If you asked Ntone Edjabe or Neo Muyanga of the Chimurenga crew they’d probably say ‘Pan African Space Station’. But there’s more to PASS than music. Around here, the acronym P.A.S.S. stands for ‘Post Autocratic Stress Syndrome’, and it’s also easy to explain too. A few quotes will do:
‘The Post Autocratic Stress Syndrome explains it to my mind. I am obviously paralleling the well-known Post Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSDs), which are anxiety disorders that often cause behavioural problems. So soldiers, for instance, could suffer PTSD after leaving a war zone, making them unable to fit properly into normal society.
‘In a similar way, I am suggesting that as a society, we have emerged from three decades of dictatorship with serious problems. Our society’s Post Autocratic Stress Syndrome affects different people in different ways. A politician with a bad case of PASS will play the dictator lording it over his subjects. He will think that ordinary laws do not apply to him, that he is above the constitution.
‘As a governor, he might go a bit mental — try to steal more than the dictators themselves. He will forget he is a servant who is accountable to his employers. Individuals suffering from PASS will meekly accept all manner of humiliations from ‘public servants’. They have a ‘head knowledge’ of their constitutional rights, but they are so psychologically damaged by their lives under the dictators that they have a permanent inferiority complex. They have no heart knowledge of their own authority.
‘It is a whole spectrum of dysfunction and it is possible to locate sufferers on the scale, based on their behaviour. Yet, by focusing on appropriate behaviour, we can also begin to turn things around.’ Interview with Anote Ajeluorou for the Ngr Guardian‘after thirty years of autocracy, he is suggesting that just as war veterans suffer post-traumatic stress disorders, survivors of three decades of autocratic regimes will likely suffer varying degrees of ‘post autocratic stress disorder.’’
‘He says, ‘‘ So the characters that people the book are all living in the aftermath of autocracies, but it is left to my readers to decide how fully normalised their reactions have become. ‘’ – Gbenga Adeniji in The Punch Newspapers‘The syndrome, according to Chuma, resulted from citizens’ long years of living under military dictatorship. A manifestation of this syndrome, Chuma explained, is the simultaneous disrespect of democratically elected leaders towards their electorates, and citizens’ unquestioning acceptance of such treatment from leaders they chose themselves.’ Ashesi University blog
‘According to the author The Ghost of Sani Abacha is metaphorical; he describes most countries in Africa as suffering from a post-autocratic stress disorder, where the governed still worship their leaders instead of demanding accountability due to having been under dictatorship for too long.’ Fred Agyeman’s blog
‘We treat our leaders like dictators instead of treating them like democratic servants, chief servants but we treat them as prime dictators and I suggest this is a kind of post autocratic stress disorder’ Femi Fairchild Morgan’s blog
‘You only need to see the servility of our average citizen and the way democratic leaders who are technically supposed to be public servants are deified. This can aptly be described as a Post Autocratic Stress Syndrome. To one extent or the other, we are all haunted by the ghosts of Pharaohs past.’ Blueprint Newspaper
‘For a liberated nation to deify banditry, speaks not merely of obsequious amnesia but of a mental illness which can only charitably be described as a Post Autocratic Stress Syndrome where we – though liberated from dictatorship, carry around invisible autocrats like monkeys on our backs to keep us in perpetual servility. This is a variant of the Stockholm Syndrome where we deny our victimhood and take the side of our oppressors.’ A Small Footnote on Nigeria’s Centenary Awards
‘Nigeria is suffering from Post Autocratic Stress Syndrome (PASS). The whole country is like a giant psychiatric joint where the whole citizens are patients of PASS.’ ANA Benue blog
Now that we have the defintion of P.A.S.S. properly nailed down, let’s look out for real life ‘Cases’… do stick around!