Obinna Ichita: Examining dangerous rising threat in the so-called New Abia

The time has come for all discerning minds to critically examine what is unfolding in Abia State.

Granted, the state government has made modest efforts in road infrastructure. Yet a far more dangerous threat is rising in the so-called new Abia: mob tyranny. Radicalized and largely uninformed youths are being encouraged to shout down every voice of dissent while their handlers cheer from the sidelines. Noise is elevated above reason, and intimidation is mistaken for civic engagement.

We cannot allow paid and uninformed actors to dictate thought or police legitimate opinion. Democracy thrives on the plurality of views, open debate, and the freedom to dissent without fear.

Many of those recruited to manipulate online discourse neither live in nor come from Abia. In a climate of hunger and unemployment, manufactured outrage has become a substitute for honest labour and civic responsibility.

I shudder at the thought that anyone would attempt to muzzle fellow citizens into silence, obedience, or intellectual servitude in a modern democracy; especially in a state for whose liberation many of us paid a price.

It was John Mill who cautioned that , “The tyranny of the majority is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.”

This is precisely what we are witnessing today.

In resisting this undemocratic practice the Labour Party in Abia now seeks to entrench, our people must exercise vigilance lest the oppressors of yesterday return cloaked in new garments. Resistance without regression is both possible and necessary.

It is a civic duty for all who value reason, dignity, and freedom to resist this creeping madness (peacefully but firmly) before silence becomes complicity.

This is not what we fought for. It is unacceptable, and it must not be tolerated. Mob tyranny has no place in a modern democracy.

“Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God”.

Obinna Ichita, a public affairs analyst, writes from Berlin.