Olódo is a Yorùbá word often used as a derogatory term to describe someone who either does not have access to education or fails to comprehend what is taught. Some other times, it may also refer to a lack of mastery of the prerequisite knowledge or skill to undertake something. Olódo is the ignorant, olódo is the poorly knowledgeable, olódo is the illiterate, olódo is the misinformed, olódo is the miseducated, olódo is the unequipped. A person may be an olódo, and a set of people may be olódo. To say that Nigeria is experiencing an olódo uprising is to admit the presence of all the aforesaid variations of meaning of olódo in the country. It is good for our popular culture that this name-calling happened, but that is not enough.
Knowing that it is not enough to name-call the menace is honesty, but that honesty must also include some other things. Who is the olódo? How is the olódo made? What impact has the olódo made in our society? How can the olódo uprising be curtailed? These are important questions that we should be asking. It stands to prove the formidability of the olódo culture and the unabated spread of its uprising that YCee's statement has instead been met with anger by some Nigerians, some of them scratching the surface of the matter while some others resort to what may be regarded as a classic defence mechanism of the olódo: insult.
The habit of insulting when something is disagreeably said by someone else is a cover for lack of self-reflection, a lack of maturity of a kind, and even a lack of courage. Do we have an olódo uprising or not? Yes, we do. Are many Nigerians caught in that? Yes (otherwise, it would partly not be an uprising). Ordinarily, every human being is an olódo in some knowledge ecosystems and technical know-how. But that is not what the olódo uprising purports. Otherwise, it is logical to say that humanity has always been, will always be, battling with the olódo uprising. It is the consequential prominence that socially unfit and intellectually unsound figures, mostly young people, have over a teeming generation of disillusioned and angry populace.
Comparatively, the disillusioned and angry generation of Nigerians is like the Lost Generation of the 1920s America, in a way; in another, they are like the flâneur, a romantic figure from the 19th-century, particularly popular from the 1863 essay of Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life. The Lost Generation was a group of writers and artists who were disillusioned by the First World War, who became terrified by the scale of havoc that humanity was capable of inflicting on itself, who were angry at the political establishment and the aristocrats. The name came from Gertrude Stein's comment about them. Many Nigerians are like this; disillusioned by the sheer sustenance of human degradation in the country by extremists while the leadership is caught up in myopia or self-aggrandizement. The flâneur was a loafer who indulged in observation and long, wondrous gaze at the world, walking the township for the fun of optical and other sentimental pleasures without an aim for a place of arrival. The Nigerian digital native, who is one and the same as the disillusioned, has the same philosophy in the virtual space, hence the name e-flâneur: they are an untamed, short-attention wanderer on the internet.
The Nigerian digital native, who is one and the same as the disillusioned, has the same philosophy in the virtual space, hence the name e-flâneur: they are an untamed, short-attention wanderer on the internet.
Neither the emergence of Nigeria's Lost Generation nor the rise of its e-flâneurs, the olódo, is an accident. They are a product of an array of agents of socialisation in ruins. First is the family, which has become a thin rope of bloodlines, then the school, where basic corruption is taught; the religious institution, where tomfoolery has become a cultivated dogma; the workplace, where advanced corruption is taught, the political institution, where to become the echo chamber of oppressors is more advantageous than to have a PhD in rationality: the internet, the hotbed of individuation made from snapshots of imaginary lives. Limited in prospects, wounded into multidimensional poverty, yet existentially threatened, even if they may not tackle all of their concerns, the olódo has only a few things left: an eccedentesiast's sense of humor, a sellable foolishness, and an unbridled shamelessness.
The olódo uprising is the sum effect of what the cornered Nigerian has left of them. The education that should serve them is made substandard, the opportunities that should illuminate their path are abundant but they come with terms and conditions made expensive by poverty. A Nigerian seeking an entry-level social media marketing role, for instance, is sometimes oddly demanded to have skills in graphic design and multiple others, which they are ordinarily not supposed to be bothered with. The job market asks a fresh graduate to have vast experience and over-skill for jobs that are barely above the minimum wage or enough to cater to a decent living. It is all shades of unfairness, considering that some roles they apply for are what they attained qualifications for through pivoting from what they originally studied in higher institutions. That, side by side, with just putting up viral content that yields returns in dollars, makes the currency of olódo culture more self-preserving.
Self-preservation of the kind of Nigeria's olódo comes from a place of helplessness laced with a desire not to commit suicide. It is an adaptation to a condition of loss, one that the Yorùbá captures in the saying "bá ò kú, ìṣe ò tán" (functioning is not in exhaustion when death is not the state). It is either to use those aforementioned leftover tools (eccedentesiast's sense of humor, a sellable foolishness, and an unbridled shamelessness) or to participate in the state capture of others to help maintain the status quo so long as your own plate is full. To do the latter, you either have to be a criminal that the long arm of the nation's laws struggles to catch (Yahoo Boy, bandit, terrorist, kidnapper etc) or align yourself with the people of power (as a Data Boy, State Boy, political thug, hold-my-beer SA etc). If you cannot do any of those and you have no good job, if the akara business empowerment scheme of the first lady has not included you yet, you have to leave the country.
