While preparing this piece of reflection last Friday morning, I was mortified as the news poured in concerning the ‘dance of shame’ that was happening in Nigeria. An activist, publisher and politician, Omoyele Sowore, who was arrested and incarcerated for 126 days for calling for revolution in the country, and who granted bail under stringent conditions, appeared in court that Friday, after he was released less than 16 hours by the DSS. In the court, the same DSS swooped in an re-arrested him, creating chaos in the court. Shame! Yet no one is ashamed. The President under whose watch human rights are trampled upon is not ashamed. Leaders of thought (if any) are not ashamed. Church leaders are not ashamed. Even majority of our citizens are not ashamed. For if we were ashamed, we would have taken responsibility to ensure that our society becomes a place where human rights are respected, where there is freedom to practice democracy, where leaders do not become overlords but servants of the people.

From Nigeria’s chaotic democratic space, to Cameroon’s messiness, to America’s Trumpian era, to Hong Kong ceaseless cry for true democracy, to the abuse scandals in the church, we are all naked. But more painful is the fact that there are hardly signs of shame, of hiding, of being afraid like Adam. It is a sign that our nations are lacking in the knowledge of the Lord. The result is that the hope promised by Isaiah’s utopia will hardly come by.

Until we bring back our sense of shame, our sense of sin, our sense of inadequacy, our society would continue to go down the drain, where humans assume the role of the ‘Almighty’. That is the end of humanity. Or perhaps, the emergence of the Nietzschean ‘Superman’ (Übermensch), which does no one any good. We need integrity, equity, justice and the defense of the poor.