You, too? The Nigerian art of the ‘Tu Quoque’

In the spirited and often tumultuous world of Nigerian public discourse, especially in politics, there’s a persistent argument style that echoes through the halls of power and on our social media feeds: the tu quoque fallacy. From Latin for “you, too,” this isn’t just a simple phrase; it’s a deeply ingrained rhetorical tactic that shapes how we argue, debate, and engage with national issues. It is the verbal equivalent of saying, “You can’t point fingers at me, because your hands aren’t clean either!”

At its core, the tu quoque is a form of an ad hominem fallacy, where a person deflects criticism not by addressing the issue, but by highlighting the accuser’s own hypocrisy. The great philosopher and writer on rhetoric, Kenneth Burke, spoke of language as a form of symbolic action—a way we use words to create and navigate our reality. In Nigeria, the tu quoque is a powerful symbolic action used to evade responsibility and shift blame. It transforms a critique of policy into a mudslinging match of past misdeeds.

Nowhere is the tu quoque fallacy more prevalent than in the political arena. When an opposition leader accuses the current government of failing to fix the economy or combat corruption, the response is often a swift counter-accusation. “What did your government do when you were in power?” they retort. This response, while seemingly legitimate on the surface, doesn’t address the current administration’s performance.

As the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer noted in his “The Art of Being Right,” this is a classic move in eristic dialectic, or the art of winning an argument regardless of the truth. It’s a brilliant deflection that forces the accuser onto the defensive, compelling them to justify their own past actions rather than holding the current leaders accountable.

This isn’t a search for truth; it’s a battle for perception. The argument becomes less about what is right or wrong and more about who is more or less corrupt. The scholar Stephen Toulmin, who studied the structure of arguments, might view this as a failure of a crucial part of a sound argument: the “rebuttal.” Instead of providing a valid rebuttal to the initial claim, the tu quoque simply attacks the source, a weak and misleading way to close a discussion.

The same pattern echoes in our economic debates. When Nigerians complain about the high cost of living, a government official might quickly bring up past economic hardships. “The cost of goods was even higher during the previous administration,” they might say. “At least our government is trying to diversify the economy.”

This is a classic tu quoque move. It sidesteps the very real suffering of people struggling with inflation and simply compares it to a previous, perhaps worse, situation. The argument essentially becomes: “We may be failing, but they failed too, so you can’t really complain.” As the French philosopher Michel Foucault would argue, power and discourse are intertwined. The tu quoque in this context is a tool of power, used to control the narrative and silence dissent by invalidating the speaker’s right to complain. It normalizes a bad situation by pointing to a historical precedent instead of offering concrete solutions or accepting responsibility for current policies.

Beyond politics and the economy, this fallacy is a common feature in discussions about criminal justice and ethnic issues. When a group complains about being unfairly targeted by law enforcement, a tu quoque response is often used to dismiss their grievances. “But members of your own community are also involved in criminal activities,” someone might say.

This kind of response is particularly harmful because it uses a logical fallacy to dismiss genuine suffering. It implies that if a group has a few bad apples, their complaints about systemic injustice are invalid. It ignores the specific issue of unfair treatment and instead tries to justify it by highlighting the wrongdoing of a few. It’s a way of saying, as the great Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe might put it, “a man who has seen a snake must not wait for a second chance to kill it,” but the tu quoque says, “don’t complain about the snake, because you have snakes in your own compound.”

Understanding the tu quoque fallacy is the first step toward a more mature and productive public discourse. It helps us see past the emotional jabs and personal attacks and focus on the facts. The next time you hear this tactic, ask yourself: are they addressing the core issue, or are they just trying to change the subject? As the Roman orator Cicero once wrote, “The function of eloquence is to speak on behalf of the truth, not against it.” The tu quoque works against this very principle.

The validity of an argument does not depend on the character of the person making it. A person can still point out injustice even if they are not perfect themselves. A smoker can still give good advice about the dangers of smoking, and a former corrupt official can still point out corruption in another. To move forward as a nation, we must demand substance over deflection and accountability over blame-shifting. It’s time we moved past the “you, too” and started demanding “what’s next?”