CC™ VideoSpective
Monday
Sunday
The Psychology of Power: A Nigerian Experiment
Power is "the ability to satisfy one's wants through the control of preferences and/or opportunities" [Kuhn, 1963] In writing this particular piece, I intend to delve into the issue of the power of psychology as it relates to the psychology of power. I have always been one to believe that you must claim in other to possess and once you possess, you must establish your position in the scheme of things, through personal conviction and resolve…that can only be sustained by an irrefutable air of palpability, requisite for the maintenance of that ‘power’ you now possess. But now the game has just begun.
Why? Simple, your claim on power must remain forever productive, workable, adaptable, attractive and progressive that inevitably, it begins to shape decisively your ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ sphere of operation; and just what do you intend to accomplish by this? Shape your immediate and larger environment of course! As a student of philosophy and psychology, I have always been fascinated by the affinity of westerners for political expediency over morality.
Yes, the end as they say does justify the means. How exactly do you get what you want in the midst of so many competing and sometimes conflicting ideas, philosophies, principles, ideologies and interests. Simple, or is it! The intricacies and complexities of human behavior and nature require more than anything else, the utmost in psychological and emotional aptitude/intelligence when dealing with foe and friend alike. I have always been one to take the approach of figuring out who my friend or foe is so as to better lay out a plan of 'attack' or 'defense' as the case may be. Actually, I believe it is also prudent and advisable to have a 'neutral' strategy as part of one's modus operandi. This then brings us to the issue of The Psychology of Power. What exactly is it and how does it manifest itself. Also, another rather logical question to ask would be how does it manifest itself in a particular setting? Be it politics, relationships or daily life.
I intend to stick with how this phenomenon manifests itself in the ‘political sphere’. Why? Because everything is politics and politics is everything! The ‘Nigerian laboratory’ would seem to serve as a viable medium for such an ‘experiment.’ In doing this, I will stick primarily to the three main nationalities, HausaFulani, Igbo and Yoruba that for all intents and purposes have dominated the Nigerian political landscape (albeit to varying degrees) for close to a hundred years! For close to 50 of Nigeria’s 61 years of independence, the Hausa-Fulani (through their leadership apparatus) have ruled Nigeria (note that I said ruled and not led).
Why where they able to do this? Simple. They incorporated another formidable Nigerian sectional interest (the middle-belt, comprising the Tiv and others) into their fold, as they, and not the Hausa-Fulani possessed (at least at the time) the skilled military personnel (mostly combatant) requisite for the control of their immediate and larger environment. Thus the theory of the ‘monolithic north’ was sold to the rest of the country (the south) and rehashed (rather successfully) along with the much-vaunted ‘indivisibility of Nigeria’, to the Yoruba towards a ‘successful’ prosecution of the bloody civil war. The truth is, the north (the Hausa-Fulani in particular) saw the defeat of Biafra as the defeat of the whole south. That, however was where they were wrong! That, without question has been the bane of the Hausa-Fulani political set-up till today. The north mistook power gained through military conquest for real power.
They also failed to take into cognizance the political wizardry of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in not getting the Yoruba dragged into a war they were not ready for…thereby positioning the Yoruba to be in a unique position politically once the war was over. Chief Awolowo knew from the onset that the decks were stacked against the south in the event of a military conflict. He had worked so hard and was continuing to work tirelessly to position the Yoruba through education, commerce, technology and industry, the true hallmarks of power…real power that is! He was therefore not going to let the inordinate and misguided ambition of a neophyte like Ojukwu, lead to the destruction of everything he had worked so hard to build.
One could therefore say that the late Yoruba sage and tactician chose political expediency over 'morality' when it came to the survival of his people (since most Igbo claim till today he left them high and dry by not going along with the east at the time). The north also underestimated the will and resilience of the Igbo people. It is amazing, even till today how quickly the Ndigbo recovered from a devastation of such magnitude, as was the Nigerian civil war. They (the Igbo) however had no choice. It was either grow from the ashes or die! And grow from the ashes they did!
