I remember the first time I made this sentence above [comprehension is not Nigerian], I felt it was harsh, but even better, I knew it was true. I stated it from a place of sheer shock about the average Nigerian’s poignant and perennial inability to objectively comprehend issues and critically separate issues.
Even Kangaroos don’t jump this high and fast into abject conclusions bereft of comprehended context like we do.
I fingered poor education, mental and financial poverty and a stack lack of exposure as the harbingers of this very known and blown national malaise.
I was offline for the better part of yesterday. This morning, I see that Paul Adefarasin and a phrase “Plan B” have been trending. A short, barely one minute clip of him telling his congregation to have a plan B to japa (leave the country) has been the trending fodder.
From the comments and posts I read, people have been hooked on bashing or defending Plan B.
I found nothing wrong with all he said in that one minute clip. But more than that, all my instinct did at the instance of seeing that clip was to crave context, and I went after it, and I got it.
Turns out that for the 1 minute clip that has been tossed around everywhere on Naija’s internet in the last 24-48 hours as fodder to bash Paul Adefarasin or otherwise, there’s a whole 12-minute video of the same moment that served clear context, sitting pretty in the man’s timeline, un-trendingly so.
Incontrovertible context at that – he said – Nigeria is in deep sh.i.t (a fact we all know) and even went on to proffer solutions to this problem as best as he could.
To any mind open to comprehension, Paul Adefarasin’s mention of Plan B [despite being no problem if mentioned/advised/used in isolation], will be seen to be used in this case as an allegory to bolster and drive home his actual point of an emergent need to rescue our nation.
So, why are we arguing FGS nitori Olorun?
Did he lie?
Did he not say what needs to be heard?
But as usual, we have managed to miss real for fodder and we’ve been arguing over fodder at the expense of substance.
See, as smart as we can sometimes be and have capacity to be as a people, I will categorically tell you that the reason why that average Politician out there will always look us in the face to directly act insane is because they know the value (sic) of the Nigerian ability to produce, direct and act in herd ignorance.
I mean, how is Plan B trending when David Hundeyin just released the most-masterful piece to uncover a web of cobs surrounding Iniobong Umoren’s murder? How is Plan B trending when all Paul Adefarasin did was to highlight his proffered solutions (counted more than 6) to our lingering shame-inflicting problems? Just how?
Well, I’m writing this piece to answer ‘How’. A Yoruba phrase aptly describes it and I translate as a love to focus on fiddling with eczema at the expense of treating full blown leprosy. We are masters at majoring on minors and minoring on majors because of our inability to critically comprehend issues. A majority are too green and it affects our ability to COLLECTIVELY become a critical mass that can truly effect befitting change.
If I have the opportunity to fix Nigeria through any route, I’ll zero focus on the mind of the average Nigerian, that’s where the revolution should occur.
