The Nation Newspaper

Author: The Nation

  • Questions the media must answer

    The media –whether mainstream or online- by what we choose to report or what we under report; by what we give prominence to or what we ignore; by what we sensationalize or what we play down, are the reason for the unending ethno-regional schisms that have continued to define the character especially of our political life. These days most of us, even when we appear to report facts often it is with a motive to stir up controversy. And in fact the online, more than the mainstream media is essentially the incorrigible outlaw that, by its nature, is neither exhortable to the rules and ethics of journalism nor properly positioned to be sanctioned for any breach. The online media lives by a totally different kind of creed, and which is that its practitioners do not believe they have to be truthful to be virtuous. All that cometh to their net has to be ‘fish’.

    In fairness to the online media though, it is still more forthrightly committed to its outlaw-credo than the mainstream is to the time-honoured ethics of the journalism profession. Whereas the online media makes no pretence about its objective –which often is to stir up controversy- the mainstream media it must be said, is in a state of flux. It is caught between the vagrant laissez fair style of the online media and its traditionally ethics-governed duty to inform, educate and entertain. And you would think that it should be in the interest of the mainstream media that its nomadic online counterpart is regulated and ranched to the sedentary principles that the traditional media has always been governed by. But no, even the mainstream media is gradually becoming trapped in the delirium of the unregulated field for which the online media is both famed and despised. You would think that the mainstream media would capitalize on the frailties and foibles of its largely ill-trained online counterpart to help both of them preserve the dignity and integrity of the Fourth Estate. But no, it appears to be adamantly interested in fighting to preserve the heretical lifestyle of the very online media that, if you ask me, is bent on sending it out of business.

    Journalism, unlike, say the law profession, has always been doomed to its self-harming porous borders –admitting every Tom Dick and Harry as practitioners. Even before the advent of the online media, virtually every character who could put pen to paper, without pre-qualification, had always been employable as a purveyor of news and information. And now with the advent of the online media, virtually every phone user has become a self-licensed journalist, -so that even in the comfort of his bedroom he can fabricate news and information for the consumption of the unsuspecting public. In fact it is to the vagrant, irresponsible ways of the online media that ‘Fake News’, ‘Hate Speech’ and ‘Rumour Mongering’ now owe their elevation as critical issues in the newsfeed both of print and electronic journalism. And there is no telling how soon the online media will be singing the Nunc Dimittis or the funeral dirge of its overindulgent mainstream counterpart, because people appear to love froth (which the online media is famed for) more than they do substance.

    With the advent of online media all hope that someday, journalism may have its own weird Donald Trump to worry about how to wall-up its porous borders is virtually lost for good. Because now even the mainstream media is beginning to take pride more in the business of stirring up controversy than in the traditional business of helping society to be informed, educated and entertained. We are gradually beginning to turn even ethical axioms on their heads, so that rather than ‘leaving out whenever we are in doubt’, we now delight in provocatively publishing to clear our doubt. And whereas we are quick to challenge the hapless victims of our fake or biased reporting to countercheck our excesses only by the due judicial process, yet when victims of fake news or biased reporting seek redress, we are equally as quick to alert that ‘press freedom’ is on trial. We cannot eat our cake and then have it!

    The power of the media, as it is a source for good it is potentially also a force for evil. It is either deployed responsibly for everyone’s good or irresponsibly for the harm of all. And although it is joked that the duty of journalists is to ‘comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable’; what especially online media is bent on doing nowadays is to ‘afflict’ the comfortable and to afflict even the already afflicted’. And as Newton Minow, a onetime American Federal Communications Commission’s chair warned: ”just as history will decide whether the leaders of today’s world employed the atom to destroy the world or rebuild it for mankind’s benefit, so will history decide whether (the media) employed their powerful voice to enrich the people or debase them”. And just as Spiro Agnew, once said, since ”Nowhere… are there fewer checks on vast power” like the Media’s, nowhere he said, “should there be more conscientious responsibility exercised than by the news media”. He was suggesting that since ‘We would never trust such power over public opinion in the hands of an unelected government –it is time we questioned it in the hands of a small and unelected elite (the media)’ By the way, it is the reason the question has been asked through the ages: ‘how has the media utilized or how is it utilizing this vast power’? As someone rightly put it: ‘Is this awesome power being exercised with equally awesome responsibility?’ If journalists are the watchdogs of the society, who watches the watch dog? Or which is better? That there be external checks on the media to ensure that they do not abuse the power reposed in them or that the media be left unregulated in the mere hope that it will regulate itself? The presumption of a constitutional guarantee of ‘unchecked freedom’, given to the media is an opportunity they say for the media ‘voluntarily to assume responsibility’. A rather queer type of self-discipline.  For how can the media ‘voluntarily assume responsibility’ when everyone now who has a mobile phone and can load some data is a journalist? Or when every ‘journalist’ is now interested more in driving acrimonious controversy than in promoting healthy debate; or when every so-called journalist now prefers to ‘argue’ rather than ‘reason’ around issues?

