By UgoGold N. Ofonedu
“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell
I once lived in a house. The compound was occupied by three other men, two of whom were married with kids. The Nursing student and myself, were the bachelors of the yard.
Years later, I still retain memories (some fond, others sad), of my time at that place. Though everybody there contributed to the making of the plot; but it was Chukwuka and his wife that made the drama a spectacle to behold.
Chukwuka, a young man in his mid twenties was a Police Officer. A dutiful one at that be he lost it.
The problem was that he got depressed at a point as he was overwhelmed by the events of his life and made punching his wife, Ije, a favourite pastime.
As was expected in cases like this, each one of their fights drew the other tenants to their house. We would separate them and plead with them to give peace a chance. But as soon as our backs were turned, the merciless beatings would start again, punctuated only by interludes of verbal attacks from the couple.
When our method of resolving their problem was not yielding any positive result, we decided to change tactics.
Because the root cause of the problem was Chukwuka’s complaint that Ije got pregnant for him when he was not ready for a family life, and therefore, altered the direction of his life, we began to plead with the woman to go back to her parents and allow things to cool for a while.
Initially she refused only to agree when the rain of blows became unbearable for her. To convince her more, we even had to go to the husband’s office to make them agree to be sending a part of his monthly salary to his wife and children (they had three of them by then, Imagine! ), for their upkeep. She felt happy, or so we thought.
On the day she was to leave for home, she informed us that she had no money for transport. We rallied round and gave her some money. To our uttermost surprise, Ije went to the market with the money, bought some food items, and prepared a very nice meal for her husband.
They made fun of us as they ate happily.
We resolved never to intervene in their matter again.
So we watched as they would tear and claw at each other in the evening only to hold hands in the morning like new lovers.
Things got to a head one evening when the man poured fuel on the wife with the intention of setting her ablaze, the tenants who were present seized him and called the police.
At the Police Station we reported his erratic behaviour and pleaded with the Police authorities to allow him to go home for serious medical attention.
But the worst happened. Before the parents of Chukwuka (who were invited by the DPO), and the DPO, Ije, his wife accused the other tenants, one of whom was equally a Police Officer, of jealousy. She told everybody there that she had no problem with her husband. What more could we say?
On our way home, my co-tenants were lost in wonder. We thought that we were saving the woman. As soon as we got home, I asked the Nurse to get his dictionary and look up the words: Sadism and Masochism.
After that nobody in that compound bothered to interfere in their affairs again till the day they left for another town.
Now if you have a little knowledge of Psychology, the words, Sadism and Masochism, will not be new to you.
But for the benefit of the many who might not have come across them before, I will do my best to explain them.
A sadist is person who has fun, who enjoys himself only when he inflicts pain and sufferings on other people. While the masochist is the one who gets happy or who derives his happiness from suffering.
It is easy to detect who a sadist is but most of the people who will read this piece will shudder to think that a normal human being with his senses in place, can derive joy from suffering.
The two words, Sadism and Masochism as two sides of a coin, are some of the variants of madness like Neurosis, Schizophrenia, and Psychosis, though they differ only in degree.
In the strictest sense of it, masochism is mainly applicable in sexual deviations but it is also found in so many other situations.
Like anyone who knows me can attest to, I love Nigeria. My love for my country, Nigeria, is such that I have done and *might* continue to do a lot of things to aid the country’s unity, progress and development.
In this wise, I have sought for a long time, the most important reason why Nigeria has not been able to make the full use of her potentials despite all the efforts that have made in that direction.
I found, however, after a long investment of time and energy in this search, that one of the reasons dogging Nigeria’s progress is the attitude of both the leaders and the led towards each other in the quest for the country’s development.
Nigerian leaders still see and carry themselves like the primeval Kings, and the Nigerian people in turn act like their bumused subjects.
Despite our acceptance of the democratic system of governance, and in spite of the marvellous progress man has made since the 20th century, the Nigerian Leaders are all united in their singular determination to deny the citizens their rights and privileges.
And the citizens themselves quite oblivious of the issues at stake, applaud them for doing so.
Even though we can see this kind of master-servant relationship in nearly all the spheres the activity in this country, its manifestation in both the political and religious arena, scream to the heavens.
I have sought to know why our leaders should live in opulence and flaunt wealth at every given opportunity in a country that is teeming with poverty, ignorance, superstition, and disease.
I have equally looked everywhere for the answer to why the Nigerian people seem so comfortable with such an arrangement that has made them captives in their own land.
I found no better answers than this:
Nigerian Leaders are Sadists while the Nigerian People are Masochists!
Someone might think that I am harsh in my assessment of the Nigerian situation here, but I wish I had harsher words and I would have easily used them instead.
Why it took me this long to arrive at this all important conclusion, I do not know. The answer has been staring me in the face all these while.
For instance, in his heydays, the late Afrobeat singer, Fela Kuti had a song entitled, “Suffering and Smiling”. He used that song to mimic the same master-servant relationship that exists between Nigerians and their leaders.
In his own case, Prof. Chinua Achebe wrote in The Trouble with Nigeria, “It is a measure of our self-delusion that we can talk about developing tourism in Nigeria. Only a masochist with an exuberant taste for self-violence will pick Nigeria for a holiday; only a character out of Tutuola [ Amos] seeking to know punishment and poverty at first hand! Nigeria may be a paradise for adventurers and pirates, but not for tourists”.
I had seen all these illustrations of our parlous state in the clearest words ever before now, but I could not relate them to the Nigerian question. Now I know better.
If not for their exuberant taste for sadism why will Nigerian political leaders visit all the best countries in the world, see how efficiently things work, and come home only to feed their people on stories?