Leaving the country is not as easy as may be dreamt of. Other than the fact that you have to not be an olódo, the money required to undertake the journey is a fee you are only worth when kidnappers take you for ransom. The inability to leave a country that victimises you gives birth to one of the less talked about forms of olódo—the intellectual olódo. This oxymoronic character is twofold. In one strand, they are a brilliant mind in a scurried search to exude that brilliance. This olódo is the one that artistically performs well on odd or creative social media trends that require some uncommon thinking. When more emboldened and accessorised, they even become an influencer (like Peller). If the society has better functioning systems, this olódo is a treasure trove. In the second strand, this olódo is academically sound, either has an advanced or appreciable command of language, but has a need to fight the existential threats around, a daunting task that requires that they act unlike they actually are. When this strand leaves the country, they celebrate it by dancing or rolling on the floor—finally, the maze is escaped. They know that the academic excellence they are not rewarded well for at home, if rewarded at all, will be rewarded beyond its shores.
The political olódo is an enabler of state capture, professionally aligned to power— seen nodding behind a political figure who confidently delivers a mumbo jumbo before the patient press, and elsewhere. This character either knows that there is nothing for them outside of jobbing politics or that everything they will ever get comes from politics, mostly in crooked ways. They form a behavioral compliance to what is happening, to whom is happening. You will find this character in political support groups, in movements, even the best kinds. They prefer this to handiwork (a reason why there are and will be a short supply of artisans in the informal sector). Association is the value they sell, so they are easily nice and never kind. They will not upset the policy so that their brand could remain protected. They will not ask disturbing questions, because to do that is to task their brain to smarten them up, and smartness is abhorred for a person whose willy-nilly nature is their selling point.
Association is the value they sell, so they are easily nice and never kind.
The social olódo is the closest to the political olódo, only that appearance, showing up, is their mantra. This entity is not fun only for the parties. In fact, sometimes they hate parties. But they are there on every social media platform, herding others into destruction through expressed bitterness or entrapping sweetness. In their arsenal, there are gist making skills, thread formats, reel plans, etc. Here is the expert at getting the numbers up. This ability makes them the most mobile olódo, especially if they are originally the intellectual olódo that forgets to retreat from the thrill of the attention economy. When politics comes, they can function, when entertainment comes, they can function. In their hands, anything can be translated to pleasure, the one thing that never undersells in the country. The social olódo is undone when they run into an accident with the system or lose their virtual space. The question, then, is, will you survive or die? This olódo learns to survive, desperately so.
Desperation is the preserve of the revived social olódo as much as it is of the emotional olódo. This is the olódo that struggles to bond, lashes out, and seeks validation from virtual families. This olódo is susceptible to mental disorders and behavioral imbalances. They are the classic product of a rotten family, perhaps one with an absent father or an uncaring mother. It is easy for the social olódo to blame everyone but their own self. Gaslighting comes easy with them and, chief of it all, they are the masters of Fundamental Attribution Error. If they come late to an event, the traffic is to blame, if another person comes late, it is because that person is bad. In other words, shifting "goalposts" cannot be divorced from them and you cannot escape offending them. This may be the most popular olódo, factoring in the rot that the marriage institution has become in the country.
At the extreme level, the emotional olódo becomes the moral olódo. There are no curtains left. Morality to them is not subjective; it is a riddle. They will do the dumbest things to get the most attention so that they can survive. Rage baits, mentally underwhelming relationship takes, unprincipled core. The moral olódo asks to be looked at for pleasure and for no negative attribution, yet they are the ones who make the rules for others to live by. They understand how accountability works for others but not for themselves. Unless you swear fealty to them and model yourself after them, you may end up being a case study when and if they are crossed by you. You do not want to offend them, but you will.
There are many effects of the olódo, and I am convinced the explosion of those effects informed YCee's comment. It is well placed, especially because Ycee belongs to the set of Nigerians, the entertainers, who determine the orientation of the olódo. His comment is a show of the complicity of his kind. Both in the movie and music sides of the Nigerian entertainment industry, examples are rare that discourage the olódo uprising. In contrast, the industry has promoted nudity, wanton pleasure, and intellectual vacuousness. An average Nigerian musical figure themes their songs with women, sex, drugs, alcohol, or an unchecked desire for money. An average Nigerian filmmaker glazes the screen with unrealistic plots, storytelling without verisimilitude, and philosophically weak but eye-serving artistry. This is what the olódo has. To whom low is given, low is expected, and the Nigerian olódo responds even lower.
The olódo is dangerous, and even more so, the uprising they incite. To name but some, here are some imminent or already manifesting effects of the uprising: underutilized demographic advantage, armed thuggery, kidnapping, virtual buffoonery, polarized personalities, demonization, blinding red-flagging, depressive bouts, increased negative -ships (situationships, breadcrumbing, etc.), catfishing, disorders, value fluidity, sexting, money-mania, etc. The scariest thing about the olódo is that they are not made in a day; they are made stealthily, and they are possibly sufficiently distributed across the board. At any stone's throw, there is one at your beck and call.
To curb the olódo uprising, there is a need for the unmaking of olódo. In practical terms, the Nigerian society cannot rid itself of the olódo. No society can. What the country can get rid of is the continued, unsuspected prevalence of the culture that serves as the fertile ground for the olódo uprising. To start with, families must be better for children; the tolerance for get-rich-quick schemes and fraud ought to change. Schools should stop the habit of officially aiding students to cheat, as students become intellectually stunted because of that. That cue should be spread to NYSC and other related institutions, as it may concern them. Money-centrism should be expunged from worship centers. Merits and priorities should matter more in job markets and workplaces, with pay and remuneration that are supportive of a good standard of living. The buck stops at the desks of people in leadership, all forms of leadership in the country, and they should act. Indeed, the work is intergenerational; much can be done now, but only later will that much reflect in our national lives. We are not late. Yet.
Leave a Comment