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  • Writing, as if life itself depended on it (3)

    Writing, as if life itself depended on it (3)

    [For Festus Iyayi: radical humanist; writer; neorealist artificer]

    Jacobinism: 1. The principles and practices of the Jacobins. 2. The egalitarianism and terrorism of the Jacobins of the French Revolution of 1789. 3. Any violent or revolutionary political extremism
    Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (Unabridged), 1993

    An Awaiting Court Martial there is a great, romping delight in telling stories and telling them well, much greater than what we get in the earlier novels. This is the most distinctive literary mark of this book of short stories. Of course the fictional imagination is not without considerable merit in the three novels, but simply in terms of stories as stories, of tales told for their gripping or spellbinding effect, we are almost in a new imaginative territory in this particular work of Iyayi. Much of this effect depends on the stories themselves, on their haunting, spectral quality. Let me give a few examples.

    In “Jegede’s Madness” which, at about 42 pages is not only the longest story in the collection but is also formalistically a novella, the tale climaxes with the maniacal search of the protagonist, Jonathan Alawa, for a cure for his sexual impotence. He consults experts in scientific medicine, to no avail. Then he turns to the “witchdoctors” and every single one he consults tells him that he must sleep with a particular madwoman, a prescription which at first he rejects until desperation pushes him to try to sleep with every madwoman in surrounding cities and villages, still without any success. Meanwhile he does not know that the madwoman he must sleep with is his own wife, Elisa, a great beauty of surpassing aloofness who had gone mad after a White Colonial District Officer had tried forcibly but unsuccessfully to seduce her, the seduction being something Alawa himself had arranged in order to become a fabulously wealthy middleman with the colonial and commercial lords of the land. At the end of the tale, Alawa himself goes mad as his entire palatial mansion is overrun by the miasmic stench from the gargantuan mass of his unflushed defecations.

    In both the title story, “Awaiting Court Martial” and the sixth story in the collection, “When They Came for Akika Lamidi”, we find harrowing tales of characters who are completely crushed by a military dictatorship whose assumption of power over life and death is however compromised and undercut by the paranoia of the rulers. In the title story, the victims of this paranoiac, sadistic power are two siblings who, from within the ranks of the autocratic military machine itself, break ranks with the arbitrariness of militarism and confront the madness of the rulers with – laughter, a laughter that rings out powerfully at the very moment when the victims should have been shaking with terror. Akika Lamidi, the eponymous protagonist of the story in whose title his name features prominently, is a newspaper cartoonist. On the fateful night on which “they” came for him, he and members of his family at first think the “visitors” are armed robbers. But from the terror of what to expect from lawless bandits, Akika soon moves to the more paralyzing terror of what is coming from the “lawful” squad from the SSS that has come for him on account of his subversive cartoons against the regime. He is very brutally killed, but before the termination of his life he has a short but riveting conversation with the murderous visitors during which Akika experiences the satisfaction of discovering that the supposedly omnipotent military rulers have an irrational, obsessive fear of him and his corrosively subversive newspaper cartoons.

    I do not wish to give the impression that in all the stories in Awaiting Court Martial, it is a recurring case of terrifying or harrowing endgame for the protagonists. Definitely, except for “Sunflowers”, the shortest and the last story in the collection which ends on a hopeful, optimistic note, no story in the collection affords the reader an unambiguous relief from the parade of life-changing encounters with the darkest impulses of the human psyche. But there are stories – like “Na Only One Pikin”, “Our Father Is Coming Home”, “She Will Be Buried Here”, and “Three Times Unlucky” – in which, metaphorically speaking, after the purgatory comes the redemption as profoundly chastened characters learn more about themselves and the world than they had ever remotely thought possible or anticipated. What I can affirm as true to all the stories in the collection is the fact that Iyayi goes to the roots of characters as individuals driven either by their passions and appetites – for sex, for love, for life, for fulfillment – or by their fears, their weaknesses, their manias and eccentricities.

    In such a wide and capacious canvas, workers and the poor do not occupy the centre of narrative or thematic attention as in the three previous novels. All classes and fractions of classes are present in the totality of the stories. What is even more subtly and sensitively hinted at but deliberately never made explicit in the stories is the fact that class is refracted through desires and manias that fuel the narrative energy of the stories as Iyayi constantly weaves into narratives of existential crises brief but unforgettable snippets of description or dialogue detailing the nightmare that reigns everywhere in a country under the heel of a draconian, corrupt and dehumanizing military rule. The nightmare reality is there, omnipresent and suffusing, but it is so ineluctably rendered by Iyayi that the casual reader might miss it, almost in the manner in which blood runs through the arteries and the veins, invisible to the naked eye but incontrovertibly there as the source of an organism’s life or, conversely, ill-health. This is what makes Awaiting Court Martial perhaps the most subtle, the most powerful literary work that we have on militarist misrule in Nigeria in particular and the African continent in general. Thus, radical class consciousness is very present, very clamant in these stories, only it is no longer consciousness of class as seen primarily or exclusively through the prism of oppressors versus the oppressed, of exploiters ranged against the exploited as we encounter it in the three novels, Violence, The Contract and Heroes. This is the mark of the decisive move in Iyayi’s works from social realism to what, for want of a better term, I am calling neorealism in this tribute.

