The “holier-than-thou” attitude of human beings can be seen in the rolling out of statistics of the slaughter of human beings, a “checklist” to compare which regime or political party has a higher record of killings than the other. There were savage and brutal killings from Odi to Zaki-biam for which there were no “crocodile tears”, but current killings by herdsmen are brutal enough to attract national mourning. Nigerians are expected to clap hands for the party that records less human slaughter than the other. Great Country!
If we add the organized slaughters of 1966, someone would bring out some statistics to prove that such savage and brutal killings were not peculiar to a particular section of the country. This rigmarole is what is known as intellectual sophistry in logic. Must we also use “quota system” to rationalize criminality?
A study of human nature is an interesting, instructive and challenging engagement which can give rise to one verdict, namely: “Men are as the time is”; slippery, sneaky and unreliable. Politicians exemplify these characteristics most, and, like the chameleon, they change camps and colours easily, as a testimony that humans are unreliable.
Having passed through harsh, turbulent and hard times in the course of natural history, the human species evolved appropriate survival strategies, among which are adaptation and resilience. Humans would have become extinct without survival qualities.
Therefore, survival became a law for living things generally, whereby various strategies for staying alive in hostile environments also developed. Even unfriendly and comfortable environment, caution and vigilance took the place of aggression. Thus two theories of Mortido and Libido emerged as constant driving forces in humans. They are weapons for survival.
Countervailing force is a power of equal strength but opposite effect. Power is different from strength and power usually operates at different dimensions, including the visible and non-visible range. For example, evolution and application of “Witch-Power” or black power, came about as a means of putting a check on those who apply and abuse visible power to undermine the interest of the weak. Consequently, witchcraft was commonest among the weak and helpless people, all over human history.
The application of black power was meant to create fear and panic as a means to make people vulnerable in the psychic sense. The strong can be made weak in that way and then becomes vulnerable to suggestive therapies. How would you feel seeing a red-headed lizard on your bed or in your office, especially if it looks weird?
The struggles and conflicts we find in creation cannot be described as cruel, rather, they are provisions meant to keep human beings on the alert, to stay alive rather than relapse into slothful indolence. Without the struggles, fights and antagonism which force people to bestir themselves to stay alive, human beings would have gone into extinction. Without external impetus many people would become dull, stupid and pine away.
We can notice this proclivity towards indolence in the way that people delight in having easy, comfortable and stress-free life, even if it means enslaving others to work and provide everything for them. Not many scholars would admit the fact that a key challenge which facilitated the end of slavery was the use of black power by some slaves to deal with their masters. Today, the white man cannot figure out the secrets of the voodoo cult. It was a countervailing force which confounded its victims and led to the escape of voodoo masters to Haiti. That cult is still in existence. There are others.
What has been going on in Nigeria in the past 50 years may be preparing the ground for a new era when countervailing forces little reckoned with in the past, can be applied to tame arrogant abuse of power. People go underground to explore such rave means, both for self-defence and revenge purposes.
An important lesson which power holders must learn is never to under-estimate what the survival impetus of aggrieved masses can unleash. Even the common invocations and imprecations which people make in their agonies have the effects of poison.
As it is said that those who go to Equity must do so with clean hands, so also does a similar caution apply to those who seek to use countervailing forces in self-defence or any purpose. The dislodgement of a political party that boasted to rule Nigeria for 60 years without any challenge, is an example of the application of countervailing forces! Don’t brag if you are powerful!
Dr. Amirize is a retired lecturer at the Rivers State University, PH.

Bright Amirize