A “Contradictocracy” Moving Forward to the Drawing Board. Let me say upfront that I am not a fan of using more words than needed (verbosity). However, in searching my mind for a title for this opinion page, three words just kept knocking on the door of my mind as follows: democracy, contradiction and contrast Though it looks obvious but let me explain upfront that I coined the admittedly tongue tying word “Contradictocracy” from one full word “contradiction” and the suffix “cracy” Simply, the word “democracy” comes from two Greek words that mean people (demos) and rule (kratos). Rule of the people by the people for the people is a popular, clear and succinct definition. 
I Googled the word “contradiction”: “A contradiction is a situation or ideas in opposition to one another. Declaring publicly that you are an environmentalist but never remembering to take out the recycling is an example of a contradiction. A “contradiction in terms” is a common phrase used to describe a statement that contains opposing ideas”. A third word I looked up was contrast: “as a noun, it means the state of being strikingly different from something else in juxtaposition or close association. Its synonyms are difference, dissimilarity, disparity, dissimilitude, distinction, contradistinction, divergence, variance, variation, differentiation, contradiction, incongruity, opposition, polarity, unlikeness. As a verb, it means differ strikingly. Its synonyms are: differ from, be at variance with, be contrary to, conflict with, go against, be at odds with, be in opposition to, disagree with, clash with, scream at…” Sometime in 2022 while the electioneering campaign were in top gear in preparation for the 2023 Nigerian, all the popular microblogging sites were on fire with all sorts – everyone of us became experts in political analysis. In response to one of the various political topics, I tweeted something along these lines: If you are on road trip to Mission road in Benin City Nigeria, and you are using a map of mission road in Birmingham United Kingdom, it doesn’t really matter how smart, how fast or how carefully you drive, you will never get to your destination.
I believe very strongly that in my above tweet lies the foundational problem of our country Nigeria.
The questions are:
A. Where are we going – where is our destination?
B. Do we have a map to take us there?
C. Is the map we have the right one?
D. Does it seem we are on the right path with the current map?
F. If not, what do we do?
It is a fact that we are using someone else’s map to navigate our way to our own destination at the moment. There is nothing wrong with that if it will take us to our destination safely. But if we have been driving for this long but never seem to arrive at identified predetermined points that shows we are on the right path to our destination; or even worse, we should have arrived our destination a long time ago but there is no sign we are anywhere near, then there is bound to be confusion. The map or maps we are using to navigate our ways to our social, political and economic destinies as Nation clearly contradicts the very essence of who we are as a people, hence the inherent contradictions in our so-called democracy; and our inability to get to our obvious but elusive destiny as great power in Africa and the World.
It is time to draw our map ourselves.
It’s time to get a new map.
Author Osabuohien Don Adonri
