\n\u2013 By Femi Olugbile
\n
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\nThere has been a news item in circulation in the social media and in the mainstream media, for several days now. It concerns a certain dramatic incident that took place in a shopping mall in Abuja. Much of the emotion is outrage at the intemperate behaviour of a high state official who is a lawyer to boot.
\nAs with all things Nigerian, layers of meaning are read into the public fracas that go well beyond a case of \u2018two fighting\u2019. The high state official comes from a stock that, in the eyes of many, to put it as delicately as possible, are greatly favoured ahead of others in appointments to high public office in the present dispensation. The \u2018injured party\u2019 in the drama is a lowly \u2018guard\u2019 working in a private shopping mall in the nation\u2019s capital.
\nThe dispute allegedly arose when the guard, in the line of duty, accosted the high state official concerning the parking of his car in the busy car park. The proletarian \u2018guard\u2019, let it be said, hails from the \u2018Middle Belt\u2019 of Nigeria, a zone currently facing an existential struggle between \u2018herdsmen\u2019 and \u2018indigenes\u2019, as well as an identity crisis concerning whether it is \u2018North\u2019, \u2018South\u2019, or \u2018Middle\u2019.
\nTo complete the picture, the general commercial environment of the shopping plaza in question is densely populated with shop holders and other entrepreneurs from the South East of Nigeria.
\nWole Soyinka could not have created a more complete scenario. It is \u2018Nigeria Redux\u2019.
\nBut of all the different controversies surrounding the incident, including the high state official\u2019s interesting claims that he was the victim and not the aggressor, and that his antagonists were shouting \u2018secessionist\u2019 slogans, which, unfortunately are not audible on the video or validated by bystanders, it is worrisome to the discriminating mind that the genuinely concerned public reaction may be missing the most psychologically significant exchange in the whole drama, the bit that goes to the fundamental core of social relations in the Nigeria. It speaks volumes not just about what is wrong with Nigeria, but what needs to be made right with Nigeria.
\nThe following things happened, among several other things. One Nigerian, in a public place, commanded another Nigerian to go down on his knees. This Nigerian then slapped and kicked the other Nigerian, again in public.
\nThere is a third element, the behaviour from the receiving end. What did the Nigerian who was commanded, illegally, to kneel down on the tarmac in a public place by another Nigerian do? Did he laugh in his face, and tell his fellow Nigerian to \u2018go to hell\u2019? No. He went down on his knees, on the tarmac, in public, in Abuja, the nation\u2019s capital.
\nThis scenario should worry every Nigerian who has any knowledge of psychology, and who has the interests of the nation at heart. To put it in context, if Nigeria is truly a Federation, and a Republic of free and equal citizens, nobody \u2013 not even the President, has the authority to put another Nigerian on his knees, and so impugn his dignity. On the other side, every citizen has a duty \u2013 to himself, to the nation, to disobey such an irregular, unfair, unjust, demeaning order, were anyone to be so lacking in propriety and civil behaviour as to issue it.<\/p>\n