The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Of journalists’ unethical awards and odious comparisons

    Of journalists’ unethical awards and odious comparisons

    Journalists by training and orientation suffer two major disabilities.  Insufficient grounding in sociological theories, the foundation of society, and avoiding core economic and business/accounting  courses  at school which lay them open to manipulation by vicious business men at in later years as practicing professionals. Unfortunately, humility is not often a virtue in display among highly qualified professional journalists. As students of society that routinely dine and wine with owners of society, they sometimes forget their place on the social ladder. They often put their hope and aspirations in the hands of vicious businessmen who see restless journalists as the only obstacle to turning society into an empire of slaves.

    Stanley Macebuh, The Guardian pioneer managing director and editor-in-chief who promised to publish one of the best three newspapers in English-speaking Africa south of Sahara, and achieved the goal through unflawed exploitation of talents of first class young brains from our universities and those of the best young educated professionals from the then existing media houses to ensure the flagship was read ‘sooner than later’ was unarguably the man behind the success of The Guardian.

    But Stanley knew very little about business and business’ dirty wars. He was a civilized man with a touch of human kindness. His goal was making the world a decent place for all. He did not think anyone would be opposed to this noble pursuit. But he was wrong because he never really understood that the economic status of a man determines a man’s position in society.

    I walked up to his office around 6pm sometime in 1983 to report a crime. One of the new pool car drivers took his colleague’s car out without permission. When he returned 40 minutes later, he had replaced the car’s new engine with an old engine. When Stanley finally raised his head up from the script he was reading, he asked with sadness boldly written over his face: “How much do we really pay those poor boys?” as if all of us were not victims of capitalism, a euphemism for slavery. I also started to feel sorry for the criminal. But for Mr. Alimi, the experienced transport manager who had by 8am the following morning prepared the young man’s sack letter ready for collection, left to my humane MD/Editor-in-chief, the boy would have retained his job. Stanley Macebuh could afford not being ruthless precisely because it is not he but the much derided vicious businessman  that went to the bank to borrow money, cut deals and must be prepared to fight dirty publicly as most businessmen do.

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    Maiden Ibru, the current chief executive of The Guardian is not much different. Also a trained media practitioner with bias towards public relations, by orientation, she also cannot be vicious.

    Just like Stanley who treated me like his graduate student from the Daily Times days all through his stay at The Guardian, I think I also know Mrs. Ibru fairly well.

    As the Executive Consultant (Editorial and Advertising), the de facto chief operating officer of The Guardian from 2003 to 2008, Mrs. Ibru, the chief executive of The Guardian snubbed the tastefully furnished expansive chief executive office on the first floor preferring to spend the period in my scantily furnished and noisy office downstairs. After our daily round of meetings ranging from directors’ meeting, editorial content review meeting or editorial board meeting, she would return to my office where she ate the lunch procured for her from our cafeteria by Biola my secretary.  That was at a time lunch could have been ferried down from the Federal Palace or Sheraton, owned by her husband. Maiden is humble, kind and stands for the building of a more humane, just and compassionate society.

    Mrs. Ibru  is the chief executive  who on her way to the office would stop by an accident scene,  ferry victims to hospital where she would pay for their care before returning to the office, of course with her day totally ruined.  Like Stanley she just wants to serve humanity in her own little way. Accepting Nduka Obaigbena’s award despite her well-articulated position on the contradiction between an arm of state institution giving award to other state institutions it is constitutionally empowered to keep on their toes is no doubt part of Maiden Ibru’s efforts to please others.

    Maiden like many other decent and accomplished journalists is very vulnerable. That Obaigbena, a ruthless businessman and a veteran of many boardroom dirty wars including the ongoing one with his friend, Femi Otedola and First Bank, easily outwitted Maiden Ibru was not a surprise.

    The way fiercely competitive and ruthless businessman Obaigbena outwitted Mrs Ibru is the same way businessman, Alex Ibru who held no hostages when alive, outwitted Stanley Macebuh and effortlessly eased him out of The Guardian. It is not different from the strategy adopted by the late Chief Aboderin to ease out of The Punch Sam Amuka (Sad Sam) who had to start the Vanguard at his garage in Anthony Village Lagos. Who would have thought Ray Ekpu and Malam Haruna Mohammed, after building the Newswatch brand for over 20 years would allow Jimoh Ibrahim, a controversial ruthless businessman to effortlessly take their well-nurtured baby away from them? Unfortunately, journalists with all the influence they wield, they are no match for calculating ruthless businessmen, unrestrained by any form of moral appeal when they choose to fight dirty.

    As for the contest for superiority between The Guardian and Thisday, I think comparison can be odious especially when it is all about comparing apples and oranges.

    A newspaper, we are told, operates at three different levels of society (Lade Bonuola).  The one operating above the level of society tries to set agenda for society to follow. That is the task The Guardian has set for itself since 1982 when it first set out “to produce the best and most authoritative newspaper Nigeria had ever seen, that would be committed to the principle of individual freedom where citizens have duties as well as rights, which will, at all times uphold the need for justice, probity in public life and guarantees equal access to the nation’s resources and equal protection under the law of Nigerian for all citizens”.  And the paper resolved to achieve the above through “factual reporting, and well-reasoned and mature opinion and editorials arrived at after an exhaustive and painstaking examination of issues” – (Dr Patrick Dele Cole in his preface to ‘Selected Editorials of The Guardian 1983-2003’ edited by Reuben Abati). The Guardian has remained committed to this creed.

    The second type of newspaper operates at the level of society and merely reflects society and its idiosyncrasies for all intent and purposes. ThisDay is a newspaper that operates at the level of society and mirrors society through celebration of human vanity; it pioneered this from the birth of the fourth republic. As it has turned out, all those whose vanity were promoted in government and the banking sector from 1999 have all turned to be men and women with feet of clay.

    And if further empirical evidence is needed to prove how Thisday smiles to the bank by celebrating vanity of Nigerians, the outing of Nigeria political economic and military elite in their flowing agbada and Babaringa wanting to be recognized for doing their job as governors, bankers and other professionals is all we need. ThisDay has continued to do what it does best-mirroring society through celebration of human vanity.

    It is therefore apparent that there can be no basis for comparing The Guardian with ThisDay. Each from the onset clearly defined the nature of its service and commitment to society. And their past speaks for them.

  • I.E and $1 trn economy

    I.E and $1 trn economy

    The Tinubu order is pushing for a US$ 1 trillion economy by 2033.  Also, President Bola Tinubu just returned from the January 27-28 Africa Energy Summit in Tanzania. 

    The goal of that summit is to partner with the African Development Bank (AfBD) and the World Bank to give 300 million Africans electricity by 2030 — five years from now.

    Even if that plan works, what structures does Nigeria have to push electricity to homes and industries — these corporate invalids called distribution companies (DisCos)?

    Ikeja Electric (I.E.) — the biggest DisCo — epitomizes such paralysis. Part of its market sits bang in the heart of Lagos.  Yet, the way I.E. blows hot and cold, it may well be in a remote village!

