Rejoinder to "A Critique of Nigerian Critics"

5 February, 2007

By Critic of Nigeria 

To a particular group of people from Nigeria, it is either you love Nigeria or you hate Nigeria. It is either you are with Nigeria or you are against Nigeria. There are no other alternatives. If you love Nigeria, you must defend Nigeria’s image at all costs, in all your words and actions, even if Nigeria is currently murdering her entire citizenry, under the guise of dubious messianic complex.  

If you criticize Nigeria in any of your words, you hate Nigeria. And once you are pronounced a Nigeria hater, you are the object of their game plan. You are called many things under the Sun. You are neurotic. You are a disgruntled Nigerian, with an ass to grind; or you are living in the past, holding the current generation responsible for the sins of the previous generations. The problems of Nigeria are caused by you because you refuse to let go your outdated ideas, which have been acknowledged, dissected, understood, and invalidated by the current New Nigeria.  

But Nigeria is not a person as much as America is not a person. America is not George Bush and George Bush is not America. America is bigger than an individual because America is a collection of processes. Similarly, Nigeria is a set of processes. Nigeria is not Obasanjo or a tribe of hate-mongers. Since no process is perfect and complete, in and of itself, Nigeria is not complete and perfect. Every process inherits some imperfections because imperfect individuals created the process with imbedded imperfections.  

If to love Nigeria means that we must love and accept all the obvious imperfections, then you are dead wrong. A process is inherently imperfect and needs constant tweaking to improve its operations. The moment you stop the necessary modifications of the process is the moment you have abandoned the duties required to keep the processes at maximum capacity. You must then disband all the lawmakers because they are there to produce new tweaks to keep the processes at maximum productive levels. You must also disrupt the works of the law enforcement agencies because they exist only to enforce the past and prevailing tweaks and modifications. If to love Nigeria means that we must allow the processes to rot, decay, and die, then call me a neurotic hater of your naija processes. 

If to hate Nigeria means that the critics of Nigeria dedicate their efforts in pointing out the blatant imperfections that must be removed to improve the processes, then call me your foremost neurotic hater. I enjoy such appellations because I hate imperfect individuals who glorify imperfect processes, even when the processes are sending them to their early graves. It is a matter of proportions and preferences.  

In your world, you conceive and prefer only two possibilities: love and hate. All relationships and processes of your worldview are conceived as love or hate, nothing more. There are no additions or subtractions needed to tweak anything, to bring anything up to date with the changing global world of technologies and markets. The assumption is that we must accept or reject the processes as you define them, with or without your inherent imperfections. 

In our system, there are many alternative tweaking paths, required to keep the system in conformance with the changing world markets and technologies. Every object in our system is tweaked to adapt to the changing time and space because we believe that every object therein must exist within the spatial and temporal requirements of the external world systems. If the latest car has only three tires, our system will adapt to the requirements of the new object. In other words, our system is not static like your system; our objects are free to mod and change, according to the philosophical underpinnings of the world systems. 

The major difference between your system and ours is the philosophical framework under which they are conceived. Yours is based on spurious logic. Ours is founded on sound understanding of logical principles. To prove this, I will shift between Nigeria and America (the assumption here is not that one nation is superior to the other). Before we alternate between America and Nigeria, let’s consider our assumptions. 

• Assumption #1: Nigeria is the best country in the world (WayoGuy)  
• Assumption #2: Nigeria critics have failed (WayoGuy)
• Assumption #3:There are 140 million Nigerians
• Assumption #4: 40 million Nigerians are criminals and fraudsters; 100 million Nigerians are not criminals and fraudsters 
  

To keep things simple, I will not go into statistical analysis of such variables as average and standard deviation. However, I must note that when WayoGuy uses such a phrase as “a true Nigerian”, he means this: “a representative Nigerian”, or in statistical lingo, “an average or typical Nigerian”. 

Now, note carefully that the first two assumptions are taken from an article published on NVS by WayoGuy. The article is titled “From Washington with Love: A Critique of Nigerian Critics”.

The two statements are supposedly the claims which the article was trying to establish based on “logic”. But WayoGuy failed to establish his claims because he became trapped in the same logical blunders which he leveled against the critics of Nigeria. 

In fact, WayoGuy did not only fail to provide convincing evidence to establish his assumptions; he also proved conclusively that he lacks the understanding of logical principles. I would have ignored his logical blunders, but I point them out here because they are at the heart of his accusations against the critics of Nigeria.  

