The goals are always two: either do what is worth writing about, or write. That is a lofty maxim when you consider things from only one perspective. That perspective where you sit through fantasies and think like a positivist. But when life has thrown you to Nigeria or anywhere in contemporary society at all, you know that between the divine and you, there are men whose missions are to lord over your world, so what is worth writing about can be abhorred, like this set of humans. But you do it because writing in a state of maladministration is an activism of some sort. And you know too that there are those, like Dayo Israel, who cleave unto them for crumbs and leftovers, because they cannot afford to be in your shoes: in the margin of national life. In that margin, however, what you have is a certain pricking consciousness. And they? Well, they are a class of unconscious people (conscious in a way that numbs their humanity, I mean).
Class consciousness is a Marxist term, which means the understanding of a group in itself and for itself. In other words, it is the awareness of one's place within the social and economic strata of the society. A woman selling moin-moin in a local market in Ibadan, or the man cobbling secondhand shoes in Osogbo, as it is in most cases, knows that she (and anyone like her) is not rich, and certain things are well outside her station. That is class consciousness. What I have chosen to call class unconsciousness here is what Marx called "false consciousness," and it is what, in my view, best describes the Nigerian Dayo Israel's Mummy's Men and Daddy's Data boys—who are the political middle here, not some ideologically established political school.
In trying to understand why the prediction of Karl Marx had not happened, Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci expounded false consciousness into cultural hegemony (the shutter of the manipulative select few against practical changes in the way people live). He located it in some repressive conditions manufactured by force and consent, including the myth of individualism, playing cultural vanguard within the same economic class, extreme consumerism, and democratic farcade. The APC National Youth Leader, and a sizable number of his 'men', belong to the strains of individual myth and extreme consumerism.
Dayo Israel bold-facetedly shared a video where SUVs are driven in on a file, dropping a caption that clears any doubt that they are meant for his political urchins. He even thanked the First Lady in the post. But while it is commendable that many people spoke up against the act, including his party men (whom I do particularly see as his ilk, notwithstanding), we should consider admitting one truth: unfortunately, it is our society that enables this. For Dayo, power comes down to what you consume and who you are to have to consume that. It is the jacked-up application of our street rhetorical question: "do you know who I am?" when two people come at each other.
Who you are, in our consumerist society, is more important than what you can do. At least, this is true for our political culture. A man goes to live outside the country, comes back as a pseudo-Westerner, and instantly becomes elevated above all men of reason and substance in his community. A young boy defrauds and gets his millions 'up ', and somehow he becomes an epitome of success (success being money). For others, it is to trade a sense of awareness of their place in society for political data-boyism; praise and curry the favor of the people in power, and get whatever you need to be that guy. Being that guy is what Dayo Israel projects, what our political jobbers actually project. But that guy is a compound fool whose only moral high ground is to see himself pilfering or aiding it.
The password to that lifestyle is a kind of numbness, and that is why I think of them as people who are unconscious of their class. That numbness comes to the fore when someone speaks against their favorite politician, the bankroller. And then you get invective and threats (which the Obidient Movement does better than any political herd, by the way). For Mummy's Men and the middlemen between padded budgets and backdoor local interventionists, it is a transaction of hopelessness. It is the hopelessness that weakens a person who has battled a long and interminable existential threat, and the hopelessness that the opposition that should claim power are as effective as /p/ in psychology.
Revolution, even if it comes cheap and almost-made, how does a hopeless person key into it? Perhaps, the hopeless are supposed to die in it, knowing that their blood has fueled something. Unfortunately, again, the Nigerian state knows how to erase. If you die, your spirit should take pride in any acknowledgement that they get you. These days, people like Dayo Israel will actively sponsor and lead campaigns to deny your death. What they often fail to acknowledge is that when they are no longer in the good books of their masters, they are as valuable to them as their sworn enemy (ask el-Rufai).
Take as many SUVs as you want, permanent belonging does not exist in the Nigerian political scene (ask Aregbesola). Until you sit in your master's seat, or one where he cannot easily replace you, you are a device of convenience, and town-crying is what your duty is. The people who are above, who matter in proper democracy, are the ones who can disagree with their principal and have him change his view. If you cannot do that, if no is not a word you say to your oga, not even polished titles can save you. You may be the CMB Overseer or Commanding Officer, it does not matter, as long as the cries of the people do not travel through your tongue to your principal.
The irony of this situation is that while the Mummy's Men and other data boys misinterpret and misreport what happens in the general public, they, in doing so, also misunderstand themselves. In an earlier column, this author categorized this group of people in the olódò uprising. They exist with a decided myopia of not seeing beyond what is on their plate, and that is why even when houses are as sad as graveyards, when the economy is biting hard, to Dayo Israel and his people, flaunting SUVs matters. Essentially, they cannot afford to act like people who say times are hard, that will be an indictment of their boss. And it is not in the nature of data boys to proclaim that things are hard, because it is the political economy that creates his loyalty rewards. He has to keep up the act of false consciousness, and encourage everything that keeps it. Na where belle face be that.
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