    For seven days, January 18 to 24, large swathes of Okota, Ire-Akari Estate, near Isolo, and environs were thrown into pit darkness.  The reason was a faulty feeder, which I.E.

    took seven days to fix!

    If its technical capacity was suspect, its customer service was warped. It took I.E. four days to alert its customers: total darkness stole in on Saturday, January 18.  The first customer alert was Tuesday, January 21!

    The fault was not cleared till another three days — but that, of course, reinforces the firm’s technical paralysis: hardly news!

    Such tardiness echoes the dead but unmourned National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).  How can NEPA, dead as dodo, still live in I.E. — and other DisCos — and anyone expects them to be part of a power future? 

    Isn’t that delusion, rich and grand?

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    To be sure, not a few are already bolting from the DisCos — fast becoming corporate lepers customers won’t touch with a long pole, if they had a choice.

    The Punch, of January 13, flashed a putative requiem: “Serial outages: Dangote, NNPCL, Total, 247 firms dump DisCos, generate 6, 500 MW”.

    To be sure, that’s captive power generation for solely own — and maybe captive customer — use. In that case firms, unimpressed by DisCo notorious yo-yos, could join.

    Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) approvals for captive power generation — which cuts out the DisCos — is dawning more and more. That means the big private-sector players are removing selves from the shambolic service of the DisCos.  As that popular Yoruba street lingo would put it: “it’s bye-bye to jati-jati”!

    But the real fun will start when the real market dam breaks!  Will we ever devise a truly liberalized power market, in which households too —  neighbourhood small businesses included — have a choice to shun non-performing DisCos?  That would be the day!

    It might not mean total and complete perdition, to be sure. Nimble DisCos may quickly shape up to new market dynamics.  But how many DisCos today are nimble?

    Clumsy is the word — as I.E. that took an entire week to fix a faulty feeder, and four long days to appraise its long-suffering customers!   They probably would all vanish, never to be mourned or missed as the old NEPA!

    Still, even if I.E. — so ruinously representative of other DisCos — doesn’t care about its customers, does it not care too about own survival?

    Pray how, for seven long days, would a firm firmly lock itself off legitimate income — no thanks to its technical incompetence?

    For those seven days, per pre-paid meters, that meant I.E. didn’t earn a dime, even if those meters had trapped in them tokens of electricity units, worth millions in Naira!   How does a serious firm, in 21st century Lagos, Nigeria, do business that way?

    If that recurs, how does it even pay its staff?  How does it meet its overheads?  How does it service its loans from banks?  How does it bolster its capital and sundry machinery, such that faulty feeders don’t take eons to fix?

    Perhaps the firm still has huge customer captives in fraudulent estimated billing: by which it could slap whatever bills on them, for consuming no more than total darkness? 

    Surely, to sanitize these DisCos, the first thing is to ensure they meter everybody, as fast as that can be done, even if that means declaring a national meter emergency?

    The Aba Power Limited Electric (APLE) — a generating firm which has cut out the DisCos — just announced it would meter 100, 000 customers.  Juxtapose that with I.E. and Eko DisCos that tried to pressure customers into buying new pre-paid meters for outdated ones!  The difference is clear?

    Even then, see how DisCos have weaponized meters for customer injustice.  In a more litigious jurisdiction, where folks have the cash and staying power to call the bluff of cheating firms, many DisCos would either be under by now, or are grappling with huge punitive costs, awarded customers by the courts.

    Electricity customers have been so brow-beaten — no thanks to estimated billing — that pre-paid meters at least ensure you’re billed for electricity consumed.

    But at best, that is cold comfort!  Implied in buying electricity tokens is that the DisCo would make the current, paid for in advance, readily available. 

    But lo!  DisCos — near-private trading firms — collect your money, deploy that sum to deepening whatever business transactions they could, yet spin you a thousand and one tales why what you already paid for may never be readily available!

    Now, what sort of trading model is that?  No wonder DisCos like old NEPA think they do you a favour: even if they collect money upfront, while NEPA collected in arrears!

    How sustainable is that in 21st century business?  That’s why I.E. would shut down an entire business district for an entire week, and still deludes itself it’s in business!

    Do they even realize, during that week of complete blackout, how many household economies they’d further set back, in these days of high inflation, in terms of ruined foodstuffs, with fridges becoming near-ovens?

    Do they know how much productive time vanished — never to be regained — during this period, particularly for those who think to live, and must engage their laptops, now that petrol and diesel had become virtual 24-carat gold?

    If delivering value isn’t driving the thinking of I.E. and other DisCos, how can they be the so-called “last mile” wheelers of electricity, to power President Tinubu’s dream of a US$ 1 trillion economy, which current pains are said to be forging?

    But maybe the crunch is near: if I.E. — and others DisCos — don’t leave the market, the market should be designed to leave them.  That logic is simple — and it should shape further market liberalization, if the government is really bent on a trillion-dollar Nigerian economy.  APLE, in Abia, appears already showing the way.

    If PDP-era crony capitalism imposed this monster model, the APC era should think little of junking it. 

    Enough of this old NEPA apparition shackled to the past, yet feigns it’s prime part of the future.  Otherwise, any talk of DisCos as the “last mile” to actualize a US$ 1 trillion economy by 2033 would turn not only a rich illusion but also a stark delusion.

  • Labour on the wrong path

    Labour on the wrong path

    It is probably too late in the day to remind the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress and its allies, currently angling for war over the newly approved telecommunications charges, of the basic factors of production whether of goods or services. As my grandmother, now late, is wont to say of the futility of teaching a geriatric the use of the left hand, that proposition, as far as organised labour is concerned, is long dead.

    Surely, if the Congress’ continuing retention of the logo of Labour Creates Wealth is any suggestive of the movement’s ideological fixation in the world of Artificial Intelligence, its continuing failure to embrace the cold realism of market imperatives has, quite frankly, become a source of embarrassment that might spell its undoing.

    Yes, it is no news that NLC has, true to its character, called out its men for mass action over the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)’s approval of a 50% hike in telecom tariff. At the end of the emergency meeting of its National Administrative Council (NAC) January 29, it came to a number of startling resolutions top of which is the flat rejection of the 50% tariff hike,  proposing a five percent hike instead, and with it the resolve to embark on a nationwide mass rally effective today, Tuesday, February 4 to press the point. 

    While describing the new tariff as “unjust” and a huge burden on Nigerians already struggling with economic hardship, it says the proposed rally, “will serve as a warning on the dangers of imposing such an unfair increase on a struggling population earning a minimum wage of only ₦70,000; a population that has suffered outrageous hike in the price of petrol, high cost of food, hike in electricity tariff and general rising inflation”.

    Talk about its resort to the familiar weapon, it says nothing is off the table including “a nationwide boycott of telecommunication services and further mass actions which may involve nationwide withdrawal of our service to resist policies that exacerbate poverty and inequality!

    And then adds that it is doing this to protect ‘the interests of Nigerian workers and citizens against exploitative economic policies.

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    “We will not relent in our struggle against policies that undermine the welfare and dignity of our people. Nigerian workers and citizens must unite and take action to prevent further economic oppression. We must resist any policy that prioritizes corporate profits over the well-being of the people”, it said in its communique.

