This is our democracy. Home grown. Whoever doesn’t like it should take a walk down to Bakassi. Yes, move closer the ocean and we’d gladly push you over to Cameroon. It’s time we deal with those who portray us as unduly mad. As if madness is not part of our rights. In fact, I have been told by one “big man” that our constitutional freedom includes the right to be mad. That’s when I knew that our critics were “total idiots,” talking “absolute nonsense”!

I had always suspected that there was something legal about madness. But I wasn’t  sure until last week. It was on the eve of Democracy Day, when the celebrations were already in the air, that I realised madness is democratic. Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, that youngish looking but very experienced lawyer from Cross River State, told me there is something called “Democracy of Neurosis.” Instantly, it clicked. Those who claim government has spread more madness than jobs in the last five years should die in shame. Madness is a right. It’s democratic. It’s part of the democracy dividends. And it gives a lot of freedom, too. As my brother, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma puts it, “the greatest benefit of democracy is the freedom that we all enjoy.”  A corrupted version of “democracy” even with a mass ring to it –“dem-all-crazy.” Democracy of Neurosis is the madness of the majority. And it comes with a larger implication of freedom for all. That is why the ogas always point at “freedom” as   a major fallout of democracy. Have you ever seen a mad man arrested for “wandering”?

 Neurosis, by the way, is the big word for madness. It’s described as “mild psychological disorder characterised by anxiety, depression…” Are you confused? So am I. My head really goes in a spin until a colleague who “knows book very well” breaks down “depression.”  A “state of happiness and hopelessness, dejection, poor concentration, inability to sleep, etc”, he said. Forget the other big word – “psychological.” Ah! That, I’m told, is still a relation of madness – o.

When Fela sang about “craze world,” he had just come out of prison. In 1998, after I spent one week in police cell, for writing a story they considered offensive, everybody around thought I was mad. I actually looked mad. But am I not? Anyway, whenever I argued with somebody, he simply said, “you de craze.” I made no bones about it, we were in the military era, remember? And I didn’t want to go back to that place of madness. Now, if anybody dare calls me mad, I still won’t do anything. We are in a democracy and he is entitled to his opinion. Abi?

Aren’t we all mad in a democracy? If you are not mad as a politician, then politicians would make you mad with their policies. That probably made one judge to suggest, recently, that our politicians should undergo psychiatric tests. Then, what would happen to the “family affairs” treatment of treason? It’s only in this type of home-grown democracy that we get that. If we all have official medical tag of madmen, who would believe us if we brand assassination as robbery attack? 

People, Alhaji Wada Nas  may carpet us on corruption, selective justice and insecurity but he’s wrong that there is no democracy. He said, “our yesterday was better than our today.” And simply because Governor Chris Ngige has no police security, Maxi Okwu says we are lawless. But was it not law we used to withdraw the security? Ngige should thank his God he’s not Brother Joshua Dariye. After all, there was also madness in his state, yet he escaped our newfound powers of “state of emergency.. The Patriots should forget that talk about legal backing. We can do our thing as we like – this is our homegrown  democracy of neurosis.

Look, people should stop what  the president general of Nigeria  calls “thinking through their noses.” It is such thinking that make some people forget that one of the benefits of madness is that you can do anything and get away with it. Why do you think everybody caught with human parts or Indian hemp pretends to be mad? And haven’t you noticed that everybody who confesses to an assassination is said to be mad? That young man who claimed to have killed Chief Bola Ige was written off as mad. Davis Oyaje, the jobless guy, who claimed he was paid to assassinate Governor Orji Kalu, was later declared mad by the police. Then, he broke Nigeria’s judicial record by getting the fastest sentence ever.  All in this democracy! 

Still, even in our level of madness and “idiotness,” nothing touches our freedom. We can even drive one way and  get away with it. If the government threatens to test our sanity, we find a way out – bribe the police, LASTMA official, etc. Isn’t it the democratic madness that makes it possible for soldiers and policemen to block major federal highways like Ikorodu Road, in Lagos, collect N20 and close eyes to the resultant traffic? It doesn’t matter if commercial buses park in the middle of the road for hours to load, after the law enforcers had been “settled.” It’s that same madness that has created about 50 checkpoints from Lagos to Abuja!  Now, don’t ask if they are official.

Thank God for our kind of democracy, reports that should indict past leaders are never found – even when the custodians are with us. And findings of panels and committees, whether they have white  or black paper, never get reports. So, anything goes – as part of the rule. And, even when General Olusegun Obasanjo warns that democracy is no licence for rascality, many take it as a joke.  But psychiatrists confirm that madmen are the chief rascals. Still, there are madmen and there are madmen. Since we all didn’t get mad the same day, there are categories and, in fact, hierarchy of madness. If you doubt, check out the politicians. The level of mischief at the National Assembly, for instance, would make Obasanjo so humble that he apologises, by mistake, for his government’s ineptitude. But he may not be able to declare state of emergency there. 

Anyway, talking about apology, with the madness building in Nigerian women, out of anger and frustration, they may get that soon from Aso Rock – if they carry out their threat of going naked in public protest. My only request is that I should be invited to cover the event. I think they are rightly unhappy that the government has done nothing to bring down the maternal mortality rate. And I support the “naked protest” option. It’s a democracy of madness, isn’t it?

In a democracy, everybody knows that we are in a “craze world.” So, even when government wants to show highhandedness, it ends up participating in the game of madness. And this is where the story by my grand mum makes sense. She narrated of a man who went to our village stream to bathe one noon. While he was savouring the soothing effect of the water on his skin, a madman went to where he hung his clothes and tried to wear them. The owner of the clothes saw him in time and rushed out of the stream. The madman took off – with the clothes still in his possession. Our man would not live to see a madman run away with his clothes, so he chased. Soon, they got the village. Everybody there knew the madman as one nut off the screw. But the owner of the clothes had forgotten he was naked. What then were the two naked men in the center of the village? Madmen!

In a democracy of madness, you  don’t have political parties. Perhaps, that’s why the PDP chairman, Chief Audu Ogbe, says we only have rallies – a congregation of all manners of people. Here, there is nothing like obedience to the rule of law. Security is of no consequence because we don’t need it. As madmen, with democratic immunity, we have the right to abuse and harass people. It’s really not difficult. All we need is a bunch of madmen in uniform – never mind the colour.

It is only  in a Democracy of Neurosis that people wonder, after five good years, what the democracy dividends have been. Imagine, how can they fail to see the disappearance of order? If you can’t pay transport fare, ask the oil marketers for the dividends. We all know they would direct you to Obasanjo. Don’t really expect to gain from the “oil windfalls.”  It’s all madness. Forget the minor taxes you pay, they can never be the same as what the oil marketers pay to government – through NNPC. This new madness, in fact, is not just democratic. It’s financial! 

• First published in Saturday Sun of  June 05, 2004