Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach once declared that happy slaves are the bitterest enemies of freedom.” A slave is defined by the dictionary as a person who is forced to work for and obey another and is considered to be their property. The most distinguishing attribute of slaves is that the person is often acquired with money or by force. Their obedience to their masters is not voluntary but enforced. A slave is often denied all his fundamental human right because he is regarded as a property. This brand of slavery is now outdated and outlawed. No citizen of Nigeria can legally be held in slavery against his will.
But do not even think that it’s every person that wants to be free from slavery. For some inexplicable reasons, some persons enjoy their status as slaves and would rather remain slaves than become free. God himself recognises these set of people and advised the owners of the slaves to respect their wish and allow them become slaves forever. In Exodus 21:2, 5 and 6 God said, “If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.” This is the Stockholm syndrome in which a slave whose freedom has been taken away or a kidnapped person establishes an emotional bond with their master or kidnapper.
The notion that slavery is now in the past and is obsolete is rebuffed by the concept of happy slaves. Obviously, the methods of enslavement have changed. Happy slaves are more subtly enslaved such that they may be slaves without even knowing it. Happy slaves have multiple mental challenges and chains which are in their minds and form part of their beings making it much more difficult to rebel against it. This is akin to Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s postulation of suffering and smiling and Bob Marley’s assertion of the need to emancipate oneself from mental slavery. You are a slave when you’re unable to fight back against humiliation and when you remain crestfallen in an argument without stating your opinion. According to Ricardo Flores Magón, “Nothing is as discouraging as a happy slave.” It is important to note that in the modern times, the chains that happy slaves have, are not put there by anyone; they put them there themselves.
In Nigeria today there are many things that should have remained in the past but because of the concept of happy slaves, people are so unaware of it and don’t realise that they are reproducing things that they had criticised and rejected in the past. Once you can subtly provide the material needs of these slaves who are mostly bereft of creativity in their lives coupled with an insatiable appetite for ostentatious lifestyle, they will sing the praises of their slave masters for ever. Most sycophants belong to this category. Some of them have become so wealthy materially, but no matter how rich a slave is, a slave is a slave. That is why with all their wealth, they are bereft of honour and respect. A person who is in physical slavery with the mentality of a King will eventually become a King while a freeman with the mentality of a slave will eventually become a slave. This was what played out in the life of Joseph in Egypt. Joseph was the most beloved of his Father as a child and he acquired the mentality of a King. Out of jealousy, his brothers sold him to slavery but he retained the mentality of a King. He was honest in all his dealings with his slave masters and refused to covet their money, property or wives. Wherever he went, he got promoted to the top until he got promoted to become the Prime Minister of Egypt. He brought the greatest prosperity to the ancient Egypt. His jealous brothers with the slave mentality of jealousy and envy ultimately became his servants. No one can stop an idea whose time has come.
Nigeria has been under the Lordship of the worst set of slavemasters. They have been in charge of leadership of this country for years. They specialise in stealing the wealth of the country and corruptly enriching themselves to the detriment of the citizens whom majority of them they have subtly converted to happy slaves. They recruit their followers on the basis of the amount of slavery to them that the followers can display. Whenever any follower challenges their authority, that follower is booted out. They are ruthless in the wielding of political power. They assassinate political opponents at will. They get irritated when anybody wants to introduce order and decency in governance. They are maximally corrupt and use the proceeds of their corruption to lubricate their evil empire. Little wonder why some of those evil leaders were optimally against the amendment of the new Electoral Act which will limit their appetite for forcefully rigging elections against more qualified candidates who have the interest of the people at heart.