    And so the questions arise: are the resentments against the media largely from its virtues of diligent reporting or from its penchant for stirring controversy? Do we have too much liberty or do we have too little freedom? Are we protecting democracy or is democracy endangered by the way we practice? Have we employed our powerful voice to enrich the people mentally and materially or to debase them in body and in spirit? Do we exercise our awesome power with equally awesome responsibility, or are our ‘vast powers equally vastly abused’? And we can go on and on: why must we ‘give the public too much froth simply because too few members of the public want substance’? If the public cares more about froth than it does substance, do we have a duty to elevate that taste to a more sublime height or do we have the liberty to indulge that poor taste by denying the public substance? And if, as they say that ‘people are primarily moved in their choice of reading by their daily emotions, prejudices, hate and fears’ should we cater to this trivia or should we guide the people to more edifying quests? Are we to respond to the vibes of deadlines or to hearken to the call of accuracy? Now that virtually everyone is a journalist, can the media still be trusted ‘voluntarily to assume the responsibility’ to regulate itself?

  • Mothering a murderous bill

    By Banji Ojewale

     

    When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers —Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish writer

     

    In Nineteen Eighty Four when we all stood in awe of Decree Four, to differ with the government and its officials was a dinner with agony. Nothing pleasant was served at the table. All those who fed there had deleterious tales, instead of stories of delicious meals. Some didn’t live to tell us their experiences at the feast. But others, like the two journalists with The Guardian newspaper, Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor, survived Decree Four. It was a pyrrhic triumph, though, at the end of the day. For, the dragon military law had its way, savaging them by consigning them to prison term for news they reported. It also somehow cowed several more others and prevented them from talking about the excesses of their government and its officials. Instead they fled to the safety of such far-flung societies as Afghanistan to report events that related not to them and their country.

    Now, nearly 40 years after, Decree 4 is making a return in the name of a Hate Speech Bill. It is blandly called, National Cohesion and Integration Bill, with the mandate to establish an Independent National Commission for Hate Speeches for the Prohibition of Hate Speeches. The bill, receiving senate hearing and public opprobrium at the moment, recommends the death by hanging for the peddler or author of ‘hate speech’ that leads to loss of life.

    The bill, sponsored by Senator Abdullahi Sabi of the ruling All Progressives Congress, passed its first reading on Tuesday, November 12, with provisions frighteningly at odds with a democratic setting such as ours. The legislation proposes: ‘’A person who uses, publishes, presents, produces, plays, provides, distributes and/or directs the performance of any material, written and/or visual, which is threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, commits an offence, if such person intends thereby to stir up ethnic hatred, or having regard to all the circumstances, ethnic hatred is likely to be stirred up against any person or person from such an ethnic group in Nigeria…Any person who commits an offence under this section shall be liable to life imprisonment and where the act causes any loss of life, the person shall be punished with death by hanging…A person who subjects another to harassment on the basis of ethnicity commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to an imprisonment for a term not less than five years, or to a fine of not less than ten million  naira, or to both…’’

    Many Nigerians like senior lawyer and activist Femi Falana as well as Minister of State for Transport,  Gbemisola Saraki, have addressed what they call the unconstitutionality of mothering a genocidal bill to tame the menace of ‘hate speech’ brewed in the shadow media in Nigeria. And because it’s coming at a time government officials are threatening to drown the voice of this ‘new’ media, the whole nation believes there is something invidious about the bill given its sanguinary goal. Why would punishment for a hazy and amorphous concept of hate speech draw blood when, according to Saraki and Falana, ‘’the Cybercrime Act had taken care of the entire fiats regarding hate speech by making stringent conditions, including fine and prison terms for offenders.’’ Falana has even gone ahead to insist that ‘’the National Assembly has no power to enact a law on hate speech for the entire country.’’

    He says: ‘’Under Section 4 of the Constitution, NASS can only legislate on matters in the exclusive and concurrent lists. I have looked at those lists. I have not found any one where the NASS has been empowered to make the law on hate speech. It is a state affair on residual list.’’

    Worried compatriots say what makes the proposed law dangerous and therefore unacceptable is that it would leave the definition of hate speech in the hands of a government that does not suffer free speech to exist. That is a leap back into 1984. Is it a coincidence that what we witnessed then under the juggernaut of a military junta headed by Muhammadu Buhari is what is about to play out again decades after with the same Buhari in the saddle, but as an elected head of an elected government? Changed circumstances have not changed the man. Cucullus non facit monachum. The hood does not make the monk.

    Laws that seek to introduce anti-free speech provisions outside what the constitution prescribes are the handiwork of failing and unpopular administrations, the landslide ‘victories’ their candidates and parties receive at the poll notwithstanding. They roll out decrees that attempt to smother dissent. They are irascible when you point at their poor leadership and bad governance. You rattle them when you protest at their policies that have led to large pockets of desolate communities across the land. They fail to realize that that it is not hate speech in itself that destroys a society but corrupt, looting, non-performing governments. Such administrations give rise to what we call hate speech. The citizen receiving the best of governance wouldn’t have cause to lambast that provider of his basic needs. Hate speeches are brewed by the cauldron of corruption. When state policies enable a few to corner and embezzle the resources of a nation, the society is denied such life-serving infrastructure as well-kitted hospitals, modern schools with properly motivated teachers, expansive roads without death traps, affordable and modern housing for an economically empowered citizenry etc. These are the signs of a failing state which so-called hate speech authors attempt to draw attention to. That is what the lawmakers should decapitate, the system that allows official and unofficial corruption to thrive with impunity, not those who stand on rooftops condemning it. We need a fundamental change of attitude in the country.