The recovery of the Igbo (no doubt due to their ingenuity and adaptive nature) was more than facilitated and enabled on the one hand by the infrastructure and institutions Chief Awolowo had built in the old western region (talk about an irony of all ironies), and on the other by the hospitable nature of the Yoruba towards their brethren from the east; as the north for the most part still harbored intense hostility towards them for the events leading up to and during the civil war. Politically however, the Igbo were in a state of flux and have been ever since. With the end of the civil war, the stage was now set for the power play to begin.
The north, either as a result of a lack of political sophistication or plain lack of foresight, rather than seize the opportunity presented by their 'ascension to power', instead bungled the opportunity. An opportunity that will never come their way again…at least not the way they had it for 50 years! Not only did they not influence their larger environment, their claim on power (the military and a moribund aristocracy) was unattractive, unworkable, utterly unproductive and so regressive that it was unable to influence its own immediate environment…hence the abject poverty in the north and the resultant relative backwardness in comparison to the south. To make matters worse, their descent into the abyss of religious bigotry might yet prove to be the final nail in the coffin regarding the political and economic future of the north.
On the other hand, while the northern power structure persisted with its defective plundercracy (in cahoots with quite a few individuals of questionable character and integrity in the south, the southwest in particular, of course), the sense of adventure that had always been part of the southern psyche, continued to manifest itself by way of greater accomplishments in the fields of education, the arts, sciences, business and industry. The reasoning (and quite a proven one at that) being as Sir Francis Bacon once said, ‘knowledge is power.’ This is why real power will never reside in the north! The capital of Nigeria can be moved to Gusau for all they want, it will never improve the lot of the average northerner in as much as the mentality of the leadership structure in the north remains the same.
As the example of the American (Ashkenazi) Jews has shown and continues to show, a good head is a function of a developed mind…and a developed mind will forever be a veritable source of innovation and creativity, the indisputable hallmarks of true and sustainable growth; it is he who values and encourages such a concept that inevitably is able to influence his immediate and larger environment. The American Jews make up only 3% of the American population but control the entertainment industry, the law and medical professions, business (in particular banking) and industry…the list goes on. Mind you, the U.S. has never had a Jewish president!
The stage, I believe is set for a politics of coalitions in the Nigerian political arena…coalitions that will be shaped by the pervading north-south dichotomy. The bottom line…control and manage your resources (both human and natural) in addition to your immediate environment, and you will unquestionably influence the larger environment. Also, it is imperative that political expediency be your guiding principle when deciding who to align yourself with...remember, no one can go it alone! Hence, when you align yourself with a group, they must have something tangible, workable and complimentary to bring to the table. Shared (but workable) interests, principles and ideals are without question the recipe for true growth and development.
This is The Psychology of Power! “Everybody strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (its will to power:) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ('union') with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on”…. [Nietzsche].
Saturday
Editorial Flashback: It's an e-mail scam, not a "Nigerian scam"....
Imagine my surprise when I turned to the consumer page of the Attorney General of the State of Washington to find that a whole people, in this case citizens of Nigeria, had been painted with a wide brush (see former website content below in italics). Regarding the latter, I am talking about the much talked about e-mail scams or advance fee fraud, many believe originated from that West African nation.
"E-mail Scams - Advance fee and counterfeit check/Nigerian scams: If you suffered a financial loss you can file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov"
To better understand this issue, it will be prudent to give a brief overview of the most populous country on the African continent, a nation that has disbursed so much good to much of humanity, with some bad mixed in (show me a perfect country or people).
Nigeria gained its independence from Britain on October 1st, 1960. Since then, the country has experienced a civil war (that lasted for three years 1967-1970 and killed 1 million of its citizens) while also enjoying a long spell of economic prosperity and boom from the 70s to the late-80s (much from oil and other natural resources she has been blessed with).
Lately, beginning in the 1990s, the country's infrastructure, image and over-all national reputation has taking a beating, mainly as a result of defective leadership laced with unbecoming greed and avarice.