However, our country is getting bad not because of the violence of the bad people but because of the silence of the good people. The problem in Nigeria today is not the oppression of those evil leaders but the acquiescence of the followers. Somebody called me from Atlanta Georgia and asked me a question. He said, those people that are clapping and laughing beside a presidential candidate that is obviously incoherent in his reasoning and speeches, are they mocking Nigeria or are they mocking the presidential candidate or are they simply mad? He was not miffed with the Candidate as he was miffed with the sycophants around him. One of the ardent followers of this same Candidate openly said on national television that any Christian who says that he is happy with a Muslim-Muslim ticket is not a true Christian. He is a Christian himself and has vehemently campaigned and criticised against the domination of his religious group by any other religious group, but today he is campaigning for the same party he has criticised in the past on the basis of religion. Indeed any Christian who votes for a party that has a Muslim Senate President, Muslim Speaker of the House of Representatives, Muslim Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Muslim National Chairman of the Party, Muslim Presidential Candidate, Muslim Vice Presidential Candidate and coincidentally at a time when we have a Muslim Chief Justice of Nigeria can be described as a happy slave.
Not only that this is morally wrong but it is even illegal. Section 14(3)(4) of our 1999 Constitution as amended admonishes us to compose our government in recognition of our diversity while ensuring that no sectional group dominates another. Section 15(1)(2)(3d)(4) of the 1999 Constitution as amended even made it clearer. They provide that “The motto of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress. Accordingly, national integration shall be actively encouraged, whilst discrimination on the grounds of place of origin, sex, religion, status, ethnic or linguistic association or ties shall be prohibited; For the purpose of promoting national integration, it shall be the duty of the State to promote or encourage the formation of associations that cut across ethnic, linguistic, religious and or other sectional barriers; The State shall foster a feeling of belonging and of involvement among the various people of the Federation, to the end that loyalty to the nation shall override sectional loyalties”. Any citizen of Nigeria, whether Muslim or Christian that votes for such Party is simply voting for disunity of the country that will result from lack of involvement, integration and participation of Christians in the scheme of things in Nigeria. I do not see the possibility of any Muslim supporting any political party in Nigeria that has Christian Senate President, Christian Speaker of the House of Representatives, Christian Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Christian National Chairman of the Party, Christian Presidential Candidate, Christian Vice Presidential Candidate and coincidentally at a time when we have a Christian Chief Justice of Nigeria and they shouldn’t. Islam is a religion of justice which preaches fairness to all in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. Any Lawyer that supports such party is not a Minister in the temple of justice and does not uphold the rule of law or the rule of morality. History will be unkind to them. Such Lawyers have so degraded the image of the profession that citizens are now regarding them as Senior Advocates of Nonsense.The other major Political Party produced a Northern Candidate who destroyed his Party in 2015 by supporting an opposition party to defeat his own party on the basis that his former Party disregarded its own zoning arrangement in 2015 and produced a Southern Candidate instead of a Northern Candidate to heal the wound of a President of the Northern extraction who untimely died in office. He said then in 2015 that PDP is beyond redemption. Surprisingly, this same Candidate, when he lost out in APC came back to PDP where he openly declared that it was the turn of the South-East to produce the next President in 2023 in line with PDP’s Constitution. But rather than supporting the aspiration of the South-East to produce the next President, he muscled his way through and usurped the position and emerged as the Presidential Candidate. This is inspite the fact that the Southern Governors met at Asaba and Lagos and vowed that it was the turn of the South to produce the next President after the completion of the two terms of eight years by the incumbent Fulani Northern Muslim. Whoever then that is a Southerner that votes for such a Northerner that is so obsessed with power in contradiction to his Party’s Constitution is simply a happy slave. Any Northerner that votes for such a Northerner who said Northerners should vote only Northerners, not Yoruba or Igbo Candidate, does not love the unity, peace, progress and active integration of Nigerians as that will be a panacea for instability. The only choice Nigeria has is to vote for someone with the commensurate character, capacity and competence and whose ticket satisfies the requirement of equity, justice and fairness. This is the only way for us to produce a servant-leader who is not a slave master and has the interest of the people at heart so we can be free from slavery in our country. Slavery is bad whether happy or unhappy.