    Famously of infamously, depending on where one stands ideologically, Soyinka once called leftists and radicals in Nigerian literature and criticism of the late 70s and 80s “Leftocrats”, going further to call that stage of our modern literary and intellectual culture a “Jacobin moment”. Soyinka used these terms neither in neutrality nor approval, but with scathing disparagement of what he considered the revolutionary, doctrinaire extremism of the Osofisans, the Iyayis, the Omotosos, the Jeyifos, the Darahs and the Osundares. Well, Soyinka should know, for he also had his own individual Jacobin literary moments in such works as The Man Died, Season of Anomie and Madmen and Specialists!

    If there is indeed a Jacobin moment in modern Nigerian literature that produced plays, poems, fiction and essays that were accomplished on literary as well as political-ideological grounds, Iyayi’s first three works of fiction that I have placed within the social realist mode in this tribute loomed large in that formation of revolutionary writings of exceptional force. In this respect, Iyayi is in the company of contemporaries and fellow travelers like Odia Ofeimun, Niyi Osundare, Kole Omotoso and Femi Osofisan, all of whom, without exception, had their own inevitable appointment with Jacobinism and then moved beyond and away from it when, gradually and subtly, we discovered that the revolution was going to come only through a long and complex historical process.

    There are two things to note here in passing. In the first place, this was a literary and cultural Jacobinism that was, unlike Soyinka’s ferocious incarnation of it in the works I identified above, a collective movement, a very conscious and in some cases programmatic one. Secondly, it is worthy of note that Iyayi’s “Jacobinism” was more grounded and more systematically thought through than that of any others among his contemporaries, especially in his first and third novels, Violence and Heroes. And for good measure, if we can now talk of a Post-Jacobin phase in our national literature that began in the 90s and persists in many currents to the present moment, Iyayi’s book of short stories, Awaiting Court Martial, is perhaps more paradigmatic of this phase than any other single work of which I can personally think. What meaning, what portents do I attach to this observation, this claim?

    By way of indirectly engaging this question, I wish to write specifically now of my rather very astonishing personal relations with Iyayi as a writer. Among the radical, committed writers of my generation, I have had the closest ideological affinities and activist engagements with Iyayi. It strikes me now as very odd that it is precisely with Iyayi that I have never had any conversations on writing. Both within the specific context of ASUU and in the broader framework of the social movement for progressive change in our country, we had long conversations on radical politics and activism on nearly every subject. But we never once talked about writing! With Osofisan, Ofeimun, Osundare, Omotoso, Darah and the late Omafume Onoge I had innumerable discussions about art, writing and politics. But never with Iyayi! It is extremely embarrassing for me to say it now, but it was always as if we had far more important things to discuss and act upon than – mere writing!

    Writing – good, significant and radical writing – should never be considered a mere subsidiary activity by a truly mature progressive or revolutionary movement. This deeply problematic attitude has indeed had one deleterious effect on the institutional aspects of the publication of Iyayi’s works, virtually all of them, but especially the most accomplished one, Awaiting Court Martial. Let me state this as simply and directly as possible: the publishers of Iyayi’s works, Longman and Malthouse, did very little of the pre-publication editorial work that all works in general require and significant works positively demand. Indeed, it is no secret that Longman thought of the series within which Iyayi’s novels were published as just a cut above the Onitsha Market chapbook tradition! There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that had Iyayi’s first three novels been published within the imprimatur of the much more professional Heinemann African Writers Series, his reputation and the standing of those three novels would be much greater and wider than it is now. With Malthouse and Awaiting Court Martial, the level of professionalism was even more compromised, both editorially and typographically. It is thus a telling mark of the quality and strength of Iyayi’s writing in these works that they rose above the institutional constraints of the circumstances of their production. But this should not blind us to one urgent task: Awaiting Court Martial needs to be re-issued, this time with the kind of gifted and conscientious editorial work that it deserves.

    If this tribute does nothing else, I certainly hope that it has now laid to rest the ghost of that unwitting philistine attitude to art and writing of the Nigerian Left in the 70s and 80s, the attitude that regarded writing as something you did on the side while you were engaged in the “real” tasks of the revolution. This is only one among a host of revaluations that we need to do and I can think of few as rich with possibilities for this task as Iyayi, the writer, the artificer, the consummate storyteller.

