By Isqil Najim
There was a Muslim guy I knew on Facebook — an amazing soul, an influencer I genuinely admired. One day, I sent him a birthday greeting and prayed for him sincerely, from the heart. His response was jarring. "Muslims don't do birthdays. Never ever send birthday greetings to me again."
We had never quarrelled before, so that stung. I apologised and downplayed it — he was my senior, after all.
A few days later, I stumbled onto a thread where a commissioner in a state had wished him happy birthday on his own timeline and jokingly asked for cake. My guy replied — not just politely, but warmly — lavishing prayers on the man and promising to see him at his office. Same man. Same birthday. Different recipient.
One Christmas, I sent a festive message to an engineer I deeply respected — a man who spoke about Jesus and Christianity at every opportunity. I genuinely admire his messages and I read every bit he ever shared with me. So I had kind of seen him as a man living the words. Until that Christmas.
He replied, "Why did you send this to me?" I explained it was simply my way of reaching out to people I care for during the season. He admonished me sharply — Christmas was a pagan practice, he said, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He didn't stop there. What followed genuinely angered me, but I held my peace.
Then, on our mutual WhatsApp group, a "big man" tagged him with a Merry Christmas. The same man replied with warmth, prayers, and good cheer. I read the conversation and it was like the earlier conversation he had with me had never happened. I did not interrupt and I did not bother to raise the issue with him again. I got the "memo". His principle hadn't changed. Only the persons had.
In Political discourses, over the years, I have lost count of the number of people who fought you bitterly and called you names on social media for backing a political party or a person who is in a party they dislike. Even if you are saying the truth, that party is their problem no matter what good they do. After elections are won and lost, you found these men turn around and hail their politician friend(s) who won on that same party. They may not even be friends, if they are invited to table to eat,they change their narratives. Some won't even mind chasing a contract or milking that same political network for business and career opportunities. The ideology was never the issue. The access was.
I have watched people relocate abroad and quietly shed the very standards they used to judge others with back in Nigeria. Things they found absolutely intolerable suddenly become manageable — even acceptable. It was not that anything change, no Nigerian who spent a fortune and endless nights praying for visa will go and ruin it abroad when he finally get that elusive visa. They left their bad manner in Nigeria and turn a new leaf abroad, to survive. Principles change when their personal survival is at risk.
Over the years, I have come to understand one thing clearly: it is not conviction, religion, or values that drive these behaviours — it is proximity to power and the intended benefits. Everything is transactional, and intentional. The man who snapped at your birthday greeting will roll out the warmest prayers for someone who can sign his contract or nudge his promotion. The man who spent years attacking a party will become warmed toward a person favoured in that party if it will open door to his own career or business. The principle isn't dead. It is simply rationed — reserved for people who cannot do anything for them.
Why do they do this? They seek power of their own. They adopt two pronged approaches. One to those below them who they consider intellectually and socially inferior. These are needed as footsoldiers. The second is those above them who are capable of wetting their path to the top.these are those they bent their rule for. There are few who stand on their principle, you will know them in the way they treat or respond to those who disagree with their way, and those who are lower then then on social and intellectual ladder.
My response to such people has never changed: don't give them a fight. Confrontation is what they feed on. They gaslight you to draw you to their side of moral or political compass. The moment you engage, you hand them exactly what they want — a stage. Starve them of the reaction, and watch the ego deflate. Never let anyone use you to massage their ego. Once you recognise the pattern, you stop taking the rudeness personally. You also stop auditioning for an audience that was never really clapping for you.
0 Comments