The general climate of corruption (not quite different from what you would find in most countries but quite overt in Nigeria) has led to an expected societal breakdown, where law, order and common decency became an exception and not the norm.
For all of its struggles with corruption and the systematic destruction of its storied institutions and culture, much of this by its own military, with the acquiescence of the West (the latter mostly concerned with taking its resources by any means), the country has re-set itself back on course, with democratic elections in 1999 and has never looked back since.
The descent into "white collar crime" with the e-mail scams and other forms of criminal activity (by a very marginal minority) does NOT define the nature and character of Nigerians (over 200 million people), with many Nigerians contributing as physicians, scientists, technology experts and business executives in much of the world, particularly Africa, Europe and the United States (with a well established immigrant population in the Puget Sound as well).
While the e-mail/advance fee scam has generally been portrayed as a "Nigerian Scam", recent investigations by the Nigerian State Security Service (SSS) (working in conjunction with the FBI and Interpol) have shown that most of these crimes (e-mail/advance fee scams) have actually been committed by citizens of other West African countries, namely Ghana, the Sierra Leone and Liberia (due to the wars and extreme poverty in the latter two).
The interesting spin to the preceding information is that America's next door neighbor, Canada, has become a notorious breeding ground as well for a large proportion of these e-mail and other transactional scams. Witness the Canadian "lottery winner" e-mails as well as the offer to send you a "cashiers check" when you try to sell your car on Craigslist.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a body recently set up by Nigeria's democratically elected government, has also been very aggressive in pursuing the perpetrators of ALL financial crimes, within the Nigerian state.
While it is true that the Nigerian government "needs to do more" to ensure that this menace is curtailed (at least within its borders), one can say that the US government also needs to do more, by advising its citizens not to reply to e-mail solicitations to receive money from "relatives", they never had in Nigeria or anywhere else in the first place.
The advance fee fraud and e-mail scam developed a life of its own by the default of enablement. The greed and avarice in the United States (particularly on Wall Street) is there for all to see, but I am yet to see any Attorney General websites or newspapers refer to those as "American scam" or even worse still, label the scam on Wall Street with an ethnic delineation.
The advance fee fraud and e-mail scam developed a life of its own by the default of enablement. The greed and avarice in the United States (particularly on Wall Street) is there for all to see, but I am yet to see any Attorney General websites or newspapers refer to those as "American scam" or even worse still, label the scam on Wall Street with an ethnic delineation.
I am grateful to the deputy Chief-of-Staff of the Washington AG at the time for heeding my call and that of other well-meaning and hardworking Nigerians to remove the "Nigerian" label on this disgraceful activity.
One would hope that the likes of Sean Robinson (Staff Writer at the Tacoma News Tribune) might also learn something and understand that much like the criminals on Wall Street and those on the corners of the worst neighborhoods of Tacoma and indeed America who murder (serial killers et al), rape, pillage, molest and commit countless heinous crimes, are not branded with an American or other ethnic-American brush, it would be fool-hardy to do the same to others.
One would hope that the likes of Sean Robinson (Staff Writer at the Tacoma News Tribune) might also learn something and understand that much like the criminals on Wall Street and those on the corners of the worst neighborhoods of Tacoma and indeed America who murder (serial killers et al), rape, pillage, molest and commit countless heinous crimes, are not branded with an American or other ethnic-American brush, it would be fool-hardy to do the same to others.
Friday
Opinion Flashback: Muhammadu Buhari - From tyranny to democracy and back again to tyranny
 |
It is becoming increasingly difficult to defend President Muhammadu Buhari.
As news of a general descent into lawlessness permeates the Nigerian and indeed global airwaves, the neutral among those that supported Muhammadu Buhari's aspirations for the highest office in Africa, as well as one of the most influential in the world in 2015, have been left rather disappointed and almost embarrassed at the turn of events in the country.
The recent proscription of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) the Shiite Muslim sect in Northern Nigeria by a Fulani president of the Sunni faith, is further proof that PMB's propensity for tyranny was indeed a valid fear harbored by millions of Nigerians before the 2015 elections. This move could not have come at a worse time and adds to the litany of missteps by a man reputed by his military peers for being impatient and reactionary, two traits not conducive to ensuring good judgement as a leader.
