Proof Of Life Politics And The Importance Of Mockery, Written by Omole Ibukun

Earlier in the week, Tinubu cycled for less than 10 seconds and Atiku danced Owambe dance to a piece of silent music in a photoshoot. Both candidates also released pictures branding themselves in suits and ties. In the words of the governor of the Ebonyi state who presently leads the Tinubu campaign in the Southeast, David Umahi, “Asiwaju has life and he doesn’t need to show any proof of life and you can see that.” The phrase ‘proof of life” is mostly used in kidnapping contexts, but it is sad that those who plan to capture Nigeria from Nigerians are the ones showing proof of life in this situation. While I agree that there is no need to show proof of life, my disagreement with Umahi’s position will start a conversation we need to have.

The disagreement starts when he said that “I don’t think we should concentrate on intangibles because life is like a bus and you don’t know where the next bus stop is. Some of the people talking about the health of leaders of this country do not even know where their own bus stop is coming from. Every life and death rests in the hands of God.” I used to also state that conversation about the coming elections should be about the deplorable health policies of the APC/PDP governments and not about the personal health of aspirants, but Umahi’s claim opened my eyes to the attempts to criminalize the justified reactions of oppressed people to their oppressor’s tragedies.

While I still hold on to the opinion that ableism should not be encouraged and election debates should be about policies, one must condemn this attempt to ask those of us that this government is beating with poverty, unemployment, poor health infrastructure, etc, daily to be careful about how we cry from that beating. Atiku was a part of the government that ordered the Odi Massacre. Tinubu was part of those fingered for the Lekki Massacre. It is truly worthy of mockery that those who sent the Grim Reaper after indigenous/youth protesters and their political enemies are now being chased by the Grim Reaper and they have to run around the world for adult care homes and exotic healthcare. The same Grim Reaper of cheap death that they reared through hunger and insecurity is closing in on them and his scythe is tearing their bladders. Yeah, I’ll mock too.

I’ll mock Tinubu on behalf of those #EndSARS protesters who are still in prisons to date just because they dared to protest the tyranny of this wasteful government without any fear for the guns of their soldiers. I’ll mock Atiku and Obasanjo on behalf of the people of Odi who only wanted to protect their environment and land from the exploitation of oil multinationals destroying their source of life and livelihood. I’ll mock Atiku who recently deleted a post condemning the maiming and killing of Deborah in Sokoto for blasphemy, just after he was threatened about losing Northern votes for making the post. I’ll mock them because (and not despite the fact that) I actually watched an uncle die in pain earlier in the year because of the poor healthcare affordable in the hospitals in the country. I’ll mock. I’ll say ‘Well done’ to the Grim Reaper for giving them such a hot chase.

Mockery is a means to an end. Mockery becomes an end itself when our imagination has failed. I do not believe the collective imagination of Nigerians on how this society should be organized politically has been tapped at all. I do not think it can fail if and when it is tapped.

Mockery can serve the psychological function of bridging the status gap between us and these monsters in power towards equality in our self-perception and our perception of these BIG politicians. But when our self-esteem starts to feel that equality, we must use it to solve our problems decisively, and not collapse our hope into another big politician.

The puritan attempt by the likes of Wole Soyinka to evoke empathy for a Psychopath like Tinubu is not intellectually comprehensive, and can only be excused (not mocked) as the senility of aging that this country has subjected the rest of us to, because of poor healthcare. Maybe our mockery will shame some of their selfish supporters into silence. Maybe they will discover that siding with the oppressors does not still make them immune to shame and embarrassment, or put them above the rest of us. Yes, we must mock them and their supporters and offend their sensibilities, but meeting their moral bankruptcy with mockery is not the final solution.

It is not the final solution, because rage (while valid) is never truly enough. Someone said ‘It is not enough to rage against a lie.. you’ve got to replace it with the truth.’ Reasonable learning must be done.

This must be done to ensure we don’t replace APC and PDP with an Obi (a PDP aspirant until recently) who oversaw Awkuzu SARS and the Izu River KIllings as Governor of Anambra State, even when he could recommend Nwafor of Awkuzu SARS to be replaced by the Federal Government despite many complaints.

Reasonable Learning must be done to ensure that Obasanjo who ordered Odi Massacre does not become the one to present an alternative to us. So that the likes of Babangida and Abdusalami who stole the democracy of this country many times do not become the ones to decide what our next alternative will be to the Buhari-APC presidency. So that Downing Street, IMF, WTO, and CNN, who backed the Massacres (like the Ugep Massacre, Umuechem Massacre, Odi Massacre for their imperialist interests in oil) do not decide who becomes our next president, we must make sure that we use reason to direct our rage of great magnitude.

Laughter is important, but the place of rigorous intellect in deciding the future of this country must not be overtaken by that. The fact that we now laugh at ourselves is good proof that we now see the bad place that we are in, and we must do more than just laugh at that. We must MOOOOVE! ‘Cruise’ and ‘vawulence’ are short-term emotional survival strategies, but what of the long term?

It is time for us to stop the lazy attitude of latching on to the next available Messiah for the next four years and build a system where we can all do it ourselves. Anyone that’s competent enough to save us is competent enough to enslave us. I won’t stop saying that. If we ask them to save us, we are only hoping to our stars that they won’t have reasons to enslave us.

Of all the alternatives presented to APC and PDP, Obi has the greatest motive and precedence to enslave us. Obi is young. Yes! That does not automatically translate to fresh ideas. Obi is also a multi-billionaire indicted in Pandora Papers for tax fraud, even though EFCC freed him like they free most of the other politicians. Obi is a former governor who invested state funds in his family business. Obi was the governor who let state hospitals close down for over a year because they were underfunded by his administration. It’s still the same old ideas of underfunding, corruption, and capitalism.

Our rage is burning as a generation. This is literally the age of rage. But we must not let that burning rage be used to sear another tragedy back into our lives. We must not accept any alternative uncritically. We must not accept any other alternative just because we have no choice. We always have a choice, and that choice is to take our power into our own hands and rearrange this society by ourselves.

We need to use that rage while it is here and 2023 will be automatically taken care of.

We need to turn that rage into support on the streets for the funding of universities to End the ongoing ASUU strike, rather than watch the Federal Government break the back of that strike by registering rival unions and getting court injunctions. This is a better demonstration of the power of our rage. Better than voting for a former governor who oversaw the shutdown of Anambra State University for months by not paying workers their due for up to six months and later increasing school fees by more than 300%.

Omole Ibukun writes form Abuja, Nigeria and can be contacted on 09060277591