Still on the art of being here, there and everywhere...
Originally posted July 2019
Don Kenobi reflects on Bishop K and Nigeria’s intellectual class
— exposing the failure of the so-called educated elite,
where cheap populism masquerades as patriotism.
Similar in theme to “The Analysts and the Ashes”
https://donkenobi.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-analysts-and-ashes-nigerias.html
Bishop K?
No! He just coasts along with every issue. Adds no value given his advantage as a highly placed Northerner, a Christian, a highly placed Catholic Bishop.
To me, he’s been ineffective as far as this project — Project Nigeria — is concerned.
He prefers, it would seem, to launder the image of and be photographed with discredited politicians, rather than bring clarity to the two sides of the conflicting civilizations and cultures he straddles and understands.
General Digression
I’ve observed a growing malaise amongst many of the self-styled educated elites: their interests, physiological and psychological, always come first.
The psychological need for people to be seen as and thought of by the general Nigerian public as “leaders of thought.”
A need which intoxicates, I now believe, and leads those under its influence to want to be seen everywhere —
at every peace conference, at every confab (where they talk issues to death with the same talking points you find at the better barbershops),
at every TV talk show where they advertise themselves...
A little introspection might have more conscionable or scrupulous folks sit back and ask themselves:
“Why am I doing all THIS every week, every month, every year, or every decade?”
To which I add:
“With the same talking points, same interviewers, same TV stations, same conferences, same expletive venues?”
They lack the ability to judge themselves objectively. Because you need a certain level of shamelessness to engage in the craft (and craftiness) they’ve made their sole preserve.
Try to engage some of them in honest debate — they’ll ignore you.
Why?
Because having advertised their ‘greatness’ for so long, they think they have all the answers — all the solutions.
And the reason we fail, according to their conceit, is that we do not listen to what they have so painstakingly laid down!
As an Example of Their Mindset
Such people might talk about a concept ad nauseam.
If you succumb and actually go along, and the implementation fails to yield desired results, they will have a suite of ready explanations:
It either failed because we did not implement it quickly enough —
“We wasted so many years doubting their sagacity, and what do you expect? Time waits for no one!”
Or,
It failed because we failed to implement it “to the letter” as they instructed us —
“I told you! Now see!!”
You see, they never own failure.
I have come to a conclusion that they never own failure because they have never really fixed anything:
Not an electric iron, not a simple plug.
They don’t understand troubleshooting and, as a result, have never made any process more efficient.
Logic simply isn’t their forte.
In addition, they do not understand that real lasting solutions — like hard steel or gold — are forged in a furnace,
not in air-conditioned auditoriums far removed in distance and reality from the issues they purport to want to solve!
They are just populists who prefer to sit on the fence and be here when the tide goes here, be there when it goes there, and be everywhere when the tide appears to be everywhere.
Back to Bishop K
All this isn’t about Bishop K, but necessarily he certainly has triggered my anguish about a guild of professional Nigerians who engage in this business of cheap populism disguised as deep patriotism.
What did K do wrong this time?
Nothing.
Actually, he’s done the right thing.
The call against blanket demonization of the Fulani is the right call.
I’m just angry it has taken him this long to get there.
I hope he works selflessly to bring clarity to the vexing issues surrounding this hydra-headed crisis.
If not him, who?
Kudos to Bishop Onaiyekan, who has done a great job saying there is no Islamization —
and that even if there were, Muslims are perfectly within their rights to do so.
Proselytizing and converting others to one’s religion is a two-way street.
That is clarity.
With this, I rest.
Don Kenobi
Passenger in the #Molue
The one by the window seat in the rickety Molue, watching quietly with one hand underneath his chin.
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