When the same Buhari came into power in 2015, this time through the ballot as opposed to the bullet (as he had done in 1983 in overthrowing the late Shehu Shagari), most Nigerians were hopeful that he had learned his lessons and was a more mature, open-minded and cerebral leader. Unfortunately, the decisions that have been made by this administration, from the Fulani herdsmen terror of the Nigerian people that still rages on, to the recent proscription of a religious sect that was demanding the release of their leader (as has been already ordered by the highest court in the land), have left a lot to be desired and the environment is becoming even more fertile for a potential conflict of civil war proportions, if things continue the way they are going.
President Muhammadu Buhari rode the wave of a popular democratic uprising at the polls like has never been seen before in the history of Nigeria and indeed Africa. For the first time ever, an incumbent democratically elected president was defeated at the polls, and Buhari assumed office without a single shot being fired!
The previous administration under the abjectly clueless Goodluck Jonathan, was an absolute train-wreck and had in fact ceded some Nigerian real estate to the Boko Haram terror group. PMB promised to deliver on security as he was a retired General who had also fought in the Nigerian civil war.
To date, the president has not delivered on that singular promise and if recent reports by the Wall Street Journal are anything to go by, the war is anything but won as PMB recently declared. Things are actually getting worse in the brutal war being waged by Boko Haram and its affiliates, with Nigerian soldiers reportedly being buried in unmarked secret graves. Thus, family members and indeed Nigerians (and possibly the president himself) are being lied to by the military with regard to the true state of things on the war front.
Whether it's the continued detention of the only Christian among the kidnapped Chibok female students - Leah Sharibu (with reports now saying she may have been killed by her captors), while her Muslim peers were all released, the heavy-handed response to IPOB, the selective prosecution of supposed corrupt individuals (while Buhari himself remains surrounded by corrupt benefactors), the equally heavy-handed response to the Shiites in Nigeria (which risks another Boko Haram-like insurgency) while turning a blind eye to the murderous escapades of the Fulani herdsmen, the president has shown a propensity for jaundiced ethno-religious and parochial malfeasance.
At the last elections in 2019, given the President's vulnerability as a result of his political missteps, if the PDP or any of the opposition parties had fielded a credible candidate, Buhari would have had to resort to massive rigging to stay in office. Some may say he did but Atiku, his main rival lacked the moral fabric or political cache to move the needle across the Nigerian landscape.
In closing, President Buhari must do better as history will judge him as a man that was given so much but gave back so little, if anything. There needs to be an inquiry by the legislative arm of the government into the report by the Wall Street Journal of Nigerian soldiers being buried in secret graves. There is a good chance that most, if not all of the soldiers being given such a horrendous treatment, are probably from the South or the Middle-Belt (my reliable sources tell me). Nigeria will not survive at this rate and no amount of intimidation by the security forces can stop the impending revolution that will surely follow, if the status quo remains.
Nigeria as presently constituted, is unsustainable and it is incumbent upon those that truly have the best interest of the nation at heart to stand up and be counted. There is currently a Jihad being waged by the Fulani hegemony in Nigeria (please do not be fooled by the appeals of the Sultan of Sokoto - as he is the third arm of Nigeria's own Third Reich), but it has already failed as these are different times and the people are prepared. If the genocide currently being perpetrated against Christians, Middle-Belters and Southerners continues, not only will Nigeria collapse, but President Buhari and Nasir El-Rufai may end up having a case to answer at the Hague.
Nigeria must not only survive, but also flourish (as it should) for the good of Africa.
Thursday
Wednesday
WHITE FIREFIGHTER ADMITS TO LEAVING BLACK PEOPLE INCLUDING BABIES TO BURN IN FIRES RATHER THAN RESCUE THEM
CC™ Introspective
CREDITS: BLACK AUTHENTIC TRUTH MEDIA
Tuesday
Monday
Sunday
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
