#INKTREPIDUS: Like A Punch In The Face – Ogunyemi Bukola

#INKTREPIDUS: Like A Punch In The Face – Ogunyemi Bukola

Relationship abuse is a pattern of abusive and coercive behaviours used to maintain power and control over an intimate partner. Abuse can be emotional, psychological, financial, sexual or physical and can include threats, isolation, and intimidation. An abusive relationship means more than being hit by the person who claims to love or care about you, when someone uses abuse and violence against a partner, it is always part of a larger plan to try to control and dominate the abused.

 

Abuse tends to escalate over time. You had a quarrel, he slapped you and said he was sorry and didn’t mean to do that? I think he said the truth, he didn’t mean to slap you, he wanted to give you a Mike-Tyson-esque blow to the head and that is just what you should expect the next time you dare to challenge his authority. All he did with the slap was deposit a seed of terror in your subconscious, it’s the first thing you’ll remember the next time an issue comes up and you’re likely to swallow whatever opinion you have to avoid a repeat of that. Gradually that seed will germinate and you’ll find yourself submitting spontaneously to his views, opinions, decisions and authority. Over time, you’ll become completely subservient, oblivious of your position and status as a partner in the relationship, conscious of your duties and obligations and utterly unmindful of your rights!

 

Employers of the abuse machinery often hide under the guise of one psychological pretext or the other and regrettably, it is the subjects of these abuse themselves who often come up with the rationalization for their tormentors’ brutality. Nigerians for example have cited Goodluck Jonathan’s ‘cluelessness’ as a justification for his ‘ineffectiveness’. Goodluck, however, is neither clueless nor is he ineffective. He is a meticulous strategist and his execution is callous and brutal. Under the genial he-cant-hurt-a-fly façade is a burukutu guzzler, a Niger-Delta terrorist, a professional witch-hunter, a devilish opportunist, and a proficient thief. He has been using the proceeds from his colossal empire of corruption to fund terrorism within the nation, while using the terrorism to divide us along religious and ethnic paths and to divert our attentions from the corruption.

 

Jonathan is smarter than most of us think, infact he is way smarter than most of us. GEJ was the General Overseer of what is arguably the biggest scam in the history of Nigeria. Anyone who has read the report of House of Representatives’ Ad-Hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy will realize that the scam was carefully planned and assiduously executed. He achieved in a single year what both IBB and OBJ couldn’t in sixteen years, corruption-wise. Have you noticed how quickly we have neglected our demands for stable power, good roads, job creation, poverty reduction etc and shifted focus to peace and the 2015 election? Jonathan is a master of the game and the earlier we realize that he is not clueless, the better for us and the future of our dear country.

 

It is these same tools of subjugation that the Jonathan administration has employed since inception to steadily subdue our sense of citizenship to the Nigerian state. We have all been victims of one form of abuse or the other from the hands of a government we delegated power to. The level of corruption and perversion of justice in the country is obnoxious to say the least. Election promises have not been fulfilled, and accountability is a virtue the government has clearly not heard of. The less said about security, or lack, the better. We are married to the Nigerian state, citizenship is a form of relationship and we must wake up to that fact. We are stakeholders in the enterprise called Nigeria and it’s time for us to take our place and demand for our rights accordingly. We must wake up to the fact that our duties as citizens doesn’t start and end with elections. We are the democracy!

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”. Thomas Jefferson, American Declaration of Independence, July 1774.

 

………that WHENEVER any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends……. Emphasis on the word WHENEVER; not every four years! Waiting till 2015 to effect the change in leadership this nation is direly in need of is like a victim of abuse who takes her oppressor to court to obtain a divorce and then returns home to sleep under the same roof with him; she may not live to give her testimony. We are all geared up for the 2015 elections, determined to vote and protect our votes, but all it’ll take to make us sit at home on election day while he rigs his way back into power is a threat from his Boko Haram. The evil genius already has a masterplan that extends beyond 2019! Over 70% of Nigerians are living below N150 a day, his plan is to increase that to 80% at least within the next two years, such that an offer of N1000 for their votes in 2015 would be irresistible!

 

If you are a woman and your man enjoys laying his hands on you for non-romantic reasons, go buy a new set of cutleries and keep the small kitchen knife therein for your own use. Steel yourself in preparation for his next moment of madness and when he raises his hand up against you, let it meet with your blunt fury and the sharp edge of the knife; drive home your point and let him realize that nobody has a monopoly of violence. There are still 33 months, at least, to the 2015 elections and Nigerians must be prepared for the eventualities that would surely play out between now and then. There are many more ‘gifts’ from where the January 1st fuel subsidy removal came from, and we must be ‘equipped’ for a counter-attack far better than we were in January for #OccupyNigeria Season I.

 

“As citizens of this democracy, you (WE) are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.” Adlai E. Stevenson

 

…..…that WHENEVER any form of GOVERNMENT becomes DESTRUCTIVE of these ENDS, it is the RIGHT of the PEOPLE to ALTER or to ABOLISH it……….

 

 

#INKTREPIDUS a weekly column by Ogunyemi Olaitan (@zebbook) runs on OMOJUWA.COM every Thursday.

#INKTREPIDUS ………….what has ink got to fear?

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