    But in Nigeria, the gods have a way of playing tricks on us. At the poll, we pray for a new set of rulers to displace those we’ve lived with for years. We wish to retire them as a punishment for their tragic misrule. To be sure, the deities grant our petition. But, alas, these strange gods don’t love us. Their answer to our days and hours of ceaseless prayer is the whiplash!

  • Security votes as ‘disguised theft’

    Many concerned Nigerians have expressed misgivings about the abuse of security votes by Nigeria political elite operating at all levels. Unfortunately, public opinion which is the pillar of democracy in most participatory democracies counts for little here. Perhaps this explains why  the   Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) last week once again took it upon itself  to file a lawsuit in the Federal High Court, Abuja “seeking leave to apply for judicial review and an order of mandamus to direct and compel President Muhammadu Buhari, Senate President Ahmed Lawan, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila to disclose details of allocations, disbursement and spending of security votes by the federal government, 36 state governors and 774 local governments between 1999 and 2019.

    With the increasing “lack of effective protection of the rights to security and welfare, life and physical integrity of millions of Nigerians” despite yearly disbursement of N241.2 billion, SERAP believes Nigerians need to be reassured  constitutional provisions which compel  government to protect all Nigerians as against few people in government is not being carried out in reverse.

    SERAP seems to speak to the fears of apprehensive Nigerians who watch helplessly as both the federal and state governments deplore security votes for the protection of government, its officials and their family members at the expense of those who traded their freedom for government’s protection.   They see elected officials as well as government appointees move around with lorry loads of police escorts even when they are on social outings.  Nigerians daily observe obscene scenes of law-abiding Nigerians chased off the road by gun-wielding police escorts to protect wives of powerful ministers and elected officials on the way to the market or to the salon. While this massive misuse of security votes by government officials goes on, the level of insecurity, violence, kidnappings and killings in many parts of the country is at an all-time high.

    Unfortunately like every self-inflicted problem in our society such as the current unworkable unitary superstructure foisted on a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and heterogeneous society which requires simple solution such as retracing our steps back to the ‘Nigeria’s path to Freedom’ never taken, a few powerful and influential members of the political, economic and military elite who are benefiting from our tragedy insist we must trudge on even when it is obvious we have lost direction.

    And those who clearly understand that a multi-cultural society cannot thrive on a unitary constitution that allocates 68 items to the centre, 30 as concurrent with no residual list are equally playing the ostrich. They admit the constitution is deficient but insist governors can work round it to provide service. But where is the incentive to provide service? And why should most of our governors without vision sacrifice a system that rewards indolence for the type of sacrifice Chief Anthony Enahoro needed to make during the first republic to ensure the first television in Africa was ready for commissioning within three months?

    Where is the incentive to be resourceful when a dysfunctional centre doles out funds to local governments that constitutionally do not report to it? Chukwuma Soludo, the former CBN governor once said Nigeria is the only country in the world where such happens. And why should state governors be accountable when the centre that has taken over their functions dole out funds every month. Ex-President Jonathan once argued the states can only ask for accountability from their governors if the governors are spending their taxes. That perhaps explains why our governors are so powerful. They are accountable to neither their states where they sometimes owe several months of salary arrears nor answerable to the federal government because even with the defective 1999 constitution, the federal government is not superior to the states.

    And precisely because they are as equal and coordinates both involved in what someone describes as “security votes as disguised theft”, the federal government cannot dictate how states dispense their security votes which range between N4b and N24b annually.

    It is on record that Babangida’s  administration ‘initiated the corrupt culture of maintaining a huge monthly security vote virtually as personal pocket money’ during his fraudulent eight years of ‘transition without end’. He freely deployed funds as patronage in the guise of providing security especially after the failed Orkah coup. The 1994 Okigbo Panel report on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) claimed $12.2 billion was diverted to off-budget accounts during Babangida’s regime. His successors have tried to build on his baleful legacy.

    Using security votes as a decoy, Abacha stole the country blind during his war against NADECO, his regime’s nemesis.

    Abdulsalami Abubakar built on the legacy of Abacha. Besides the allegation of Hamza Al-Mustapha, Abacha’s powerful chief security officer that his regime used security votes to allegedly bribe Yoruba Obas in order to assuage their raw feelings over the death of MKO Abiola, their son and the winner of the 1993 election who died mysteriously under his watch, what was left of the national reserve of $7.1 billion he inherited from Abacha at the end of one year was $3.1 billion.

    It was widely alleged that the Obasanjo administration freely deployed security votes to rig the 2007 elections considered the worst election in the nation’s history. It was also widely speculated that the N50b voted for members of 6th assembly for his failed third term bid must have come from security votes since it was not captured under any heading.

    The huge sum of money in foreign currency ex-President Jonathan allegedly shared out to Yoruba Obas, some urban ethnic groups and proscribed Oodua militant groups were believed to have come from security votes. Transparency International claim President Buhari’s security votes increased from $46.2 million (N9.3 billion to $51 million (N18.4 billion in two years 2015-2016.

