It was quite tough deciding what to write this week; and part of the reason was my desire to stay away from certain topics. Think of all the issues that were trending this past week, and by the time you separate the depressing from the annoying and scary (fear of DSS and EFCC), there’s really not much left. I don’t always succeed in staying away anyhow. I watch a lot of American TV; which is a good way to concentrate on the speck in someone else’s eyes while ignoring the log in my own.
MSNBC is my channel of choice. And since Donald J. Trump became the US President, there’s been an ongoing reality TV-style coverage of the man which makes sense, considering that Trump is a famous reality TV star who lives off the ensuing frenzy like the oxygen he breathes. On any given day, there’s some breaking news or a newly-unravelled mystery, delivered in a breathless ‘the world is about to end’ style. Each new revelation is usually more outrageous than the last. Yet, the man’s fans, even in Nigeria, praise him as their messiah.
It’s easy to keep up with MSNBC when I visit the US. I’m usually happy to immerse myself in programmes such as All In with Chris Hayes (which just won an Emmy) followed by The Rachel Maddow Show, which is my number one choice. I’ll have to talk about TRMS another day. Suffice it to say that Ms. Maddow presents her show the way TV lawyers address the jury. She begins with an opening statement that is sometimes very long, sets up the stage nicely and leads you through the show. At the end of the hour, she’ll have you convinced, just as she hands over to Lawrence O’Donnell with The Last Word, who then hands over to Chris Matthew for Hard Ball. Last on the list is Brian Williams with The 11th Hour. Phew! By this time, I’d have Trump stories coming out of my ears!
These days, however, I try to keep up with these shows online. And even though it’s impossible to keep to my MSNBC immersion routine, I make sure to keep up with The Rachel Maddow Show. For the past few weeks, attention has been on Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. I didn’t pay any attention initially because MSNBC, being a liberally-inclined station, was always going to question certain things in the man’s background. Their main fear stemmed from his opposing views against abortion. He had actually attempted, as judge in a lower court, to deny a young girl the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Plus, there’s the fear over what he’ll do in the all-important Roe v Wade case when he gets to the Supreme Court.
This was before Dr Christine Ford’s letter surfaced alleging that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her when they were in high school over 30 years ago. Then, all hell broke loose. A word of advice to my fellow country people: Resist judging this matter with your ‘Nigerian mind’. A few people start out trying to be objective, when in actual fact their mind is stuck on ‘30-something years ago!’ You see, in these parts, we haven’t yet dealt with even more ‘serious’ sexual crimes. So, when you feel that urge to pontificate coming just because you’re on social media, quickly remind yourself: This is not Nigeria.
Speaking of which, by the time you read this, Kavanaugh would have been confirmed by the Republican Party-led Senate. At least, that’s what Senator Mitch McConnell was saying as I was writing this.
Like America, unlike Nigeria?
Now more than ever, American politicians are proving to be like their Nigerian brothers; more interested in saving their skin than anything else. This is not to say that we should be comparing the US, whose democracy is way older than our perpetually ‘nascent’ one. Politicians in the ruling Republican Party are doing a 180-degrees turn on previously professed opinions, especially when they were in the opposition. Now, where have we heard that before?
I almost gave up on democracy about two weeks ago. I mean, if things could be so messy in America, what hope does Nigeria have? Nonetheless, by evening, after a good dose of MSNBC, I could see the light: the media is fighting hard. Citizens are fighting. Also, the presence of ideology makes it easier to situate people and issues.
Alas, in our dear Nigeria, what’s our ideology? Citizens are more concerned with sentiments of ‘My tribesman is better than yours’. In the Kavanaugh case, hundreds of lawyers wrote to kick against his nomination. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, at a conference for lawyers no less, our highly-ranked lawyers, were splitting hairs over the rule of law being inferior to national security, the uselessness of the NYSC scheme, among other issues.
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