    Concluded.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Mandela: lessons for civics teachers

    Mandela: lessons for civics teachers

    Mandela has shown us that people with vacuous interior are not likely to grow into respectable national or world leaders

    There is no death that does not throw up mourners. Even the most inconsequential of men have people to mourn them. But when the death of an individual turns the globe into a site of mourners for that person, then that person has something that most of his or her contemporaries lack. Mandela’s recent passing has created one of the finest and telling spectacles of global unity in memory. The most glowing praises ever uttered have been rendered and deservedly so for Madiba. Even in Nigeria, many of the country’s institutions and their leaders have held special sessions to talk about Mandela in the most laudatory language. What must not be missed is that the implication of Mandela’s lifelong noble virtues can be a value to be cultivated by peoples of the world, especially Nigeria and its leaders.

    Nigeria’s teachers of civics have very fertile resource materials for the teaching of civics, particularly topics on rights and duties of citizens including their leaders. South Africa’s population is small compared to that of Nigeria. But that South Africa gave the world the first global hero from Africa in modern times is a thing to be explained to students. Mandela, who said clearly that he fought white domination and black domination with equal focus, started his public journey by recognising that he, like other millions of Black South Africans, was a victim of the hate nurtured for the Other, where the inferiorisation of the other is believed to enhance and perpetuate the advantages of the self. He could have, at the end of his incarceration and the end of the world’s worst form of group hate, chosen revenge as a response to his country’s ugly past and as a blueprint for constructing a new South Africa. He could have argued for cleansing of the land, not just through the process of truth and reconciliation but of full disclosure and total restitution, a process that would have led to decades of inter-racial tension and underdevelopment, if not retrogression.

    By mobilising all citizens to forgive and move forward into a future of peace and progress regime for all citizens, Mandela provided exemplary leadership to assist his country give the world the first Rainbow society and a new cultural model that is more profound than the melting pot model that used to be the envy of many societies before the emergence of Mandela’s policy of unfettered multiculturalism. The embodiment of the world’s first Rainbow society could not but be mourned and celebrated by the multiplicity of races that gathered in Soweto last week. Such rainbow reality cultural model as an empowering way to respond to ethnic or racial diversity in modern management of plural societies owes very much to the inner peace enjoyed by Mandela, which in turn engendered his notion of the Self and the Other.

    The significance of an individual’s inner peace thriving in a very large heart as an enhancer of peace for others is best captured in Mandela’s own words: “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” To say that Mandela is a world leader is to say the obvious, because he has a philosophy of life that endorses the need for civilised men and women to respect the right of others to live without the fear of domination on account of demographic advantage or better access to the technology of mass violence. The unforgettable lesson from Mandela’s life experience and worldview is the importance that power can be molded to advance the cause of peace, harmony, and development in any country, regardless of the complexity of its cultural and ethnic diversity, once the holder of power has the right value and the big heart to see consistently beyond the self in his or her choice of policies and actions.

    When Mandela said that he does not want just majority rule to replace Apartheid’s minority rule but democratic rule in South Africa, he was teaching the entire world a new lesson about what Ralph Waldo Emerson in his concept of transcendentalism once called the god with a small g in each human being, which can stay repressed, if not properly recognised and cultivated by the individual. Unlike many leaders in other countries, Mandela chose in 1994 not to allow the distractions that seeking advantages for one’s self or for one’s ethnic community over the other usually create for leaders who have failed to commune with the god in them and thus be able to accept that aspiring to be better human beings as leaders is capable of creating a better human community for all.

    Teaching civics in Nigeria after the exit of Madiba should include not just adding the concrete examples of Mandela’s life experience to the list of illustrations of existing concepts but also to the expansion of concepts to be taught to young students in our colleges. Leadership presupposes the readiness of those aspiring to such positions to make sacrifice and never to get tired of making sacrifice on account of the community, whether small like a village or big like a country. If Mandela had chosen to buy armoured cars to travel in, it could not have been hard for the government of his country to buy such gadgets for him, given the amount of sacrifice he had made for the society’s progress. If he had chosen to travel on the road with dozens of land cruisers, the way our own leaders do in Nigeria, nobody would have accused him of asking for too much, given the enormity of what he had given of himself to South Africa. But his soul was too deep, his heart too large, and his mind too broad for him to need such toys and symbols of power and attention, without which a leader in our own country cannot recognise himself in the mirror.

