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Matthew-Daniel: Punishers, enslavers and slave mentality

By Laila St. Matthew-Daniel
09 March 2015   |   11:00 pm
IT is only a blind person that will hold so tightly to his or her slave master.  Some people are so “dead in the head” that they cannot live without their punishers and enslavers. When poverty, ignorance and savagery rule the land, it is expected that many people will succumb to the pain, anguish and…

IT is only a blind person that will hold so tightly to his or her slave master.  Some people are so “dead in the head” that they cannot live without their punishers and enslavers. When poverty, ignorance and savagery rule the land, it is expected that many people will succumb to the pain, anguish and want.  Changing for the better will be something seen as undesirable.  That is insanity.

   This country is in bad shape due to economic, political and social mismanagement and flat out incompetence. The people are more divided than ever before along the lines of ethnicity and religion.

When people who should be intelligent decide to ignore all the prevailing issues that are crippling the country and by extension the common man, then they are devoid of all feelings and enslaved to inability to reason because they are ensconced comfortably abroad; or in their villas not feeling the crunch of lack of constant light because they have three generators operating like a mini  ‘Egbin’; or their businesses also run full time on generators whilst paying the ‘foot soldiers’ peanuts; or they have had contact with the ‘enslavers of economic power’ or still having contact through businesses, etc. or related in one way or other, or have had their hands smeared with ‘financial kickback’; and can’t be seen to be speaking against them in any way or form – then it is a sad state of affairs.  

   America says:  Ask not what America can do for you!  What can you do for America?  So, it is apt for me to say:  Ask not what Nigeria can do for you.  What can you do for Nigeria?

   The incumbent government comes up with all kinds of ‘achievements’ and they are shouted out to the public by their ‘town criers’ both at home and abroad.  Then when APC and their supporters for change, ask questions about these ‘achievements’ as they relate to the socio-economic needs and wants of the people and the country, they turn round and are very quick to call them liars and deceptors and look for all kinds of propaganda to besmear Buhari or try to use psychology to influence the subconscious mind of the common man. People have allowed their greed, tribal and ethnic biases to cloud their sense of reasoning as to what democracy is all about!

   Someone asked: “What is it about us that seeks to dominate, suppress and exploit one another? Poverty mentality? Victim mentality? What is it?”  I also say: “What is it that makes us find excuses for impunity and leaders who don’t take responsibility for their actions and lay it at the doorstep of their ‘advisers?  What is it that makes intelligent men and women who are enjoying the largesse of a society abroad that brokers no excuses from leaders to come and pontificate and give excuses for lack of performance of a Nigerian leader who has encouraged corruption to the highest degree so far?  

   A Nigerian leader who has allowed Boko Haram to take over huge areas in the North East, allowed women and girls to be abducted, watched as 45+ boys slaughtered, watched as people are raped, killed, maimed and displaced, who finds excuses for abysmal behaviour for his cronies or party members. The list is endless.  A place where individuals are richer than the Nation!  Sad!!!

    Then they spew nonsense about the people around the present candidate… and bring in issues of 30 plus years ago!  Heck…what has that to do with the present situation?  Who did we vote in as president?  Who promised to look after the needs and wants of the populace?  Who promised that his tenure would be only four years? Then turns round and is using all the Nation’s resources …to make sure he goes on for four more years?  Who?  He should be the one that should be under the ‘search light of accountability’!!!  If he did so well his ‘come back’ would have not been an issue!!!

   Would this kind of President be voted back in a sane society?  But then it is only blind persons who will hold on tightly to their slave master because their sustenance is dependent on them!

  It is necessary to cut out the trees that bear these ill fruits of social, political and economic mismanagement before they become a forest that will engulf us all.

• Laila St. Matthew-Daniel, a transformational strategist and psychologist, wrote from Lagos.

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