    On the whole, a May 2018 report by the body titled “Camouflaged Cash: How Security Votes’ Fuel Corruption in Nigeria” provided a damning report about abuse of security votes by successive Nigerian leaders. It says in part: “Security votes’ are opaque corruption-prone security funding mechanisms widely used by Nigerian officials. As a relic of military rule, by which certain federal, state and local government officials are allocated funds to disburse at their discretion”, it claimed “security vote spending exceeds 70 percent of the annual budget of the Nigeria Police Force, more than the Nigerian Army’s annual budget and more than the Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Air Force’s annual budget combined”.

    Again as it is with our unresolved national question, but for the greed of our political elite, the solution to abuse of security votes is simple. General Abubakar promulgated the 1999 Constitution. Section 14 (2b) states explicitly that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. The second schedule of the constitution also makes the federal government exclusively responsible for the security of the country, as well as the police, armed forces, and border control. The simple solution would have been a revisit of the 1999 constitution by the elected representatives of the people in Abuja.

    But as if to confirm there can be no redeeming grace among Nigeria political elite, our lawmakers join their counterparts in the executive in “disguise theft” through a salary structure that positions them the highest paid lawmakers in the world. And five months into the 9th Senate, it is obvious a part cannot be holier than the whole. Nigeria political elites suffer from the same affliction.

  • Double jeopardy

    MANY people living around the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway, which is being rehabilitated by two firms, Julius Berger and RCC, are bitter. They are angry because of what they have been going through daily on that road since the work began in September. The work is expected to be completed next month, but nobody is sure that the contractors will meet the deadline. Now, we are being told that the firms will stop work on December 15 and remove all the barricades to facilitate movement during the Yuletide.

    If the residents’ suffering had been limited to the traffic challenge only, they would not have minded that much. But, they are facing what could be referred to as double jeopardy. They do not enjoy regular power supply and they spend precious man hour in traffic every day. Living in that axis has become the worst thing to happen to the residents in recent time. For those in Arepo, it is as if they live in another world; they see light in houses not far from them in Wawa and Magboro, but they do not have.

    You can feel their pains when they comment about these issues on the platforms dedicated to the sharing of information on their estates and the road.  To enable them keep abreast of development, they opened these WhatsApp platforms, which have come in handy in the sharing of information, views and opinions on their daily living. Their remarks are as diverse as they are interesting.

    The remarks border on their helplessness about the situation they have found themselves in and sarcastic appeal to those responsible to remedy the situation. The remarks are witty and funny, though the situation is not funny.They know that these are serious matters, which should be addressed urgently, but what can they do when they do not have the power to effect the change. Electricity is essential to life, so also is smooth traffic. The chances of living long are slim where people do not enjoy uninterrupted electricity supply and also spend long hours in traffic every day.

     

    ‘Electricity is essential to life, so also is smooth traffic. The chances of living long are slim, where people do not enjoy uninterrupted power supply and also spend long hours in traffic every day’

     

    For months now, Arepo has been in total darkness. The community was thrown into darkness when the pass under the Long Bridge became flooded following the opening of the Oshun Dam. The floods got as far as Alagbole – Akute, which houses the 33kva transformer supplying power to Arepo and environs. Before the outage, the residents had been battling with traffic, which has made movement in and out of their homes a daily grind. When will all these end? When will the residents have their normal lives back? It is not easy waking up at 4a.m., daily only to spend between four and five hours in traffic before getting to work.

    So, today, this column is dedicated to these residents for their resilience in the face of these challenges. In the words of some of them, we capture their feelings on what they are going through. ‘’Please, IE or EI, on behalf of myself and all the people that cannot cope with this hot weather in Arepo, kindly look into this light matter ooo before I faint abeg…and kindly compensate us with rechargeable fan at least for now. Hope I am not asking for too much’’, wrote one,  with another countering: ‘’I need rechargeable fan too sef. The hot has been switched to x rise to power 7’’.

    Then came this: ‘Good afternoon, house. I sincerely hope that people are not going to start collapsing under the current situation. No light, bad roads and horrible traffic. It is well with us all o!’’, to which a neighbour responded: ‘’Amen ooo…I was swimming in my sweat last night. IE, ejooooooo!’’

    On the Lagos – Ibadan Road Traffic Update Platform, the residents start giving eye witness reports as early as 4.30a.m. On Tuesday, at about 4.39a.m., a motorist wrote: ‘’After Asese blocked; two trailers stuck side by side…efforts in place to sort them out’’, adding: ‘’4.45a.m., Magboro at standstill. Faulty truck ahead’’. Another motorist asked: ‘’How’s the Long Bridge, anybody there?’’ He got this reply: ‘’Blocked. End to end’’. That was at 05.03a.m. These three responses came swiftly: ‘’Chai!’’ ‘’Not today again’’. ‘’Na waooooo…not today again’’.

