I

Human consciousness is both resilient and precarious. Like glass under pressure, it can hold together under immense stress or shatter unexpectedly. The World Health Organisation estimates that one in eight people globally lives with some form of mental disorder, yet mental fragility is not limited to clinical diagnosis. It hides in sleepless nights, in persistent anxiety, in the quiet sense that one’s thoughts are slipping beyond control

THIS piece marks the beginning of a three-part reflection. It is a journey that looks into that very thin line between sanity and insanity, not just in the mind of man, but also in the life of our nation. The series will move from the inner struggles of the human mind to the outer realities of our society and the choices that define who we are.

There is a fragile boundary within the human mind, a trembling edge that separates reason from confusion, balance from breakdown, and sanity from insanity. It is an invisible line that every individual walks, often without realising how thin it truly is. Beneath the surface of composure lies the potential for chaos, a reminder that the mind is as powerful as it is vulnerable. Throughout history, the question of what keeps the mind balanced or what causes it to break has fascinated thinkers, artists, and scientists alike. Sigmund Freud spoke of the ego as a fragile mediator between the primal id and the moral superego, suggesting that mental stability depends on maintaining this equilibrium. The philosopher Michel Foucault, in Madness and Civilisation (1961), argued that madness is not merely a medical condition but a social construct, a reflection of how societies define what is acceptable, and what must be silenced.

Human consciousness is both resilient and precarious. Like glass under pressure, it can hold together under immense stress or shatter unexpectedly. The World Health Organisation estimates that one in eight people globally lives with some form of mental disorder, yet mental fragility is not limited to clinical diagnosis. It hides in sleepless nights, in persistent anxiety, in the quiet sense that one’s thoughts are slipping beyond control. Psychologists describe this as the continuum model of mental health, the idea that mental wellness and mental illness exist not as opposites, but along a shared spectrum. As Carl Jung once wrote, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” Sometimes, what appears as instability may also be a struggle for deeper meaning or transformation.

History is filled with stories of remarkable individuals who walked dangerously close to that divide. Vincent van Gogh painted masterpieces while battling inner storms. Sylvia Plath wrote poetry that illuminated both brilliance and despair. Even philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche, whose thoughts reshaped Western thinking, spent their final years in mental collapse. The truth is unsettling: the same intensity that fuels creativity, passion, and deep thought can also open the gates to chaos. The mind that dares to question everything must also bear the weight of uncertainty. The difference between genius and madness often lies not in the depth of thought, but in the ability to return from the depths.

I once had a teacher who would habitually say to his pupils, “Are you mad?” whenever someone gave a wrong answer in class. It was meant as a light-hearted rebuke, yet it reflected how loosely and often thoughtlessly society uses the notion of madness to define error or difference. Years later, I was reminded of this by my good friend, the late philosopher and musical legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, whose art often challenged conventional definitions of sanity in a chaotic world. He once composed a song titled “I No Be Crazy Man at All-O,” born out of a playful conversation we shared. I had invited him to accompany me on one of my subsequent expeditions, driving from Lagos all the way to London and he laughed, shaking his head before replying, “I no be crazy man at all-o.” His words, though humorous, carried a deeper truth: that what society sometimes calls madness may simply be courag,e the willingness to step beyond the familiar and embrace the unknown.

During my second solo expedition across the desert in the year 2000, at the age of sixty-two, I found myself once again face-to-face with the raw, unforgiving power of nature. What began as a confident continuation of my earlier journey soon turned into a test of endurance and resolve. As I ventured deeper into the vast expanse, the terrain shifted dramatically from firm earth to stretches of jagged rock, undulating ridges, and loose, shifting sands that swallowed my tyres without mercy. Each mile revealed a new challenge. The desert, silent and immense, seemed to conspire against progress. My vehicle sank into the sand more than once, forcing me to dig, push, and manoeuvre for hours beneath the relentless sun. The experience was both humbling and enlightening, a stark reminder that, no matter how prepared or experienced one might be, the desert remains the ultimate teacher.

