Peter Obi and the rest of us.

Whenever he, Peter Obi says something and ofcourse he always says something of national matter that is not factionally religious or ethnic, many traditional politicians and the normal Nigerians who are actually the abnormal Nigerians get agitated, confused, and unhappy to the extent that they feel that Peter Obi is mad and a threat.

But be aware that traditional in this parlance is in lieu to old customs; old-fashioned, and old ways of doing things. However, these old ways of doing things is the reason we all are in this mess, economically and security wise. These two are all others are related.

Do you know why many normal Nigerians and traditional elite politicians think themselves to be sane while Peter is the “insane” and pursuing the impossible like the “insane?”

Let me tell you a real life story that will explain it out and clear the bracketed “insane.”

A European Italian, having stayed up to one year in Nigeria, learnt legally how to drive and thought himself qualified to be his own driver —he has had a driver all these while. On that fateful day, he took the car key and happily drove the car by himself.

After some minutes, he came back with ruffled face looking confused. When he was asked what happened, he said that he is confused and doesn’t know whether he is actually the mad person or the other people out there who were also driving. With this, everyone laughed like never before.

I know you may be not understand the puzzle but let me break like coconut. Have you heard of the saying that Nigeria is like a place where lunatics took over the asylum? That’s exactly what happened here.

The man was coming from an organized society and never knew actually what the Nigerian society is. He was being all along driven but the day he drove himself, he was shocked by two things:

1. Almost everyone in this driving on the road was driving without obeying the road rules and regulations; without even minding what’s correct and what’s wrong to drive.

2. That this is the same road his driver plied always, driving him for almost one year ; he has been risking his life.

The normal Nigerian and the traditional politicians are like all those reckless-nevermind drivers who are not perturbed because they have settled with the abnormal as the normal which has become “omenala,” that is tradition for them.

So whenever people like Peter talks, the real insane people(the sane-insane) will take him to be insane while if the real sane(the insane-sane) is not careful, he or she will think that he/she is insane.

This categorization is what obtains in the Nigerian society.

So, if you are the “insane” sane like Peter Obi, don’t be moved by the utterances of the sane-insane who are the lunatics. They actually need help and that’s what Peter offering them.

They can never take it lightly with PO because of the foundations of their insanity. Why?

Because, “it takes a brave voice indeed, it is said, to question the assumptions on which a common public discourse and conceptions of a common reason and experience are said to depend,” says D.Z. Philips in book “Religion, Philosophy, and the Academy.”

Every revolution has a common path, and this is the path that Peter is unto.

©Fr. Henrycharles Umelechi

Truth Series.