Musa, the gateman of benign defections and Nigeria’s ‘Unbroken’ Democracy

This piece was intended as a continuation of the three-part series, which began last week in my ‘Word Matters” column, where language wrestles with power and words unmask the comic face of tragedy. However, the archetypal Gateman – the tireless ubiquitous witness at the door of our national psyche – disrupted the course when the virulent gale of defections in Nigeria’s political ecosystem added a layer of benign brokenness to our 26-year ‘unbroken’ democracy. Dutifully stationed at the threshold of our collective irony, the everyman philosopher’s vantage point offers a panoramic view of the chaos that passes for normalcy. It is for his extra-terrestrial omniscience that “nothing wey Musa no go see for gate” has gained traction in Nigeria’s streetwise language.

When the latest batch of political defectors serenaded their supporters with ‘national grid connection’ and ‘undying love’ for their people as reasons for defecting, Musa smiles the knowing smile of the gateman philosopher. He is the silent chronicler of Nigeria’s benign violations, violations so normalized that outrage feels outdated. Yes; he knows that in Nigeria, defection is not betrayal; it is political recycling, a renewable energy of self-preservation. You move not because of ideology but because the soup-pot of stomach infrastructure is boiling elsewhere. So, when Musa hears of defections – that ritualized dance across party lines, he understands it as performance art. Reason? In today’s Nigeria, the political class treats democracy like a revolving door: you exit Party ‘A’ in the morning, enter Party ‘B’ by evening where the red carpet is rolled out for your colourful reception like a prodigal son, whose ‘sins’ have all been forgiven. And before nightfall, you get appointed to a ministerial position!

The foregoing explains the message of the viral WhatsApp post, which Musa stumbled on:

“Civil servants should also be given the opportunity to defect – for example, from the Ministry of Labour to CBN or NNPC.”

When Musa saw the WhatsApp post, he smiled knowingly. “Na true talk,” he said. “Make civil servants too dey defect. After all, dem no go die for one ministry wey no get generator.” That statement, half joke and half lament, captures Nigeria’s genius for laughing at trauma. The civil servant, trapped in decaying offices, unpaid, unmotivated, watches politicians jump from one platform to another and prosper. His only revolt is laughter — humour as therapy, humour as protest.

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It is comic relief; yes, but it’s also piercing social commentary. Because, truly, what is the difference between a politician defecting from PDP to APC or breaking off from APC to coalesce into a coalition with arch political foes-turned bed-fellows and a civil servant defecting from a ‘labouring’ ministry to a more “juicy” agency? It is the same motive – survival, self-interest, and the pursuit of proximity to power. He’s seen politicians defect more times than he’s changed uniforms. He’s watched ministers switch parties and portfolios like shirts; governors reinvent themselves overnight as moral crusaders; and godfathers trade their godsons in political horse swaps. And as the streets would say, Naija na cruise! And in this national cruise ship, even when the captain misreads the compass, the passengers sing and dance to distract themselves from the sinking sensation beneath their feet.

If laughter were a national resource, Nigeria would top the global export chart. From the corridors of power to the WhatsApp groups of frustrated civil servants, humour has become both survival strategy and social commentary — the last lubricant for a system whose democratic machinery grinds and groans like a broken mortar pounding rotten palm nuts. Within minutes, the post went viral, sparking a national giggle. From WhatsApp to X (formerly Twitter), Nigerians reposted it with laughing emojis. But beneath the laughter lurked a piercing truth: what if the humour wasn’t just comic relief but social diagnosis? What if that post, in its innocent absurdity, captured the entire pathology of Nigeria’s democracy? That, precisely, is what Peter McGraw and Caleb Warren’s Benign Violation Theory (BVT) helps us unpack.

According to McGraw and Warren, humour occurs when something violates the way we think the world ought to be, yet feels somehow okay – safe enough to laugh at. The violation becomes benign when it is recognized as wrong but not threatening. That WhatsApp post is a perfect case study. The “defection” of civil servants from one ministry to another is absurd, a clear violation of bureaucratic order; but it is also benign because it mirrors the already normalized absurdity in the political class. It is a mirror joke; civil servants are parodying politicians. The humour works because it is both wrong and true. In that short post lies the distilled irony of Nigeria’s democratic farce. Politicians defect with reckless abandon, citing “consultations with stakeholders,” “alignment of values,” or “the need to join hands for national development.” Everyone knows these are euphemisms for survival and self-interest, but we laugh instead of revolt. That laughter – the coping laughter – is our national benign violation.

The laughter that follows is both spontaneous and self-defensive, a way to process the absurd without losing one’s sanity. Benign Violation Theory explains why this joke lands. The “violation” — bureaucratic defection — is socially unthinkable, but because political defection has become normalized, the idea feels benign enough to laugh at. Humour thus becomes revelation. Through laughter, Nigerians tell the truth that formal discourse dare not speak – that our democracy is not broken because of defection; defection is our democracy.