    Never mind that the NCC had in its announcement justified the tariff increase as “necessary to safeguard the sustainability of the industry, while balancing consumer protection”; or even the other point, which the telecoms operators had made long before then, and on which they had premised their initial demand on 100 percent tariff hike, that their industry was, under the existing tariff regime, headed for an imminent collapse, appeared to have made sense to the NLC and its allies.

    Not even with the public knowledge, that MTN, despite posting a 32.6 percent growth in service revenue to N1.5 trillion, actually incurred a loss after tax of N519.1 billion in the first half of 2024 which it blamed on record-high inflation and the naira’s devaluation. The other operators have chosen to make their figures best kept secrets even when the indications are of an industry straining under the yoke of unbearable operational costs! Not a word of understanding let alone sympathy for the operators in a critical sector on which the future of the country’s digital aspirations lie!

    Yet, if the Congress ever needed another casus belli on which to hang not just an industry facing existential threats, but the Tinubu administration that is not infrequently accused of unrestrained embrace of market orthodoxies, it thinks that the NCC approved tariff review qualifies for one.

    By the way, it isn’t exactly that Nigerians do not understand where organised labour is coming from. Grandmasters of the art of populism, if the issue is about winning an argument, it seems unlikely that organised labour could ever lose an argument against any opposition, no matter how rational the latter’s position appears.  Whether it delivers the intended results or not is a different matter; against the Nigerian government, they stand no chance at all and so the round-robin game persists.

    Which is truly tragic. The blatant disdain for its concerns aside, the big question is whether the NLC actually knows anything about the industry. From our major cities where services are barely passable to the theatres of war and violence where vandalisation of telecoms infrastructure are daily fares further down to the sprawling spaces across hitherto served by countless base stations which have since been put out action because it no longer makes economic sense to keep them running, how much of the industry does it know aside the cheap retort about prioritising profits over the well-being of the people?

     This takes us to the premise of NLC’s rejection of the tariff – the charge that the hike is ‘unjust’. I find the charge laughable if not ludicrous. Apparently, ‘just’ to the NLC means leaving the industry to limp from spasm into a certain death. It says nothing about balancing the market imperatives with the demand for service, or even the more concerning issues of transparency, upfront disclosure of all critical details of plans, including costs, validity periods, and benefits, which the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has artfully articulated for the benefit of the public but on which the organised labour seems ill-prepared to educate itself let alone the people on whose behalf it claims to be acting.

    By the way, whatever happened to the research department of the NLC? Once upon a time, it used to be said that Nigerians love  to plan without facts; it would seem a most recent development that a once research-centric NLC has succumbed to the virus in which demands made outside of the prism of, rational, objective realities are served as staple! Or is the NLC suggesting that the operators should continue to sustain the losses even at the risk of their survival?

    The problem with the organised labour, as I see it, is the jaded thinking about those traditional tools availing for all times and seasons.  Not anymore. Whereas the dynamics have changed, only the movement cannot see the signs – a pity really.

  • Trump’s gunboat diplomacy

    Trump’s gunboat diplomacy

    Donald Trump, the 47th President of the United States of America (America), has mastered the act of intimidating his opponents, and so far, it appears to be working for him. Americans, non-Americans, foreign leaders, local and foreign corporations, indeed the entire world is apprehensive of what Trump might do with the enormous powers he possesses. Trump, who has vowed to make America great again, totally abjures soft power, and unabashedly is determined to use intimidation and brute force to assert his country’s supremacy and exceptionalism.

    History will record his era, as the return of gunboat diplomacy, in foreign relations. Starting with immigrants, who entered America illegally and are living in the country without documentation, Trump is determined to hound them back to their country of origin. From day one, Trump walked his talk, by signing an executive order expelling undocumented immigrants, and is forcing other nations to accept their deported citizens. President Trump appears not to care about the wider implications of the policy, which includes separating children from their parents, since children of the undocumented persons have themselves become US citizens, by birth.

    While majority of Americans, including those that may eventually be affected by the deportation policy, are in support of throwing out persons with criminal records, the president appears determined to go beyond criminals to rid America of undocumented persons. The claim that Trump is a child of immigrants, or that the nation should worry about the policy’s impact on the availability of cheap labour does not change his resolve.

    Trump is also determined to get at the children of the undocumented Americans, albeit in the future, to leave, as he has by executive fiat sought to reinterpret the 14th constitutional amendment, which provided for citizenship by birth. Reinterpreting what many American thought was settled more than a century ago by the Supreme Court, Trump seeks to exclude the children of the undocumented, non-permanent residents, and visitors, from US citizenship. Trump falsely claimed that his country is the only country in the world that people acquire citizenship by being born in the country.

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    His supporters argue that a reinterpretation of the 14th amendment would help stem illegal migration into the United States. Many of those who figuratively cross seven rivers and seven seas, who climb mountains and walk through the desert, to enter into America, knowing that they will not be documented, do so to give their unborn children, a better opportunity in life, when born in America. The estimated 30 million immigrant workers, 8.3 million of which are unauthorized will be affected by the policy.

    For many, there is the desperation to be born an American, which Trump is determined to end forcefully. But, already 22 states have approached the courts to stop the president on his tracks, a case that will likely get to the Supreme Court for the reinterpretation of the 14th amendment. While Trump has promised to knock down inflationary pressures on groceries, which is another major reason why Americans voted for him, the crisis ignited by his policies at home and abroad, may make that nigh impossible.  

    The two giant US neighbours, Mexico and Canada, plus China, which together account for over 40% of US import, have come under the direct aim of the Trump’s gunboat diplomacy. While the America neighbours will soon be hit with 25% import tariffs, China will have to contend with 10% hike. Instead, of using tariffs to stave off economic emergency which the World Trade Organization, allows temporarily, Trump is determined to inflict arbitrary tariffs on his trading partners without any regard to the rules of international trade.     

    Of course, the affected countries, especially his neighbours, which would pay a heavy price, have indicated their determination to engage him on his own terms. While the balance of trade may be in favour of his neighbouring countries, they provide cheaper goods for his citizens which help to stem inflationary pressures. Trump’s claim that he is imposing the tariffs on his neighbours to force them to join forces with him to fight illegal migration and the poisonous drug, fentanyl across the borders though a plausible argument, is a subterfuge for protectionism.

    Of course, past experience shows that protectionism as a trade policy cannot work side by side with capitalism. America cannot seek to export to other countries, their economic activities of comparative advantage, in technology, intellectual property, arms and ammunition, relying on the rules of international trade on protection, while, it unjustifiably uses illegal tariffs to punish their trading partners. Trump should realize that if America goes rogue in the use of tariffs, other nations may disregard the protection provided by world intellectual property, for instance, and brazenly fake American technology and intellectual property. 

    No doubt, the rule of international relations is guided by reciprocity, as it is nigh impossible for America to rely on its enormous military might to maintain peace and tranquillity in international relations. This writer thinks that if Trump continues his gambit of gunboat diplomacy, he would increasingly push even non-aligned countries, to join the anti-American gang to fight the emerging hegemony. He would be foolish to think that the nations he is seeking to intimidate and harass into towing whatever line he has drawn, would all fall in line, without a fight.   

