Mfonobong Inyang: Footnotes On The Rise Of The Madman

Last year, I wrote a piece about Jehu, concluding, “I see someone approaching the horizon and from the way he rides his chariot, I reckon this must be the son of Nimshi.” I got a lot of heat for that; some said I was cooning or had drunk the kul-aid but thankfully, it wasn’t my first rodeo – my job was just to say the quiet part out loud. At the beginning of this year, I respectfully doubled down by saying, “2024 is the year of the madman” – “It’s Jehu versus whoever wants to lose”.

When I speak of Jehu, I refer to Jehu-esque leaders – many Jehus that have emerged and will yet emerge but the one with the most notoriety headlines the rest. Who is Jehu? That’s a wrong question. To avoid identity politics, the right question should be: what is Jehu? Jehu is an archetype; it is neither a man nor a woman.



The same definition applies to Ahab and Jezebel which I stated this last year. Jehu is a season; from last year, you saw a strange pattern of political outcomes. There was the rise of what is referred to as right-wing, nationalist or conservative leaders.

Jehu is also a disruption; a lot of incumbents had their seats taken or at the very least had their grip on power shaken. Jehu is a spirit of agitation: this year, across board, we all saw a significant spike of protests against abominable leadership, needless wars, electoral coups, the fallout of the pandemic, socio-political crises and social injustice. In some cases, this agitation also manifested in coup d’états.

The archetype of Jehu is often accused by the mainstream media of being a populist leader or leading populist movements. This is because the Jehus emerge via the sheer will of a large swath of the population. Vox populi in Latin is loosely translated as the voice of the people, the opinion of the majority or as we say in modern times, “we the people”.

This is a very important contradistinction because leaders that fall into the archetype of Ahab emerge via elite consensus or conspiracy which is cleverly projected to appear as the will or choice of the people. You will always see Ahabs getting more endorsements from elites and special interests while Jehu gets his endorsement from everyday people. I described Ahab as a puppet, not as a slur or pejorative but because in reality, such leaders are not the ones calling the shots; they answer to men in grey suits who pull the strings behind the scenes.

Jehu being a patriot doesn’t mean he is the best thing since sliced bread and Ahab being a puppet doesn’t mean he is a bad person. It just means that for all his flaws, Jehu will never sell out the homeland; he will always put it first. That’s why I said in January that people in this season will choose a “patriot over a puppet”.

Let me say categorically that the personalities of Jehu and Ahab are flawed; there is no spinning the fact that both of them are not the best examples of desirable leaders. At best, one person just has better PR than the other. All the ad hominem against them is a pure waste of time; the real indictment is their respective policies.

Understand that Ahabs are great at running for office but suck at actually running the office; while Jehus suck at running for office but are relatively better at running the office. So people who choose Jehu don’t necessarily endorse his every action, they choose him because his policy is preferred. Some are unfortunately caught up in a cult of personality but the vast majority of his supporters are not emotionally attached to him.

In this season, people chose Jehu despite all his baggage, which is why I previously maintained that policy over personality. I once said that the real force behind Ahab is Jezebel and amongst her many talents – she is exceptionally competent at controlling the media machinery and churning out narratives. When you think of a madman, you imagine someone who is mentally unstable.

However, for Jezebel, the term “madman” is a description of a leader who isn’t willing to bend the knee, kiss the ring or follow an agenda. There was a particular Jehu who emerged last year but the mainstream media called him a madman ; it didn’t help that the guy himself is a very eccentric character but last time I checked, he was doing good numbers in his country. Jehus have a warrior spirit, they love fighting but more importantly, winning.

That is why they take losses very badly and act almost maniacally when it happens because they somehow equate losing with surrendering. Another signature of the emergence of Jehu-esque leaders is the stinging rebuke of the mainstream media. This is hard for me to write because the media is my constituency, yet the truth has to be told.

There have been jaw-dropping discoveries of lies that were peddled by the mainstream media to cover up certain events and information about certain leaders. The typical strategy was to delegitimise dissenting voices by labelling them as conspiracy theories. Certainly, there were people out there saying stuff that was complete baloney but when intelligent people were repeatedly told to reject the evidence of their own eyes and ears or that they were dumb for making certain political choices – their anger against the status quo typically leads to the rise of a Jehu.

That’s why you see the meteoric rise of off-grid media such as podcasts and powerful micro-blogging platforms that support free speech and indie voices. The legacy media should take this time to do some soul-searching, or else it will become largely irrelevant soon. The lack of trust is at an all-time low.

When Elijah told Ahab that the rains were imminent, the weather didn’t suggest anything of such would happen – the best meteorologists didn’t see it coming. It was important to put out that information before the fact so that the narrative about who caused the rain would not be hijacked by you-know-who. Elijah would ultimately outrun Ahab and his chariot (a metaphor for human sophistication) to the entrance of Jezreel, highlighting how the prophetic is ahead of the political.

God alluded to this signature of his as he reeled out his CV in Isaiah’s prophecy: “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done”. Ever before the professional pundits and political pollsters called it, God had shared the intelligence about Jehu coming into play. It reminds me of the famous scene from Game of Thrones involving Olenna and Jamie Lannister; God was practically saying to Elijah, “Tell Ahab, I want him to know that it was me”.

I remember how Ahab assembled his top strategists, shamans and ‘prophets’ – who all told him he would pick up the W. The only exception was a coconut-head guy, Micah. He said Ahab would take an L as he went into war but he was slapped, or to put it in modern-speak – he was censored for his opinion because it wasn’t politically correct.

My job as a scribe was to document the truth as I knew it was done. Like I said before, I am no fan of Jehu – at best I am indifferent to him. However, I understand why he had to come into play and I respect that.

Maybe when another Ahab with less radical policies emerges, he may stand a great chance of wrestling power from Jehu shortly. Amongst the many things Jehu will do, the first is obvious – he will clean house like you have never seen before such that many events will be categorised into Before-Jehu and After-Jehu. He will also go after Ben-Hadad with every fibre of his being – he will pop off from day one.

Many other things are redacted but typical of the Jehu archetype, he does what he believes is right and lets the chips fall where they may. Jehu is far from being the ideal guy, I know the characterisations in his dossier: warrior-king, foul-mouthed, hot-blooded, not the best example of meekness, doesn’t score the highest points in diplomacy etc. So I am not his hagiographer but he is strangely the better fit for the job; I never in a million years thought I would say that – the irony of the madman being trusted to bring back normalcy is wild.

Agendas are heavily funded, anyone who tells you otherwise is either being naïve or disingenuous. Flowers to the Obadiahs for supporting those who speak the truth so that they are not tempted to get on the machine’s payroll for survival. Elijah felt suicidal because he thought he was the only one taking care of business, he never knew that a remnant community existed.

The work is done, I stood on business and now my watch has ended..