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A culture that thrives on the superiority complex and other negative vices as described above affects the society in several ways.
First, it kills the spirit of hard work and removes the focus from collective growth to selective individual growth. As a result of the onslaught on hard work, many now believe that hard work does not pay again. What matters for these people is whom do you know. Many rural farmers have abandoned their farms in the villages and are rushing to the cities, hoping to “hit it big”.
The big man culture promotes crimes, especially violent crimes. Because of the wall erected between the rich and the poor, many a poor wants to shoot themselves to the priority divide of rich and liberated leading to violent crimes. The rich themselves, in order to maintain their status, engage in unthinkable white collar crimes.
The culture encourages corruption and in fact is the main cause of corruption in Nigeria. The rich and liberated who more often not, find themselves in positions of trust have made feast of the commonwealth in order to maintain their status. Politics for them has become a do or die affair. This is the main reason for violence and election malpractices. The ballot, which should be used to elect people to occupy positions of trust have been hijacked by the rich. The votes of the shackled poor no longer matters. That is, if they are allowed to vote at all. The big man has come up with new ballot system that precludes voting; yet results emerge. This distorted big man’s notion of electoral democracy was amply demonstrated in the just concluded local government elections, where “the devil came to the polls”.
Another evil effect of this culture is that it obfuscates the greatness in all of us. We undervalue people, just because they look poor or because they are poor. By doing this we deplete the development energy in our country and raise serious question about our understanding of citizenship. This uncalled divide between the liberated and the shackled has made some people to believe that we do not have equal stake in the country. This is a dangerous situation.
Remedy
The critical question, to ask is; do we have to remedy to this malady? Do we have the will to confront this indefensible culture of big man that is impeding development in Africa? My answer is yes.
We have to start from the point of reason. I think it was Socrates that said that an unexamined life is not worth living. This is true for both the individual and to the society. How committed are we to the Nigerian dream? The Nigerian dream thrives in collectivity and not individualism. How do we solve the embarrassing problem of poverty in Africa and save countless number of people from early deaths? We must agree to give meaning and content to the notion of citizenship. We must treasure rights and duties of every Nigerian. “All human beings are born equal and imbued by their creator with inalienable rights”. Our constitution reaffirms this equality. We should be seen to be acting this out. Let’s resolve to break the shell of ego and join hands to realize the Nigerian dream/vision.
There is an urgent need to re-order our value system. We must resolve to judge people not by what they have in terms of ephemeral matter but what they can offer in terms of values they can add to the collective growth. Wealth, mere wealth should no longer be the measure of a person’s worth.
African government must wake up to their sworn duties to their citizens. It is encouraging that there are several mechanisms in place that can promote well being and minimize ill-being. The big man culture thrives on ill-being. Hence once ill-being is minimized, ‘bigmanism” as a philosophy of suppression will choke. The big man has become a government. He lords it over others for the simple reason that he can afford a balanced diet where millions are cap in hand begging for food. The big man triumphs because he can afford mansions, in a country like ours where countless people are homeless, sick and naked. And there is no form of social security to cater for unemployment, old age or ill health. A caring government can do so much by creating enabling environment to work a majority of our people out of want and by so doing melt the chasm between the uncaring rich and the shackled poor.
Law, I mean, the Rule of Law is a potent antidote to the excesses of the conscienceless rich. If we can strengthen the legal and judicial system and solve the problem of judicial corruption, we will be doing a lot of good to Africa’s development. We need to demonstrate on a consistent basis, that one’s wealth or poverty means nothing to the law. I am sure that is why justice is represented by a beautiful woman in blindfolds, holding a sword in one hand and a balance on the other. In Nigeria, and many African countries, people are in real doubts, whether mother justice is not faking ‘blindness” The liberated rich exudes confidence that the law will be silenced, some how. If they suspect that the courts will be difficult to get at they start from the police. There is currently a clamour and even commitment for justice reform. If these are sustained, and they pan out results, it will be very good antidote to the evils of “bigmanism”.
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Comments
enlightening and thought-provoking Sahra Ahmed Koshin | Oct 29th, 2007
Thank you for this piece.
The same is true in many parts of africa such as Somalia, Kenya and Zambia where i have been. I will post this to many of my friends.
Indeed, a well-written and informative article.
hi joy koneh | Jan 9th, 2012
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