    He should also not forget that his country is a democracy, and some of his most strident opponents, being non-democrats would outlive him. The roguish president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, who has been sworn in for a third term of six years, via a disputed election, made the snide remark that he has outlived three America presidents. He was there when Barack Obama was the president, and also during Trump’s first coming. He saw out, the immediate past president, Joe Biden, and is still there at Trump’s second coming. 

    Trump’s dealing with Maduro has made Americans and non-Americans, worry about the standing of America in the fight for free and affair elections in Venezuela. While Trump claims that he merely sent an envoy to secure the American detainees in Venezuela, international observers are worried that it gives recognition to the rogue president. The world is also apprehensive over how Trump will handle his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, as well as North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un. Both leaders have been there for decades, and are diametrically opposed to democracy, which America is supposedly its champion across the world.

    While many international observers are apprehensive at Trump’s second coming, the majority of US citizens are happy with his performance, so far in office. Of note, majority of faith-based citizens of the world are excited over Trump’s determination to end the elastic transgender initiatives of what he calls the crazy far left. He asserts that God created humans, male and female, nothing more.

  • Orisa in the spotlight

    Orisa in the spotlight

    It must be noted that there was Orisa World Congress, organised by Orisaworld, which was founded in 1981 by Prof. Wande Abimbola, a retired academic and Yoruba culture exponent, before the annual World Orisa Congress planned by the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO).

     Orisaworld was described as “an organisation of practitioners and scholars of Orisa tradition, religion and culture.” The group was said to promote “culture, education and peace in a world where Orisa tradition and culture plays a central role in the day-to-day lives of over 100 million people,” and had “individual and institutional members from over 50 countries.”  Its aim was “to revitalise and rejuvenate Orisa culture and all its traditions.” 

     Yoruba religion is also known as Orisa tradition or Orisa way of life. A multitude of gods or orisa makes up the Yoruba pantheon, with Ifa as the oracular mouthpiece of Olodumare, the Almighty in Yoruba religion. Abimbola described Ifa as “the heart and soul of the culture and philosophy of the Yoruba people.”  In 2005, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added the Ifa Divination system to its list of “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”

    When NICO’s CEO, Biodun Ajiboye, announced the agency’s plan to organise the World Orisa Congress in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Diaspora Commission at a press conference in Abuja, on January 23, it evoked memories of Orisa World Congress.

    However, it can be said that the institute failed the creativity test. Its project could have been given a dissimilar name to make the brand distinctly different from Orisa World Congress.

    Ajiboye said the agency, intended “to tap into the vast treasure of …  500 million people of Orisa descent from Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, and other Caribbean countries,” and “tap into the huge revenue stream of almost one million visitors annually on a sustainable basis,” which would translate into “increasing the GDP astronomically, and establish global creativity, innovation, and progress, create sustenance of traditional rituals, sacred practices, traditional craftsmanship, oral traditions, and festive events.”

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    According to him, the project “is estimated to generate $5-6bn with Nigeria playing host to over one million visitors,” and “the Diaspora in the United States of America, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, and other Caribbean countries are ready with materials and human resources for this project.”

     I attended the five-day 10th Orisa World Congress held in July 2013 at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, which attracted devotees of Yoruba religion as well as scholars and researchers across the globe. It was a festival of culture and ideas that not only reflected a rich heritage but also explored the place of indigenous faith and its challenges in a world of diversity and multiplicity of religions.

    The 10th edition of Orisa World Congress in Ile-Ife, with the theme “Culture and Global Peace,” was the fourth in the ancient town, starting from the first one in 1981. Six others had been held in Brazil, USA, Trinidad and Tobago, and Cuba. Abimbola had announced that future congresses would be held in Nigeria, and that the next one would take place in 2016 in Ile-Ife. More than a decade after the 2013 edition, it remains to be seen when the next one will actually take place.

    Ile-Ife, which is regarded as “the source” and cultural capital of the Yoruba race, was an appropriate setting for a focus on the challenges facing the Orisa way of life.  The World Ifa Temple is situated at Oketase, Ile-Ife.  The variegated gathering, which included participants from USA, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico, demonstrated the appeal of the Yoruba religion beyond its local provenance, and brought instructive international perspectives. An all-male family of four from Cuba, a Chinese couple who lived in Venezuela and a densely bearded white American were among the alluring sights.

    Who would have thought Orisa tradition could be relevant to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, in which two pressure cooker bombs killed three and injured 264? A woman who lived in Boston, Clemencia Lee, an American of Columbian origin initiated into the religion 10 years earlier, said being a devotee of Yoruba gods saved her and members of her family. She told me in an interview: “It was definitely the Orisa that watched over us to not be there and right where the bomb was.” She had attended the congress with her husband, Tony Van Der Meer, an American academic of Suriname-Dutch origin and Orisa devotee, and her second daughter who was also an initiate with a Yoruba name, Adetutu.

    Stimulating discussions on various issues of interest in the context of Yoruba religion and culture took place at Oduduwa Hall and Institute of Cultural Studies on the campus, with wide-ranging topics including Ifa, Education and Culture; Youth Rights, Elder Rights: Generational Integration; Poverty Eradication; Youth, Education and Spiritual Development; Globalisation and Cultural Identity; and Nollywood versus Hollywood: Images of Orisa in Movies. It was a reflection of the times that the subject of homosexuality came up, and many were curious about the position of the religion on this controversial question. After a lively debate, it was Abimbola who had the last word. He said: “We cannot say exactly how Ifa views this. There is no need for us to get involved in this controversy.”

    In July 2023, a notable collision of faiths in Ilorin, Kwara State, yet again raised questions about the state of secularism in Nigeria.   The Emir of Ilorin had banned a planned three-day Yoruba traditional festival by a Yoruba priestess, scheduled for July 22 to July 24, 2023 in Ilorin. The emir’s spokesperson had said: “Our culture is Islamic-based, so we don’t promote idolatry at all.” The development forced the priestess to cancel the festival.

    Nobelist and famed defender of freedoms Wole Soyinka, in a response to the drama, issued a statement titled “Isese festival: An open letter to Sulu Gambari.’’ “It is conduct like this that has bred Boko Haram, ISIS, ISWAP and other religious malformations that currently plague this nation… with their virulent brand of Islam,” he said.

    “The issue,” he stressed, “is peaceful cohabitation, respect for other worldviews, their celebrations, their values and humanity. The issue is the acceptance of the multiple facets of human enlightenment.’’

    Apart from the cultural tourism and money-making objectives, NICO’s World Orisa Congress should be used to promote inter-faith harmony in the pursuit of peace for social progress.

  • Compulsory voting bill ill-timed

    Compulsory voting bill ill-timed

    If the bill sponsored by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas eventually scales through, Nigerians of voting age will be compulsorily required to cast their votes during elections. 

    Titled, “Bill for an Act to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make it mandatory for all Nigerians of majority age to vote in all national and state elections and for related matters”, it prescribes a maximum of six months imprisonment or fine of not more than N100,000 for any Nigerian of voting age who fails to vote during elections.

