“Today’s heretic is tomorrow’s healer.”

When I think about the transformations across all fields of human endeavor, from religion, science, politics, economics, and academia to creatives who, in their time,e were vilified but vindicated through time. From Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who challenged the church’s conception of the earth, to the German reformist Martin Luther, who nailed his 95 thesis, to abolitionists who insisted on the dignity of all to end slavery, and more, the world has always benefited from heretics who became healers.

From the Nun Mother Theresa, who began work among the poor in Calcutta, India, whose work was not initially supported by the church but who today is a saint, to Martin Luther King Jr., to women of south-eastern Nigeria who challenged the consequence of colonial modernity on their society, which we refer to as the Women’s War of 1929, to the Lion of Lisabi, who made a whole King abdicate his throne, the world has always benefited from heretics who became healers.

Heretics question the status out of an understanding that the world as it was/ is skewed to serve interests that do not align with humanity. They are the people who spoke truth to power even when it was inconvenient to do so. They are people who know that “today’s headlines, news, and history judgments are never the same.” Over 2000 years ago, the news might have read that one Jesus who claimed to be the messiah was hung alongside two robbers, but today it is a different interpretation.

They are the Wright brothers who made the first airplane and believed against the odds that you could fly an aircraft. The Dora Akinyili who insisted Nigeria was not a dumping ground for fake drugs, the Nigerian American of Ibadan descent who, along with his team, insists it is possible to have an academic conference that is free of hazing and exclusivity that gatekeep younger people from spaces of knowledge because if junior scholars proliferate it they “unsettle the air conditioner in the room.” They insist on only names and no titles in academic programs, which was unthinkable before now in Africa. You know how we guard our title in this part of the world. But it is becoming a fad. Even I, on my way to earning a second PhD, know that only my name, no title, would be in it.

Heretics are people who the powers they oppose often labeled as unruly but whose unruliness is why there is a semblance of order in our world. They are the market women in Lagos who challenge the pricing regime of the colonial regime. Heretics was the Late Gani Fawehimi, who challenged the most notorious Nigerian dictator. It is my virtual friend Tobilola Ajayi who, in fighting against ableism, insists that children with cerebral Palsy can learn. When the world silences its heretics, it may be killing and silencing its future.

Today, I celebrate one of those good troublemakers in John Lewis’s fashion. Dele Farotimi

I have watched him from a distance in the last 5 years, and it takes selflessness to do what he does.

Dear Nigerian,

Nigerians, don’t let them silence your truth-tellers and heretics.

You have 400 sex tapes to watch for the 365 days of 2025 with some Jara; in the meantime, protect your healers, who today are called heretics or troublemakers, but in the words of John Lewis, they make good trouble.

My PoP once wrote, "Yesterday heretics are today’s healers"!

Kindly email me @ oyin2010@gmail.com for photo credit