The trouble with the intellectually inclined…
Ogbeni Kingsley Moghalu is running for President. I’ve been advocating a fair hearing for candidates like him who are not politically exposed.
You can tell that I have opinions about all these new candidates – Sowore, Durotoye, Moghalu, etc. Moghalu detains me this time.
Unless I am missing something, the man lives on Twitter where he is announcing keynote lectures everyday. At this rate, Mr Moghalu is going to organize a lecture and invite himself to deliver the keynote.
Unless I am missing something, Mr. Moghalu is yet to seriously hit the streets and pound the pavement.
Where are your campaign events?
Where is your campaign organization?
Where is your structure?
What is your ground game?
What exactly are your issues?
Intellectuals don’t know how to navigate multiple habitats and multiple social realms.
It is good to be able to hold elevated dinner discourse with the Ikoyi crowd while listening to classical music, discussing high art, fluctuations in the New York stock exchange, and the prospects of Eko Atlantic.
However, to become President, you must also be able to become one with and translate all that complex stuff to the life-worlds of the crowd listening to Chimuanya’s “Ayakata Bongo” or Obesere’s “Wind E” while playing droughts and drinking paraga in Iyana Ipaja.
When we say change the game and the paradigm, what we mean is respect the dignity and the humanity of these people. Find a way to connect with their intelligence and campaign to them as full, sentient subjects and citizens without the crude approach of buying them and their bellies like the politicians.
We are not saying ignore them, have no game plan for them, retreat exclusively to the world of keynote lectures in air-conditioned rooms where IMF and World Bank types pat you on the back while talking through their noses, and claim that you are running for President.
If you are close to the Moghalu campaign, tell him that if I hear of another keynote lecture before he really hits the pavement, I will enter the same trouser with him.