Nigeria was built on falsehood, deceitfulness and individualism. Secondly, Nigeria’s political dilemma started way back in the sixties and culminated in the annulment of June 12 1993 election. There were a series of violent protests in July 1993, in particular the south-west region following the annulment. It is estimated that security forces killed over 100 people while quelling riots.
Philosophers are constantly using the word fallacy. For them, a fallacy is reasoning that comes to a conclusion without the evidence to support it. For us as a nation it seems our national “misadventures” conversation is gaining speed without traction.
By Richard Odusanya.
Apparently everyone is talking, and everywhere. Nigerians are being misled by the elites, social media influencers and clerics claiming that everything about us got bad just within the last seven years. fallacy, in logic, erroneous reasoning that has the appearance of soundness.
Sadly, their claims stand logic on its Head What A People! What A Nation!! It is, therefore, the intention of this article to separate facts from fallacies:
Fact; reality; truth: First, it is important to inform my readers that our beloved country Nigeria was built on falsehood, deceitfulness and individualism. Secondly, Nigeria’s political dilemma started way back in the sixties and culminated in the annulment of June 12 1993 election. There were a series of violent protests in July 1993, in particular the south-west region following the annulment. It is estimated that security forces killed over 100 people while quelling riots. Furthermore, our brothers and sisters from the South-east the Igbo population in Lagos were also reported to have fled to the eastern region as the tension was palpable. There was also international condemnation of the annulment: the United Kingdom, United States and European Union suspended aid to Nigeria, and the Commonwealth condemned the annulment.
In the aftermath of the election, the government proscribed or shut down media houses, and arrested journalists. This is the real issue that should prick our conscience particularly the clerics preaching divisiveness and spreading falsehood.
MKO Abiola flew to London and Washington to seek international support for his presidency – he subsequently returned in 24 September, 1993. Ultimately, MKO was arrested, clamped in detention and died in the efforts to protect the Pan-Nigerian mandate freely donated to him by a popular mandate. Sadly, many of today’s beneficiaries of the June 12 and MKO Abiola sacrifice lost their voice and opportunistically continue to enjoy the price paid for democracy by MKO and using it to deceive the gullible masses particularly the restive youths who are unable to separate facts from fallacies.
Fast-forward to 1999, the Military government then hurriedly organized an election with a contentious constitution and handed over to one of their own, in person of General Olusegun Obasanjo.
During the inglorious era of Obasanjo it birthed: insurgency (Boko Haram), recklessness, rigging of election results, squandering of riches and plundering of resources including the $16 billion dollars power project shared with businessmen and many other infractions. Obasanjo subsequently organized his own scam code named “Do-or-die” election and rigged the election results in favor of his hand picked successors Yar’adua and Jonathan.
So far, it was only President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of the blessed memory that was honest enough to own up to embark on the reforms that would have saved us from the era of election rigging and so many ills of our society but he died. Goodluck Jonathan who took over from our late President as C-in-C, was a very weak President and an irredentist who fits the bill of the religionists.
He couldn’t find his feet and the system he ran was a replica of the Obasanjo’s inglorious era. The big question is where were the voice of the so-called movements and clerics that are preaching divisiveness and spreading hatred today?
Could it be that what is wrong is ok when it comes from their side of the divide and very bad when it is from the other side? It is my firm believe that clerics by virtue of their callings and office must remain non-partisan.Interestingly, from a cursory reading of the activities of the merchants of faith using the lens of religion to determine what is faulty and right; however, it seemed obvious that there was another hugely important source of motivation which may be necessary to digest.
I opined that self preservation and interest is the driving force behind the misadventures of the clerics churning out lies upon lies to confuse their gullible followers about the problems confronting us as a nation. Enough is enough no one has a monopoly of rascality and violence. Easy with the salvos, particularly with the lies of seven years ago is the problem, you may not survive the inevitable rebound.
In conclusion, I daresay that a self-advertised packaged messianic product, Peter Obi is not the answer and cannot be different from Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan in terms of misgovernance, he was actually part of the Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan maladministration. I argued that Peter, is a trader in finished goods and an opportunist who has no temperament needed to be a builder.
Hence he cannot build even the political party he needs to run on; he is running as a capitalist pretending to be a socio-welfarist, and as a Labour candidate. Finally, it is safe to say that trading psychology can be associated with a few specific emotions and behaviors that are often catalysts for market trading. Conventional characterizations of emotionally-driven behavior in markets ascribe most emotional trading to either greed or fear.