Laggers, Men & Schoolboys

Laggers, Men & Schoolboys

The label “lagger” is subject to misuse and thoroughly abused within university campus grown fraternities. It was a label intended by early leaders to correct the shortcomings of members or brothers who were failing to uphold the tenets of the fraternity. The tenets read very much like Orwell’s Animal Farm in the worst case or like the Ten Commandments given by the Biblical Moses in the best case. Such fraternities proudly list their tenets on their websites. Fraternities in Nigeria were founded to resist colonisation and right the wrongs of society. Ha!

Before we go further, we shall define lagger in its original and current uses. Originally, they defined lagger as “the failure of a member to uphold the tenets of the fraternity.” The term ‘lagger’ once meant moral failure. Today, it means failing to perform the theatre of loyalty.” Besides laggers there existed rugged brothers, those who were devout in keeping the tenets in calm weather and during hurricanes. They are honest, purposeful, self-sacrificing and circumspect. To be rugged was no self-righteousness, it was a mark of seriousness.

The payment of dues and obedience to orders were not sufficient acts to make you rugged. A thief, brute, saboteur, marijuana smoker, for example, was a serious lagger and fast expelled. Fraternities in their earlier days led the way in removing laggers or sinners from their system.

An analogy is a person who goes to church every Sunday, pays his tithes and volunteers time in work. But he has impregnated an underage girl in the choir, borrows large sums of money from his congregation’s members he never pays back and abuses alcohol often. Would such a person be a good or genuine Christian? The answer lies with you.

Fraternities are neither liberal nor open spaces; they are strict, hierarchical, and harsh. If you do not like it “Shut up! or Leave!”

So, what is the problem for brothers who stay?

Not the discipline but the amorphous nature in which laws are introduced, obeyed and changed. The wind’s direction is no more mercurial. Again, the label lagger is now an instrument of power that protects drifting and wayward brothers especially those who seek power. And they rule the roost.

The label was born fifty years ago when brothers were students sharing dorm rooms, classes and secrets. Everyone knew everyone else’s business and autocratic control was easy. It worked well when men still thought like schoolboys.

The tenets themselves have become irrelevant. Money, time and fawning are now what is expected of brothers. But brothers are now fathers and grandfathers with countless real-world duties to fulfil. Infantilism becomes a tool of preserving something that no longer holds.

Priorities have changed for those who stay on. The times and lives have moved on and by decades. Juggling life and fraternal vows have caused brothers countless family ruptures, divorces, job losses, arrests, expulsions from school and even deportations home. Infantilism becomes a tool of its own – Peter Pans with white hair.

Now to the decisive point. What is then the point of the labels lagger and rugged? Because every blessed day brothers use it to chastise or lift others accordingly. Once used to hold brothers to account, the ambitious now use the labels to launder sleazy track records and silence upright members who speaks up.

These days, it no longer matters if you are a lagger or rugged brother. Just pay your dues, play the game, and hail the right men. The tenets are gone. Only politics remain. And in the fraternity as it is, the ruthless don’t just win—they redefine the rules.

Be good, not lucky.