admin 
“We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few
who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize
we perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for
his own good is to have a healthy love for him.” — Michel de Montaigne
A commanding majority of Southern Kaduna politicians—a privileged cream that made it
through our electoral generosity and parochialism are thin-skinned. Their variety of thin skinnism
is one of a kind and never recorded in any document. No explanation from personality disorder
experts vividly captured the degree of thin skinnism of the self-serving group in focus.
Because of their psychological imbalance and chronic solipsism, this product electoral sheepism
doesn’t care to know whether criticism and disagreement are constitutionally bestowed to critics or
not. In their upside-down mindsets, they are in a class that is beyond criticism by wretched
constituents. The message they are transmitting is: they are czars and czarina, totalitarians of
the interwar period, or wisdom-saturated Aristatorian philosopher kings.
Why would our politicians assume that not seeing the world from their standpoints is tantamount
to hatred? Why would they think that their intuitism must be accepted willy nilly? Why would they
convert dissidents to foes that must be flattened and crushed in tandem with prescription in
Robert Greene’s classic titled 42 Law of power? Why would they deploy extrajudicial measures
to subdue constituents enjoying their constitutional right to keep off their agenda that is for self-aggrandizement?
Elsewhere, I mean in countries where elephants don’t fly nor eagles swim, accepting to serve is
tantamount to accepting scrupulous scrutiny by constituents.
This cherishable culture is a globally accepted norm. Are our so-called high and mighty insinuating that they are ignorant of
this global walking standard? Is it overflowing belittlement or titanic impunity on their part? Both, I guess.
Their unacceptable disposition is ruinous and truncating/terminating the careers of our people. Still,
it’s underdeveloping Southern Kaduna and disrupting our mission of catching up with other
societies that skewed political structures and colonial policies placed them miles ahead of us.
Our industrious people are suffering because criticism that ought to make our politicians isn’t
there. Criticisms and disagreement that grows democratic have been caged because of fear of
discrimination and systematic denials by elements that used our shoulders to climb to the tip of
the pyramid of fame and “wealth”.
Where do we go from here? In other words, what is to be done? Power holders must accept the
realism that criticism is constitutional, godly, and natural. They must also avail themselves with
the irrepressible fact that denying critics and the people they represent dividends of democracy
is undemocratic and ungodly. Victims of this power drunkenness must also learn to dispatch the
letdowns to political Siberia—-to be terminated by the deadly cold of powerlessness and lack of
influence there.
Thin skinnism and thin skinnists must be cured through termination of social contracts—if we
truly yearn for development—sensitive, responsive, and productive political class.
John Danfulani
Awon Village
Kachia LGA
Kaduna State
18/11/202
