There is a reason eggheads seldom acquire political power. Intellectuals, artists, revolutionaries, and pacifists rarely become potentates because they are cast in the mould of Castiglione’s courtiers or the proverbial whore of Babylon. Perhaps the fault is in their stars.
Some assume elevated significance, often hard-earned through enterprise, scholarship, professional excellence and repute. Think academics, journalists, entertainers, technocrats, clerics, among others – this breed cut the perfect portrait of the mind’s glory astride fields of grit. Yet they would find that intellect and repute are never enough without the courage to defy institutionalised fraudulence.
In Nigeria, eggheads sprout and flower as the mystical rose of the mire; by their devices, our chaste, walled garden is made unchaste by brutes wielding unmerited power, like the plundered bower of the country brothel.
Several intellectuals parade flawed presence because they assert unreal persona and moral substance, most of the time. Thus they are open and acquiescent to the seductive whisper of the crooked.
The process of co-option is often subtle. For instance, public officers and corporate magnates, well-versed in the art of influence, employ a combination of material inducements, flattery and intimidation to bend journalists to their will. Invitations to exclusive events, private dinners, and off-the-record briefings serve to create a sense of camaraderie and indebtedness. Journalists who once prided independence find their judgment seduced and beclouded.
This dynamic is particularly evident in the creation of WhatsApp groups—a modern tool that should ideally foster transparent communication and accountability. Instead, it has become a platform for manipulation. Some journalists, in a misguided attempt to maintain access and foster relationships, create these groups and add public officers to them. The result is an environment where public officers can monitor discussions, stifle dissent, and shape narratives to their advantage.
This is not to say that all such fora are manipulable by shady elements. I have been a part of two or three platforms where journalists hurl bitter truth in the face of public officers and corporate spokespersons in the fold – as it is randomly done in very few fora like The Lagos Times (TLT). This occurs, barring the excessive obsequiousness of a few fawning characters, of course.
The power dynamics across several digital fora are starkly lopsided. Public officers and corporate spokespersons do not reciprocate the gesture; they do not add journalists to their WhatsApp groups within the corridors of power and the corporate boardroom. This one-way inclusion serves as a constant reminder of the imbalance, subtly reinforcing the journalists’ subservient role. Any journalist who dares to express a damning opinion about a public officer or image maker within these groups risks not only professional ostracism but also potential retribution.
The implications of this are profound. Journalists, aware of the lurking eyes of power in their midst, often self-censor to avoid conflict. This self-censorship erodes the quality of editorial commentary, investigative journalism, and news reportage thus transforming what should be a robust and critical press into a compliant and toothless entity.
The consequences of this courtship extend beyond individual journalists. The broader impact on press freedom and ethical journalism is alarming. When journalists fail to perform their role as watchdogs, corruption thrives unchecked, and the public’s trust in the media deteriorates. The press, once a bastion of truth and accountability, becomes a mere echo chamber for those in power.
Between their flawed persona and lack of moral substance rids them of grit. Ultimately, they play errand dog and court sycophant to the President, governors, lawmakers, and even the mob of angry youths. They can be likened to the celebrity hairdresser, boudoir confidant or presidential lounge lizard perpetually nodding in affirmative to the caprices of his principal.
They are constantly engaged at the feet and filth attic of the political herd or online mob, their masters and benefactors. Flattery and malice leap from their forked tongues as they ennoble and attack their principal or quarry’s perceived allies and detractors.
Through dispensations and conflict situations, they are pliable and servile, projecting their principals’ whim and wile with slavish plasticity. Their identities are self-evacuated as they persistently open themselves like a glove to the political palm. Like Castiglione’s male harlots, their shameless self-abasement is unmanly and amoral; they elevate bum over forelock in a flagrant rite of political sodomy.
This is unbecoming of journalists and the intellectual class but it is our fate in contemporary Nigeria. Thus they speak modern in the tenor of savage minions.
This phenomenon is borne of a hankering to romanticise the darker aspects of society, for a profit – thus they turn our corporate and political bandits into something more than mere criminals, often elevating them to the status of urban legends.
The greatest thieves, says Bangambiki, are not caught. Not because it’s not known that they are thieves but because you cannot accuse them of robbery and live. These thieves are praised as national heroes and liberators or as successful entrepreneurs.
The bandits of our country are not your ordinary criminals. They do not lurk in the darkness or wear masks to conceal their identities. Instead, they walk among us, their faces unmasked, their presence known to all. They are the ones who operate in plain sight, who defy the conventional notions of criminality, and who seem to possess a certain mystique that sets them apart from the common crook.
It is said that our bandits are not driven by greed or malice, but by a deeper, more primal urge—a desire to challenge the status quo, disrupt the monotony of our everyday lives, and inject a sense of drama and excitement into the fabric of our society. They are the modern-day outlaws, the renegades who dare to defy the rules and forge their path through the urban landscape.
But what sets our bandits apart from their counterparts in other climes is how we portray them. Instead of outright condemning their actions, we glorify them, mythologise them, and transform them into larger-than-life figures who embody the spirit of humanity or rebellion and defiance.
We dress our bandits in the trappings of urban legends, weaving tales of their exploits that are equal parts fact and fiction. Perhaps it is our way of coping with the harsh realities of life in contemporary Nigeria, of finding meaning in the chaos and disorder that surrounds us.
Perhaps it is our way of reclaiming a sense of agency in a world that often feels beyond our control. Or perhaps it is simply our way of indulging in a bit of escapism, of immersing ourselves in a narrative that is as thrilling as it is improbable.
Whatever the reason, the fact remains that our bandits have become more than just criminals—they have become symbols, icons, and legends in their own right. They are the antiheroes of our urban landscape, the rebels without a cause, the outcasts who have found a home in the shadows.
So, the next time you hear a tale of a daring pillage of the public till, a heist in the corporate business sector, or the brazen plunder of our villages by bandits operating from the forest groves, remember this: our bandits are not just thieves and troublemakers.
They embody our collective imagination, the living, breathing manifestations of our wildest bigotries, shameless vanities and fears. They are the urban legends that banter and walk among us, reminding us that sometimes, reality is stranger than fiction.
