When Politics K!lls Humanity : The Dangerous Normalisation of Rogue Behaviour
When Politics Kills Humanity: The Dangerous Normalisation of Rogue Behaviour
Triangle News International
Something is alarming about how politics, a tool meant for service and collective progress, routinely mutates decent human beings into cheerleaders of chaos.
Nowhere was this more evident than at Ondo State’s 50th anniversary celebration, an event meant to symbolise heritage, unity and progress, where the unruly conduct of thugs was not only tolerated but allegedly encouraged by an aide to political leader.
This is not merely an issue of poor crowd control or political overzealousness. It is a tragic reflection of how politics strips people of their humanity and replaces it with a rogue personality driven by power, loyalty, and impunity.
How does a public official, entrusted with responsibility and privilege, find justification in encouraging disorder at a civic celebration? How does one move so easily from being a citizen with conscience to an enabler of intimidation, thuggery, and public disgrace? The answer lies in how Nigerian politics rewards dehumanisation.
Politics, in its ugliest form, trains people to see others not as fellow citizens but as obstacles, enemies, or expendable tools. Once political identity overrides human identity, empathy dies. Respect disappears. Decency becomes optional. What matters is dominance, who controls the space, the narrative, the moment.
The Ondo incident is symbolic, as a golden jubilee should have been about shared pride across political divides. Instead, it reportedly became another theatre where power was flexed through intimidation. When aides and appointees behave this way, it sends a chilling message: that political relevance justifies bad behaviour, and proximity to power excuses indecency.
This is how rogue personalities are manufactured. Not overnight, but gradually, through silence, tolerance, and applause. When thugs disrupt public events and are defended instead of condemned, society absorbs the lesson that brute force is a political asset. When aides encourage chaos without consequences, morality is officially suspended.
The real tragedy is not the thugs themselves. Thuggery thrives because it is sponsored, protected, and rationalised by people who should know better. The absolute failure is elite complicity, the moment educated, privileged individuals abandon fundamental human values in exchange for political validation.
Politics should never require the burial of humanity. It should not demand that people switch off compassion, civility, and restraint the moment they acquire power. Yet, in Nigeria, politics increasingly operates like a moral vacuum, where the loudest bully wins, and conscience is dismissed as weakness.
If public officials cannot separate loyalty from lawlessness, then governance becomes hostage to recklessness. And when civic spaces become arenas of fear rather than celebration, democracy itself is diminished.
Ondo State deserves better. Nigeria deserves better. Politics must not be allowed to turn humans into rogues and public servants into apologists for disorder. Power without humanity is not leadership, it is organised decay. And if we keep excusing it, we should not be surprised when society mirrors the same chaos its leaders normalise.