If not sadism, why do these leaders surround themselves with so much wealth, move around in convoys of the best cars, live in the finest houses in town and stay in the plushest hotels abroad whenever they travel out (which is often), while their country men and women go to sleep on empty stomachs, are denied of the opportunities for elevation, and are killed or die avoidable deaths on daily basis?
Can someone tell me why no government in Nigeria has been able to involve the Nigerian people actively in the act of governance since Independence?
As far as politics and the governance of this country is concerned, Nigerians are mere spectators. And where they get involved at all, it is only for the purpose of praise-singing.
A friend once told me that a people deserve whatever kind of government they get. I believe this to be true.
We, the Nigerian people, are Masochists!
Consciously and most tragically, unconsciously, we love to suffer. In fact we seem to derive our happiness from suffering.
Like Chukwuka’s wife, we get our ‘High’ only when we receive pains.
As I write this, no government; federal, state or local, has started moving in the right direction. So if you find yourself either out of personal benefits or sheer ignorance, praising any government in Nigeria today, you are sick.
You are a masochist.
And you need urgent medical attention.
We have fooled around for too long. We have deceived ourselves for such a long time. Now others have left us far behind.
It’s time therefore, we located where our problem lies, and start the process of addressing it.
Commenting on this same issue, Prof. Olúfęmi Táíwò wrote in his seminal work, Africa must be Modern, “I have often wondered at the source of our lack of respect for ourselves and the contempt in which we hold one another. Notice how I have put this indictment in collective terms because it is difficult to look at our physical environment, rural and urban, and come to any judgment other than that we, as a people, must have an extremely low opinion of ourselves and do not think that our likes are deserving of physical spaces of beauty and healthfulness”.
Perhaps if this malady is found only among the political class in Nigeria, our situation would not have been this bad.
But even the religious leaders, those who have appropriated the sacred task of showing us the way to God, equally revel in this subhuman treatment of the Nigerian people.
Who has not seen the overt romance between our political and religious leaders? If the religious leaders are not sadistic as well, then how can they be quiet while the politicians rape the country daily?
Why do they make these rogue politicians sit at the front seats of our mosques and churches always? And why do they allow them to take the lessons of the Bible whenever they attend church services?
The Nigerian religious and the political leaders are often one and the same people. They work in concert to keep the Nigerian people down.
Occasionally one may hear a critical voice from the pulpit or a few words of excoriation by an Imam. But these voices are usually so faint and far in between as to cause any upset or rouse a dormant and long oppressed people to take their own destinies in their own hands.
But we cannot blame our leaders alone. We only have ourselves to blame. And justifiably too. We allowed them to get away with their actions.
And in most cases, we praise them for dealing with us. O chim!
Look at the history of most of the developed countries, and you will see that without the masochists, there can never be a Sadist. The Sadist derives his power and influence from the docility and acquiesence of the Masochists. The equation has balanced.
Now what happened in the case of those countries was that their people decided to stop enjoying their pain, and pronto, the sadists in their midst disappeared from their leadership positions. And things started working well.
This is what one can see in the wise saying of Alyxander Harvev, a Russian, “If we act like prey, they’ll act like predators”.
If not for the sadistic strand in the gene of the Nigerian leaders, why would the Buhari government decide to increase the pump price of fuel and at the same time increase Electricity tariffs with all the sufferings and economic disruptions that the Corona Virus lockdown brought the way of Nigerians in its wake?
Even if we are to believe their fairytale about the damaging effect of the Petroleum Subsidy Regime to Nigeria’s Economic Health, why did they not first of all apologise to Nigerians for deceiving them into believing that there was nothing like Subsidy when the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration canvassed for its removal?
Has the Buhari government realised its promise of fixing all the refineries six years after taking over power?
Why are Nigerians not holding him accountable on that? What of the intolerable level of insecurity in the country today? Why are we not on the streets protesting all these things that tend to make Nigeria a living hell for all of us?
We are Masochists. And our leaders are Sadists.
No administration since the dawn of democracy has displayed its love for sadism and bestiality like the Buhari government.
Yet, Nigerians, in their masochistic best, have continued to carry their burden without remonstration. At worst, they complain in hushed tones in their homes.
To make Nigeria great, I am of the opinion that our people must wake up and fight for their rights. We have suffered and smiled for far too long.
We have acted the prey far more than necessary, and our leaders, religious and political, now see us as a conquered people.
Can anyone imagine the arrogance of this government? Our purported servants?
For me, one of the most damaging fallacies of the Christian Religion in Africa is the preaching of condoning suffering in this world, and in one’s life in order to make heaven – a place of everlasting enjoyment.
How our people bought into this outright falsehood, I do not know.
And years after, none of them has decided to query why the religious leaders should enjoy their stupendous wealth (most of it tax-free) here on earth, while the people make do with filth, squalour and lack.
Nnaa o di egwu really!
I think George Orwell must be thinking of Nigeria as well when he wrote the Animal Farm.
Following from that seminal work, I will say:
Few Nigerians have always been more equal than others.
We can no longer continue this way. We will not let them divide us again with their religious and ethnic tricks again, as all Nigerians irrespective of their ethnic and religious background are suffering the same problems.
Thank God, we have discovered who our common enemies are.
The world will mock us years from now if we do not rise up as one and fight our cause.
Meanwhile in the book, Because I am Involved, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu had this advice for the Nigerian Leaders, “Yet I would wish to support Moliere when he said, ‘Je vis de bon soupe et non de bon langage’, (It’s good food and not fine words that keeps me alive), I would wish by this to draw the attention of our gallant leaders to the fact that what our long suffering masses need is good food. They have had a surfeit of fine words”.
What more can I say?
UgoGold N. Ofonedu
Chairman, Human Rights Defenders (HURIDE), Imo State Chapter
