Charles Onunaiju
7 November 2008
column
The concept of the fool in everyday usage usually refers to the acts of ordinary people or simpletons deemed lowly or irresponsible by the upper social category. Yet foolishness in its total conception refers to the conduct and behaviours which cuts across all social strata, but its impact is more devastating when leadership of any society is dominated by fools.
Modern Western political science have usually focused attention on the problems of legitimacy, the problems of systems of government, the problem of participation and a host of other problems, but it has not focused attention on the problem of manpower with reference to the fools and their impact in the leadership of emerging states. However, no matter what the system is, be it a democracy, a dictatorship, a communist or liberal democratic, the factor of the fool is significant. Any system dominated by fools will not work. The fool cannot awaken resistance against injustice and cannot fight corruption. He cannot inspire. His pronouncements, however, doctored they may be with statistics, facts and figures, concepts and plans cannot call forth great actions. Sadly once the fools come to power, they perpetuate their own breed. With the fools; came nepotism, provincialism, parochial party politics, to condition selection and ascent in the hierarchy of administrative power. Fools cannot cope with a situation of where merit and hardwork are the criteria for success and so corruption is the hallmark of the rise to power of the fools, making a farce of government tenders and leading to bureaucratic intrigues to gain office or promotion. Where fools dominate, it is there values which became society's values, their consciousness which becomes society's consciousness. But to illustrate what is meant by a fool, let us first make the distinction between training, knowledge, and the state of being a fool. If a man is trained to be a lawyer. He then practices for ten years and has knowledge of the laws, but this does not automatically make him a clever lawyer. He can still be a fool if he does not know how to overcome difficult problems that require creative imagination. His success is purely due to routine procedure. The same apply to a physician, journalist or engineer. The essential characteristics of a fool are that he is not able to recognize problems. If told to him, he is not able to solve them. He is not able to learn what is required and is also not able to learn the art of learning. Above all, he usually does not admit he is a fool. A man does not become a fool if he does not know everything for no one can know everything., Similarly, a man is not a fool if he lacks experience, for a surgeon doing his first operation does not need to be a fool. A man is not a fool if he does not attain what he strives for owing to lack of opportunity as in the case of bankruptcy or owing to uncontrollable circumstance rather than mismanagement. Neither failure nor success, knowledge or ignorance, constitutes the ontological essence of a fool. An ignorant, illiterate man need not be a fool if he has the ability to learn and successfully make use of the opportunity available to him.
However, the fool we are concerned is not ordinary simpletons but the covertly disguised fools, the member of parliament, the cabinet minister, governor, party stalwart, the lawyer, physician, historian, economist, journalist and other whose membership of the species of fools is somewhat camouflaged by training and education they receive and positions they occupy in society. It is these fools who require crises to expose them. The concept of the fool as used here is relative to the functional assignment. A military commander may be a good photographer but on the battle field he may be a fool. A minister may be a good golf player but in his ministerial work, he is a big fool. Owing to the fact that a fool operates collectively in his functional capacity, like his intelligent counterpart, a result arising out of his foolish action or decision cannot be easily attributed to him except in unusual circumstance or when his degree of mental enfoolment is such that by its very nature, his action is immediately exposed without his being aware of it. In the case of the fool with a lower degree of enfoolment or one whose action is derived from a collective field of cause and effect, the exposure is not simple. Error is a universal phenomenon. Everyone makes mistakes. But there is a difference between the error of a fool and that of others. In the case of a fool his error can easily be anticipated. Nor is much time required to expose it. His error does not result from absence of knowledge or from the phenomenon of incalculability. More interestingly or perhaps tragically, it is difficult to quantify the study of fools. No country in history has yet attempted a census on fools. There are no statistics on the subject, it is well-nigh impossible to select a sample survey. Since it is no crime to be a fool, we cannot as with criminals conduct a direct study of convicted fools. A fool is not an occupational category, and therefore, it is not possible to study the fools as for instance, to study prostitutes. It is also degrading to be a fool, hence we cannot distribute questionnaires for those selected to answer would resent it.
