After years of painstakingly seeking knowledge in several fields, I have come to the conclusion that nothing expands the mind like reading and research. I have “been to places” I never knew existed through reading and research. I know the history, geography, culture, politics, religion etc. of almost all the countries on earth. I was able to achieve this through four decades of consistent reading and diligently seeking out knowledge. Unfortunately, this quest that has “taken me places” doesn’t seem to amount to much these days.
But because of our ethos, to some degree a product of the greater culture in which we have been nurtured, one shouldn’t be surprised that Nigerians in general struggle with reading. To a great extent, this is the very defect that impedes our aspiration and aptitude toward renewing and reviewing a national life of the mind. Among those that do read and desire to be hoisted into the realm of intellectual excellence, many face a colossal battle when attempting to apprehend and assimilate information in proficient and satisfying manner.
Something has changed drastically in the way we think and grasp ideas. Our very ability to capture thoughts through prints has deteriorated at an alarming rate. This needs to change. The modern day Nigerian mind seems sluggish, settling for superficial explanations rather than opting for rigorous combat in the area of ideas, arguments, logic and superior thinking. True reading – to me -is thinking at its best, testing each proposition we encounter.
The reason for our deterioration – which is why truth continues to hide – are numerous, the most notable include; the revolutionary shift to visually-oriented communication, the fast paced flood of images in our society, the glut of superficial information, the common use of the “sound bite,” an insatiable appetite for sensationalism, the fostering of short attention spans, mindless trite advertising, the general redefinition of leisure, dwindling public debate, power of spectatorship entertainment, expectation of immediate result, the loss of classical education amongst other reasons.
The invasion of these cultural-philosophical forces has aided in altering our former mastery of digesting the printed page. We struggle with understanding concepts and interpreting complex data. To this end, analytic reasoning skills and creative expression suffers in the process.
I was fortunate to grow up in an era when the likes of the late Gani Fawehinmi; the Ransome-Kuti brothers, (Olikoye, Fela and Beko); Yusuf Bala Usman, J. F. Ade-Ajayi; Eskor Toyo; Abdullahi Mahdi, Abdullahi Smith, Patrick Wilmot; Monday Mangvwat; Biodun Jeyifo; JP Clark, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Claude Ake; Olatunji Dare; Kole Omotosho; Tam-David-West; Tai Solarin; Grace Alele Williams; Niyi Osundare and a host of others towered strong. These were the “radicals” and intellectuals who made sure that truth never hides.
These and other individuals I cannot all mention because of space would never remain silent in the midst of injustice. The late Beko and Gani, for instance, spent times in detention because they refused to remain quiet. Their times in detention further aggravated their health challenges.
One thing is certain; there is a price to be paid when truth hides. What we see today is the majority looking the other way as things deteriorate. Nigeria is now paying the price for abandoning intellectual pursuits. We already see the decay in the system. We see this in our national priority. We see it in how and what our country is becoming. And we see it in the pervasiveness of hopelessness and in the moral and political decay and corruption that have come to characterise our country. Is this our Nigeria?
Why do I love intellectuals? I do because they are men who have committed their lives and times to the pursuit and or dissemination of rigorous ideas and serious knowledge. They can be found in all areas of life – including the academia, music, arts and culture, medicine, mathematics, economics, politics, law, philosophy, and literary criticism.
Beside the university or institution-based intellectuals, there are the public intellectuals who, for the most part, are engaged in public discourses within the public sphere. However, it should be pointed out that there are times when it is difficult to differentiate between public intellectualism and political activism – or between political activists and social critics. The lines are sometimes blurred; however, all exist to make society better.
I still recollect the days of military rule when many of these men were labelled “radicals” or “leftists.” Colonel Lawan Gwadabe (ret) was once quoted as saying the government abhors “undue radicalism.” But those who knew better knew that these were the salt of our nation. They were the nation’s conscience. Many – during the military era – were prosecuted, persecuted, harassed, jailed, or went into exile. In the end, some of our best and brightest who could not stand mediocrity left. Today’s level of mediocrity is child’s play compared to the bygone era.
That was how our decent into infamy began. Gradually, the distasteful and impermissible became permissible and sacred. It became the norm to not only steal, but to loot. It became acceptable to be a professional “intellectual” sycophant. They revere men with inferior IQ and dubious character, all because of crumbs from the master’s table.
Those who study how societies develop and progress know too well that we need a bourgeoning class of intellectuals to highlight alternative paths to development and social progress. Without them, our society will stagnate, regress or even disintegrate. Even as brutal and repressive and unpredictable as some military regimes were, the Nigerian intellectual class, along with a budding class of social critics, helped to keep the government in check. But today, things have changed. Nigeria is different.
Intellectuals have always played major roles in society, from the philosophers of old such Plato and Aristotle who articulated thoughts about government, science, and biology to modern intellectuals who go about speaking truth to power and working toward informing and empowering average people.
Currently, intellectuals are split into three camps: public, private, and dual intellectuals. The public intellectual is usually a university professor who researches, writes, and shares his ideas in the public sphere via books, conferences etc. While this may seem to be a positive occurrence, much of this information remains in the realm of academia or academia-related areas with little of it becoming truly disseminated to the mainstream public. The danger in this is that the books may be published and the conferences occur, but the only people who know about them are mainly people who are either in that field professionally or already have an interest in that area of study.
The private intellectual, on the other hand, is one who uses his intellect for the benefit of private groups, corporations, or individuals. This intellectual is mainly concerned with passing his knowledge to a select few, mainly big time corporations and businesses who are often established for profit purposes. He earns hefty fees in return.
Dual intellectuals are members of the intelligentsia that have one foot in both worlds, occupying the space of a public intellectual and also being, or having been, a private intellectual. Intellectuals within this fold are arguably the most powerful as not only do they have the connections and power that comes from being in the private sector, but they also have major sway over the collective consciousness of a society. Dual intellectuals can make their ideas public, put them out into the mainstream society, and because they also have a background as a public intellectual, the public is much more willing to trust them as they see such people as experts.
We have lost fair grounds already, but we can still make amends for future generations by encouraging them to read and research by repositioning our universities to take their rightful place in the knowledge economy which undoubtedly is the next oil. The absence of rigorous grooming and intellectual discourses has manifested in the breakdown of our value system. Are we then surprised by the alarming rate of high profile crimes, the proliferation of organised crime, the quest for “success” at all cost and other vices?