Living in Denial. The Absence Of Freedom
BY Adeola Aderounmu

In 2007 I compiled my articles and published them as a collection titled “The Entrapment Of A Nation”. The title suggested that I wrapped Nigeria (which itself consisted of several disjointed nations) as a nation. The suitability of the title apart, what is obvious is that the geographical area occupied by the people called Nigerians is largely entrapped. The journey into this entrapment happened systematically.

The nations entrapped within Nigeria first lost their identities and dignities due to exposure to foreign merchants. These merchants later metamorphosed to slave masters and religious masters. Despite the declaration of independence in 1960, Nigeria remains largely in the hands of neocolonialists and heartless tropical gangsters disguised either as democrats or soldiers under varying dispensations.

As nationals of the entrapped nations within Nigeria, we cannot cry forever over our disrupted civilization. We cannot cry forever for all the stolen knowledge that came out of Africa and converted to European knowledge. No, we cannot.

As a blogger my responses to events in Nigeria nowadays (2023) are very slow. There is a reason for that. I refused to be reactive, and I do not jump on the bandwagon. For over 2 decades, I have blogged about Nigeria, first as a believer in the project Nigeria, then as a convert, fiercely advocating not just for the dismantling of the Nigerian project, but a soul-searching journey into the meaning/essence of life and how to live and let’s live.

It is such that there is nothing I’ll write now that I’d not written before in the last 10-20 years on this blog or some Nigerian newspapers as a freelance columnist.

Two recent things caught my attention. One is the criminal record of Tinubu. They are super obvious to the point where both the weaklings and oppositions in the Nigerian political space are using the criminal records as wind-sail to unseat him. But ask yourself: how did a criminal like Tinubu become the (s)elected president in the first place? What kind of useless, stupid and senseless political parties elevate and reward criminality? The kind that is based on laughable unitary system that is practiced only in Nigeria. You must be a criminal to participate or engage in a unitary system of government. I cannot forget that on countless occasions, I advocated for the end of the reign of Buhari. It’s the same pattern, Buhari is a dunce, a nonentity and a tyrant that was allowed to reign for 8 years. EIGHT YEARS!!!

The posterity of the nations entrapped in Nigeria is on a permanent pause for as long as Nigeria exists. This leaves a question mark on all the discussions about Nigerian politics. It is a huge mark on the collective mental states of Nigerians. You cannot engage in a unitary system of government and complain of its outcome. You cannot plant cassava and harvest cocoa.

Moreover, there is no single soul trying to unseat Tinubu that does not have his or her own criminal tendencies. As a matter of fact, the chief seeker Atiku Abubakar is in the same league as Tinubu as active Nigerian criminals masquerading as politicians. The ills of Nigeria are huge and obvious. My argument has always been that Nigerians put evil people on the scale and choose between the lesser and the greater one. Doing this in a unitary system of government rewards nepotism, laziness, ineptitude and slave mentality.

The second thing that caught my attention, but no reaction until now, is the untimely death of the artist called Mohbad. I have no inkling of who he was when he was alive and everything I know about him now are from headlines that I stumbled upon. Whatever led to the untimely death of this promising young star is, once again, one of the several symptoms of a rotten system where the rule of men is mostly above the rule of law. There are now uncountable members of the jury who are making their own judgements of the matter. It’s a mess. May his troubled earthly soul find peace with the ancestors.

When all the noise is over, who will see over the sanity of the music industry in an undesirable unitary system of government? What can be done for the music industry in the Yoruba Country? How can the Igbo nation regulate and make money from her music industry? How can the music industry add value of the economy of the Arewa Kingdom? These are the questions for the future of the nations that today remained entrapped in Nigeria. There is a lot to be gained from drawing the carpets under the feet of the politicians that are keeping the rest of the population in bondage.

I remember my essays on Nigeria at 50. I asked then, what is there to celebrate”? who could have thought that 13 years later, Nigeria and Nigerians are still sailing like there is another life. This is the life. The fourth generation of it is on the waste lane as well. Hoping that things will get better for all was the bad dream that our grandparents passed to our parents and we have passed it to our children, in a stupidly active manner. Hoping against hope is now in our genotypes. It is a very deep mess. Almost incurable.

Nigeria is now 63. Rather than seek freedom for the different nationalities entrapped in Nigeria, majority are praying. It’s like believing that Satan exist and praying that Satan should repent so that Jesus can excel. We are so messed up in our mentalities.

Avicii said “Wake me up when it’s all over”. If you ever get to find out the meaning of this phrase, when the morning comes, you’ll be the first to gather men and women to seek for your freedom. The opportunity cost is the demise of Nigeria. Nobody will wake you up when it’s all over, deep people rest, permanently.

aderounmu@gmail.com