    At 05.54a.m., came this report: ‘’Today is part two of yesterday. So, if you are still at home and have something urgent to do, you should move on time. Just add three to four hours to the timing. Inward Berger too has traffic from Secretariat till Berger’’. A motorist cut in: ‘’Just at the end of Long Bridge. 4.57 – 7.25a.m. 2hrs, 28minutes on Long Bridge alone’’, and another said: ‘’Since 4.30a.m., from Mowe…We still dey middle of Long Bridge’’. In apparent frustration, one wrote: ‘’I hereby declare a state of emergency on Lagos – Ibadan Expressway with immediate effect’’, to which a fellow motorist responded: ‘’Supported’’.

    By 15.33 hours, things had not changed, as a motorist wrote: ‘’About three hours from Redemption Camp to Berger; presently on the bridge between Ojota and Maryland’’.  What else can one add to these? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

  • Hate Speech Bill: Soyinka is right

    Sir: From time immemorial, the cause of wars and other forms of conflicts have been caused by hate speech. An innocuous statement targeted against a person or a group of persons can ignite the flames and spark a gargantuan conflagration which may be impossible to diffuse. The various wars in history: The three Punic wars where the Roman Empire eventually defeated Carthage; the wars fought by the empires of Athens, Sparta, Persia; The war of the Roses which was fought between the house of York and Lancaster that brought the first Tudor King of England, Henry VII to power in 1485, the first and second world wars all happened because of the gory incidents of hate speech. Coming down home to Africa – the various wars in the continent from the wars fought by the Oyo Empire to those fought by the Ghanaian, Malian, Songhai, Egyptian, Zulu, Kanem-Borno, Ethiopian Empires etc. all had hate speech as the basis for the strife. Even the relatively recent Rwandan genocide which occurred in 1994 that saw the asphyxiation of millions of Tutsis and Hutus were all fought because some sinister politicians who had unfettered access to the media called the other tribe cockroaches.

    Senator Sabi Abdullahi, the Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate sponsored a bill seeking to inflict the death penalty on anyone found guilty of hate speech. The death clause has attracted condemnation from many civil society organizations and individuals prominent among who is Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka.

    He said, among others: “Do not embrace the awful responsibility of impressing homicide as a way of life on the ethical template of coming generations. The chickens have a way of coming home to roost. I may be wrong of course, but their droppings already foul the common air we all breathe. Just take a deep breath, look around you, and re-consider.’’

    It is instructive to note that the world famous dramatist never condemned the bill in its entirety as he said he was also a victim of many social media accounts being opened in his name without his authorization but the penalty of death by hanging is taking it too far.

    I totally agree with the Nobel Laureate because inasmuch as there is need for the National Assembly to make laws that criminalize hate speech for the good of all knowing the havoc it can cause if allowed to get out of hand, the murder clause makes it a bad law as it is repugnant to justice, equity and good conscience. There must be a balance by our lawmakers in the apex chamber as to what should constitute the appropriate sanction for those guilty of disseminating hate speech.

    The advent of the internet has made incidences of hate speech a source of growing concern. A bigot with a few megabytes of a data and a decrepit internet-enabled phone can make a statement that can go viral in a matter of seconds and can cause incalculable damage in the process. When you consider the fact that a sizeable number of the population is either illiterate or ‘literate’ but without the mental competence to sift the wheat from the chaff in doing a proper fact check, then there is a huge crisis on our hands.

    There is no country in the world where freedom of speech is absolute; not even the United States which prides herself as the hub of free speech and democracy. Therefore, it is in order if punishment is meted out to those found guilty of hate speech in order to stem its rising tide.

    Civil society groups and public spirited individuals should therefore rise to the occasion and condemn the death penalty clause.

     

    • Tony Ademiluyi,

    Lagos. 

  • What’s in a title, Mr. Governor or Excellency?

    A friend while discussing Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s dropping of the title “Excellency” for “Mr.  Governor” said; just tell him “to get on with the job”. Well, I agree. The governor was just being modest and humble. To put this discussion correctly, the first governor to decree this usage of “Mr. Governor” was my state governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi. Aliyu Babangida, former governor of Niger State used to refer to himself as “servant leader” of his state. This did not stop the real servants from shouting “Rankya dedeh” while groveling before him. On a serious note, this usage of Mr. Governor is American. It is normal to say “Mr. President” or “Mr. Governor” in the United States. The British also say “Mr. Prime Minister”.

    On the continent of Europe, the French will say “Monsieur, le President”; the Germans refer to their chancellor” Herr Bundeskanzler” and if a woman “Frau Bundeskanzlerin” which is the same as Mr. President or governor. But when official letters are addressed to them, the title “Your Excellency” is appropriate. This is why all ambassadors also bear the title of Excellency because technically they represent the person and office of the heads of state or government who send them and not the countries where they come from. This is why when there is a turnover and when regimes change and if the ambassador must be kept in post, a new letter of accreditation signed by the new head of state could be required and requested.

