Obedience is not a virtue, but who will tell Nigeria?

During the Nuremberg Trials of 1947, the question was asked — did “we were just following orders” serve as an acceptable excuse for Nazis who carried out all kinds of atrocities against humanity during World War 2? After exhaustive legal inquiry, the answer overwhelmingly, was “no.” The verdict was that if soldiers were asked to execute instructions that they knew were crimes against humanity — like civilian massacres — they could and should have declined.

In other words, regardless of whatever social order one finds oneself in, the verdict from the 20th Century’s weightiest legal case was that as long as the human capacity to discern right from wrong exists, people are obligated to use that capacity to filter all their actions. “Just doing as you are told” would no longer be an excuse that would suffice. All humans were henceforth to be recognised and held accountable as independent moral agents, not merely extensions of a bureaucracy.

So of course, everyone “got over it,” while taking away the implicit lesson that it is possible to get away with anything in Nigeria as long as one can hide it under a veil of obedience to authority

As usual, Nigeria didn’t get the memo

Just 20 years after the Nuremberg Trials, Nigerian soldiers were hard at work decimating civilian populations, raping women, and making female children choose between being murdered and being kidnapped into sex slavery. Following the end of the so-called Civil War, only the most cursory effort was made at truth and reconciliation, and the message to everyone was “Get over it, these things happen during war.” So of course, everyone “got over it,” while taking away the implicit lesson that it is possible to get away with anything in Nigeria as long as one can hide it under a veil of obedience to authority.

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Here we are in 2022. For those who didn’t know already, recent events should have made it clear that Nigeria is a society that is one or two unfortunate events away from completely unravelling and becoming a sort of Somalia-Libya-South Sudan hybrid mess. Where does the societal unravelling and breakdown start from? It starts from the home; the school; the church/mosque — all under the watchful eye of authority figures who must never be questioned.

Where are uniformed Nigerians whose job is to protect their fellow citizens, taught instead to disrespect human life and worship violence? The police university and the Nigerian Defence Academy. I know a trainee police recruit whose response to the proscription of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky’s Islamic Movement of Nigeria was “Good! Next time they come out, we will fire them and clear them!”

Even during elections, instead of voting based on issues affecting us individually, by and large, we fall behind self-appointed “babas” and “Asiwajus” who apparently have a “vision” for us. What this vision is exactly, we have no idea, and they have little tolerance for those who like to ask questions, but once they hit us with the infamous “Baba so pe,” it is a wrap. We fall in line and do as we are told, even if what we are doing is directly killing us. We must obey!

What on earth do we do with Nigeria’s “Trust and Obey” complex? How do we get the message out that obedience for the sake of itself is a stupid, nonsensical, borderline suicidal idea exploited by the worst elements of society looking to entrench themselves in power?

Questions questions…