9th November, 2024
By Nehru Odeh
Olufemi Taiwo, philosopher and Professor of African political thought at the Africana Studies Research Centre at Cornell University has said Idris Okuneye, better known as Bobrisky is not a villain as many erroneously perceive him but a victim of the strictures, the lack of freedom, that characterize post-colonial African societies.
According to the distinguished scholar, Bobrisky’s travail is a reflection of the second struggle for freedom that Africans are currently fighting in their respective countries after independence.
Prof. Taiwo divided Africans’ struggle for freedom into the first and second struggle. The first struggle for freedom, according to the scholar, is the struggle for independence, while the second struggle, which African are currently experiencing is the one after independence.
“I would now like to argue when I speak of Africa second struggle for freedom it is this solicitousness for the puny individual that is in play, ” he averred
“The freedom of ordinary Africans and their ability at the individual level to control their lives, lead lives marked by inviolate dignity of their presence and concurrent limit on the reach of governments on their daily lives, should never be up for negotiation.
“Indeed this ought to be the standard by which we judge the legitimacy and attractiveness of any government and the quality of any of our societies in the continent as it is increasingly the case in other parts of the world that are also embracing and engaged in struggles like what I have clearly called our second struggle for freedom.”
Taiwo made this disclosure while delivering the keynote at a symposium themed “Being and Becoming Bobrisky : Agency, Subjectivity, Politics.” The title of his Keynote was: “Africa’s Second Struggle for Freedom: The Legal Subject Revisited.”
The symposium was held on Saturday, 2 November 2024 against the backdrop of the recent backlash against Bobrisky, whom the Nigeria media address as “cross dresser” and also his recent arrests by officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, his prosecution and sentencing to six months imprisonment.
The symposium, done virtually, was organised by Professor Ebenezer Obadare, the Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow for Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Dr James Yeku associate professor of African Digital Humanities at the University of Kansas, Lawrence.
Meanwhile, in his opening remarks, Prof. Ebenezer Obadare set the tone for the symposium when he spoke about why the scholars were gathered there.
“Right from the moment Bobrisky emerged as a sociocultural and social media phenomenon in Nigeria, Dr. Yeku and I have been intrigued, first by the emergence itself, and second, by the Nigerian public’s reaction. Over the years, as Bobrisky has gone through numerous transitions, ostensibly from one gender to another, from a dark-skinned to a light-skinned person and back, and from humble beginnings to a legitimate member of the Lagos elite and a social influencer in their own right, we have had numerous conversations about the meanings of these multiple and concurrent transitions and what they indicate about the social backdrop against which they have unfolded.
“At the same time, we’ve been fascinated by the reaction to Bobrisky’s appearance on the social scene, a mix of amazement, alarm, discombobulation, double take, outright aversion, not to mention a certain shrug of the shoulders, the indifference, if not the aversion, mounting the more Bobrisky became a fixture on the social calendar, whether showing dance moves before KWAM 1 one day, or snagging an award as the “Best Dressed Female” the next. How is the scholar to take the measure of all this?” Prof Obadare asked.
Prof. Taiwo, in his keynote, said Africans are in a second struggle for freedom because individual rights and liberties are still restricted both by the state and the citizens. That according to him is why individuals like Bobrisky are not free to live the kind of life they want to live and to make choices they want to make. This according to him explains why Bobrisky is harassed both by the Nigerian state and the public because he chose to be a female rather than the male he was born.
“And the most important sign of this- to conduct your life the way you wish, to make, the choices that you wish to make and to be free to be the author – the autonomy that we are talking about – of your own life script. And this is where Bobrisky becomes a very good exemplar. Because here is a guy who started out as male.
“Then decided, for whatever reason, and that should not be our concern, to assume a different persona. And this is just as important that it be recognized as his choice and the autonomy to make that choice inviolate as it should be for somebody who is gay not because they chose to be but because that is how they are from the get-go. And then we proceed to criminalize, to delegitimize, rubbish their lives because we happen not to like how they present themselves.
“So that is why I said the right to be let alone is the ultimate , the compact way of understanding all these other rights that I have just put in the second column,” Prof. Taiwo said.
The rights of the individual, whether male of female to lead the kind of life they want to live are fundamental human rights that are enshrined in the constitution, which makes the subject legal. But according to the distinguished scholar freedom from independence does not guarantee freedom and rights of the individuals; it does not guarantee that the citizens are indeed free and enjoy those rights and freedoms.
“The ultimate destination of a regime of rights and freedoms is the incorporation of a society in which individuals can live lives marked by their own authorship, of their own respective life scripts, free to live as long as their freedom does not impair that of their fellows and so on. .
“We can see from these that freedom from colonialism for aggregated groups does not automatically translate to freedom of individuals from the unacceptable encumbrances of the state or their fellow citizens.
“The rights that have since become codified in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights have their origins in this modern historical movement and I contend they are the objects of solicitation in modern African philosophy.
“And this is very very important. I argue that some of our African political philosophers, some of them very educated about their respective ancestral inheritances that our illiterate professors and ex presidents would have us revert to but decided that those inheritances may not be good enough for their time have never been absent from the political philosophical discourse of modernity and have indeed canvassed the adoption of modern governance in African countries, ” Prof. Taiwo maintained.
Prof. Taiwo said individual freedom and liberties are under threat from the state and their fellow citizens, citing the abuses and violations women suffer on the street because they are not conforming to someone else’s idea of decent dressing as an example. He also lambasted the Judge who presided over Bobrisky’s trial for asking him whether he was male or female.
“I find it in play when individual lifestyles are criminalized because they do not conform to the specificism of “our culture.` This is where Bobrisky as an exemplar of the legal subject and the underlying person of subjectivity comes into clear relief.
“When the judge who presided over her case asked her if she was a man or woman, she crossed a line, for that had no bearing on the case for which he was being prosecuted.
“Guess what? Soon after, a video circulated of a police officers at the police station humiliating a suspect and stripping him naked to show that he is a man under his dressing.
“When the state as embodied in a judge and that judge, driven by his own prejudices, which is expected of a judge to strive mightily to distance themselves from, when enrolled in the temple of justice, proceeds to bring extraneous considerations to the discharge of his functions the cause of the human subject and thei entitlement to a life of dignity is not served and it opens the door to others replicating that behaviour.
“As everyone who is a student of liberalism knows, we do not protect people because we approve of their life choices, we do so because living their life from the inside is exactly the sole requirement for living a life of dignity, ” Prof. Taiwo maintained.
The African political philosopher also said Bobrisky has never made any illusion about who she is, and has maintained that consistency, what Prof. Taiwo calls continuous self-presentation, over the years. That is why he calls what she doee a mode of living rather than performance. “And that is the point where for me you have to respect the integrity of that mode of living, Prof. Taiwo said.
“So that is why I do not use Bobrisky as an alias. And the reason why I call it a persona is precisely he has chosen to assume that and consistently present himself as such. And that requires respect for the integrity because that integrity is conjoined with the integrity of the person who adopts. And that is what I mean by being the author of his life script.
“Bobrisky then becomes legal subject. So when you then-as a judge ask, are you a man or a woman, you have practically insulted that legal subject, ” Prof. Taiwo averred.
Prof. Taiwo’s keynote was followed by a Q& A in which the distinguished scholar fielded questions from his colleagues. This was again followed by two panel discussions. Scholars at the symposium included Professors Akin Adesokan, Adunni Abimbola Adelakun, Paul Onanuga, Oluwayinka Arawomo, to mention just a few.
