Nigeria@59: The Pedagogy of The Oppressed and The Public Support for President Buhari’s Performance | By Ropo Egbeleke

Today ought to be a national day of celebration but what I have seen so far is fake lamentation, hypocritical complaint, and deceptive call for revolution and good governance.

The truth is, 95% of Nigerians support the type of leadership we have in Nigeria today because they are the one that produced, protects and sustained it. Tyrants like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, were supported by tens of millions of people, they only fail when they start to loose the public support.

I don’t want you to be so angry to dismissed my argument. To understand why Nigeria political ruling elites continue to get support of the masses, you need to pay close attention to Paulo Ferrie ‘Pedagogy of the oppressed’. It explores how oppression has been justified and how it is reproduced through a mutual process between the ‘oppressor’ and the ‘oppressed’.

Examining how the balance of power between the colonizer and the colonized remains relatively stable, Freire argued that “Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Unfortunately, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, TEND THEMSELVES TO BECOME OPPRESSORS. They have no consciousness of themselves as persons or as members of an oppressed class.

The oppressed (common Nigerians) find in the oppressors their model of ‘manhood and their behavior is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor (Political Elites). How can the oppressed, as divided unauthentic beings, participate in their own liberation? As long as they live in the duality in which to be is to to be like, and to be like is to be like the oppressor, this contribution is impossible.

In summary, the oppressed (Nigerians) want at any cost to resemble the oppressors (Political elites). It explains why politicians will behave in a disgusting manner and you see millions of people that will defend him with their last blood. Definitely, the politicians don’t have money to pay millions of supporters to become Sycophants.

The incentive for supporting tyrant and bad policy of politicians is that, the oppressed turned supporters are hoping to become the oppressor sooner or later.