We have a very nasty relationship with authority in this country and we’re not willing to admit it. Ordinary seniors in secondary school see their status as a mantle of oppression. The juniors become seniors who bully the next set of juniors and the cycle continues.

Your teachers flog you for the slightest of reasons. Your parents haven’t paid your school fees and they flog you for it as if that is magically supposed to produce the money. They flog you for not seeing the board as if that’s going to make you see clearer. Flogging is fun.

You go to university and your lecturers become yours gods. You can’t question their methods. They’re so stuck in the past ways of doing things that they can’t see that the world is changing. They pride themselves in failing students — “no one can get a first class in my course.”

You will be in 2020 learning outdated teachings that have no place in the real world. It must be that their particular style or nothing. You can’t question their authority. Their way is the only way and you’re rebellious if you derail. Worse yet, you will be punished.

You leave for NYSC camp and it’s the same thing. We are all savages being prepared for a world of savagery. The military junta style has to be encoded in our DNA. If you denounce suffering or abuse, you’re mocked for being “soft” and “spoilt.”

Your employers do the same thing to you. You’re told that if you’re not ready to swallow abuse you shouldn’t work for a Nigerian boss. As if any of this is normal. Why is fear such a recognised and accepted language in these parts?

Government officials do the same thing to you. They suffocate you until you bow.

We’re literally creating a world of fearful cows.

Let’s not talk about the police. Look at the way they freely brutalise and abuse us. It’s the culture. “I will kill you here and nothing will happen.”

Fear. Fear. Fear. Everything is fear.

Take it high up the ladder of politics and it’s a total eyesore. Remember when that lady asked Sanwoolu a question during his campaign and she was called rude and told to respect her elders. We can’t question anything. Not even the people who are accountable to us.

For people who are so quick to blame bad hometraining for individual bad behavior, we have consciously refused to accept that the problem is systemic and that there is a strong link between our natural bad behavior as Nigerians and the way we were raised.

Right from the start, we are taught to not question authority and violence is a natural unifying language for us. Even the abused can’t wait to enjoy the perks of being an abuser because that is our collective dream—to become the feared; to control and oppress.

Broken people breaking people on their way up. Abused juniors become abusive seniors. Abused students become abusive teachers. Abused employees become abusive employers. Abused citizens become abusive politicians.

Abused children become abusive parents. The cycle never ends.

It is one thing to understand that abuse is naturally woven into our moral fabric and to see that one can be both victim and abuser. It is a whole different thing to deny the existence of this culture and refuse to accept that we need to change our ways of doing things.

Internalising and excusing abuse helps no one. You’re only going to reproduce more broken people and leave lots of scars on others. Why is violence so normalised here? Why are “authorities” never to be questioned? How exactly has it ever helped us?

How do we get the social critiques we need to grow as a society if we’re unwilling to accept that discipline is not synonymous with abuse? When will be begin to actually humanise ourselves? When will we start empathising with ourselves?

You raise kids who cannot tell you that they’re being bullied at school. Kids who can’t open up to you about sexual abuse. Kids who quiver when they hear your footsteps. Kids who have to do rehearsals before they ask you for anything because they’re not sure how you’d react.

Then you export these broken kids into the larger society to break more people and you don’t see the problem? You don’t?

I’ll close by saying this:

There is no place where making authority untouchable has not left more people harmed than unharmed. Religion. Politics. Schools. Family. Anywhere.

We’re supposed to be building a community & not a dictatorship.

Do with this message whatever you will.