Fraternities Are Viruses In Nigeria 13 – The Disintegration
The leading University Campus Grown Fraternities (UCGF) have had a long run of durability in their existence. Like many glorified dictatorships, autocracies and predatory cults, their enduring survival is a function of the culture permitted by the founder or historical leader’s longevity. There is no retirement- some are late and some are present.
The “cult of personality” of the historical leader prevents the development. The proper development of consistent and well-enforced institutions, laws or rules within the UCGF. His changing moods, whims and preferences rule the UCGF as he pleases. The challenges to his inconsistencies are few and attract punitive sanctions. The outcome is that the UCGF is always in a state of permanent uncertainty; every member has to wait for the latest deceptions, half-truths, excuses, threats, punishments, exclusions or instructions of the leader to know what will happen next.
Keeping members guessing is one of the most ancient tricks of cult leaders. The problem resulting is that the cult leader never lives forever. He will eventually become too ill or senile to lead, or he will pass away someday. That is when the succession battles and disintegration begin; he thought no successor a good enough replacement. The scramble for power on his departure can be desperate – many will eat and drink poison.
Dictators and autocrats, especially of cults, are not very good at picking successors. It is beneath them to do so. They also prefer weak, corrupt and controllable puppets to represent them. The democracy the historical leader may claim his willingness to die for in public he does not practice within the UCGF. This duplicity denies the UCGF stable transitions in leadership successions. As well as renders the organisation incapable of using customarily-embodied methods, rulebooks and precedence to rule in the absence of the historical leader. The ambitious could manipulate the vacuum thus created, many competing for power, anyway it suits them.
The downfall of a UCGF is not the police, army, state spies, judges, rival UCGFs, other fraternities, religious clerics. It has to come from within members of their organisations. If you have read FAVIN 5 (https://wp.me/p1bOKH-pT) and FAVIN 5 Extended (https://wp.me/p1bOKH-GT) it will inform you of the typical personality types within UCGFs. A predator is the User who exploits others with ruthlessness and expects gratitude in return. Good old Sucker who seems to be happy to suffer exploitation and mistreatment by Users as if he were a born masochist – he is a victim.
Crapious Grudger who reacts with resistance against exploitation or corruption by the User – he is a rebel. Then there is the Hopper who can be a User, Sucker or Grudger sometimes at a go as it suits his interest – he is a shape-shifter. When the succession battles begin, it leads to disintegration. Because of the efforts of the Hopper and to a lesser extent, the User (Professional Bad Leaders). The Sucker remains a big fool in all the wrangling and conflict.
The Hopper, with the help of the User, will as a first move, create a tiny pool of successors from a large one. Such is possible by retrospective exclusions of viable successors and the will of their supporters from the prime leadership. The exclusions will centre on the closeness to the historical leader. And mode of imitation, ethnicity, a record of offences. Or joint current/former membership of rival groups etc. In reality, the Hopper devises the formula for exclusion by corrupt elimination.
For “those that must be King” their sins do not matter and are no grounds for disqualification. It is the sins they have not committed that become the basis for the ineligibility of “those that must never be King.” The grounds for disqualification maybe current/former employees in the uniformed state services (officers of the police, immigration service, customs and excise, secret agents, anti-corruption, drug enforcement). But if one or more “desirable potential leaders” are commissioned officer of the military they can become King by decree. George Orwell’s Animal Farm presents a classic manifestation in UCGF succession battles and everyday governance.
Those that will face exclusion from the leadership pool will be (also) Hoppers, Users and some Suckers. The Suckers will cry like babies and hope for better times they have never seen will come one day. But the Hoppers and Users will use every dirty trick in their books to fight each other with lethal intent. Many live in the dread of being victims of poisonings.
The power that is there for the taking though not without opposition or resistance. Many Hoppers and Users did many things to others that were plain heinous and cruel as an investment into their future as prime leaders. They have no life outside the UCGF and will kill or poison others to prove their mettle for years if not decades. To suddenly exclude them will mean they are now the Suckers and will turn their wretched and ruthless skills not on Suckers and Grudgers. They set upon the very Hoppers and Suckers that excluded them.
There is also the problem of supra-UGF activities. It is an anathema for any given UCGF to allow members of other organisations to influence its affairs. If those who will be King belong to any such groups, it is okay. Doube standards at its worst. Such membership of a more superior organisation will someday give the Hoppers and Users the edge they need to take power. Imagine, allowing the intelligence agencies of the USA and Great Britain infiltrating the headquarters of the National Intelligence Agency, Abuja. But deporting its own intelligence agents because the The USA and UK got their Independence before Nigeria did. What a terrible paralogism! As the power of supra-UCGF activities ascends within the fold, so does the power of the Hoppers and Users that belong to organisations. Strangely, those organistions have permission to infiltrate and dominate it.
Another worrying sign is the hike in dues and other financial. Hoppers and Users know well the possibilities and realities of the disintegration. Nevertheless, they ever think with sufficient planning, they can weather it, especially if the historical leader is on their side. As such, these wise guys seek to intensify their efforts to milk members, with Suckers in mind, for what they are worth. Events past and future, like the economic devastation of COVID-19 does not concern them; all they want is MORE MONEY!
The governance structure becomes very rapacious for members money. The only relationship the governance structure then has with members is the efficient and pay-or-else collection of funds. Most members resent such extortion, but with the force of dictatorship and threat of punitive sanctions provided by the historical leader, the monies get to collect. Money is power, and nothing can turn people against leadership more than money can. Members under such conditions tire and revolt without warning at some point. The time bomb is ticking. When Suckers revolt…
Meanwhile, the historical leader will favour those Hoppers and Users who are closest to him within UCGF and endorse their specious masterplans for succession. The historical leader thus becomes the person who harvests the weeds that will kill the crops in the field he spent his entire life attending. Did he ever care about the UCGF in the first place? The laws of nature provide a better answer: as dictators sow, they reap.
Organisations replete with ambitious members but lack the tiniest strand of trust between them is always one to watch. Whatever happened to “make society better,” the dictum UGCFs swear to?
Be good, not lucky
Please take a look at my articles, The Leadership of a Bad Brother – Face Six and Fraternities are Viruses in Nigeria: Part 12 – Corporate Delusions. Cheers
I always enjoy your insightful write-ups on UCGFs. keep up the good work.