Colin Kaepernick was an American National Football League player with the San Francisco 49ers. He played for six seasons. He was and still is a civil rights activist. During a game in 2016, he knelt, refusing to stand as is the custom, when the American National anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner, was being played.

He was in protest against systemic racism, specifically, police brutality and racial inequality perpetrated against Blacks. The backlash he received for his action marked the end of his career in the NFL. Kaepernick is not Muhammad Ali who at the height of his pugilistic prowess rejected the draft and was sent into internal exile. Ali was banished from boxing and declared a persona non grata. When he returned to boxing after three years, he was no longer the same. That he could make it back to the top of boxing was evidence of his sporting genius and political savoir faire. But Kaepernick was 29 when his trouble started and today at 37, his footballing career is effectively over. 

The first amendment of the American constitution guarantees the right of the average citizen in respect of certain rights, including the right to express themselves freely in action and speech. But that too has its limits. There are a few traditional values of the American society that cannot be breached without the offender facing severe consequences. That was why Colin Kaepernick’s career ended the way and the time it did. It was the reason ABC, one of America’s leading television networks, was found guilty and fined to the tune of $15 million for defaming the country’s president-elect, Donald Trump, just about a week ago. 

The same Donald Trump that would be taking office for the second time on January 20, 2025, is a convicted felon in at least 34 felony cases. While not excusing their action, his likes even without conviction are today demonised in Nigeria and the country is written off as irredeemable on that account. The closely-contested election that brought Trump into office is over and the work of governance has begun following his declaration as winner. Amid all of the poisoned drama of American tribal politics not once has any of the leading players or their supporters raised their voice against their country. Not even after the election of 2020 which Trump believed was rigged against him.

 Americans, indeed, their key political players could be as crude and disrespectful to one another as possible, calling one another names and describing one another in terms those of us obviously not in “saner climes” like theirs would shudder to utter. But you can never hear them curse their country or place any other country above theirs. Come rain or shine, it is always God bless America. But here in Nigeria, the opposite is the case. We’ve seen stalwarts of an opposition party sitting down when the national anthem was being played in brazen disregard of their country’s sovereignty to the enthusiastic adulation and praise of their supporters, all in the name of rejecting the leadership of a man that defeated their preferred candidate in an election.

Nigerian politics is not more divisive than American politics. Perhaps, it is less so given the toxic mix of racial, religious, sexual and reproductive rights concerns that very often colour the latter. There has emerged in the last several years, especially in the last two years before and since Bola Tinubu became president, a dangerous strain of political practice, utterly chaotic and intolerant in the violence of its execution. This should not only be concerning but demands the urgent intervention of everyone. Otherwise, we could wake up one day to the reality of not just a dismembered polity but one that would be too difficult if not impossible to put together again in its atomised individual condition. 

In spite of the obvious partisanship of their interventions, some political players and their supporters have grown so thin-skinned and very sensitive in their reception of opposing views and individuals that they would easily seek the disintegration of the entire house, country, than accept the fact that not everything that falls short of their expectation is evil. For them nothing is sacred and anything and everything can be done away with even when they lack acceptable replacement. In this lies their apparent liberalism, read wokeism, which on close scrutiny lacks substance and is, in fact, veiled authoritarianism that is in practice a form of fascism at one with anarchism. 

What doesn’t go their way stands condemned. They rain curses and insults on anyone and anything, including their country in the name of fighting for an inclusive order of political engagement.  They often blur the line between populist activism and realpolitik. Their digital presence, sustained on click baits and the display of sensational conduct, the more scandalous the better, far outweighs anything they can represent in real life. Theirs is a kind of supposedly progressive politics that takes umbrage at everything, turns every conversation into a raucous debate, is disdainful of the status quo, demands immediate change and harbours pretensions to a sophisticated outlook even when most of its pride rests on dross. 

While not exactly of the same timbre, they share some of the liberal views of the centre left politics of the Western world. Even where they have leaders who fall into the mould of politicians in the traditional sense, they, the followers, belong in mostly youth-driven organisations, influential segment of which is populated by former student politicians and their leaders, the kind Kemi Badenoch has consistently railed against. A lot of their populist but dangerous conduct would keep them permanently out of politics elsewhere.

This is the kind of order the likes of Dele Farotimi, Omoyele Sowore and Deji Adeyanju epitomise. Their intention may be good but it is odious in execution given its unbridled exuberance. As an organised body, these individuals and groups are today mostly to be found in the Peter Obi-led segment of the Labour Party no matter their disguises. For them, Bola Tinubu is the be-all and end-all of Nigeria’s troubles. When extrapolated and extended in terms of this country’s tribal politics, the logical implication of that position is best left unsaid. 

The effect of their conduct, however, percolates to the larger society in the manner the average Nigerian youth actively work for the destruction of their country. Which is why it was easy for foreigners to recruit hundreds of them for cybercrimes as the EFCC recently uncovered in Lagos. The intuitions that prompted Dele Farotimi’s book might have been correct but the chaotic presentation of his claims could be his undoing. Next time, he should weigh his words and be sure of his evidence before spilling.  

Merry Christmas Nigerians!