Drum Out and Defund Stupidity and Insecurity in Nigeria (1)
In America, the phrase "defund the police" has different meanings for different people. For some, it is to (re)consider the idea of policing and the weaponization of same; for others, it is to critically reflect and account for social and economic realities and histories that make some elements in the force act a certain way towards non-white people. For instance, to defund means to acknowledge the institution’s entanglement with a violent racial past and the logic, ideology, and conditioning that frames its anti-Blackness. As I understand it, everybody wants effective training, adequate welfare, salary, and pension for police officers.
Stupidity has a range of meanings. As I use it here, it is letting less than a hundred thousand miscreants hold over 200 million citizens hostage to fear and terror with glee. Stupidity is the horrific humor that these less-than-human miscreants kidnap citizens, make videos of victims, ask and get ransom, and flagrantly display the money across digital platforms while we cry helplessness and claim that they have “better equipment." Isn’t it a comedy of errors that we keep repeating the same approach, incentivizing, deradicalizing, and the new “ebo ibu” as my Ibadan people would say, "kinesiology"
When I say, "defund stupidity," I mean make this kind of stupidity and insecurity unprofitable. To defund means to end the weaponization of insecurity as a tool in campaigns and elections. Every government since forever has always said they would end it, but it never ends. If there is no insecurity, what will politicians use for campaigns?
Defunding means stopping the incentives that make it profitable for those who have built an identity and business model around negotiating and allying with kidnappers and these miscreants. To defund is to make a sincere and concerted effort that signals that the security, safety, and sanity of Nigerians are not anything to be toyed with. We would disagree, but no one must destabilize or terrorize anybody.
You see, whenever I overheard my mother telling my father in a tone and voice she seldom used with him that "pe omo re, ma lu bi baata" (call your child to order; I will beat her like a Baata drum), I instinctively knew to cease whatever was provoking her, as my mother was the Queen of Consequences.
In the interest of truth, I lived in the north all my life; I will not claim I always knew how a baata was drummed. But when Nigeria happened to us by reason of the same insecurity over 20years ago, we moved to Kwara, and I saw for the first time how Baata was drummed; I almost cried. The intensity, the fervency, the hits, the consistency, and the unwavering commitment were overwhelming.
It's possible, like the green color of my dress in this picture, and TY Bello's vision of possibilities and prophecy that "the land is green" can come to pass. But let's begin by defunding stupidity and insecurity.