Those early setbacks were more than mere inconveniences; they were warnings. The terrain ahead promised to be far more treacherous, unpredictable, and demanding. Yet, standing there amid the heat waves and shifting dunes, I understood that these struggles were part of the journey’s essence, a prelude to the true test that awaited on the harsh and uncharted stretch of the desert crossing.

This day is better described as one I really delved into the Sahara Desert, as I was completely cut off from the rest of the world. My day started quite early, at about 4 am, as I was a little bit anxious about what the day might look like, given my previous day’s experience with the sand dunes. As usual, I quickly went through my daily routine of car checking and exercising to ensure that I was physically and mentally ready for the day’s journey. So there I was, not receive any signal anymore. No backup, no gas stations, no supplies, no human beings, not even a phone, for I had forgotten the car plug in a battery charger in Lagos. Just myself, my car, my tent, and my assorted canned food. The temperature outside my tent was close to zero degrees, the surrounding sand was dormant and a soft breeze was in the air. All around me, everything was as cold as death, and silence ruled everywhere. Not even a bird sang, because there were none. Everything was quiet.

This time I was over 600km into the desert from Agadez. Having completed my morning routine, at about 6.10am with the sun already out and the temperature rising, I got into my car and zoomed off. Just as I was warming up to a smooth drive, I got stuck in the soft desert sand without warning. I had only driven for exactly 15 minutes and was less than 10km into my journey. This was to be my initiation into the litany of problems that visited me on this particular day. It was like one minute, one trouble. The warnings began to unfold. The wheels of my car had sunk very deep into the sand. It was now time to put into practice all that I had learnt during my tutelage days as a mechanic apprentice in preparation for this trip. It was time for digging, jacking, and pulling; activities I was very familiar with, so I didn’t see any reason to panic, as I was very sure of what to do.

******

II

The tradition in my homeland in Nigeria forbids me, as a titled man, to set eyes on a dead person, except that of someone of equal standing in our society. This is the way we live. It is part of our culture. What I was seeing, I was experiencing for the first, second, third, fourth and umpteenth time in my life. With everybody I passed and left behind, something died in me. I kept asking myself, “Will my fate be different?” What is it that makes me better than them? What is making my car better than theirs? What is it that is keeping me going? Will I be next to join them?

PART Two continues the journey deeper into the desert, deeper into the mind. This part reveals what happens when that strength is tested beyond its limits. Here, the thin line between sanity and insanity becomes more visible, more frightening, and more real. It begins with confidence, the kind that comes from experience and preparation.

I was calm, did a few mental calculations, and with full confidence, I settled down to perform the rescue operation on my car. The technique I employed here involved, first, digging the tyres out. Then, I jacked up the car at each tyre point and placed aluminium surface plates underneath the tyres. I would then reverse the car. The idea of reversing was to get back to where I was before the problem, since every successful passage endorses the track as perfect. So with each reverse,e I would then proceed to locate a better compact and dormant track, on a detour, to drive on, but while doing that, being careful not to lose my bearing.

This exercise lingered on for a very long time, and at one point, I lost count of how many times I had had to try over and over again. At this time, my overconfidence betrayed me, and I began to wonder if there weren’t some unseen hands behind all these problems. Physically and mentally, I was completely exhausted. The desert sun had charred my clothes to a golden brown that blended with the environment, and as I coughed and wheezed, having inhaled more dust than air, my energy vanished. I became physically drained, and breathing became a very tedious job. Emotionally, I saw myself as nude, as my dignity was stripped by these problems, and I was almost unable to continue.

Driving deeper into the desert, another phase of the experience opened up. It was the stench that first hit me, and I wondered what could be responsible. Then, I almost ran into the remains of a festering corpse. I looked away instinctively to avoid the stench and the sight. I kept driving and within minutes, I came to another corpse. And another, and another, until I could count no more. At this point, I was confused, as I didn’t know what to do. Should I drive with my eyes closed? Should I discontinue the trip to save myself from cultural abuse from this ugly sight? Would my ancestors be angry with me and probably strike me dead for seeing this ‘evil?’ Would I be required to appease the gods for this, and would they accept, since I was aware that this trip might warrant the sighting of dead bodies?