For example, WayoGuy does not understand the meaning of such terms as “argument”, “syllogism”, “proposition”, and “predicate”. An argument, syllogistic or propositional, has three propositions. The first proposition is called the major premise. The second proposition is called the minor premise, not the predicate as he asserts. Both the major and minor premises combine to produce the third proposition called the conclusion. All the three propositions contain a subject and a predicate. No proposition, in and of itself, is considered a predicate. Let’s turn now to main claim of his article. 

Supposing that Mr. Impeccable puts out the following propositions: 

• Proposition 1:: I like you because you are unlike other Nigerians that I have met, all engaged in fraud
• Proposition 2: I like you because you don’t behave like Nigerians 
• Proposition 3: You are a true Nigerian: all the other fools from your country whom I met behave like criminals 
  

Mr. Impeccable would be correct in asserting Proposition #1 if he had met only the 40 million Nigerians who are criminals and fraudsters. This is simply because those are the only Nigerians he knew. 

The important point to note here is that Mr. Impeccable can never assert propositions #1 and #2 simultaneously or propositions #1 and #3 simultaneously WITHOUT contradicting himself. Here is why:  

If Mr. Impeccable asserts propositions #1 and #2, he would be making a logical error because he is yet to meet the other 100 million Nigerians who are not criminals and fraudsters. 

If Mr. Impeccable asserts propositions #2 and #3, he would STILL be making a logical error because he is yet to meet the remaining 100 million Nigerians who are not criminals and fraudsters. 

According to WayoGuy, “true Nigerians” belong to the other 100 million Nigerians who are not criminals and fraudsters. Mr. Impeccable does not know these “true Nigerians” and is not logically justified to make claims about the set, one way or the other. 

I meant to alternate between America and Nigeria so as to show that among Nigerians in America, there are more who not criminals than those who are. This would have established the fact that where laws perform their functions, there are more Nigerians who are law-abiding than those who are not. I also wanted to count the number of criminals in the prisons of America so as to determine what proportions of them are Nigerians compared to the proportions who are Americans or Mexicans. But I do not have enough time to do these things now. I know that Mr WayoGuy and other linear thinkers like him would argue that doing so would support their worldview. They are in error here too, because my worldview asserts that there are Nigerians who are indifferent to hate and love. These indifferent Nigerians live fulfilled lives in orderly societies where laws are enforced to facilitate peace, order, and justice. If the same lawful conditions obtain in Nigeria, the same proportions of law-abiding Nigerians would exist in Nigeria. Until such an orderly and just arrangement obtains in Nigeria, the critics of Nigeria will continue to fight against the imperfections in the Nigeria processes. Nigeria is not yet like the worst ghettos in America because these ghettos have electricity, water, roads, schools, hospitals, and food.

Robot  Villager

# 1 Rejoinder: A Critique of Nigerian Critics 5 February, 2007 ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 06.02.2007 01:57

WayoGuy  Villager

# 2 Nice article. Now I know that I have finally arrived on the writing stage when a rejoinder is written to my article. Many thanks. A few of your points and reasoning are logically incorrect, and I hope the readers can see them, but the rest are well taken. (whether you use 'minor premise' or 'predicate' is the same if the logical process of syllogism is followed, so don't say stuff such as 'WayoGuy does not understand...' That's too juvenile for such a serious discourse as this). All in all I stand by my article. Nigeria is the best place in the world and the critic does'nt know crap! Again, many thanks. WayoGuy Posted by WayoGuy| 06.02.2007 03:04

Oloye  Villager

# 3 =Robot;153581>Rejoinder: A Critique of Nigerian Critics Supposing that Mr. Impeccable puts out the following propositions: Proposition 1:: I like you because you are unlike other Nigerians that I have met, all engaged in fraud Proposition 2: I like you because you don’t behave like Nigerians Proposition 3: You are a true Nigerian: all the other fools from your country whom I met behave like criminals The important point to note here is that Mr. Impeccable can never assert propositions #1 and #2 simultaneously .... Here is why: If Mr. Impeccable asserts propositions #1 and #2, he would be making a logical error because he is yet to meet the other 100 million Nigerians who are not criminals and fraudsters. That's exactly what WayoGuy was saying. How can you write a reply or rejoinder and state exactly the same argument/point that WayoGuy made in his original writeup? Pray, what is your point? Posted by Oloye| 06.02.2007 03:39

