We all may have heard of a “failed state”, a “failing state” or a “banana republic”. A “developed country”, a “developing nation”, and an “under-developed state”. But have you ever been told about a “nanny state”? Perhaps you know now, if you’re reading this monstrous piece by this equally monstrous writer. I, myself, came by this term in a write-up by a faith commentator, David C. Grabbe. According to him, people, because of their own “great expectations” of their governments, are making them nannies. The price they have to pay for their unwillingness to ‘take responsibility’ for themselves, if not others also, is that governments are over-regulating people’s lives. Let me quote this reverend gentleman at length (pray, I don’t bore you): “We have the expectations and responses of those being governed. As they see a nation spiraling out of control, they begin demanding that the leadership “do something.” So they elect leaders who promise “change”, who promise to fix this or that financial or social problem through legislation, and bit by bit, everybody’s freedoms are curtailed. Political leaders soon become the arbiters of how every citizen should live. It starts with the people demanding that the leaders “do something.”
“Along with this are those who believe the government exists to take care of them. Many people want – even demand – government programs, benefits, and all manner of largesse to protect them from the vagaries of life. They begin believing that it is the government’s job to give them healthcare, childcare, retirement (benefit), and education; to fund obscene art exhibits; and to stop hurricanes. They want a Nanny State, so it will take care of them… Wherever governments of men are in place, pressures will mount for the responsibilities of the governor to expand and the responsibilities of the governed to contract.”
In Nigeria, we hear lamentations like “times are hard” and for the government to “do something”. In response, the government, for example, on Wednesday relaunched a national social safety net to benefit 15 million households. They will receive N25,000 for the next 3 months in the first instance. It says it’s for free. But in truth there is a price tag. There are talks about the government planning to introduce a speech gag in the form of social media platform regulation. The government says it will stop hate speech. But you and I know better. What is hate speech? Who determines what hate speech is? The government. It writes the legislation, sets the penalties and is the arbiter. Arbitrariness.
But here, the government’s minister of information, Mr. Mohammed Idris, himself a newspaper publisher and an employer of journalists, wants to contradict me. He says the government is considering registering journalists. “We’re looking at that,” he said last week, but denied it was the same as stopping free speech. “You know that Mr. President believes in press freedom,” Idris said. “He believes in freedom of expression, and he’s not going to gag the press in any way, shape or form. He’s going to work assiduously to ensure that the Nigerian press, that has been free, is even freer. But here comes the caveat. “But like I say all the time, this freedom also comes with enormous responsibility. You can’t just speak what is not right because you’re enjoying press freedom. There’ll be freedom, but is that responsible freedom?” There will be freedom aright but responsible freedom. Doublespeak. One assurance cancelling out the other.
If you still want to give the minister the benefit of doubt, you have to hear what the head of one of his ministry’s agencies also said the day Idris gave his freer press assurances. Mr. Balarabe Ilelah, the director general of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) told the minister that draft legislation had gone to the National Assembly, seeking to “repeal and reenact” the NBC Law, CAP L11, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004. He said the aim was to tame the “monster” called social media. “One of our major problems now is social media,” he said to the visiting minister. “Unless there is a law that allows NBC to address social media issues, the problem will persist in our daily lives in this country.” We did see the minister reprimand the officer there and then. And even not thereafter.
Recall the immediate past APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari’s running katataka with social media platforms, leading to the banning of former Twitter (now simply X) in Nigeria. The ban was lifted eventually, but it underscored a government’s obsession with killing dissent. It doesn’t appear this new APC administration of President Bola Tinubu will let sleeping dogs lie. A tiger doesn’t change its spots. Or as our own Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka put it many years ago, a tiger didn’t have to “proclaim its tigritude”, in response to a push for a Negritude (philosophical) movement.
