By Musa Bakare.
There is a tragic truth that echoes through history, politics, and human behavior: no oppression endures more deeply than the one that people willingly submit to. A slave who loves his chains, who defends them, excuses them, rationalizes them, or fears life without them will remain in bondage far longer.
Bondage is not sustained by the strength of the oppressor alone; it is sustained by the obedience, silence, and psychological surrender of the oppressed.
Chains are not always iron. Sometimes they are cultural, emotional, political, religious, or mental. Oppressors quickly learn that physical chains are expensive to maintain, but mental chains are self policing. When a slave begins to love the very things that limit him, the oppressor has already won.
This is the tragedy of the conditioned mind. The prisoner defends the prison. The oppressed sing praises of the oppressor. The abused protects the abuser. The exploited applaud their exploiters.
History is full of examples. During apartheid, many black South Africans feared life without the white regime because propaganda convinced them they were incapable of self rule. Under colonial rule, some African elites defended their colonizers, believing freedom would bring chaos. In slave era America, some slaves refused escape attempts because they feared the unknown more than the brutality they knew. In each case, oppression endured because mental chains remained intact.
In politics, the most dangerous citizens are not the ignorant; they are the ones who know the truth yet prefer comfort over change, those who choose crumbs over dignity, who bow before unjust leaders and call them messiahs.
Every society that ever rose from darkness did so because its people rejected the chains placed upon them. Chains of fear, chains of silence, chains of ethnic manipulation, chains of religious bias, chains of political sentimentality, chains of self limitation.
When citizens begin to love these chains when they sell their conscience for tokenistic gains, they unconsciously strengthen the structures that oppress them. A society where people defend their bondage can never truly be free.
History reveals that the toughest battle is not against tyrants, but against the mentality that embraces tyranny.
A slave mentality whispers; We don’t have the numbers, It’s not our turn, Let’s wait, we don’t have resources, we are not united, it is not possible….This mindset turns citizens into spectators, spectators into victims, and victims into obedient servants of unjust systems.
True emancipation begins not with protests or revolutions, but with the awakening of the mind. Philosophers from Aristotle to Fanon, from Socrates to Mandela, insist that freedom is first an internal victory before it becomes a political achievement.
A person who cannot mentally detach from his chains will never physically break them. There is no conqueror more unbeatable than a people who have lost the desire to be free, and no tyrant more powerful than the one who convinces his victims that bondage is normal.
Freedom requires courage, thought, self-worth, sacrifice, and the refusal to bow to the idols of convenience. The essence of political maturity is the ability to question, challenge, and demand accountability, not to worship or normalize unfairness.
An unfair system thrives only where citizens refuse to think, fear to speak, or choose to trade long term progress for short term selfish benefits.
Slaves that love their chains will remain long in bondage is not merely a statement; it is a warning. It calls to examine the chains we have normalized. Chains of poverty thinking, ethnic politics, fear, silence, unreasonable loyalty, apathy, and emotional politics.
A society becomes truly free the moment its people stop loving their chains. Freedom is not given; it is demanded by citizens. It begins in the mind, grows in the heart, and manifests in the collective will of a people who finally says – Enough is enough we deserve to produce the next governor.
– Musa Asiru Bakare, a Political Analyst, writes from Lokoja, Kogi State.