In fact, these and many other questions bothered me so much that I started hearing voices; voices of these dead men calling me to join them, or those of my ancestors reading my judgment to me, and probably handing over my death sentence. I was most horrified. Will my fate be different from those of the corpses I had just seen? But one thing was clear to me, and that I held on to so tenaciously, which was my honest and love-laden mission; a mission to save my people and their environment, and each time I was about to lose hope, or even felt threatened by the presence of death, I clung to the vision of my ancestors cheering me on and asking me not to relent on this noble trip.

This way, neither my courage withered, nor did my hope of a successful completion vanish. So strong was my will that I was determined to continue in spite of all the odds. I continued driving, and this time, going about it as if I wanted to finish the entire trip on that particular day. I drove faster and faster. This spirit that moved me into the thought of covering more distance soon deserted me. At about 5:30 pm, I was forced by fatigue to switch off my car engine.

Not being satisfied that my decision to stop was right, a lot of uncertainties set in and unconsciously, my mouth opened and I sang out loud:

“Swing low, sweet chariot,

Coming forth to carry me home,

Swing low, sweet chariot,

Coming forth to carry me home,

I looked over Jordan and what did I see

Coming forth to carry me home,

A band of Angels coming after me,

Coming forth to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chariot,

Coming forth to carry me home,

Swing low, sweet chariot,

Coming forth to carry me home.

Hoping that someone would hear me, I rendered this song several times to my car, of course, as there was no other thing there with me. As suddenly as I started singing, I stopped. I asked myself if all was well with me. However, being able to ask myself this question was enough of an answer, as well as an assurance that I was still alive and well, for I feared insanity more than death. The temperature had dropped from steaming 130°℉ to a tolerable 80°℉, and far away, I could still see the day’s storm sweeping the tops off the dunes and changing their shape as it did so. Having decided to stop for the day, I located a comfortable base to set up my desert mansion, but before I could settle down to put up the tent, I looked around me, as was my custom. Then I noticed a skeleton. At first, I thought it belonged to an animal, but suddenly realised that animals don’t travel this deep into the desert, where there is no life. Then I saw some clothing around the skeleton, but that was not all, and no big deal, since I had seen a few before then, but what was frightening about this particular skeleton was its legs. Its right leg was flat on the floor of the sand, while the left leg was suspended with the knee up.

The gentleman must have tried to raise his left leg in an attempt to get up before he gave up. Then suddenly, I remembered those horror movies that played with skeletons. It was going to be dark in the next hour or two, and not being brave enough to sleep beside any skeleton, I drove off again for about five minutes, and this time around, there were no more skeletons to fear. I then set up the tent, laid out my cooking utensils and prepared for the most unwelcome exercise- eating and drinking.

The tradition in my homeland in Nigeria forbids me, as a titled man, to set eyes on a dead person, except that of someone of equal standing in our society. This is the way we live. It is part of our culture. What I was seeing, I was experiencing for the first, second, third, fourth and umpteenth time in my life. With everybody I passed and left behind, something died in me. I kept asking myself, “Will my fate be different?” What is it that makes me better than them? What is making my car better than theirs? What is it that is keeping me going? Will I be next to join them?”

*****

III

In the end, the question we must all confront is whether Nigeria has lost its sanity or whether, beneath the chaos, a deeper consciousness still struggles to be heard. The line between sanity and insanity is not always about logic or madness; sometimes, it is about courage, the courage to face truth, to break cycles, and to refuse to accept decay as destiny. Our leaders may have failed us, but the greater tragedy would be if we, the people, fail ourselves

THIS is the final part of this journey; a reflection that began with the struggle for survival in the desert and now ends with the struggle for meaning in a nation losing its way. What started as a personal encounter with exhaustion and endurance has become a reflection of something larger: the slow unravelling of our collective mind as a people.

To these questions, I did not have the answers, but perhaps my attempt to find them would be my downfall. 5:30 pm came and I wanted to go for another hour. After having driven five minutes or more without encountering another corpse, I had to stop, because there was too little of me left to continue. At this point, I had to decide whether to go on living or to lie down and die like those I had just seen. I continued to gaze unseeingly at my car until I started seeing things. I made conscious efforts to snap out of my hallucination, reaching a point where I began to understand the fine line between sanity and insanity.