There is an Igbo street idiom that captures the unending dance between resignation and absurdity: “Nwoke na ihe na-eme.” Literally translated, “Man (nwoke) and (na) things (ihe) are doing (na-eme).” Musa, the gateman is daily wrestling with existential challenges. It is the perfect metaphor for life in Nigeria, where events act upon man rather than the other way around. Musa wakes up to new policies, new taxes, new tariffs. Musa adjusts and re-adjusts his belt on end. Musa groans; yet, he laughs because, well, what else can he do? Wetin man go do? When fuel subsidy is removed “for your own good” and the price of transport triples overnight, “man and things are doing.” When a government announces wage awards that cannot buy bread, and yet receives ‘tiri gbozaa’ from workers’ union, “man and things are doing.” When a lawmaker justifies corruption as ‘constituency project,’ “man and things are doing.” This is the heart of BVT in Nigeria – the constant negotiation between outrage and laughter, pain and parody. We laugh not because we are naïve but because laughter has become our only non-lethal form of protest.

When “fuel subsidy is gone,” was declared, it was meant to be a transformative speech act, a performative utterance that changes reality. But like all failed performatives, it lacked felicity conditions: sincerity, capability, and context. The same subsidy that was ‘gone’ returned through the backdoor under different names – ‘under-recovery,’ ‘FX shortfall payments,’ ‘Accelerated Stabilization Advancement Plan (ASAP)’. Soon after, the World Bank applauded the “macroeconomic discipline,” while the IMF forecasted 3.9% growth. Then, before the applause died down, the World Bank itself reminded us that over 139 million Nigerians (about 61%) had been pushed below the poverty line by those same policies. And so Musa laughed again: “Na wa o! So, World Bank sef dey defect; today, dem dey praise, tomorrow dem dey blame. Even IMF dey ‘do man’!” In that humour lies a powerful cognitive dissonance – the dissonance of institutions that hail hunger as “growth” and poverty as “stability.”

Musa flips to the next page – ‘Naija no dey carry last’ – the popular boast that Nigeria always excels – which now sounds like cosmic irony. According to recent reports, Nigeria ranks at or near the bottom on most global indices: lowest life expectancy (54.9 years), lowest quality of life, and among the lowest rule of law scores (120th of 142 nations in the 2024 WJP Index). Our GDP may rank 57th nominally and 27th in PPP, but what is the meaning of GDP when citizens cannot afford a loaf of bread? Yet, the official rhetoric remains upbeat. “We are on the path to greatness.” This is the kind of benign violation that fuels Nigeria’s comedy industry. It is the sweet spot where pain becomes performance. “Naija na cruise,” the street says. And truly, it is, a cruise without a compass, where laughter replaces life jackets.

Musa, from his gate, sees democracy not as governance but as a comic theatre, a running sitcom. It is like a badly tuned talking drum — noisy, hollow, and directionless. It is the broken mortar that can no longer hold the pounding of genuine reform, and the rotten palm nut that releases no oil of justice or accountability. Each election cycle introduces new episodes of the same old series. The characters change costumes, but the plot remains unchanged. Political parties are no longer ideological homes but transient hotels. Manifestoes are mere PowerPoints for campaign trails. Yet, the irony is that this democracy, despite all its cracks, refuses to break. It limps, groans, malfunctions – but somehow remains “unbroken.” That is the final twist of benign violation; even our failure is resilient. Musa as usual chuckles. And so, Nigerians like Musa, cope through laughter, not because we don’t understand the gravity of our situation, but because humour is the last refuge of the brokenhearted. As McGraw and Warren might say, we have perfected the art of “benign interpretation,” seeing our collective suffering as cruise, our tragedy as trend, our despair as meme.

Nonetheless, McGraw and Warren caution that humour, though healthy, can also be anesthetic. When we laugh too much at our own pain, we risk normalizing it. That WhatsApp post about defecting civil servants is funny; yes, but it is also dangerous. It teaches us to accept absurdity as normal, to substitute satire for solution. Every time we turn defection into meme, we make corruption less scandalous and more shareable. The joke becomes the smoke that hides the fire. Laughter, once subversive, becomes complicit. Yet, one cannot blame Nigerians for laughing. When outrage yields no reform, laughter becomes the only safe rebellion left.

To conclude, Nigeria’s humour is world-class, but our governance is world-worn. We have perfected the art of laughing at our wounds, but laughter cannot replace treatment. The WhatsApp joke about civil servants defecting is more than comic genius; it is a mirror held up to a disfigured polity. We can laugh, yes. But at some point, the laughter must stop being benign and start being transformative. As much as humour cushions pain, it can also normalize dysfunction. The challenge, therefore, is to turn benign violation into productive violation – laughter that awakens rather than anesthetizes. We must convert wit to will, jest to justice. We must learn to laugh and act; to mock and mend; to see the absurdity not as entertainment but as motivation for change.

The broken mortar must be replaced, the rotten nuts discarded; so that the oil of democracy can flow. As long as we keep pounding decay, we will keep producing heat without light. The day Nigerians decide that the joke has gone too far – that the violation is no longer benign – that is the day laughter will turn to national rebirth. When laughter becomes language for reform, when satire sparks civic courage, then perhaps, the mortar will be mended, and the oil will flow again. Until then, Musa remains at his post, shaking his head at the parade of absurdities, whispering that eternal refrain that has become our national philosophy: “Nothing wey Musa no go see for gate. Because for Naija, man and things are doing.”

 

.Prof. Agbedo writes from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN)