We are not far from the brink. Perhaps, we are already there. Yes, we were close or were already there as Lagos of 2023 reminded us. And still reminds us, with what happened in Alimosho last week. Men with power over buses, thugs with allegiance to politicians, threatened ordinary citizens. People were beaten. Others were maimed. Many were silenced by fear. And yet, nothing happened to those whose hands held whips, broken bottles and machetes. MC Oluomo still walks free. He moves through Lagos like a sovereign without a crown, untouchable, his impunity guarded by those meant to uphold the law.

The police, in a moment that will live in infamy, dismissed his ethnic slurs against the Igbo as nothing more than a joke. But there was nothing comedic in words that turned neighbours into strangers, nothing harmless in a language that reopened old wounds and mocked the fragile threads holding our city together. To laugh it off was to side with division, to grant license to prejudice, and to teach Lagosians that violence begins not only with fists and clubs, but with words given state cover. “I re o!” 

Only last week, Alimosho bled. Heads were smashed. Bones broken. The familiar violence returned like an unwelcome visitor while police officers kept watch like Praetorian guards. And once again, the silence of power was deafening. Violence lingers in Lagos like a shadow that refuses to depart. It lives in the memory of those attacked. It hovers in the minds of those who wait for their turn. But this is not only a Lagos story. It is bigger. It is deeper. Across the ocean, in America, the same spirit finds kin. It finds voice in men who build their careers on division. They peddle what I call the language of ambivalent otherness. They make hatred sound respectable. They dress prejudice in the cloak of civility. They call exclusion “dialogue”. They name fear “truth”. But in truth, they trade in fracture.

The Nigerian thugs who brandish machetes in opposition figures’ faces and the American demagogues who polish words are part of the same story. They serve the same end. One breaks heads and crushes bodies. The other prepares the mind to accept blows and pains. Both are dangerous. Both conspire against our existence.

Karl Popper, the late Austrian-British political philosopher, saw this long ago. His two-volume work, ‘The Open Society and Its Enemies’, remains one of the most profound texts of the twentieth century. Written in the middle of the Second World War, it warned against the ideologies of men who sought to close society. Against Plato’s philosopher-kings. Against Hegel’s historical determinism. Against Marx’s blueprint. Popper argued that freedom, democracy, and openness are fragile. They are never guaranteed. They can be dismantled from within. He gave the world a vocabulary which still defines our age. He warned us about the enemies of openness who speak in absolutes, who demand submission, who reduce human beings to pawns of history. His warning remains relevant. Nigeria and America, two very different countries, both now face their own enemies of openness.

To humanise this, picture that young woman in Lagos preparing to vote in 2023. She rose early, her voter’s card in hand, convinced her choice mattered. At the polling station, thugs confronted her. They dismissed her right, citing her name, her ethnicity, her presumed loyalty. She was beaten, stabbed in the face with a broken bottle, almost to the point of losing her sight. She braved the attacks and voted. What she encountered wasn’t democracy, but intimidation clothed in politics. Picture thuggery turned into the art of politics and state policy. Picture Mrs Jennifer Efedi. 

Now imagine a young man in Texas who sits in a university hall. He hears a speaker talking about immigrants, about Muslims, about Black people. The speaker smiles. He wears a suit. He calls his words “patriotic”. He insists it is not hate. But the words seep into the room. They cast suspicion on neighbours. They tell the young man that others are threats to his way of life. Fear enters his mind. He begins to believe it. That too is not democracy. That is fear turned into thought by demagogues.

Two continents. Two faces. Same enemy.

Popper was right: the enemies of the open society do not always come with guns. They often come with ideas. They whisper about purity, tradition, and destiny. They appeal to our longing for certainty. They promise to protect us from chaos. But their protection is a prison. Their certainty is a cage. In Lagos, thugs become kings because power allows it. In America, demagogues thrive because power indulges it. Both societies are weakened when the rule of law is mocked. Both societies lose when citizenship becomes conditional on tribe, tongue, or ideology.

History teaches us this. Rome did not collapse in one night. It rotted from within. Institutions weakened. Trust disappeared. Violence became normal. Ideas that once united became weapons that divided. Every society that collapses has the same story. Not just the brutality of men in the streets, but also the poison of ideas that eat away at shared humanity. The lesson is urgent for us. 

Nigeria today is fragile. The institutions meant to protect citizens often betray them. The police fire live rounds at protesters. The courts drag their feet. The state looks away while thugs enforce silence. This is not openness. This is a slow closing. America too is fragile. Democracy there stands at a precipice. The Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, was not an accident. It was the flowering of years of rhetoric. Words prepared minds. Minds prepared hands. Hands broke windows and stormed halls. Popper’s warning was fulfilled before our eyes. 

So what do we do? 

First, we must name the threat. To call MC Oluomo’s hold over Lagos “politics” is to deceive ourselves. We must name violence as violence. We must call prejudice by its name. Truth matters. Language matters.

Second, we must defend institutions. An open society cannot survive when thugs replace the ballot. It cannot survive when courts are for sale; and judges, in the words of my good friend, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, topple the people and become the selectorate. It cannot survive when intellectuals and journalists are silenced. Institutions must be protected because they are the guardrails of democracy. Without them, we descend into chaos.

Third, we must defend humanity. This is the hardest. Popper wrote that the open society depends on a moral choice. We must choose to see others as fellow humans. Not as enemies. Not as threats. But as people like us. This choice is hard in Nigeria, where ethnic politics divide us. It is hard in America, where race and immigration remain flashpoints. But without this choice, society breaks.

And fourth, we must remain vigilant. The enemy of openness never sleeps. He shifts forms. Today, he is a thug. Tomorrow, he is a preacher. The day after tomorrow, he is a social media influencer. Next week he is a politician. Next year, he is a scholar. The disguise changes. The goal remains the same: to close society, to end freedom, to silence dissent.

Let’s return to the young woman in Lagos. If she couldn’t vote safely, without being attacked, then democracy is a lie. Let’s return to the young man in Texas. If he is taught to fear his neighbours, then liberty is a sham. Their stories are not distant. They are connected. They show us that the battle for the open society is everywhere. Popper wrote in 1945 that “the open society is one in which men have learned to be to some extent critical of taboos and to base decisions on the authority of their own intelligence”. That remains our task. To resist taboos. To think critically. To reject the easy slogans of thugs and demagogues. We live in dangerous times. The enemies of openness are bold. They believe the future belongs to them. But it does not have to be so. We can resist. We can demand accountability in Lagos. We can challenge rhetoric in Washington. We can insist on humanity in both places.

The open society is fragile. But it is worth defending. For if we lose it, we lose everything.

“I re o!”