By
Obododimma Oha
Some rulers do new beneficial things for their people. Others spend their time in power blaming the government that they succeeded. They are authorities in the art of blaming, having perfected the human tendency to put the fault of failure on others. Look closely at rulers who punctuate their discourses with the blame game and you would see serious failures and an ironical confession : truly we did not plan for it. Governance is just a surprise!
Since blaming is an illocutionary act, we should consult the philosopher of language, J. L. Austin, on how this illness can be cured. Maybe he knows. The blamer knows to do things with blame when addressing and undressing an unwary population. Let the population shift to the other as the source of the fault and start thinking of the other (not self) as the problem.
Blamers also do not want things to move forward. They like stagnation and would like society to join them in getting fixed to a spot. Even if you protest and move on, you are also to blame or are a chip of the blameworthy other's stock.
If a mosquito sucks the blood of any minister commissioning a project executed on TV, it is the fault of the previous government. If any state governor who wins an election without registering for it catches a cold flu, it is the fault of the past government. If the author of this blog article writes what we don't like, he was hired by the past government.
Blamers-in-chief do not like opposition. Opposition means enmity, means not accepting lies as lies. Blamers-in-chief prefer to rule blockheads and unintelligent robots. Are you surprised? Then, you, as this kind of thinker, have been hired by the previous government.
Blamers-in-chief are, at least, right in one aspect: it is the fault of that society that allows them to rule when they should be somewhere else answering for their roles in transgressions. The person who is fooled by a fool is a great fool.
Blamers-in-chief would run into a bush and start cutting a branch, then, at some point, they would run out to the road and start shouting : "Who is cutting the branch of that tree?" That means that cause has become an effect.
If blaming shifts responsibility, is it not an evidence that a childish night has descended? That night invites us to play with issues where we should be serious, to locate rulership in the province of idiocy. A child that does not have the stamina for a labor prefers to antagonize and to fight here and there, mother used to warn us in those days. Now, I can see weaklings picking quarrels here and there and blaming. People bereft of ideas can easily blame.
Blaming and laboring are not partners. Blaming is just a pandemic looking for somebody whose immunity is not high (to make a partner). It is better the illness is spread than for good health to flourish and expose impairment somewhere.
If blaming is an achievement, we are yet to see what has been achieved. A person in power cannot just spend his or her tenure blaming others. If anything, it is a waste of a term in office.
The tradition of blaming, however, is serious warning to us. Now that we can see the opposite, we should know and pursue the right thing and try to take responsibility when we fail.
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