However, and fortunately too, there is only one method left to discern fools in high places. Every group in society leaves its mark on the social life., Traces of the fools can be found in published policy documents, the speeches of the members of parliament, governors and party big wigs, the editorial and news reporting of the media and generally on government administration and policies. From these we can try to make a qualitative assessment of the influence of the fools. Without knowing their number, we can know some of their influence. Apart from the characteristics of a fool we have identified earlier, disguised fools in high places have additional features that combine to make the society where they dominate. Such societies became prostrate and unable to achieve any tangible progress inspite of available resources. A fool does not think contextually both in terms of space and time and in the dynamic inter-relationship of factors. A fool reacts to the immediate and cannot see beyond. A fool had a mind that thinks and focuses on limited causes and not of successive causes and effects. The fool is a creature of habit and is not critical of the foundation of his own thinking. A fool cannot reflect upon a problem or a situation and he is inconsistent. A fool is not analytic in his thinking but descriptive. He lacks mental energy and always follows the line of least resistance and cannot speak at a high level of abstraction without contradicting reality. A fool relishes the limelight and baths in the vain glory of his material acquisition and very gullible to public acclamation. In African emerging states, the dominant roles of fools accounts for the wasted opportunities to meet the development challenges of these societies. Because fools are bereft of original thinking, the cling to idea thought out by others, but quite unsuitable to the situations in their societies. Because of the dominant of fools, Africa has been by-passed by all other countries and regions in the world even when early projections, immediately after the end of formal colonial rule, pointed that the continent has what it takes to become developed and meet the expectation of her various peoples. The gap left in original thinking on the solutions to the problems of development have been filled by half backed programmes designed by distant and unconcerned bureaucrat in major western financial institutions. Because fools dominate in the public arena of public life in Africa, the understanding of the exercise of state power have been limited to private acquisition of material wealth and the effort to perpetuate oneself in power irrespective of constitutional provision. The best conceived and written constitution cannot work in a situation when fools dominate the political lives of a society. Fools generously cite the provisions of the constitution while all their actions undermine it. In parliaments, where fools dominate it is the equivalent of fools paradise. Trifle matters and personal concerns are the main menu of legislative activities. The rule of fools inevitably breeds corruption and this jabs away at the fabric of society.
The rule of fools is very insensitive to constructive criticism. A fool cannot understand why a person will arraign himself against the powers that be, because in his foolish thought, the one who pit himself against the people in power has everything to loose and nothing to gain. He does not under principle and convictions because he has none and incapable of appreciating the depth of a conviction a man can hold.
Jean Bedel Bokassa, an arch-fool of his generation of African leadership crowned himself an emperor with millions of dollars. While he regaled in his monstrous regalia, his guests, mostly his French patrons and handlers have a good laugh at the buffoon. Idi Amin, Mobutu Sese Seko, Ahmadu Ahidjo decorated state power with large dose of foolishness and the cumulative costs of their enfoolment set their societies back by several decades and even plunged them into fratricidal conflicts. Nearer home, the hallmark of fools are evident in all facets of Nigerian national life. Recently, the fool showed his hand in the bill for the hosting of junior world cup football tournament. The bill of 35 billion was prepared and after the rejection of the hosting right on account of the outrageous bill, it was cut by nearly 70%. But because fools dominate in the larger space of the country's life, all that was heard is that a probe will be instituted in the football body to catch the thieves, when ordinarily all those who prepared the bill and other accessory to them would have been brought to public ridicule, shamed and punished. As the issue recede in the public media, so will the perpetrators design other ways to rip the nation. In the rule of fools, railing against corruption is a convenient alibi for embracing and condoning it. When Nigeria ceases to be governed in the way and manner it is governed currently, many who jostle for governorship seats, members of the parliament, ministerial posts and other public offices would prefer to sell wares in any of our numerous market, than bother about public office. The day that public office ceases to function as a casino machine, that spins unearned wealth, the likes of Balarabe Musa, General Buhari and even the ghost of Bala Usman, Aminu Kano, Osita Agwuna and others would be begged to take public office, but until then, long live, the rule of fools.
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