By Chris Curtis
Ours is a society that condemns wrongdoing only when it is committed by those we do not like or do not benefit from.
When our own is at the helm, the same acts we once protested suddenly become understandable, excusable, or even defensible.
This selective outrage is not accidental. It is cultivated, rehearsed, and perfected over time.
In one of my earlier reflections, Until We Are Deliberately Deliberate, I raised a question that has haunted us for years.
How did we get here?
Perhaps the truth is not that we do not know, but that we are unwilling to retrace the steps that led us to this decay, because doing so would expose our own fingerprints on the problem.
The complicity of the complainant reveals a painful reality.
Our most effective oppressors are not foreign masters or distant overlords, but people drawn from among us, enabled, defended, and sustained by us.
The masses, who should be the conscience of the system, have been conditioned to celebrate crumbs from those who begged for their votes.
Public office has been rebranded as benevolence, and constitutional responsibility is now mistaken for personal generosity.
We applaud what should be standard, and we beg for what is already ours by right.
We are not yet ready to be free.
And until that readiness is born, the chains placed upon us by those we elected will only grow thicker and heavier.
Like a frog in slowly boiling water, we have mastered the dangerous skill of adjustment.
We adapt to dysfunction instead of confronting it.
We normalize abnormality and call it survival.
Deep down, we know the truth.
Politicians need the people far more than the people need politicians.
Yet we remain loud in complaint and weak in collective action.
We protest harsh policies in public, but lobby privately for appointments.
And once one of us secures a small title, SSA this, aide that, the pain of the many is forgotten.
Suddenly injustice acquires defenders.
Madness is rationalized.
Error is rebranded as strategy.
We have grown so complacent that we are no longer taken seriously.
A people who can reduce something as grave as organized violence or religiously motivated killings into talking points and tribal excuses.
A people so economical with the truth that even the media, which should interrogate power, now often amplifies it unquestioned, because someone has paid for the narrative.
We promote unfinished, substandard projects as monumental achievements.
We advertise healthcare systems that cannot serve the poor as world class, while those who approve the adverts travel abroad for treatment.
And when an ordinary citizen, one of the intended beneficiaries, dares to challenge the lies we were paid to spread, we descend on them like trained attack dogs.
Consider a recent example.
A state government, with misplaced priorities, donated dozens of luxury SUVs to traditional rulers in communities where motorable roads barely exist.
This gesture was celebrated as generosity, even though it is neither constitutional duty nor urgent necessity.
At a time when citizens are taxed relentlessly in a nation where poverty vastly outweighs wealth, such acts are a direct insult to public intelligence.
Yet while some protested, others, equally poor and equally affected, rose to justify and celebrate the decision.
This is the complicity of the complainant in its rawest form.
Defending what harms you simply because it carries the seal of power.
The same pattern repeats with electricity, healthcare, education, and security.
A promise of uninterrupted power turns into prolonged darkness, but someone insists all is well because his area enjoys a few hours of supply.
As though a street, a band, or a privilege zone represents an entire nation.
We forget that this very acceptance of inequality created the illusion that basic services are luxuries rather than rights.
Our complicity has damaged us more than it has ever protected us.
It has taught elected officials that they are to be served, not to serve.
It has weakened accountability and strengthened arrogance.
And it has reduced citizenship to spectatorship.
So What Is the Way Out?
The solution does not begin with politicians alone. It begins with us.
Citizens must reclaim memory.
We must stop practicing selective amnesia after elections or appointments. Struggles do not end when one person benefits.
Truth must be defended consistently.
Not when it is convenient. Not when it aligns with tribe, religion, or access, but always.
Media must rediscover courage.
Journalism is not public relations. Verification must return to the center of storytelling.
Religious and traditional institutions must choose conscience over comfort.
Silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality. It is endorsement.
Leaders must remember their oath.
Authority is conditional. Power is temporary. Office is service, not entitlement.
The electorate must organize beyond elections.
Democracy does not end at the ballot box. Engagement, monitoring, and pressure are continuous duties.
Freedom is not gifted. It is practiced.
Accountability is not demanded once. It is enforced daily.
Conclusion
The greatest danger to our future is not bad leadership alone, but a citizenry that has learned to live with betrayal.
Until we confront our own complicity, until we stop clapping for what diminishes us, we will continue to complain loudly while sinking quietly.
A society that refuses to tell itself the truth cannot heal.
And a people who outsource responsibility will eventually lose everything worth defending.
The question is no longer who failed us,
but how long will we continue to fail ourselves?
Author: Chris Curtis
📩 He can be reached via email: chriscurtiswrites@gmail.com
