Nigeria’s Sociology Of Rationalization -By Kehinde Oluwatosin B.

Kehinde Oluwatosin B.

The conservative disposition of the Yoruba people ensures that they always make a clear distinction between an expression indicating a very severe condition and an alternate expression whose context is similar to the former however milder in it’s expression and perception.

An instance is the distinction the Yoruba conservative culture makes between ‘àmodi’ and ‘wèrè’. Both expressions are communicating the same message of lunacy however, with varying grades of severity.

The Yoruba culture deploys the ‘àmodi’ description of madness when she’s in search of a sobriquet to communicate the terrible incidence of having a close relation run mad, the Yoruba world view believes deploying the ‘àmodi’ grade of madness covers the dignity of the affected person better than brutishly saying the person ‘ti yawerè’.

Despite the conservative nature of the Yoruba cultural world, the Yorubas only create such distinction in the arena of dignity and not in the arena of reality. In the arena of reality, the Yoruba does not deploy euphemisms and synedoches in communicating the reality of a thing.

It is from such practical approach to reality that the Yoruba deliberately fail to distinguish between ‘omo mi n féwó’ and ‘omo mi n jalè’. The Yorubas hatred for euphemism in the light of glaring reality ensures that ‘omo mi n féwó’ and ‘omo mi n jalè’ are both contextualized in the domain of stealing, she did not create an euphemism for stealing and express it as being light-fingered.

The Yoruba anti-euphemism culture provides a teachable lesson for the typical Nigerian in the wake of our heavily rationalized society. The sociology of rationalization in Nigeria is simply appalling. We have ensured as a people there is a cognitive explanation for all manners of disorderliness.

Take the case of the electricity service you pay for without getting to see light for days ,only for NEPA to bring it for some few hours and everyone starts screaming “Haaa! NEPA try lòní o”. You even play the devil’s advocate by shutting down all voices who think otherwise and expected more from NEPA.

When your Governor constructs a road without street lights , drainage and road breaks, you roll out drums commending him for a job well-done, he has tried and that everyone that opposes his second term is wicked, it does not matter that such defects in construction has claimed many lives.

When your politicians are apprehended for corrupt practices, your knack for rationalization immediately becomes operational and you start considering the man’s political and religious affiliations, you make excuses for his stealing by telling everyone who cares to hear that he’s only being harassed because he is a Christian, and his prosecutors are muslims, you even justify his stealing because he is investing the spoils of his corruption in Nigeria unlike his political ilk who take such money abroad.

The sociology of rationalization of the Nigerian could be traced to a National culture of deprivation which has over the years ensured that there is an explanation and also a nostalgia for all forms of disorderliness.

The typical Nigerian has lived over the years in a culture and a national enclave that has consistently deprived and denied him of civic sentient,that is why the Nigerian builds his house, his road, and provides his electricity and water.

He owes not the government and the government does not owe him. When you grow in this kind of anarchic structure, every little privilege from the government is accepted with a standing ovation.

The Yoruba culture hardly euphemise or rationalize an event in the face of glaring reality and this culture of anti-euphemism provides a teachable lessons on the pathway Nigeria needs to rid herself of her culture of rationalization.

Kehinde Oluwatosin Babatunde is a prolific writer and public speaker.

Email: Kehindeobabatunde@gmail.com
Twitter: @_tqatq