    It is not the title that matters; it is the humility and sense of a mission that one brings to office that matters. Sanwo-Olu and Kayode Fayemi are right by suggesting they do not want to be flattered by titles as many sycophants would want to do. There is no need to over-spiritualise what is essentially a secular thing by saying only God is excellent. We all know that. Politicians should please not use God/Allah to cover their incompetence. It is how they are remembered by posterity that should matter. The story was once told about a farmer in Ekiti who during the presidential election of 1999 was found going to his farm and when accosted by electoral officials who told him about voting being part of his civic responsibilities, he said innocently with peasant simplicity and honesty, that he thought election had ended with Awolowo’s demise in 1987. As far as he was concerned, Awolowo was the “End of History “to borrow a phrase from the Japanese-American historian Francis Fukuyama’s book – “The End of History and The Last Man”. Awolowo’s legacy was etched into this poor farmer’s mind, not by the roads and buildings he constructed, but by the single stride taken to universalize education in the old Western Region. This is the same way Lateef Jakande is remembered for abolishing the shift school system in Lagos. Many young people in Lagos need to be reminded of this great Leap Forward. I doubt if the pre-Jakande system of some pupils starting school when the first stream finished at 2 p.m. existed anywhere in the world except Lagos Nigeria. Rauf Aregbesola, former governor of Osun State will also in the course of time be remembered for revolutionizing education in that poor state. If I were Sanwo-Olu, I would look critically at what I can leave as permanent legacy in Lagos for which children unborn would remember me  and which a million Excellencies would not do. He has a better chance to do this than many of his other colleagues like Kayode Fayemi but who are hampered by poor economic resources of their states. He has several choices he can make. He can make Lagos a real state by developing other towns in the state apart from the city of Lagos. Badagry, Epe, Ikorodu, Itoikin and other towns and villages are waiting to share in the Lagos development boom. Imagine building a bridge to link Lekki with Ikorodu! The Lagos government needs to open up the physical space of Lagos to avoid the city being suffocated by the unrelenting waves and flood of people from the Nigerian hinterland.

    It is not only the governor of Lagos who should have an enduring and lovely legacy. Muhammadu Buhari needs it even more. It will be wonderful if our president can, while fighting corruption, important as it is, face the mission of providing electricity for this country. He does not have much time left in his second regime. I pray that his government’s deal with the German company Siemens to do the kind of magic it did in Egypt where within five years, it delivered about 14000 megawatts into the Egyptian grid. The deal with this company backed by the governments of Nigeria and Germany is programmed to deliver 25000 megawatts of electricity by 2025. If this happens, Buhari’s name will remain forever blessed by Nigerians. Right now, our total installed capacity is less than 10000 megawatts and what is nationally available ranges from 3000 to 4000 megawatts which is ridiculous for a country of at least 160 million.

    One wonders what our governments have been doing since 1960. Yet it is obvious that our country cannot develop without electricity. We will not be able to run electric trains in the future. Now that electric cars are in the horizon, we would not be able to join the civilized world in the new environmentally friendly automobile revolution of the future. Without electricity, we cannot run modern hospitals. Our universities cannot function properly and agricultural products would rot in our tropical heat. We cannot industrialize our production. In short, nothing will work unless we sort out the problem of electricity. Not only our economy depends on it but our lives as well.

    It is this kind of landmark achievement that distinguishes a man of action from an ordinary leader of a country. Mustapha Kemal, the Ataturk of Turkey with determination turned an effete remnant of a great empire into a modern state overnight. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt was a lightning rod in the modernization of Egypt. General Charles Andre Joseph Marie de Gaulle pulled out France from humiliation and defeat to the status of a major power in modern times. Winston Churchill mobilized the British to successfully resist the Germans during the Second World War. Joseph Stalin after the loss of millions of his people to the indomitable Germans was able to roll back the German panzer divisions that made mincemeat of his country and successfully got to the German capital in 1945. There are African avatars like Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, and Nelson Mandela who occupy unique positions in modern African political history. Of what use is life if all we do is to live and die without leaving a mark. If anybody has the opportunity to lead his people whether at the national or sub national level, such a person should count himself of herself lucky and try to make a mark and not get bogged down with semantics about titles.

    Having said this there are titles that may be worth keeping because of traditions. The religious orders are hierarchical. There are cardinals, Arch bishops, arch deacons, canons and reverends and reverend fathers in the Christian religion. There are sultans, caliphs, grand Ayatollahs, Ayatollahs, imams, sheiks, Amir and so on in the Islamic world. The military is also hierarchical in organization and you have field marshals, generals, lieutenant- generals, major-generals, brigadier-generals, colonel, and lieutenant colonel, majors, captains, lieutenant and second lieutenants in that order and corresponding equivalents in the navy and air forces. The same goes for the diplomatic corps where you have ambassadors, consul generals, consuls, ministers, minister counselors and so on. Removing their titles would cause chaos because these institutions conform to certain norms of universal order which hardly varies in meaning from one country to the other. The title of governor as head of a unit of government is not universal. They may be called prefect as in France, minister- president as in Germany and excellencies usually do not apply to sub national heads of government. Of course there is nothing stopping Nigeria from reducing titles from elsewhere  to their own  pedestrian level as we have done by calling village and clan heads their majesties and rulers without empires their imperial majesties !

  • …Between censorship and counter narrative

    Sir: In 2015, Facebook started a program – Peer to Peer: Facebook Global Digital Challenge – that engages university students around the world in competitions where students create social media campaigns and offline strategies that will counter online hate, propaganda and narratives promoting extremism.

    The program has successfully launched over 600 counter-speech campaigns from over 6,500 students in 75 countries and has reached an estimated 200 million audiences globally.

