Anchoring Bias

OBI TRICE EMEKA

Earlier this week I provoked an argument on a WhatsApp platform consisting of indigenes of my town. I had argued, as I always do, that our traditional religion must evolve from the animist form we inherited to one that recognises modernity, especially as it relates to hygiene and the validity of scientific knowledge.

Anyone close to me knows that I am obsessed with two things: freedom and cultural revolution. I remain convinced that nothing fundamental will change in Nigeria unless there is a deep cultural transformation.

I have read many arguments suggesting that Governor Charles Soludo’s war against Oke Ite and his extended attack on traditional religion practitioners is an attempt at social engineering. I disagree. Soludo appears to believe he can make great gains in public relations by confronting a minority group that has not yet mainstreamed, rather than dealing with the root cause of the problem.

Our society is profoundly materialistic. Winners are celebrated while perceived failures are mocked. Our artists constantly remind us of this cultural code in their music: get rich or die trying. Social and political events are structured to recognise wealth. Our policing and justice systems increasingly appear to function for hire by the richest. Churches, student associations and many social organisations often reward wealth above all else.

Yahoo boys, drug peddlers and contract racketeers can afford to maintain retinues of taxpayer-funded policemen and soldiers. They can order these officers to intimidate or beat ordinary citizens. They can infringe on your rights and very often nothing happens to them.

For decades, our society has internalised wealth as the ultimate aim of existence. Even our ancestors captured this mentality in the proverb: Onye bu Igu ka Ewu n’eso

The inference from all these societal cues is simple: if you want to survive successfully, you must have money. Get money or die trying. This mentality sets the pace for the relentless rat race for wealth acquisition in Nigeria.

Prosperity preachers in Nigeria were among the first to discover this deep desperation for wealth and they built an entire market around it. Smartly dressed young men began to appear on television stations preaching spiritual wealth in exchange for physical cash presented as sacrifices. Soon they themselves became wealthy, flying private jets and driving exotic cars, while triggering waves of copycat preachers demanding increasingly absurd sacrifices in exchange for spiritual blessings.

Traditional religion practitioners arrived later to claim their own share of a market the Christian prosperity preachers had already developed using the same strategy: physical cash as sacrifice to attract spiritual blessings. They too began to prosper in similar fashion.

In reality, there is very little difference between what some traditional practitioners are doing and what prosperity preachers have long been doing. The real issue is that many of us suffer from anchoring bias.

Because Christianity has become socially dominant in our environment, we have anchored our perception of legitimacy around it. Christianity, to its credit, has successfully associated itself with civilisation and moral authority. As a result, when young men place their hopes for wealth in Christian rituals, purchasing holy water, blessed salt or making sacrificial donations, society sees nothing fundamentally wrong with it. Yet when similar practices appear within traditional religion, outrage erupts.

That reaction is not necessarily about morality. It is anchoring bias at work. Our bias tells us that anything done through Christianity is acceptable, while anything done through traditional religion is inherently evil.

I am firmly in support of social engineering. However, I do not believe any god can grant wealth. For that reason, any serious attempt at social engineering must apply equally across all religions; otherwise it will simply be perceived as religious persecution.

More importantly, social engineering must begin by decoupling our society from its obsession with materialism. Society must demonstrate that the law applies equally to both rich and poor. The poor must have genuine access to security and justice. Social recognition must shift toward value creation rather than mere wealth accumulation.

Until that cultural shift occurs, every campaign against fraud, ritualism or criminality will merely scratch the surface while leaving the underlying incentives of the system intact.