseen or subconscious forces as causes of behavior. And later, cognitive adopted this rigorous, scientific, lab based scientific approach too. With its broad scope, psychology investigates an enormous range of phenomena: learning and memory, sensation and perception, motivation and emotion, thinking and language, personality and social behavior, intelligence, mental wellness and much more. For four months running, I have painstakingly studied the psychology of the APC, its psychology and its leadership. In research, no study is finality, so further studies can be initiated as we inch closer to 2015. First, APC has no coherent ideology on how Nigeria should be governed. I agree that they have put together a mosaic and parchments of some statements that seem idealistics but not practicable in the Nigerian setting. For example, Free Education: Nigeria attempted free education without planning hence it collapsed in the East only a year after it was introduced in 1956; in the West it collapsed but only managed to resurrect under Awolowo’s UPN during the Second Republic. The reason is that in education, implementation of any programme must take account of the school age population; gender, facilities, physical infrastructure, the teaching and non-teaching staff and other vital educational inputs. The question is HAS THE APC COMMISSIONED SUCH A RESEARCH TO MAKE SUCH A UTOPIAN PROMISE TO HOODWINK THE LESS INTELLIGENT HALF OF NIGERIANS? Not to my knowledge. Secondly, it does appear that the APC wants power for its own sake without the people. Democracy is a system of government anchored on the people. In fact without the people, democracy loses its meaning. What we see the leaders do is imposition, dictating who should occupy what position and the tyrannical move to usurp power even from those who mooted the idea of the unholy merger. We can see complaints about imposition of candidates in the few less-than-edifying congresses they have conducted. Another psychology is for APC Leaders ton play on the sentiments of Nigerians and they garnish it by producing some paid intellectuals like Wole Soyinka to make statements in their favour. For instance, anytime Boko Haram strikes, APC is the first to call on President Jonathan to go to the theatre of war. They do this instead of attacking the root causes of terror – which is spreading fast and fueled by some weird religious fundamentalist ideas. I am acutely disappointed with an Icon like Wole Soyinka. The question I ask is what are his fellow laureates doing in other land? Do they get paid by one Amaechi and turn themselves into his spokesman? I have not seen any Niger Delta Intellectual degenerate to that level. Is it not shameful that an intellectual like Soyinka not get paid for talking in favour of a political Party searching for a soul? This perspicacious resolve on the part of some paid intelligentsia to speak from the access of evil also betrays the ideological hollowness of APC. The APC suffers from a phobia of communicating what they need to the people hence they hide under such nebulous virtues as CHANGE. If one may ask CHANGE WHAT? In politics Obama’s ascendancy should teach us a lesson and that is that if you have not served, you do not expect to be served. Let’s look at the leaders. Buhari – the proposed candidate is a coup plotter. It was he who overthrew the Shagari Administration on the 31st of Dec. 1984 and I don’t think he has apologized to Shagari since then. He headed a Petroleum related agency which was found to be corrupt. Since he was overthrown through a palace coup, It is not to my knowledge that Buhari has attended one refresher course. I am not sure Buhari can operate a Computer or the internet for that matter. In this era of globalization, how can such an internet dinosaur lead an enlightened nation of 170 people? Buhari has no ounce of democratic credentials and how can such a man be a leader of democratic institutions? Your guess is as good as mine. AHMED BOLA TINUBU: rule Lagos State for 8 years. During that period his main achievement was to nurture the alaye boys a euphemism of hemp smoking miscreants who unleashed terror in Lagos. Although Fashola has raised the bar of leadership a bit, things are still horrible. What creates the wrong impression about Lagos is that the City had already been developed several decades ago so any little project that is embarked upon is noticeable. Today, Lagos State has the most expensive Public Schools including the Universities and the likes of Wole Soyinka who are critical of the seemingly daunting social problems have been blinded by the perks of office. They idolize empire builders like the Czar Ahmed Bola Tinubu who has divided Lagos mainland among the alaye boys and has started to divide the sea among interested parties. Wole Soyinka sees everything wrong with the Presidency but sees nothing wrong in the atrocities of LASMA and other revenue collection Agencies who on a daily basis put traders of the Igbo stock in hell. Even elections into the leadership of major markets; such as Alaba International Markets heavily populated by the Igbos was imposed by Ahmed Bola Tinubu. He is indeed an empire builder. Lagos State is one of the most heavily indebted States in Nigeria. The APC administration has capitalized on the heavily industrialized nature of the State to exploit the system for personal gains. All manner of taxes and levies have been imposed on the inhabitants without corresponding quality service delivery. Tolls are being collected and the Law courts have pronounced that practice illegal but the Fashola administration has turned the law on its head. It is unfortunate that a Senior Advocate of Nigeria could relish such illegalities and justify them under the rubrics of legal niceties. All the so called intelligentsia has given way for agberocracy to thrive and impunity to ride roughshod. I don’t think Nigerians need an alaye capon to rule Nigeria. Nigeria can only be ruled by cool-headed people who are not only humble but parade some quantum of democratic credentials. With a porous ideological grounding, a tyrannical leadership with some voodoo inclination, an easily deceived mass of followers, a woe-be-gone think-thank made up of perverted ideologues, and a soulless party – unguided by common etiquette and norms of behaviour, the APC can only be a synonym for failure. It is only against this background that all the founding members of APC have started to defect to the ruling PDP. The PDP itself is far from perfect but Nigerians will make a choice in 2015. After all, power belongs to the people. The implication of these hate remarks and speeches are clear. They clearly undermine the gains of our hard won democracy and are designed to incite the less intelligent half of Nigerians to mutiny. At a level, hate speeches undermine the sovereignty and integrity of the nation; and portrays politicians as belligerent, irresponsible and un-statesmanlike. They promote centrifugal forces and demonstrate that our brand of politics is devoid of ideological grounding. Through such hate speeches, they have succeeded in grooming a sect of irate youths doing damage to the psychology of the Nigerian nation, as there is a dialectical relationship between these inflammatory remarks and the orgy of violence in Nigeria. Ultimately, the youths do not have role models to learn from as the confidence index of the elders and so called leaders has plummeted. Hate speeches are at the root of violence, bloodletting and chaos in Nigeria. When will the so called elders learn? The way forward is more citizenship education from the Federal to the Local Government levels. Elections should not be a do-or-die affair if the essence of elections is to serve the people. I subscribe to the view that before politicians are allowed to contest, they should be subjected to some psychiatric evaluation, and those frequently making inflammatory statements should be banned from participatory politics. Idumange John, A Public Intellectual first published August 9, 2014
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 07:51:57 +0000
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