Lekki Shooting, Looting: Why some Nigerians are living in denial – Fadumo Abiodun Paul

Many Nigerians are (mini) psychopaths and our priggish nature has blinded us to the reality in our society.

We have managed to create a society where some people have to scramble for food: the most basic on the hierarchy of needs. Were we expecting them to wait till they fall sick and die out of hunger? If you’re going to blame a poorly behaved child, be sure to examine his/her parents who have probably modeled for him such behaviour. Sane societies are products of goodu leadership across the board, when children behave well outside, go and look at the home they come from.

Nigerians seem to forget that the real looters are the political and business elites who we worship. The richest among us are products of this current corrupted system, who cannot survive where there are order and some level of equal opportunities for all citizens.

Many of us will never call them out because of the fear of offending someone they are coveting his/her kind of “blessing”. Others are middle-class people whose reason/excuse is that their livelihood is dependent on beneficiaries of these corrupted megalomaniacs; hence they can’t see or speak the truth. It could also be that we have to appear to be politically, culturally and or religiously correct, but, it’s easy to condemn thugs and poor people that looted palliative warehouses – ignoring the fact that they exist as a result of our warped sociopolitical system.

Here on social media, I have seen many so-called educated Nigerian defending or standing on the fence about whether people were killed at #Lekkitollgate by our own Army, their excuse is that there are some photoshopped images. I’m like…really???! When we’ve seen Lagos state governor admitted, denied and denied and later admitted that there were two fatalities and many wounded by gunshots?

I have seen a medical doctor on TL denied that protesters were disrupted and attacked by sponsored thugs. Unfortunately, such people are disturbed that some of these irrational elements whose services politicians often used burned down public buildings and private businesses, and looted whatever they can. Who knows, it may have been arranged by agents of those in power to make protesters look bad – until it got out of hand and then it boomerang.

These categories of people are unconcerned that men in military uniform were seen/filmed shooting at peaceful protesters by multiple witnesses, but they are worried that some of the images/videos may have been doctored. Why should we believe that the videos/images from the looting and burned down buildings are authentic but completely discard those from Lekki shooting?

Any society where a reasonable number of people have the propensity to deny obvious truth is tilting towards self-destruction. If righteousness exalts a nation, this delicate time.