By

Prof. Mike Ikhariale   

A famous political maxim generally credited to the erudite Alexander Pope is that which postulates that, “Forms of government, let fools contend. The best is that best administered”. Our president, retired General Olusegun Obasanjo, may not be a certified man of letters as Jefferson was or of the same political stature as Lincoln, but he has, all the same, managed to contribute quite intriguing philosophy into the grammar of politics: Idiotocracy. I have always agreed with those who reason that there is no limit to human ingenuity or dis-ingenuity, as the case maybe, and it is therefore necessary that the dictionary of politics remains an ever-expanding volume into which the whole of humanity is at liberty to contribute. And it would seem that our president has just proved that he is creative enough to expand on the terminology of political science. His copyrighted contribution came out recently when he went into a fit of rage and thundered unto a bemused nation the hallowed word “IDIOT” while addressing an ill-fated reverend gentleman.

“Mind your language” was a popular refrain in our childhood days because some words, we were told, are just not proper for certain occasions. For example, abusive, lewd and derogatory words were usually frowned at when uttered in public or even in private, depending on the decency of the speaker and the stature and maturity of the audience. They were thought to be the linguistic preserved of the uncouth, uneducated and low class. So, you were not likely to hear dirty expressions like “fuck you bastard!” “shut up!” ; “you are mad” or God forbids, “you are an idiot!” when properly educated individuals dialogue no matter how violently or peacefully the atmosphere is because they were taught to always be in control of our language at all times, no matter what. To break those ethical rules would earn the speaker an immediate ejection and permanent expurgation from the gathering of the decent, educated and cultured gentlemen. Even though occasionally when we are unguarded or a little bit inebriated with the aid of some alcohol, and we slip into such debased vocabularies, it is always to the expected that we promptly apologise with the hypocritical “excuse my foul language, please”.

But when an adult, nay, the elected president of a nation as big as Nigeria utters such ugly words against anyone, then they immediately assume the character of national ethos because it is never to be expected that presidential powers could be deployed into such low and demeaning application. Well, we have previously heard Mr. President tell a fellow human being to “go to hell!” A presidential deportation from Nigeria to the Kingdom of Satan, maybe. Baba is reputed for such demeaning tantrums and abusive languages but it was never expected that it would degenerate into a disastrous state of personal emergency when he went completely overboard and told Reverend Pam of the Plateau Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), “you are an idiot!” When reminded that the gentleman before him is a leader of a religious body as august as CAN, the man thundered back, “CAN my foot!” Even military commanders barking at a riotous parade ground would not descend into such a crude decibel of abuses and utter indecency.  The unexpected outburst of the President forcefully brings back the wise words of Lord Acton that “there is no greater heresy than the say that the office sanctifies the holders...” 

The way things are now, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to always pre-rate the president’s public utterance with the “X” censorship mark and also make sure that our kids are already safely asleep before switching on to the TV channel where he is likely to be speaking because he is an unlikely example for them.

Now that it seems that there are problems with democracy, what with the state of emergency already declared in Plateau and the possibility for additional declarations, it is time we tried idiotocracy, namely, a government of idiots by idiots and for idiots as already ably articulated by the President when he told Reverend Pam “you are an idiot!” If Lincoln boasted of his 1863 Gettysburg speech on democracy, OBJ also has something in response, i.e., the idiotocracy speech rendered in Jos.

When the early Greek thinkers thought of the necessity of a philosopher king as a way of avoiding the political accident of having in office a person of inadequate intellectual preparations, some critics thought of them as pedantic if not overtly academic. But time and time again societies have been confronted with leadership with varying degrees of incompetence, depravity and crudity and had had to embark on remedial actions from the most benign to the most drastic. The same problem confronted the founders of modern America in 1787 during the Constitutional Conference. They were concerned about the fact that a bad and incompetent leader could ruin the gains of the revolution - a devolvement that might push the people to renounce the “blessings of democracy”. They were however pre-occupied with the fear of a tyrannical leader assuming power and that was why they spent a great deal of time on checks and balances and the doctrine of separation of powers. They simply assumed that whoever was to present himself for the office of the president of the republic would already have passed the psychological test of emotional balance and the moral imperatives of civility. They were wrong. Now I know why it was the refrain in Ondo state a few years ago that “if you say education is too expensive, go and try ignorance”.

Two books that I read at Harvard a few years ago but never took very serious until OBJ started manifested his idiosyncrasies seem to have the answers to some of the risks a nation takes by electing into office a person of mental or psychological unpredictability. The first book is by Barber entitled The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance at the White House and the second one is by Michael Nelson entitled The Presidency and The Political System especially the chapter dealing with what he called “The Psychological Presidency”. They are prophetic in many ways. Supposing Nigeria is a nuclear power and someone has the ill-luck to annoy the president when he is in one of those explosive moods. Wouldn’t that be an imminent disaster? In any case, depending on how you look at it, the “you are an idiot” assault coming from the president is the verbal equivalent of an atomic bomb. 

How would history contextualise the abuses that the president lavishly rained on one of the citizens he swore to protect both in person and in dignity under the constitution?  Those who framed our constitution equally had the fear that the possibility exists for an unpredictable person to take hold of the presidency. That is why they inserted the “education clause” that requires that a would-be office holder should have been educated “up to the school certificate level” even though not necessarily passing the school certificate itself. So as things are now, just anyone can be elected a president in Nigeria because the constitution was deliberately softened to accommodate our idiotic population.

If democracy would not work in Nigeria why not let us try OBJ’s idiotocracy as we already have so many idiots in the country and if there is anyone who is not quite sure of his idiotic status, all he needs to do is to encounter the president and he would be told of his status, positive or negative, on the spot. Democracy (or whatever crazy) my foot! Give us idiotocracy! After all, this is a nation full of foolish, unwise, silly, daft, senseless, stupid, dull, obtuse, ludicrous, ridiculous and laughable people. If you doubt me, please ask Mr. President.