Eh God by Kiss Daniel.
In his book "Critique of Black Reason," Cameronian philosopher Achille Mbembe argues that blackness is now a universalised experience and condition of most people, which he termed "becoming black of the world". As I understand it, his thesis is that blackness is no longer what is experienced due to racial identity alone; it is the condition of life of most people of the world where people live at the edge of life under oppressive systems and structures that put people in the zone of non-being.
I was not really a fan of Mbembe until recently. (I jokingly told someone that maybe because I read too much fanon as an undergrad). Reading and rereading his corpus of works leaves nothing to add because he captures stuff so elegantly and eloquently. . Last year while re-reading necropolitics, especially towards the end of the chapter with the same title. He writes about how non-state actors (from insurgents, kidnappers, and private sectors) have highjacked power and control spaces and life in ways that make sovereignty questionable. I went to check the date of the book's publication, and I was almost in tears. That an author would capture the disintegration of society and life in such depth was engaging and informative as always. But as I always ask, even when I know that, in a sense, research should not be too prescriptive. Where do we go from here?
Once a month, one of my delights is visiting an amiable couple, Tolu Akinwole and Deborah Oluwasakin with intellectual depth and rare hospitality to talk about academic stuff. One day we talked about death, deathworlds and deathscape and all these concepts that explain life in spaces and regions of the world. Tolu said something that left me thinking for months; he asked what we think about moving and mobility in deathscapes. He said people live, but they also have to move within this death condition to survive. He asks us to ponder how mobility vehicles can become the transportation of death to use his words, "coffins". He had used this in the context of Bamise, who died in a Lagos state urban vehicle( BRT). The Kaduna train tragedy happened not long after our conversation, and I continued to think about how people navigate the reality of death that stirs every citizen in the face. Every day in Nigeria, it seems that people die senseless and needless death either from lack of infrastructure or Dangote trailer. Avoidable deaths every day! When I heard about Deborah Samuel's death, I tried not to think about it, but I could not. What does life mean in Nigeria? What is the value of citizens? As I have said before and would repeat again, this is a problem of state failure and leadership ineptitude.
Months ago, I wrote about how Nigeria is a deathscape and one half baked intellectual, Salami Adebayo, whose profile suggests he teaches at OOU, came on my wall to spew thoughts that should not be heard. He said, among others, that the state was not complicit and reduced the state to government and administration.
Far back in secondary school, I learn about social contract theory. Yes, secondary at a time when quality graduates were coming to the north for NYSC. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Bentham and others agree even when they defer on the origin of the state that the fundamental reason for the state is the security and welfare of its citizen. As an undergraduate in my classes on political thoughts and ideas from Africa and Europe to America, we learned different reasons for the state's existence. Later as a faculty when I went to one of my classes on state and society, one of the first questions I asked my students was what the founding ideology of the Nigerian state is. In another context, people talk about the founding ideology of the state even when the doctrine is problematic because some people were not included in it. Yet, there is an overarching philosophy that shapes state conduct.
The fundamental principle of a state is not some doctrine that exists on paper or one that we parrot-like One Nigeria. It is inherent in value. It is a matter of the heart and mind.
One of the values of a functional society is the value of life. A question I wanted to ask Salami before I blocked him was; was it the government or the state that defended the capital in the US when it was invaded? Is it the state or government apparatus that protected and defended democracy or insensible administration? Mechanisms of the state are more significant than government in a well-established" democracy. I wanted to offer him a lesson in government 101. My question for him would have been, why do we say Buhari government and not Buhari state? Is the use of government or state a question of linguistic convenience? But you see pseudo-intellectuals everywhere, pontificating rubbish.
That is how one too pushed the narrative of a kind Muslim in the north, and we talked about …..( I can't even type what he said). I wonder if he can make such an imbecile narrative in the context of race to say, "oh, there were kind slave owners, so we cant ……. ". What counts as intellectual debate in Nigeria would humble King Solomon if he lived in Nigeria. The problem of this country, among others, is conscience. People who don't care if the country burns as long as they have access to the national cake. The day I knew the country was headed where I pray it does not was years ago when a wanted terrorist was found in a government house. It was then popular saying that "you can't rebuke the devil you sleep with" took on a new meaning for me.
I don't want to elongate this post by talking about religious bigots talking about respect for religion. In the word of United Negro College saying, "a mind is a terrible thing to waste". While you insist that your god or God is the only way. I am with Kiss Daniel on Barnabas "I no dey follow pastor dey beef Imam father na father". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ALEAs4FxEA
Posted on Facebook on May 16, 2022.
I do not own the copyright to this image. Kindly email oyin2010@gmail.com for credit.
