Taa taa… No pity am at all! Na so dem dey do… The noise rose higher, as different sounds of slap emerged from a particular spot. Young men were rushing to the spot; some ladies were jeering, while others were fighting back tears. A young woman was about to be stripped off her clothes and dignity. Smart phones of sex-starved men could not delay to leave their pockets to exhibit the high resolution of their latest camera phones. Facebook pages, blogs and websites were about to receive the latest ‘pinshure’ of a humiliated slay queen, who allegedly ‘picked a phone without paying’ in a mall. “Pain and Shame her the more in order to teach her a lesson; that’s how we roll; they will not find something meaningful to do with their lives; they must learn.”
Even the worst criminal becomes a saint or incorruptible judge when another person is caught stealing in Nigeria. In fact, you don’t have to steal to become a victim of pain and shame in Nigeria. Just avoid being accused of any misdeed, whether online or offline, except you are extremely rich. Even looking at your neighbour may qualify you for pain and shame. They go on stripping unclad, beating, insulting, defaming and even lynching any.
Society is a pool from which everybody fetches drinking water, and into which everybody pours elements through their actions and inactions. The element we pour into a pool either purifies the water or pollutes it, and thereby affects us directly or indirectly. Human society begins with a plan and an agreement between the members of the society to cooperate for the satisfaction of their needs with the available resources. They agree to contribute their individual talents and strengths to extract, develop and distribute their human, mineral and other resources for common good.
People organize their societies to continually research, educate and empower its members, so that everybody can contribute in developing the society, and so earn decent living from it. The first element of social education is recognition of our personhood and those of the other people. The second is the cordial mode of interaction with other people in the society for progress and harmony, and the third is our interaction with natural resources for human good. The ideas of these elements are instilled in people’s minds at the early stages to enable them act for common good in the society.
The world has made a lot of progress in the modes of interacting with non-human elements in society, as seen in the scientific discovery of phones, cars, airplanes and others. These were possible because of the ability to research, educate, empower and cooperate. Cooperation with other people, as persons, in the society towards productivity and harmony has been the nexus of progress in history.
Unfortunately in Nigeria, the access to mineral resources is taken from the people by military might.[1] Nigerians do not have access to their resources upon which they can cooperate to produce what they need. Only few people can import the goods that are produced outside Nigeria with resources from Nigeria. The rest are left to learn ‘big grammars’ for reporting and counting imported goods without making any concrete effect of converting natural resources to usable human goods. Sorry I forgot, there is no access to the resources for the ‘grammar people’ to convert, by means of production.
In the absence of resources for industry in Nigeria, people become idle and hopeless. The ambitious ones take serious risks to get imported goods at all cost. The youth, who are immediate victims of the denial of industrial resources, go into robbery, cultism, kidnapping, prostitution and other crimes. This denial, like a poison in the pool, has made Nigerians so bitter that they easily vent their frustration on one another. They adapt the biblical ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ injunction as ‘spare the pain and shame, and spoil the citizen’ to vent their economic/social frustration on any unlucky person: real or suspected. Rival cult groups, alleged thieves or kidnappers, dull or bright students, even one’s own relatives, spouses and children are not spared in the wrath of pain and shame.
The vent of frustration and bitterness which is masked in the clamour for pain and shame as means of education and correction has worse effects in the future of the society. The individual loses his dignity and esteem; he/she develops psychological problems that could lead to suicide, timidity, wickedness and bitterness. If the victim of these vents survives the episode, he/she does not become a better person, but a bitter monster waiting to be unleashed on other members of the society.
Humans are naturally good; God created all things and said they are good; human beings search for good and want to be described as good, even best. Often, faulty reasoning and approach to what they see as good conflict with social interest. This faulty reasoning can be corrected without use of pain and shame. Hence, each society requires a system of thought to manage and harmonize the different initiatives from human elements towards progress. Without good reasoning towards harmony, two good people will misunderstand themselves in their pursuit of their perceived good.
Some pain may be needed in correcting human conducts and discouraging crimes. Yet, when the mood of a society is more open to fighting crimes than encouraging virtues, the society is founded on false reasoning. Many developed countries use correctional facilities to rehabilitate individuals, educate and empower them to fit in and contribute to common good. In these detention facilities, trained psychologists and educationists devise procedures aimed to influence the individual to appreciate the human baseline.
Each person gives what he has. The Nigerian pool is filled with suppressed bitterness and anger that erupts frequently in the exhibition of pain and shame on other people. Many adults are victims of parental/educational torture and abuse in the name of disciplined upbringing. It is not a situation that can be addressed by just the individual. The philosophy of the Nigerian society has to be born in Nigeria for Nigeria and by Nigerians. Otherwise, we continue to live in fear of suddenly becoming victims of this horrible culture of pain and shame.
[1] Cf. Nigerian Mineral and Mining Act is an act that concretizes the seizure of all lands containing minerals in Nigeria