In my late teens or early twenties back in Nigeria some friends and I decided to go on a trip to The Yankari Game Reserve. Jos where I lived to Bauchi was just about an hour’s drive, but Bauchi city to Yankari was easily another hour and a half, if not more, and this was at a time when fuel scarcity was quite rife in Nigeria. There were 6 guys and 5 girls in two cars, one of which was a station wagon. The 6^th guy was a guy I wasn’t particularly enamoured to, but he was a friend of my best friend so he came along for the ride.

Now this was an incognito trip and most of our families didn’t know we had gone on an overnight trip to another state and far into the bushes at that, which basically meant do your best to operate within the margins and don’t do anything too crazy that will give the game away and get you in trouble. When we finally arrived at Yankari after what seemed like an eternity, we had a quandary of how we were going to get fuel for our cars to get back to Jos the next day. But I was just happy that we had arrived ok and I was just chilling back and having a pleasant conversation with one of the girls that my friend had introduced me to.

Knowing that we were at a well-established place, I had it at the back of my mind not to panic over the fuel situation and that we would be able to talk to staff in the morning and see what kind of arrangements they had in place. Being a place where foreign tourists go on holiday surely they wouldn’t leave their guests to be stranded there.

So, there I was chatting with this girl when a couple of my friends walked in to call me outside. I came out and saw all the other guys standing there, and then a proposal thought up by the semi-outsider of the group was put to me that we should try to steal some petrol from other cars in the car park to fuel our cars ahead of the next day. When this was put to me all I said was, “Is this what you guys called me out here for?” Then I kissed my teeth and went back into the room. And that was the end of that ridiculous idea without another word being said from me.

The next morning, we talked to a member of staff and we were directed to the fuel depot they had on site where we were able to buy fuel legally before exploring and enjoying ourselves in the natural spring (which is always at 30ºc throughout the year by the way). Also, the 6th guy ended up stealing our camera with all our lovely photos, which included some beautiful ones of monkeys coming to out chalet in the morning and getting very close to us. The thief still stole something in the end!

The point to this story is that one person was able to convince four other guys that that was a good idea and they were all ready to carry it out until they informed me about the plan. What was going on in my mind was the horror of being shown on national television if we were lucky, considering that in Nigeria justice can be quite swift and very brutal indeed; and that’s before we get to the courts!

I’ve seen many things on the news from around the world where I feel if people had just stopped to think for a second they would have shaken off the herd mentality and not involved themselves in some appalling things. The recent xenophobia in South Africa is something that has really upset me, particularly where people have been convinced to be angry and violent to others for all the wrong reasons. We have juveniles going to live in an “Islamic utopia” offered by ISIL or Daesh only to find themselves committing murder and other atrocities, many of whom I believe did not realise that, that was what they were signing up for when they abandoned their distraught and loving families to go there.

We are all in varying degrees guilty of that herd mentality especially when it has been used for ill or to benefit an individual who has captured our imaginations. We need to be able to stop and think. Think through the ramifications of what we are about to do; kind of like having a conversation with the imaginary angel and demon on our shoulders and letting the angel prevail always. Deep thinking is not a very popular thing with many people but it’s very important indeed. The problem with thinking deeply though is that those who want to control you for their benefit would find it difficult to achieve their aims and they wouldn’t want that so they’d much rather keep people ignorant.

We have people like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage who from their history and public record have never had any interest in the plight of the common man and have only ever looked out for themselves first, but have somehow been able to convince the common man to vote against their own interest, making them believe they’re on the same side, then when it all goes horribly wrong they get angry. As Denzel Washington said recently, “don’t get mad, get informed”.

Being informed means you’re able to think more critically about things and appreciate that there are no simple answers in life. That’s why decent politicians struggle to get ahead because they are trying to reason with people and help them see the bigger picture, while disingenuous politicians know that the 3 word slogan is enough to capture their audience. Obama realised this sad reality and that’s why I believe he came up with Yes We Can! At least he came up with a positive 3 word slogan. But after Obama we reverted back to the negative – Lock Her Up! and Drain the  Swamp! as we saw in 2016 and Strong and Stable & Coalition of Chaos, being patronisingly mentioned in every sentence at the moment in the UK.

We are simple creatures really, like any other animal in nature but it doesn’t mean we should keep being stupid and shallow when it really matters. Please people, when someone comes to us and tries to whip us up into a frenzy over something without the full facts, it’s very, very important that we Stop. Think. And let the angel win.