    Ostensibly, the bill is spurred by the low percentage of registered voters that actually participate in that civic exercise during elections. The proposed legislation aims at addressing the large- scale voter apathy that has been the uncanny fate of our elections thereby enhancing the legitimacy of those elected. In the calculations of its sponsor, a legislation making it mandatory for all those of voting age to vote in all elections is all that is required to redress voter apathy.

    That would amount to an underestimation of the complex issues promoting and sustaining that tendency in this country. Mandatory voting especially one that prescribes punishment for defaulters could improve voter participation during elections. But it is inherently defective as a solution for its inability to factor in other potent variables that frighten, threaten and prevent voters from exercising their franchise during elections in this country.

    Abbas is right to be worried by the increasing voter apathy during elections especially because of the philosophical and legitimacy issues it engenders.

    The level of legitimacy which an elected government enjoys is positively linked to the plurality of votes it gets during elections. The role of popular or citizen participation in promoting good governance is one of the justifications for which democracy draws more allure than other forms of governance construct. There is therefore good reason to eliminate all obstacles impeding citizen participation in elections.

    Figures released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2023 general elections showed that out of the 94.4 million registered voters in the country, 87.2 million collected their Permanent Voters Card (PVC). But during the February 25, 2023 presidential election, only 25 million people actually voted. And in the last Ondo State governorship election, 2.053 million voters registered but only 508,963 persons exercised their franchise.

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     The voting figures from the last presidential election and the Ondo State governorship poll highlight the fears that motivated Abbas in proposing the bill. Those that voted merely added up to one quarter of registered voters. And when the population of the country estimated at more than 240 million people is taken into account, including that of qualified but unregistered voters, the number of those who do not vote during elections becomes even more glaring.

    Situations like this raise fundamental and philosophical questions on democracy as a true reflection of the collective of the people as expressed at the ballot box. Democracy in the Greek city states involved the direct participation of all the people in decision-making and election of their leaders. Then, the sizes of the Greek city states were small and could accommodate direct participation.

    But the sizes of modern states cannot permit of that. Thus, the concept of representative democracy. The underlying philosophy is for voters to have a say in governance through elected representatives. This presupposes that those who emerge as leaders must derive their mandate through the ultimate sovereign – the people. This pristine principle of popular sovereignty is circumscribed when a preponderance of the electorate is prevented from exercising their franchise by some acts of omission and commission.   

     There is a wide gamut of practices and challenges that reinforce voter apathy in this clime that should raise questions on the propriety of compulsory voting as an effective remedy. And unless these systemic dysfunctions are identified and realistically addressed, compulsory voting will amount to a colossal waste of valuable time and energy. It is inherently defective in comprehensively addressing the multifarious and hydra-headed challenges that frighten and even prevent those desirous of voting from venturing out during elections.

    These have so negatively impacted on our elections that public confidence in its capacity to approximate and reflect the collective will of the electorate has considerably waned. There is the high level of violence arising from do-or-die competitions, sometimes leading to loss of lives and property.

    This is in addition to an assortment of contrived subterfuge and designs by politicians in collaboration with their rogue sponsors to manipulate election outcome and render worthless the actual votes cast at the ballot box.  Before the introduction of technology to enhance the outcome of elections, results were written in the comfort of the homes of politicians and hotels and announced before the arrival of the actual votes cast in the various constituencies.

    Our electoral process is also contending with a variety of manipulative practices that question the rationale for the electorates’ continued participation in elections when votes cast will not count in determining those that purportedly emerged victorious. These are the real issues to voter apathy. Even the modifications made in the Electoral Act permitting of the use of technology have not fared better on account of sabotage.

    The direct transfer of votes from the polling units to the result viewing portal geared to eliminate manipulation and falsification of election figures have in many instances turned out a huge aberration. During the last presidential election, the electoral umpire dashed the huge hopes reposed on that technological device when it claimed results could not be transmitted due to technical glitches.

    Issues of this nature shake the confidence of the electorate in the capacity and commitment of the electoral umpire to credible, free and fair polls. The fears and misgivings they engender are reasons for voter apathy. Compulsory voting is inherently defective in addressing the damage to voter participation by such official bungle. And it remains to be conjectured how mandatory voting will address high-tech official electoral fraud.

    The role of money in influencing the direction of voting is another key challenge. The modest progress made on account of the deployment of technology is suffering reverses because of what is commonly known as vote buying. In the last elections across the country, the influence of money in determining election outcome has been pervasive. Those with deep pockets especially governments in power at the various levels dole out huge sums of money to buy the votes and conscience of the electorate.

    Capitalising on excruciating poverty in the land and greed, the electorate is bought over to vote against their conscience just for a mess of porridge. How citizen participation in the democratic process envisaged by the proposed legislation will address such dysfunctions is left to be seen. Mandatory voting will achieve little in an environment the citizens are prevented from casting their votes by a combination of systemic obstacles.

    Yet, compulsory voting is not entirely strange to the democratic process. About 22 countries practice it. Switzerland, Australia, Belgium, Argentina, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo fall into this category. Australia stands out as the most notable country that practices compulsory voting which fines defaulters $20. It is also reputed for recording about 92 per cent success in the exercise since it was put in place in1962.

    But that law is highly rooted in that country’s history as a symbolic honour to the heroism of those who died during the World War one. Some other countries like Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo that practice it, are not known for any significant contribution to the progress of the democratic engagement.

    The only attraction of such a law in the Nigerian situation is just to address voter apathy. But it will be difficult to address voter apathy in a system like ours where leaders of all hue aid and abet that tendency through devious activities for self-serving goals. It is not only incapable of redressing the wide range of infractions and practices that stand against the preferences of the electorate but strikes as a superfluous piece of legislation.

    The real concerns of our leaders should be how to improve the credibility and integrity of our elections through legislations that ensure votes cast approximate the collective will of the electorate as freely expressed at the ballot box. That is the real challenge and in it lies much of the solution to voter apathy.

    Compulsory voting is difficult to enforce; it is a piece of legislation whose time is yet to come.

  • The suicides

    The suicides

    In a fine moment, Nasir El-Rufai was Atiku’s boy. Until he became Obasanjo’s boy and started to throw potshots at Atiku.

     The moment was no longer fine enough. Moments later, when he became anti-Obasanjo, he ran to Atiku’s bosom until he nearly bit off the man’s nipples. He was thrust out again, neither for Atiku nor Obasanjo.

    You can call it a pirouette or an about-face, but the former governor of Kaduna State will tell you that both are his name, if he is sincere.

    But he is only conditionally sincere.

    Truth to him is not about beauty but utility. Sorry, Poet John Keats, who proclaimed that “truth is beauty/beauty truth.” If truth is not useful, El-Rufai can do with another option. He abides by his Machiavellian impulse. It comes naturally to him to switch from master to master, from idea to idea, from play to fray.

    When he sat with Atiku on a panel last week, about-face sat side by side with pirouette. It is called political harlotry, and what better duo to play it in the public arena. He seemed to rhyme with the Adamawa chieftain again. In the pathology of politics, your past sins are forgiven so long as, today, we bear the same insignia.

