Ariwo oja, the din of the market place, is the greatest threat to the Yoruba person’s presence in the economic and affective environment of the market. You have been to Oyingbo and Alaba, you have been to Dugbe and Mokola, you have been to any kasua in the north, you have been to Onitsha market. Then you understand what the Yoruba mean by “ariwo oja” – the noise of the market place.
For all the psychic sensations it exerts on the senses; for all its vitality and vibrancy, the noise of the market can distract. If you let it get into your head, if you let it influence you, you could lose your bearing, your sense of purpose, your sense of mission. You could even forget the reason you went to the market in the first place. It can disorient you. It can cause economic loss. You could buy things inferior for lack of concentration. That is why the Yoruba advise you to face the specific trader you are in transaction with and shut out the noise of the marketplace. Customer and trader are advised to focus on what is important and ignore the distracting chaos that is ariwo oja – the noise of the market.
Ma w’ariwo oja – the Yoruba philosophy of focus, of concentration on that all important goal, of savoir-faire, of avoidance of distraction.
In this business, you, Buharist wayfarer of the marketplace, have only two propositions in the market: Nigeria and GMB, the man on whose shoulders you have placed the burden of national rebirth. Everything else is ariwo oja – ignore it and stay focused.
Yes, the current ariwo oja is malevolent and sore, its only determination being to ensure Buhari’s failure from the very start. Every tentative step will drive this ariwo oja into a frenzy because they are assiduously investing their hope in the failure of your man. What Nigeria gains or loses in that failure – if it ever happens – is of no significance because the important thing to ariwo oja now is to prove that your man is a failure like his, that your man is no better than his.
And this is why you get on the defensive when you don’t have to. This is why you think that admission of any misstep by your own man is delivering him to the chattering unruliness of Jonathanian ariwo oja. You do not want to deliver him to enemies who have refused to move on with their lives after March 28, 2015 and now waste their talents 24/7 scheming for and willing Buhari’s failure into being.
But you are making a mistake by paying attention to ariwo oja when that philosophy says you should face your two customers squarely: Nigeria and Buhari. Buhari can only achieve Nigeria’s rebirth with your help. You will not help him by adopting the strategies through which those now authoring ariwo oja destroyed Goodluck Jonathan and ruined Nigeria.
Always remember this: nothing would please ariwo oja more than the satisfaction of seeing you destroy Buhari the way he destroyed Goodluck Jonathan through uncritical, undiscerning blind followership fed by civic poverty.
Yes, they will taunt you. They will jeer. They will scoff. They will laugh and ridicule what hasn’t even begun. You must always remember that such is the stuff that infantilist ariwo oja is made of. You must ignore this ariwo oja and focus on Buhari squarely and help him to be the very best that he must be: and this involves patriotic acknowledgement and critique of missteps.
When you listen to ariwo oja instead of ignoring it completely and focusing on Nigeria and Buhari, you start to hair-split. You start to cut and slice. You start to rootle the dictionary for the difference between “prohibit”, “ban”, and “bar”. Then you start to lie to yourself: he did not ban, he merely barred them from access for family and security reasons.
Ariwo oja wins because you have become like him. He has goaded you into becoming him. Remember ariwo oja says that there is a difference between stealing and corruption and 14 million of you rose up to reject that leprous morality of his? You rejected that vision. You said Nigeria deserves better.
Now you are hair-splitting between ban and bar.
Then you wake up with a straight face tomorrow and resume condemnation of ariwo oja for hair splitting between stealing and corruption?
Please, ignore ariwo oja. Focus on Buhari and Nigeria. Help Buhari to deliver on hope and change. Help him to begin the foundation of a Nigeria that will be unforgivably hostile to mediocrity and the rationalization of the unacceptable.
That should be the covenant between you and Nigeria.
Ignore ariwo oja.
Ma w’ariwo oja.
Let them say.