    Rather than censorship, world communities who understand the value of free speech and the implication of absolute free speech are deploying innovative ways including the counter narrative approach to diminish hateful narratives online and its impact while protecting the rights of freedom of expression.

    One may be quick to argue about how effective such measures have been. In 2016, a report was issued about counter speech on Twitter, co-authored by a group of scholars from the United States and Canada.

    Read Also: Obasanjo’s book and judicial censorship

     

    The report which includes the first review of the “small body” of existing research about online counter speech concluded that hateful and other “extremist” speeches were more effectively “undermined” by counter speech.

    In her book, Hate Speech: Why We Should Resist it with Free Speech, Not Censorship, Nadine Strossen emphasized that counter speech is more powerful than one may think as it encourages reflection and a lasting change in beliefs in those who have made discriminatory remarks or posts.

    If Nigerian policy makers reason enough, rather than proposing draconian laws against hate speech, they would first consider implementing strategic counter narrative tactics more, so the immediate gain can be two folds. Making community impact and giving youths opportunity to explore their potentials while making a career out of it.

    For instance, it was estimated that about 25% of the Facebook P2P campaigns continue beyond the competition period and has gone on to receive grants, become incorporated as social enterprises and partner with Non-Governmental Organizations in creating lasting community impact.

    One of the cutting edge idea that came out of the program was the development of a Plugin by Haigazian University, Lebanon, that will give recommendations whenever hate speech is detected, either by different words or terms to be used or by providing Facebook community guidelines or resources against hate speech. The plugin is being promoted by educators in universities and schools.

    So why are we wasting valuable legislative time debating laws that in the long run would be used as weapons to destroy, rather than channeling the vice of online hate speech into a tool to forge?

    In any case, Nigeria already has a Cyber Crimes Prohibition, Prevention, etc. Act, 2015 which substantially takes care of hate speech and related offences. I hope our legislators remember this.

     

    • Mohammed Dahiru Lawal,

    Bayero University Kano.

  • Landmark kindness

    If many of Nigeria’s rich men have the capacity for introspection to see how life has been kind to them, the country would have been a far better place than it is today. Billionaire entrepreneur and Executive Chairman of Geregu Power Plc, Mr. Femi Otedola, reminisced and made a record N5billion donation at the ball organised by the Cuppy Foundation to raise money for Save the Children, the 100-year-old United Kingdom-based charity. The foundation is a non-profit organisation founded by Otedola’s daughter, Florence Ifeoluwa (aka DJ Cuppy).

    “God has been so kind to me in life and I feel highly privileged. The only way I can show my gratitude to him is to use my resources to support those who are underprivileged. This I intend to do for the rest of my life,” Otedola said at the event which was held at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, while making his presentation. He added, “In a world full of conflicts, diseases, calamities and inequality, we all need to show the milk of human kindness, to reach out and comfort the sick and give a helping hand to the weak.”

    The N5billion donation, said to be the largest individual donation to charity in Nigeria’s history, is meant to support various intervention programmes for destitute children in Nigeria’s north-east region. It is instructive that the donation is specifically for the North East because of the peculiar circumstances that part of the country has gone through, in the hands of Boko Haram terrorists. To say that the region has been devastated is putting it mildly. As usual in such war or conflict situations, the most vulnerable segments of the society that serve as beasts of burden are women and the children.

    Read also: Femi Otedola’s generosity

    Instructively too, it is not the first such charitable contribution by Otedola in recent times. He spent roughly N36, 635,000 on former Nigeria’s football team captain, Christian Chukwu’s medical and travel expenses to the United Kingdom, following a stroke attack that he suffered. He said during the footballer’s thank you visit to his (Otedola’s) house that he “was moved when I heard about Mr. Chukwu’s situation because I remember that about 20 years ago, my father, the late Sir Michael Otedola, also suffered a stroke from using fake aspirin.”

    Not long after, he also paid the medical bill of former Nigerian goalkeeper Peter Fregene who had been bedridden for long. Indeed, he moved Fregene from his base in Sapele, Delta State, to posh Reddington Hospital in Lagos, after sending a team to assess his needs. His philanthropy is not limited to the star footballers. The humanitarian gestures also extend to the entertainment sector where Mr. Victor Olaotan, a very popular actor and lead character in the soap opera series “Tinsel,” that he sent to Turkey for medical rehabilitation.

    We salute Otedola’s landmark large heart and commend his example to other rich Nigerians that it pays to help the needy than to engage in ostentatious and obscene lifestyle while there are many people out there who are in dire need of help. He has helped to prolong the lives of the people he has assisted and they will eternally remain grateful for this.

    We commend his daughter, Florence, too, who has taken after her father with her involvement in Cuppy Foundation. Her remarks at the event which was well attended were quite touching: “I stand before you with a big vision for our country and the less privileged. I founded the Cuppy Foundation to give to the less privileged in our society and for people living with disability. The idea for this gala came two months ago, when I visited Maiduguri and met a sick girl that urgently needed blood transfusion. There were many unfortunate children like that. Some were even unlucky and died. The experience was shocking for me. My heart broke. Ever since, my determination to save Nigerian children has been ingrained. I need help from you to help me in fulfilling my calling, not just as a DJ, but as a philanthropist.”