    So, they are both bedfellows. And the reason they are swooning as one is the president of the federal republic of Nigeria: Bola Tinubu. He gives them nightmares when awake in daytime. They gathered together because some so-called democratic non-profits put them together, and called it “strengthening democracy.” How do you strengthen democracy by corralling only one voice. Maybe it was terminological handicap. They were grasping for the appropriate language. Or else, they would have said: “strengthening the opposition.” All they amassed in the building was a cacophony of contrarian voices, including Kayode Fayemi and Rotimi Amaechi.

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    Nothing they said in that meeting was about strengthening democracy. Is it what Atiku said? He griped about democracy and judiciary. He lamented the power of the courts in determining elections. Pray, was it not the same Atiku who gallivanted all over the world shopping for judgment about certificates of the president? Was it not the same man who wanted the courts to help him win the election? Is it because he suffered the “O lule” syndrome that he has now changed his pose about the courts? He forgets that he had certificates that conflicted with certificates in his school, if he did attend them.

    Then without evidence, he said the government was giving his men N50 million. He needs to show proof. So, if the people said they collected N50 million, did he ask them to return the money? Can he name names please? If they collected, and they are still with him, does it not show that he has no reason to condemn corruption? He should have spat those who told him the story to either return it or stay out his squeaky-clean politics. He said no such thing. Rather he accused the administration of arresting Prof. Yusuf Ahmed, and described as muzzling critics and opposition. The prof was arrested for contract corruption, and awarding them to his family members. Obnoxiously, Atiku sees nothing wrong with that. Was he not the same fellow, I mean Atiku, who made the term SPV – special purpose vehicle – a household word? A vehicle for corruption. The term was innocent until the Adamawa chieftain spewed it into the public space. This man has been looking for the position of president since 1992, when he was a Customs officer of some degree of integrity, and now he is a near octogenarian. He wants to occupy the position in his 80’s so he can impose a Trump-like senility of anxiety on all of us.

    He said he has lived his life, and all he wants is power. That is deception. It happens to some men who have acquired wealth. They focus on one desire: conquer their fellow humans. Hence Epicurus wrote: “If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches, but take away from his desires.” The man, however, still craves wealth at close to 80, and the people are not giving him the desire.

    But the lighthearted moment was when Rotimi Amaechi stood up. I wish he just sat and watched. How could he say he has been in politics because of poverty. Is he poor now? He has been in power for 24 of the 26 years, and he was always in sync. Just two years out of power, he is angry? Maybe he was under the spell of Jesus when he said the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. Amaechi’s version? Steal, maim and kill. It was a memorable assertion against all the speakers since he did not excuse all his fellow travelers. So, how are they the alternative? Shall we now elevate those vices as models of governance?

    Nasir El Rufai is the comic figure, although he may not be the sort of comedian for the hour. He said he did not want to be minister. Haba. As Reno Omokri wrote, why did he spend all that time in the Senate. Just for show? He dressed well, prepared notes and ideas about power, and he was not interested? Hence, I wrote earlier that he has a Machiavellian attitude to facts. Even before he appeared before the Senate, he had embarked on a pilgrimage to Europe with his friend Jimi Lawal, and explored deals with firms on electricity. He should not lie to the public. Such lies do no respect to the Nigerian people.

    The president wanted him to be minister. But he was not popular with the top brass of the party, including those who had worked with him. So, the president had to reconsider. I read a few posts from Joe Igbokwe about the man’s value. I don’t know where Joe got that idea. He should go to Kaduna, where some of his associates are behind bars, and they are finding it difficult to defend the findings of the  House of Assembly on how he spent the state funds, including about power projects that went kaput. That Kaduna is standing and its Governor Uba Sani is earning accolades is a boon after El-Rufai’s era of error.

    He also confessed on the panel that he could also oppose the government if he served. So, there. Someone once told me that he asserted that he loves to attack big men, so as to get attention and bring them down. It is the practice of some persons – not all of them – of a certain relationship with the earth.

    All of them on that panel  indicted themselves. It shows they are not looking at the clock, and what it is saying about today. They forget that, in the market, dollar is gradually peeping down from its peak. Inflation is high but prices of tomato, beans, dry fish, etc, are losing altitude. They forget that over 600,000 students are now benefitting from the student loans. They cannot see what happened in December. How many Nigerians came home and how much did they enjoy their country? El-Rufai, who failed to bring peace to Southern Kaduna must be marveling over how much calm has come as balm to the streets and heaths. He must wonder at the return of Birnin Gwari. The panelists did not see that the roof of their party, PDP, is on fire. Two hench men going to blows in public in Asaba. Did they not see that? Those who say they are still in the APC only exhibited a loose tongue.

    What it shows is that they are suicides, looking at the backend of their political profiles. It is like the novel, Suicides, by Argentine writer Antonio Di Benedetto. The protagonist is a reporter who is reporting three suicides. He describes their profile this way: “There is terror in their eyes. But their mouths are grimacing in sombre pleasure.” Tells the story of our men on the panel.

  • The Ballad of Bala Mohammed

    The Ballad of Bala Mohammed

     Nyesom Wike has been a generous man. In spite of all his acts of grace to Bauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed, he never said a word about the good he did to him. If former speaker Yakubu Dogara did not issue a statement, we may never have known that he once knelt and bowed to the same Wike for money.

    Dogara’s writing is like a ballad over a bad act. It is not Bala’s kneeling that bothers this essayist, it is his ingratitude. He is also making a drama of his moral purity by calling Wike a traitor.

    By the whole story, it was Wike that made him a governor. He is guilty of what psychologists call a fear of gratitude. Generosity elevated him, and having risen, he got too dizzy up there to remember he was once below and beggary.

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    He is a caricature of the desperate politician.

     He is also a creature of moral failure. The man who you did not give land in Abuja as FCT minister and you gave all others in the cabinet, the man who came to your office for office space request and you kept him waiting for hours but didn’t grant his request.

    That same man helped you out in your quest for office. And he granted it. Bala may think he stooped to conquer. But he was a buffoon of a winner, and that is the definition of a loser. No wonder he has had no good response to Dogara’s revel

  • A futile exercise

    A futile exercise

    Of Nigeria’s many challenges, it is curious that our House of Representatives’ law makers are fascinated by apathy during elections and are therefore thinking of making voting mandatory. The House is considering a bill to amend the Electoral Act 2022, to make voting compulsory for Nigerians of 18 years and above.

    The proposed law, titled “Bill for an Act to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make it mandatory for all Nigerians of majority age to vote in all national and state elections, and for related matters,” is sponsored by the Speaker of the House, Tajudeen Abbas.

    The bill seeks to amend sections 9, 10, 12 and 47 of the Electoral Act 2022. If passed, Nigerians of voting age who refuse to cast their vote are to be penalised.

