Senator Abdul Ningi has recently been in the eye of the storm. It echoes in this short piece in which an academic replies a pundit. As is typical of Nigeria, nothing escapes the North-South frame game.
By Dr. Auwal Muhammad
I was seriously disturbed and taken a back to read a piece titled Senator Ningi’s Hoopla: A Case of Honor among Thieves Principles? written by one Dr Law Mafor who introduced himself as an Abuja based forensic and social psychologist as well as a fellow of the Abuja School of Thought. As I was going through the piece, my mind was forced to embark on an epistemic journey in order find and situate the piece in the appropriate context. After the trip, I now have no choice but to describe the write up as a Thick Description – a term used by anthropologist Clifford Geertz to designate the collection of insignificant details that will make a particular culture. The writer whose intertextual referencing to acclaimed writers in order to lend credence to his piece was unfortunately caught in a performative which, according to Butler, refers to construction of identity by what a person does at a particular time.
The writer’s choice of the word hoopla to describe Ningi’s reaction to the budget padding demonstrates deeply ingrained hypocrisy of the Nigeria’s public commentators. Public commentary, I suppose, is a public service that should be geared towards addressing socio-political as well as economic problems with a view to proffering solution to them. Skewed as the piece appears, the writer deliberately displaced the very essence of Ningi’s case thereby replacing it with Ningi’s political journey in both the lower and upper chambers at different times as the main reason why Ningi must not do what he did. According to the writer, when Ningi’s hysteria is examined in more detail, it becomes clear that his grievance lies not with the budget’s padding itself, but rather with the method used, which he said marginalized him and his native north. Now could the writer provide proof if really Ningi’s grievance lies with the method and not with the budget padding? One might also be tempted to ask if marginalization has any moral or constitutional justification in the eyes of redistributive justice.
Again, the writer’s reference to a source claiming that Ningi objected to being given an envelope of N250 million to nominate constituency projects as against N500 million to billions of naira received by other ranking senators established Ningi’s commitment to fight and defend himself and the very people he represents in the face of injustice.
Driven by blind desire to cast Ningi in a very bad shape, the piece dwells so much on the personality of senator Ningi as opposed to the main issues that surround Ningi and the Senate president, for instance. Advocate of the Spiral Silence theory would judge this skewed treatment of Ningi as an attempt to silence Ningi from discharging his constitutional rights.
Unless where selfishness stains common sense, a piece must be free from any influence – be they cultural or political. A writer must always demonstrate intellectual dexterity by providing a balanced and objective analysis of events as they unfold. They should be able to situate their discourses or submission of any event in a very critical and objective way for all attempts to influence one another must be geared towards bringing symmetry for balance and equilibrium, noted Theodore Newcomb.