    Like father; like daughter.

    The Otedolas’ kindness has gone beyond the just a little kindness that can make all the difference in the world for people needing help; it is something that should make rich Nigerians who are yet to join the philanthropy train to do so without delay.

     

     

  • Time to fix Oyo/Ogbomoso road

    Sir: Rituals are performed not for the dead rat but for the covert benefits of rats still alive. That uncountable numbers of people have died on Oyo/Ogbomoso road is no longer news. This write-up is therefore meant for the safety of the people still alive who are flying the route. Yes! The world’s cemeteries are the biggest gold deposits of the earth. Agoraphobic/claustrophobic trepidation has become the order of the day for travelers on the road, the fear of every commuter coming out alive with complete limbs and on time. The journey that would normally take 30 minutes is usually elongated to between four and six hours due to the worse condition of road.

    Many articles have been written on the deplorable condition of the road. It is not known if our government at the centre listens to the voice of people. Otherwise filibuster from their end ought to have stopped and the road rehabilitated. The truth is that the “hoi polloi” are dying on the road on daily basis. Their means of livelihood are perishing. Lives of breadwinners have been wiped out. The consequence is that the number of widows, widowers and orphans is increasing by the day. This does not help our growth and development as a nation.

    Enough is enough!

    Read Also: Oyo-Ogbomosho road getting fixed

     

    The road can no longer be referred to as a road but a dungeon of death that consumes large number of people per day. Unfortunately its dualization has not been completed 18 years after its flag off. It is part of the liabilities inherited by the present administration.

    We commend the Muhammadu Buhari-led government for making funds available for the continuation of work and/or completion of the project. However, roasted dog meat is delicious, what will keep people from hunger while the meat is roasting? It is for this reason that the dungeon called Oyo/Ogbomoso federal road should be rehabilitated without further delay. We must not wait until a very Important Person (VIP) is killed on the road before a fire brigade action is taken. A stitch in time saves many!

     

    • Adelani Olawuyi,

    Odooba, Ogbomoso.     

  • Hate versus hate

    The idea of hate speech often is a philosophical conundrum. It is so chiefly because one man’s hate is another’s love. When a government takes it upon itself to legislate upon and punish hate speech, it throws itself into the epicentre of an ideological quagmire.

    That is what has happened with the so-called hate speech law. This cannot be pried from the proposal by the Buhari administration as articulated by information minister Lai Mohammed that plans are afoot to regulate the internet, especially with regards to broadcast rights.

    There is a presumption of moral superiority in these two; and, put together, the proposals for a regulated internet and hate speech echo the barbarities of ancient regimes that modern day societies are doing much to forget. Nazism, fascism, corporatism, etc, were noted for taking the individual as toys in a grand authoritarian game to muzzle the civic voice.

    The concept of the guillotine has also come into the imagination of the hate speech legislation brought forward by lawmaker Sabi Abdullahi. So, we add to the list of revolutionary infamy the turbulence of the French Revolution.

    Read Also: Senator gets threats over Hate Speech Bill

     

    We cannot forget that not long ago in this country we were subjects in a long parade of military rulers who did not take kindly to individual liberty. We remember the damages of Decree Four and the primitive oppressions of Decree Two, and how the nation yearned for a democratic fresh air.

    So, for us to undergo a paradox where democrats are now rejoicing in the intimidating civil societies cannot be accepted.

    We know that with the growth of the internet, a rash of individuals have taken advantage of virtual anonymity to peddle false stories, misinterpret facts, swap pictures, air videos that create worries among the innocent. This has led to the popularisation of the term fake news. The United States President, Donald J. Trump, played a big role in this use, and he used it to demonise the organised and professional media and turned it into a launching pad to advance fake news.

    That is the danger we face, even if we know that fake news abounds in the social media. As some analysts have noted, there are enough laws to address false news or rumours, just as we have laws against slander and libel.

    What can be addressed in this matter is the implementation of the law. This means the internet can be made accountable and responsible without muzzling it. In order words, we can abide by existing laws by allowing every social media outlet to be traceable so that when they publish anything that offends, the offended party can prosecute, just as we do on libel laws.

    Newspapers have suffered immensely from online theft in which online news outlets filch news materials that cost resources and time to the established media. They ought to face the law when sued in the court of law.

    It does not call for hate speech laws. That law, especially the one that calls for death penalty, is awful and unbecoming of a legislature in the 21st century. If we are to follow the law, which has barefacedly passed second reading, it means the law is open-ended and anyone from the street brawler to the drunken brothel owner to the senator can accuse anyone of hate speech.

    There is a deep naivety about this bill as it is capable of setting not streets or homes ablaze, it can set a whole city or nation on fire.

    Since we have what is possibly hate speech under the criminal code, it follows that this bill is brazenly political and it cannot serve democracy any good. It does not stifle speech, it imperils civic safety.

     

    ‘There is a deep naivety about this bill as it is capable of setting not streets or homes ablaze, it can set a whole city or nation on fire. Since we have what is possibly hate speech under the criminal code, it follows that this bill is brazenly political and it cannot serve democracy any good’