    Let’s look into the bill proper:

    The proposed amendment to Section 9 of the principal act states that “the Commission (INEC) shall compile, maintain, and update, on a continuous basis, a National Register of Voters (in this Act referred to as ‘the Register of Voters’) which shall include the names of all persons -(a) who have attained the majority age of 18 and are entitled to vote in any federal, state, local government or Federal Capital Territory Area Council election…”

    The proposed amendment to Section 47(4a) provides that “It shall be mandatory for all registered voters who have attained the majority age of 18 and above to vote in all national and state elections;

    “(b) A person who has attained the majority age of 18 years who refuses to perform his civic duty to vote commits an offence and is liable on conviction, to a fine not more than N100,000 or imprisonment for a term not more than six months.”

    It is true that, as Abbas noted, there is large-scale apathy to elections in Nigeria. “The percentage of registered voters that present themselves for actual voting is abysmally low and requires parliamentary attention.”

    Indeed, figures released on the matter by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)  puts the apathy in frightening perspective. Perhaps nothing exemplifies it more than the abysmal low turn-out of voters during the 2023 General Election. Whereas 94.4 million people registered to vote in the elections, only 87.2 million collected their permanent voters cards (PVCs) while only 25 million voted in the presidential election. 

    Another example was the last Ondo State governorship poll for which  2.053 million voters registered but only 508,963 persons ultimately voted. Other elections are not significantly different.

    True, it is bad that only about a quarter of registered voters do exercise their mandate during elections. This is contrary to what obtain in many other  countries where democracy is practised. In the United States, for instance, the percentage of registered voters vis-a-vis the actual number of voters is quite insignificant. Even in some African countries, we do not have such an appalling disparity between the number of registered voters and those that actually voted.

    Of course one reason that may account for the disparity in the number of registered and actual voters is the reform that INEC has been bringing to bear into the electoral process in the past few years. Tools like the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV), among others, that the electoral commission has introduced are helping to enhance transparency in elections, even if there are still occasional glitches in their applications. Unlike before, it is getting more and more difficult for impersonators to hijack the process. 

    In a sense therefore, we can understand why far fewer people that registered for elections do vote on Election Day.

    But that does not totally explain the wide gap.

    The main reason why many Nigerians stay away from voting is because of the feeling that votes do not count in the country. And this is not a recent phenomenon. There is hardly an election in the country that its result was not disputed. The only exception  being the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.

    Most other elections have remained largely controversial. The result is that rather than winners being declared at the polls, the job has become that of judges who eventually decide election losers and winners. Not many people are comfortable with this arrangement which has sometimes brought the judiciary into disrepute because of allegations of bribery that are usually levelled against some of the judges handling the election petitions. The feeling on the part of many voters is that; if ultimately winners and losers are going to be decided by the courts, why don’t we select a few judges to choose for the country; why go through the rigours of election?

    For me, therefore, if the law makers are worried about voter apathy, making voting compulsory is not the place to start. What is the essence of waiting in the scorching sun or heavy rain, defying the odds just to vote, only for some people to make nonsense of the process?

    One other thing that is even annoying is this idea of shutting down the country during elections.

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    Elsewhere, people go about their lawful duties on polling days. The recent presidential election in the United States is an example. Over 156 million voters participated in the election. Yet, we did not hear of ballot-box snatching, we did not hear of rigging, voting took place over days without political parties’ supporters clashing, not to talk of killing or maiming one another. Voting was successfully concluded and results announced; we were not told of any serious breach in the process.

    And, if you want to say that is the United States: I recall a particular African country where voting took place overnight and only the polling officers were there till day break, attending to voters who strolled in till dawn to vote; they were not attacked and nobody attempted to snatch ballot boxes or compromise the result. May be that was many years ago.

    In our own case, election is war. The violence starts before the elections, with one party accusing the other of perfecting plans to rig an election that is yet to be conducted. Then all manner of scenarios come into play on Election Day proper. Thugs would snatch ballot boxes. It is almost predictable that violence would occur, with the possibility of some deaths being recorded. Figures would be falsified, and what have you. Yet, few persons, if any, are punished.

    All of these happen despite the deployment of thousands of security personnel, from civil defence corps to regular police men, the military, etc. Take the last governorship election in Edo State for example. It was an off-cycle poll; yet, no fewer than 43,000 security personnel were deployed. It is like that in other states.

    One major question the representatives have not asked themselves in their bid to make voting mandatory is why election has become a do-or-die battle in the country such that many politicians are ready to make votes not to count? The answer is simple: the perks attached to many political offices are too tempting such that people are ready to do anything to win. It is the same reason losers don’t want to accept defeat without a fight.

    So, if our law makers truly want voters to troop out on Election Day, the place to start is to make votes count. And that starts with them; the politicians. Not the hapless Nigerians who are not just victims of the unrepresentative people in power (due to election apathy) but are only reacting to the politicians’ contempt for free and fair polls.

    Our House of Representatives’ members may have been fascinated by mandatory voting for people of voting age in some other climes. But some of these countries have since jettisoned the idea having seen its futility. Again, the reasons why they adopted the idea may have been overtaken by events. There is nothing wrong with people in leadership positions in the country bringing ideas from other lands as part of the evidence of their being widely travelled. But then, they have to take into consideration the socio-cultural circumstances before introducing such.

    I know the idea of mandatory voting is dead even before arriving because it cannot just stand the test of time here. It may interest Mr Speaker who is sponsoring the idea that, what he wants to do is tantamount to not only forcing a horse to the stream, but also forcing it to drink water.

    And, should the law makers have their way on the bill, Nigerians too would perfect the act of turning out to cast votes that would ultimately be voided. To vote or not to vote should be a matter of choice; not legislation that borders on coercion. After all, that is the essence and beauty of democracy itself.  Politicians cannot defecate on the floor only to turn round to want to use Nigerians to deodorise the stench. Nigerians would start trooping out to vote the day their votes begin to count.

    For now, our leaders at all levels must work more towards giving Nigerians the basic things of life. Water, light, food, house, transportation, good roads, etc. That is their main concern. Give them that and other things would follow.

  • Cricket, lovely cricket

    Cricket, lovely cricket

    Over the last couple of months, I have caught myself going through the motions of bowling a cricket ball and reliving those sunny days of my life when cricket was at the centre of whatever life I had at the time. I have frequently wondered if I would not have opted for the life, in my imagination, the glamourous life of a professional cricketer. Being a professional cricketer would not have been a bar to my becoming the pharmacist or anything else. After all one of the most prominent cricketers of the day was Alan Sheppard who not only played cricket for England as a clergyman but had the added distinction of being enthroned the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool. Long before Sheppard, there was the case of the first Cricket super star of his days, the legendary W.C. Grace who combined a glittering Cricket career with the duties of a physician. Cricket is cricket and virtually anything else can be added into it. Playing phantom cricket in my head convinced me to turn my attention to that beautiful game, no apologies to Pele and football, which is what has sat me down this morning to write an article about cricket. I am not assuming that the majority of my readers know anything about cricket. Indeed I would be safe in assuming that most of them do not know the first thing about the game. Those who know, or more appropriately used to know about cricket have, over the years forgotten about what the game is all about. What I know however is that quite a few people will have their imagination fired to the extent that they want to know more about the game. This has happened before.

