HORNEY’S TYRANNY OF THE “SHOULD” AND THE UNREALISTIC SELF-IMAGE OF NIGERIAN SUPERCOP, ABBA KYARRI : WHAT WE MAY LEARN

Kyari is a famous police officer  who did wonderfully and  his deserved approbation earned him an endearing appellation of “super cop”. As our once treasured police officer  who enjoyed the free gratitude of the public and the “ national police medal” award, his fall is mourned with deep-toned lamentation.

Without going into any abecedarian reflection to detail the history of this once revered cop, it suffices to mention, that his doleful forebodings, came to diurnal on the event of arrest and investigation of Hushpuppi ,a Gucci king who robbed with bestial ferocity.

When Hushpuppi named him as a party in an international scheme to defraud Qatari school founder, a deal were a whopping amount of 1.1million USD was involved- in the kind attitude of the Nigerian people, arguments where established in his Favour against the allegation. At least again,  I could see the positive attitude in Nigerians who were eager to see their own public officer stand rather than fall.

Apart from the fact that his achievements made him to be unctuously be-lauded, he also far displayed some psychological symptoms of neuroticism. This can be seen in an occasion where he invited videographers and photographers to show him looking for kidnappers in the bush. When I first saw the picture, I thought he was acting Nollywood movie. Such excessive crave for media attention is outrightly unhealthy for the position of a police detective. His special media team of  superannuated coquettes were tireless in performing their role and reporting to the public who Abba Kyari was. But was this portrayed image of him,  who am he truly was or his idealized unrealistic self-image ? We will use Horny’s “tyranny of what should” to evaluate this.

Albeit, his quest to show himself as loyal to the course of  public affair and of course loyal as a culinary myrmidon to the powers that be, and the event trolling in attendance to impress doubt, draws attention to the question of whether his showiness was truly from the foundation of a man with sound moral thirst or a fake man shining virtues and sheltering hypocrisy.

Many will agree with me that offense  in the count of one can be dismissed as a mistake , but when two or three other related charge build up as confirmation,  a true trajectory of a man’s voyage and image is established. This is the case of Abba Kyari. We shall see this in his engagements.

Mojeed , In a petition to the judicial panel set up by the Lagos State government to address abuses by SARS, alleged that Kyari and his SARS team forcefully broke into his home in 2014, accused him of being an internet fraudster, seized 280,000 naira from his wardrobe, another 50,000 from his car, which they took away and never returned, detained him for 14 days, and later charged him to court but never showed up or brought any witness against him, forcing the court to strike out the internet fraud charge against him. In another instance, on October 28, 2020, a Lagos businessman by the name of Afeez Mojeed accused Abba Kyari of defrauding him of up to 41 million naira.

And then recently when we thought we have had enough of these shock, a video clip of Kyari was exposed( on 24th February,2022)  where he negotiated the release of some quantity of seized 25 kg cocaine, and offered $61, 400 cash.

When the trumpet announcing his hypocrisy and show of seraphic promiscuity brayed, a prominent courtier, Chief Femi Kayode warned Nigerians to dispel tendencies of belching expletives on their revered cop. Promising that all false allegations shall be met with strong counter proves. A well respectable Journalist, Richard Akinnola also in his dispassionate opinion, appealed  for nervous commentators to take a calm resignation from quick judgement. What a show of love to Kyari whose incoming revelation was just going to be enough to commit him to forlorn desolation.

When a person’s life is directed by an unrealistic self-image, that person is driven by what should be, rather than what is. Hornet referred to this as the tyranny of what should. In her explanation of this neurotic disorder, she asserted,

She said that a neurotic always reason that if anything is going to change in his or her life, it must result from changing other people, reforming them, punishing them and protecting him or herself  from their interference or impressing them.

Prof Farooq Kperogi suspected this disorder in him and said in one of his articles about him that,

Beyond peradventure, the case of people whose job and social emprise, demands them to draw support from the media enjoy immutable exception. Of course it cannot be said that Kyari’s  detective job deserved the media attention he garnered, at least not in reporting a “process” as was seen in his invitation of journalists to capture him while pursuing thieves. What a joke that was!

In our individual level, we must make our real self our main frame of reference. Instead of living in hypocrisy and chasing an  unrealistic self image which make us constantly live outside ourselves. Staying real and improving on your real self is the only conducive path to growth.

This lesson must be learned by all who trust  on an idealized image of self and who when not fed with validation abruptly starve into vices, depression and what not.