By Busuyi Mekusi

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Human fallibility defers colour, religion, and class, as the inherent mechanisms that govern human behaviours are not always effective, even when activated at all times. To this end, the ‘moment of madness’ or period of indiscretion, like combustions, taints human manifestations. The urge to dominate or cheat others may seem to be far removed from even a saintly figure, but the deliberate silencing of libidinous provocations is not absolutely reassuring of a saintly configuration. If the bellies of people are opened up for an engagement with the content, there may not be people to occupy certain places, or presides over particular spaces.
Beyond what you say, do and preach, one would think you are not a guilty innocent, willfully enlisted or inadvertently conscripted, to fight a war you know nothing about. Governor El-Rufai is fighting a ‘war’ he knows everything about, and it is expected that the Waba-led NLC and others would not underestimate the stubborn diminutive frame of the former. It is good to be principled, but political office holders must know the limits of their whims and caprices, respect the law, and well reminded that public office is not a private liability company. El-Rufai is an unpretentious ‘devourer of workers’, unlike his other simulating ilks!
Guilt maintains a close link with culpability. Sense of guilt is a form of self judgment, as guilty verdicts are often externally imposed. Both inner conviction and external societal abrasion are less effective in Nigeria political class, as they already have their minds insulated to logical reasoning. Most individuals wearing bold faces are internally troubled by reason of guilt, and they desperately shield their anguish by their kleptomaniac dispositions. Innocence in human dealings is best an ideal, as it cannot be an instance of exemplary attainment. Biblical propositions attest to the stand that all have sinned by reason of the limited wicked nature of Adam, even as the supposedly tabula rasa pristine state on the human mind are at the mercy of vicious external invaders. Analogically, the guilt of the innocence was potent in Jesus’ vicarious death, but such a dying constitutes injustice or miscarriage of justice in modern societies. In Nigeria, the guilty delightfully punishes the guiltless!
The fantastic narratives in ghostly and weird arts, as partly found in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, typically illustrate the perversions witnessed in Nigeria socio-political and economic lives, which have assumed the place of abnormal normality. Consistently, post modern relativity keeps precipitating absurdity in humanity, and it seems perversions are a close part of the ‘careless’ ways the human race seeks to halt or tame monotony in human existence. To this end, sexual relations and activities are no longer between people of opposite sex, black skins are bleached most disgracefully to the point of irritation, rags and haggish patched wears are standardised fashionable ornaments, typifying the silliness of post colonies in the 21st century. Apparently, madness is no longer performed in nudity and ragging, in the face of the neutralisation of norms, and normalisation of absurdity, as ‘new types of madness’ and satiation of materialism are used to justify ”anythingoism’.
As pervasive as possible in Nigeria today, crime is imputed in innocence. Innocence remains a marker of someone being seen to be above board, depending on the type of society that does the benchmarking. With the almost irreversible socio-cultural and economic retrogressions Nigeria has been plunged into, different players tend to accept those things that were ordinarily unacceptable. The rule-compliant minority among citizens has been consigned and confined to the backyard, and they have been disdained, denigrated, and choked by the thieving unreasonable majority. Religious fantasies continue to guide the actions of Nigerians, even when commonsense and soundness of mind are required to appropriate skills and talents to resolve nutty issues and chart new positive courses. God is not ruffled but miffed by the cacophonic hullaballoo of Nigerians, as they seem at best to be behaving like over pampered ingrates. The sleeping mat that should provide succor for the truthful has been sold, and the proceeds used to buy a stick of cigarette for puffing pilferers. The agonies of the innocent in Nigeria are unending, as they are doubly battered by the oppressors and the miscreants created by uncanny Nigeria rulers. It is surely the case of being between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Yes, innocence has been reduced to an offence in Nigeria, as the guilty are busy serving sanctions, having seized available spaces. When you innocently opt to drive safely on barely useable Nigerian roads, you would be left to deal with cantankerous bikers/passengers, belligerent motor drivers, abusive pedestrians, and unguided learners, who would hurt your vehicle and slant your demeanour with his/her careless talks. Impunity is a resident of Nigeria! You are not just hated for saying the truth, and standing by the truth, but you are characterised as being vast in wickedness and sadism. Clearly, going with the multitude is akin to melting in the mud. As insecurity is fast becoming Nigeria’s second address, innocent people still get their time wasted by overbearing security personnel who are road traders in uniform.
The guilt of the innocent got played out at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, few days ago, with the baring of vehicles with tinted glass from accessing the university public space. One would have thought that routine checks such as; asking for the car windows to be wound down, requesting for the car boot to be inspected, etc, and the person identify him/herself, would have been sufficient for the person to be admitted into the university space, the blanket restriction of vehicles with tinted windows was badly thought-through and patently faulty, dwarfing sanity in the Ivory Tower. It later became clear that the FUTA authorities chose to punish the innocent with the guilty because a supposedly ‘Yahoo Boy’ knocked down a Professor on campus. The menaces of these mindless criminals/cultists, masquerading as modern iconoclastic avant-gardes, have forced many institutions like Adeyemi College of Education to impose some forms of restriction as well. It is evident that the tolerated negative strangeness of these ‘vultures’ have emboldened them to acquire more socio-economic and political spaces, with the possibility of not just being in control of spaces, but dangerously in the majority. FUTA must stop punishing the innocent! Nigerian Universities are struggle with so many non-universal approaches.
With the Israel-Palestine renewed hostilities, and the vexations ongoing in the Gaza Strips, nations would begin to show identification and support, in clear demonstration of religio-political dealings that existed between them and either of the warring nations in the past. The call by Turkey’s President that an overwhelmed PMB should support Palestine against Israel was not only ambitious but outlandish, as the ally in PMB is still struggling in vain to tame known and accessible detractors (bandits and terrorists). The reign of technology in the rage across borders is also a negative verdict on a country like Nigeria, that still literally ‘begs’ nations to sell military hardware to her. One hopes the conflagrations and ‘guilt of the innocent’ would stop at Gaza, soon. PMB’s assurances to the transitional government of Chad was diplomatically germane, but becomes very problematic when viewed against the propositions of the Yoruba saying that one’s apparel would largely determine the fidelity of a person promising someone else a new cloth. With the incessant attacks on police stations and federal government formations in the South East, we seem to be close to the dangerous dance-steps of the lame.
That the innocent would be free of guilt, there is the need to get more frontal in socio-political engagements. Analogous to the uncommon reactions in encounters with strange acidic elements, the innocent must creatively get rascally, and learn to match force with force with his aggressors, as the Kingdom of Nigeria has since been suffering from violence. Pastors must learn to watch, get prepared and arm themselves for self-defense, before they pray, as admonished by the Bible. The innocent should learn the game of power, and avoid being a prey. Nigeria is in a bad shape, and requires to be mended immediately!