    In 2003, long before the football World cup finals was hosted by South Africa, the World cup of cricket was played in South Africa. Although the whole of South Africa was agog over this tournament, the only other countries which took any bit of notice of the event outside South Africa were Kenya and Zimbabwe which were co-hosts of the event. I was constrained to give notice of this event in the face of the studied indifference or perhaps more appropriately the ignorance of this competition in this country. Then, I wrote an article in the Guardian which I called ‘The other World cup’. I was most pleasantly surprised when a couple of people told me that although they had no knowledge of cricket before reading my piece, they were sufficiently encouraged to follow the competition on DStv. More than twenty years on, they are still passionate about the game.

    I have said on several occasions that one of my greatest accomplishments of my career was to pass the highly competitive entrance examination to Igbobi College. It is an experience that may no longer be replicated in contemporary Nigeria. There are elite schools in Nigeria today but getting into one of them is a question of cash and carry. Students can no longer walk off the street as it was possible to do in those far off days. I must confess rather shame facedly however that with my parents being accomplished teachers, I was not one of the geniuses who just strolled off the streets into Igbobi College but I can assure you that there were quite a number of such strange animals not just in the school but in my class. I won’t say anything more about such freaks because this piece is about a game and that being the case, there really is no space for nerds in this corner.

    I passed that entrance examination with some room to spare but maybe I needed some rest from the academic grind which propelled me into the school. Weeks into my first term, I was still celebrating my entrance examination success on the vast playing fields of Igbobi College, an exercise which was not exactly compatible with academic excellence. My report at the end of that first term was less than stellar and the second term results were only marginally better but still in disaster zone. There was still hope for a redeeming outcome in the third term and I was determined to get my act together, at least enough to be promoted to the next class at the end of the year.

    The third term started right enough but whatever determination I had to do well evaporated within a few days and the memory of what happened has stayed fresh in my mind all these years. Only a few days into the term, Mr. Bicknell my housemaster and Maths teacher walked into the class to inform us that afternoon prep for that day had been cancelled and instead the class was to assemble on the field in our whites and canvass shoes. We did not exactly burst into cheers but we were in a state of excitement at the prospect of not having to sit at our desk that fine afternoon. We reported to the field promptly at the appointed time as we had to do for any assembly and listened with rapt attention as Mr. Bicknell spun a yarn about a game which only one of us had played before. Had I listened with such attention to Mr. Bicknell in the maths class, as I did to what he was telling us about cricket I would have been alright. After his little speech, it was time for a practical demonstration and that day a cricket bat was put in my hands and glory be, a hard cricket bat was thrown in my direction. My reflex reaction was immediate. I took a step towards the ball and hit it with surprising power and authority. I felt that stroke in every part of my body and like a true junky after his first fix, I was hooked on the game of cricket for life as it has turned out.

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    I did not find it difficult to accept that being an Igbobian conferred an elite status because I was surrounded by unmistakable signs of that status. What I came to know later was that the game of cricket was perhaps the last sign of my elitism if only because cricket was part of the curriculum in only a handful of the top schools in the land. Several years later when I fetched up at the University of Ife, I was immediately recognised as being part of an elite group when I turned out for the university cricket team.

    Up till today, I have not been able to quite explain how I managed to pass the promotion exam at the end of that torrid first year. This is because from that first day of introduction to cricket I could think of nothing else but cricket. To make my situation worse, many of my classmates were similarly afflicted and there was no getting away from the game which occupied all our waking moments to the exclusion of virtually everything else. Cricket is a game of bat and ball and we found a way of turning all everyday objects into a bat or ball. Every stick was a potential bat and we raided every orange tree for hard unripe fruits which were transformed into cricket balls, at least in our fertile imagination but our greatest improvisation was to use empty milk tins which assumed a roundness of shape after being pounded enthusiastically with a hard stick which as far as we were concerned, was a makeshift cricket bat. Needless to say, we were transported into seventh heaven whenever we could lay our hands on proper cricket bats and balls.

    My dexterity with bat and ball was exposed very early on which meant that I was one of the first to be chosen on any team for our interminable scratch games and glory be, I was drafted into my house junior cricket team in my first year which made me a minor celebrity throughout the school because I had achieved that in spite of the limit of my small frame.

    I spent all my spare time and more playing one form of cricket or the other. My one other preoccupation was reading cricket books. How many books on football can a young boy read? Maybe the odd one or two. Not the case with cricket. The school library was full of cricket books and I contrived to read and digest them all. Apart from books about all the individual technical aspects of the game, there was a profusion of biographies of the more famous players going back to the dawn of the twentieth century. There were also books about some of the legendary cricket teams of the past. I read them all which left very little time for me to get up close and personal with my extremely full school books. Somehow I squeezed myself through my own personal door of no return and from then on, lost all fear of failure in all subsequent examinations. I reasoned that if I was able to pass that particular examination with virtually no preparation, I could assume that I could pass any examination as long as I set my mind to it.

    The game of cricket was invented in England in the darkness of the Middle ages and evolved over more than three centuries before it assumed its current form. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century before it assumed the form in which it could be recognised by players and spectators today. The first universal laws of the game were first codified by members of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) at the Lords Cricket grounds in London in the closing years of the nineteenth century. Although the governing body of cricket is now the International Cricket Council (ICC), the headquarters of cricket remains the Lords Cricket grounds or Lords for short. That is the Mecca of cricket and it is the dream of every international cricketer to walk out at Lords on at least one occasion and the gods of cricket are those who score a century on the hallowed turf at Lords or take five wickets in an innings. Such performances are faithfully recorded in history and retold countless times by ancient men and women who were privileged to have an eye witness account of those feats.

    When I made up my mind to write this article I thought quite seriously of giving it the title, “Beyond the boundary” in recognition of the title of what has been described as the finest book on cricket. The writer CLR James published the book, Beyond a boundary in 1938 and it was as fresh as a warm loaf of bread when entranced; I read it forty years later. I have an intense longing to read it again but my copy disappeared long ago and a replacement copy has eluded me. CLR James was born in Trinidad and died in London eighty-seven years later. He, at one time was the cricket correspondent of the Manchester Guardian long before it moved to London and became just the Guardian. He was a journalist, writer, playwright and a teacher who had the privilege of teaching the great Eric Williams history in the secondary school. For good measure, he was a committed socialist, political activist and life long Pan-Africanist who devoted his many talents to fighting for the freedom of Africans everywhere from all forms of bondage.  No wonder he had such passion for cricket, a game which appeals to the fairness of human nature, a game which demands  fanatical commitments to the rule of its many laws. Cricket is played in many ways, the sedateness of the English, the grit of the South Africans, the passion of the people’s of the Indian sub-continent, the panache of our cousin’s from the West Indies and the studiousness of the New Zealanders, the game is everywhere always played with decorum within the boundaries of the law.

    I came away from Igbobi College with many precious accouchements in my bag of life. Cricket is a prominent occupant of that bag. And, Congratulations to Igbobi College and all Igbobians past and present on the occasion of the celebration of the Igbobi College ninety-third Founders day today.

    Cricket, lovely cricket – calypso composed to celebrate the first test series victory of the West Indies over England.

    • The series on capitalism resumes next week.