WayoGuy  Villager

# 4 TO ALL Villagers: INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS: Following my response above to the Rejoinder, one of our NVS fellow writers sent me a private email telling me the name of the so-called Anonymous writer of the rejoinder. I called him to state that I doubted him. He told me to go to NVS again and read the rejoinder again and then search in NVS search engine for the following phrases used in the rejoinder "standard deviation", "not static", "external world", "temporal" and "neurotic" and that I would find this person's previous articles using the same phrases because every writer has a writing 'fingerprint'. I searched the phrases. Boy, was I surprised!!!! Try it for yourselves. Never a dull moment in the village. LOL. WayoGuy (LOL) Posted by WayoGuy| 06.02.2007 06:33

Shoko Loko Bangoshe  Villager

# 5 Wayo Guy, I think I now know the person you are referring to. If I'm right, I wonder why he didn't post under his own name... :confused1 Posted by Shoko Loko Bangoshe| 06.02.2007 07:06

Uche Nworah  Villager

# 6 @Wayo Guy and shokolokobangoshe I am surprised at the attempt to unmask the writer being that you all have argued in past on this board on the importance and preogative of writers to maintain or rather to assume whatever handle they deem fit. As is obvious WayoGuy is an assumed name, so also is Shokolokobangoshe. Perhaps who ever has written this piece under the name anonymous Nigerian critic does not wish to unmask himself in this instance. I thought the issue would have been around what he/she said or wrote rather than who he/she is, or the intention in signing off anonymously? Posted by Uche Nworah| 06.02.2007 07:18

allahisdevil  JJC

# 7 =Uche Nworah;153620>@Wayo Guy and shokolokobangoshe I am surprised at the attempt to unmask the writer being that you all have argued in past on this board on the importance and preogative of writers to maintain or rather to assume whatever handle they deem fit. As is obvious WayoGuy is an assumed name, so also is Shokolokobangoshe. Perhaps who ever has written this piece under the name anonymous Nigerian critic does not wish to unmask himself in this instance. I thought the issue would have been around what he/she said or wrote rather than who he/she is, or the intention in signing off anonymously? Thank you Mr. uche, that's a case of 'He-Goat calling a She-Goat a Goat, claiming to be He-Sheep. What a 'Cynical Irony'. Cheers. Posted by allahisdevil| 06.02.2007 07:35

Shoko Loko Bangoshe  Villager

# 8 =Uche Nworah>I am surprised at the attempt to unmask the writer being that you all have argued in past on this board on the importance and preogative of writers to maintain or rather to assume whatever handle they deem fit. I think you'll find that 'to unmask' means 'to reveal someone's identity'. Can you tell me where I am revealing anyone's identity here? As is obvious WayoGuy is an assumed name, so also is Shokolokobangoshe. Perhaps who ever has written this piece under the name anonymous Nigerian critic does not wish to unmask himself in this instance. And that's fine by me - but it doesn't mean I can't express my curiosity that he's choosing to write this article under an assumed name. Posted by Shoko Loko Bangoshe| 06.02.2007 08:02

WayoGuy  Villager

# 9 =Uche Nworah;153620>@Wayo Guy and shokolokobangoshe I am surprised at the attempt to unmask the writer being that you all have argued in past on this board on the importance and preogative of writers to maintain or rather to assume whatever handle they deem fit. As is obvious WayoGuy is an assumed name, so also is Shokolokobangoshe. Perhaps who ever has written this piece under the name anonymous Nigerian critic does not wish to unmask himself in this instance. I thought the issue would have been around what he/she said or wrote rather than who he/she is, or the intention in signing off anonymously? I think I should tell you that I am on record on NVS criticizing that writer on his position against Igbos. That is the only reason he decided to take a swipe at me with a rejoinder that in fact agrees with my original conclusion at the end. He could have done it with his usual publishing name unless (a) he is afraid of me or (b) he is unsure of his position in the rejoinder, or (c) both. Posted by WayoGuy| 06.02.2007 08:18

Uche Nworah  Villager

# 10 @SLB Perhaps you may be guilty by 'association' or should i say that you are an 'unwilling' accomplice. @WayoGuy You are even digging the hole the more in your attempt to expose that which the 'anonymous' writer wishes to keep hidden, but pray do you know for certain that it is 'who' you are refering to that actually wrote the said article? Posted by Uche Nworah| 06.02.2007 08:19

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