THE STATUS QUO AND ITS DISCONTENT

By Korede Adeshina

“Suffering and Smiling” that’s a refrain from one of Fela Kuti’s songs.That phrase truly characterizes the mental conditioning of the average Nigerian in acquiescing to the material condition in which he finds himself. Fela was legendary in his music but more so in the fierceness of his criticism of the ills that prevailed in his day. Fela wasn’t a lone voice in the wilderness calling the nation to repentance,the likes of Gani Fawehinmi, Ken Saro-Wiwa and the ogoni nine, Beko Ransome-Kuti were his contemporaries and comrades-in-struggle. They are all late now. It appears they all lived in age not too distant and the evils they railed against are still with us today.

One may ask, what is wrong with the status quo? And another may ask, why is there a general discontent with the status quo? Then I will ask, why are we content with our discontentment? Sounds paradoxical right? But that is the case with us, Nigerians.

The socio-economic and political status quo in Nigeria today would be totally unacceptable in civilized climes and most Nigerians resent it too but they are reluctant to do anything about it. We had rather fix the blame and keep the problem or merely wish it away, hence our complacency reinforces the status quo that we loathe so much. While the vital few who benefits from the status quo perpetuates their self-interest and avarice, the trivial many, driven by sentiments and irrationality, defer their discontentment to that utopian day of reckoning. It is in such fashion that the status quo and its discontents become a self-reinforcing mechanism. Henry ford’s saying that “thinking is the hardest work there is” perhaps explain why the trivial many Nigerians act like a tribe of lemmings depending on their ethno-religious leanings.

But every-once-so-often Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle appears on the political arena as if to prove the veracity of the random walk theory in the socio-political sphere. For example, a member of the vital few prevaricates from class interest to obliterate the status quo and establishes a new political order that address the discontents of the trivial many, like George Washington, like Muhammadu Buhari; or an incident trigger an event of cataclysmic proportions that upends the status quo and establishes a new order like the arab spring. It is wishful thinking to hope for the later considering how polarized the Nigerian society is across ethnic and religious fault lines but the former we have in our hands at this time, in this election.

This is not to call to arms but a call to change in thinking; that we, the trivial many, are the master of the fate of this nation and the prevailing status quo is not sacrosanct by divine ordinance but can be upended by our collective resolve.

Korede Adeshina is the CEO of ubiQuity Company