The watched pot

Huzaifa Jega It seems no one can shut up about 2023. I certainly can’t shut up about it – even if we all talk about it in silent words. You hear the whispers when you look into the eyes of people you pass by on the streets and those you see on the screens. You […]

Huzaifa Jega

It seems no one can shut up about 2023. I certainly can’t shut up about it – even if we all talk about it in silent words. You hear the whispers when you look into the eyes of people you pass by on the streets and those you see on the screens. You also hear them when you think of people you know, and even faces you have never seen. They only have to be Nigerian. You just know why the caged bird sings.  

I can’t place a finger on why a biblical current encircles the two racehorses in 2023. The two thunderbolts – one ying, the other yang. Or the Naija version of that duality. The thing is, the more you watch and are awed by one of the two horses, the two pots, the more it just can’t happen. The more it just can’t boil, not won’t boil. You can also think of it this way, the more you believe the opposite just has to win, the more it is clear the other side just can’t lose. It is almost paranormal – the kind of thing that happens when the irresistible force meets an immovable object. 

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I read somewhere that the stable doors are still shut, 14 days after the flag-off of campaign activities according to INEC restrictions but the psychological echoes are nevertheless at a fever pitch. I thought I saw Candidate Tinubu’s face going up on a building on Zaria Road, Kano, next to another new building apparently owned by FIRS. I thought that was some sort of subliminal messaging. I can’t remember where I saw Atiku’s face going up but a part of me guesses that it was on Zaria Road as well and that the campaign outfit has something to do with Attahiru Bafarawa, former governor of Sokoto State. I was at the Science Board, on the road to Gadon Kaya on Monday and was raved by what someone told me was Kwankwaso making a grand entrance into Kano. The only material contact I have with something to do with Obi was a female attendant at a bakery, Sea Sweet. I think, who told me she would vote Obi. That is because, everyone, knows that Obi is in actual fact in a league of his own – she insisted. Who knew?  

Since this is about imagination – surreal imagination, I thought the watched-pot analogy might help with the puzzle. As the saying goes, a watched pot never boils. But is that really the case? It is easy enough to test. All you would have to do is fill a pot with water and place it on a heat source. Next, turn up the heat and watch to see if the pot boils or not. Will it? I will save you the time and tell you that of course, it will come to a boil! This expression, after all, is not meant to be taken literally. Obviously, water heating up on a stove will eventually reach its boiling point, whether you are there to see it happen or not changes nothing. So then, what does this have to do with the arithmetic of who goes to Aso Rock in 2023?   

​The idea with this expression is that when we wait for something specific to happen (in this case, it’s waiting for water to boil), focusing on it can make it feel like it’s taking a really long time to happen. As if each second has become a minute, and each minute, an hour! Okay, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. It feels like time has slowed down. This feeling can also occur when we are bored, which, if we are waiting for water to boil, then that could be the case! 

The proverbial watched-pot phenomenon was literally produced by exposing two groups of subjects to a pot of water on a hot plate. The experimental subjects were requested to signal when the water began to boil; the control group was given no such instructions. All subjects were then asked to estimate the length of a 240-sec interval; the experimental group gave significantly longer time estimates than did the control group. The results are interpreted as supporting an expectancy interpretation of the watched-pot effect. 

The implication of this on the 2023 coin toss is that you might as well look into a mirror while another mirror hangs behind you to solve the riddle. If you also hang a picture of Atiku and Tinubu on either mirror, it means that the last odd-number reflection of the two candidates you can see looking into the mirror behind you will win the race. Go figure.  

That is why no one person really seems to care that much to wait for the pot to boil. Because it never will. We only seem to talk about it to ourselves silently and passively. We only wait aloud. 

Waiting is perceived psychologically and physically during a time frame, whose borders are influenced by others. While waiting, the focal attention is placed on the time, and yet the actual time elapsed is often perceived as being longer than it really is. Waiting time is critical, because the audience often considers it as a period of loss of control; while tolerating waiting can demonstrate preference for one of the two candidates who end up winning and then regretting it by the end of their first year in office. 

So, to both the two horses and I, Allah yabada sa’a in 2023.