To live is to stand on the fault line of the mind, aware that reason and chaos coexist within us all. Sanity is not a fixed condition; it is a balance that must be maintained with care, humility, and empathy. In understanding the thin divide between sanity and insanity, we do not merely study mental illness; we study ourselves. We learn that every human being carries within them both light and shadow, order and turmoil. Perhaps the question is not how to avoid the fault line, but how to walk upon it with grace. For it is at the edge where logic meets emotion, and order meets chaos that we discover the fullness of what it means to be human.

In many ways, the story of Nigeria today mirrors that fragile fault line within the human mind, the thin divide between order and disorder, between sanity and collapse. Once described as a developing nation full of promise and potential, Nigeria now appears to be sliding backwards from developing to under-developing, and perilously close to the edge of failure. The signs are not hidden; they are felt daily in the streets, in the markets, in the silence of disillusioned youth, and in the hollow laughter that tries to mask despair.

Just as an individual can lose mental balance under the weight of trauma, a nation too can lose its collective sanity when burdened by corruption, mismanagement, and moral decay. Our institutions, once meant to stabilise society, now often feed the very chaos they were created to control. Leadership, instead of inspiring vision, frequently descends into self-preservation; justice bends easily to power; and truth, once a guiding compass, is now treated as a threat.

Successive governments have come and gone, each promising change, progress, and reform. Yet, the story remains painfully the same. The wealth meant to transform lives disappears into private pockets; public funds that could have built schools, hospitals, and industries instead finance luxury and vanity. Roads remain death traps, hospitals turn to mortuaries, and the youth — the nation’s supposed strength — are left stranded between hopelessness and exile.

And perhaps even more troubling is the collective behaviour that follows. Like a mind trapped in a cycle of self-destruction, the nation seems unable to break free from its own delusions. After every failure, Nigerians still return to the same individuals and the same systems that betrayed them, expecting a different result. It is a pattern that borders on collective insanity: to repeat a choice that brings pain, and still call it hope. The great Fela Anikulapo-Kuti foresaw this descent long ago. His music, bold and prophetic, questioned the sanity of a system where injustice thrives and truth is punished. When he sang “I No Be Crazy Man at All-O,” it was not merely a defence of his individuality; it was a protest against a society that had normalised madness while labelling integrity as insanity.

Today, it seems we live in the very world he warned us about; one where corruption wears respectability, where mediocrity is rewarded, and where integrity is mocked as foolishness. The irony is striking: in a land where everything seems to be crumbling, it is the few who dare to think differently, who demand accountability, who dream of reform that appear “insane.” Nigeria’s struggle, then, is not merely economic or political; it is psychological. It is the battle to reclaim our collective sanity as a people; to resist the normalisation of failure; to restore belief in the possibility of a just and functional nation. Like the human mind standing on its fault line, Nigeria too must decide whether to break apart or to heal.

The first step is acknowledgement, admitting that the cracks are real, that denial is dangerous, and that silence is complicity. From there, renewal becomes possible. For just as the mind can recover its balance through awareness and courage, so too can a nation rediscover its path when its people choose truth over comfort and courage over fear.

In the end, the question we must all confront is whether Nigeria has lost its sanity or whether, beneath the chaos, a deeper consciousness still struggles to be heard. The line between sanity and insanity is not always about logic or madness; sometimes, it is about courage, the courage to face truth, to break cycles, and to refuse to accept decay as destiny. Our leaders may have failed us, but the greater tragedy would be if we, the people, fail ourselves. A nation does not go mad overnight; it loses its mind slowly through silence, through compromise, through the repeated election of those who have proven unworthy of trust. Yet, history shows that even from the ruins of dysfunction, renewal is possible.

Perhaps Fela was right all along; the real madness lies not in questioning the system, but in accepting it as normal. If we are to reclaim our collective sanity, we must begin by unlearning the habits of hopelessness. We must think differently, act differently, and expect differently. For the fault line that runs through the mind of a nation can either be its point of collapse or its path to awakening. The choice, as always, is ours.