    Mandela’s notion of unity in diversity is best illustrated in the constitution with which he started South Africa’s post-Apartheid rule. The constitution is transparently federal. Mandela’s belief in democratic rule, as distinct from majority rule, did not prevent him from accepting the need to have a federal system of government in a plural society. His notion of national unity did not prevent him from seeing the good in ensuring that no section in a plural society is given an excuse to feel that it is dominated or may be dominated or cheated by another section. Mandela’s emphasis on the equality of all persons, regardless of race or religion, makes it unnecessary for any section to want to dominate other sections or to swear to go to war when other sections raise issues with a constitution that they believe had been imposed on them by departing dictators—military or civilian. Mandela’s acceptance of a federal model has not diminished the sense of unity in South Africa. Instead, it has encouraged his successors to respect the right of the elements of the Rainbow ethos to be and thus sustain the integrity of the rainbow society. Even with the painful history of group hatred arising from primitive handling of racial and ethnic diversity in South Africa before 1990, Nigeria with ethnic diversity that is devoid of dehumanisation of one group by another does not appear to be as united, even after half a century of independence, as South Africa is only eighteen years after South Africa’s independence.

    Mandela has shown us that people with vacuous interior are not likely to grow into respectable national or world leaders. Madiba has shown us that persons incurably infected by the virus of infinite acquisition for themselves cannot become leaders and heroes.

  • PDP’s ‘Mandelas’

    PDP’s ‘Mandelas’

    Ruling party has further ridiculed Nigeria by comparing its ‘founding fathers’ with Mandela

    We all like to associate with good things; but it is insulting for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to compare any of its founding fathers with the former South African President, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. The difference between Mandela and the PDP’s founding fathers is like that between heaven and earth. You don’t compare sleep with death.

    Since the passage of this great African and world icon on December 5, tributes have expectedly come in torrents from all over the world. Mandela deserved all the accolades; his type is rare in most generations. I do not know if there is anything new to say by way of eulogising the man, but there have been issues that arose since his death which make localising the passage compelling in a way that it will have meaning to us here beyond just praising the Madiba.

    Hear the PDP: “While Nelson Mandela, the greatest African of the living memory, ended the inhumanity of apartheid, bringing freedom to South Africans, the founding fathers of PDP liberated Nigeria from the vicious clutches of military tyranny and ushered the nation into democracy”. That was the ruling party’s own way of eulogising Mandela. Yet, nothing could be more fallacious than these claims. How can anyone who wants to be truthful to himself say this kind of thing? But when last has the PDP been truthful, even to itself? We know however that in Nigeria, such claims can be made, especially by our politicians because, as I have always argued, everything to them is politics. The truth is that Nigeria’s ruling parties have this uncanny way of attempting to rewrite history. The defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in its bid to ridicule Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the Second Republic (at least so it thought), also claimed that the first television station in Africa was established somewhere in Libya, instead of Ibadan in the then Western Region of Nigeria. Needless to say that the campaign failed.

    But shouldn’t we know the limits of expensive jokes or politics? How can anyone compare Mandela with any of the PDP founding fathers, living or dead? Trust Nigerians, they have since descended on the ruling party as vultures would a rotten corpse. It is unfortunate that the party does not know that the international community has had more than enough to laugh about us; we should therefore not further ridicule our country with such comments. It is even the more fallacious to claim that “the founding fathers of PDP liberated Nigeria from the vicious clutches of military tyranny and ushered the nation into democracy”. Even if this was ever true, has the ruling party not thrown Nigerians that they have been ruling for the past 14 years into the ‘vicious clutches of civilian tyranny’? And, contrary to the PDP’s claim that it has liberated Nigerians, are they (Nigerians) not still in manacles; in which they are likely to remain until the day they know how to insist on one man, one vote?

    What we know as a fact, and which is sad about democracy in the country, is that most of those now enjoying high political offices did little or nothing to bring democracy about. Whenever the history of the struggle is being written, Nigerians know those who fought the democracy fight. How many PDP top shots were in the trenches during the struggle? We still remember those who stood on June 12; we remember those who sat on it; those who knelt on it, those who trampled on it; those who slept on it; those who spat on it, those who danced on it, etc. Even the soldiers who beat a retreat in 1999 know those who made them run; their tails behind their legs. As a matter of fact, it can be argued that the PDP is mismanaging the country because it did not know how we came about democracy. Those who really fought the military to a standstill might not have misruled the country this way. Hardly can people appreciate what they never worked for.

    Mandela, who fought alongside other patriots to end apartheid in South Africa, and despite the awe with which he was held by people, not only in South Africa but globally, despite his acclaimed qualities, was never interested in second term. Here was a man who spent most of his 27 years serving hard labour in Robben Island prison, off Cape Town. Although jailed for life, he was released in 1990 and received a Nobel Prize. He was later elected South Africa’s president in the country’s first multi-racial elections held in 1994. Even the white supremacists that he fought appreciated his essence.

    If he had wanted a second term, perhaps life presidency, he probably would have got it on a platter of gold. Here, people, mostly non-performers cling to political offices as if their lives depend on them. It is in the PDP that an obviously sick governor would go fishing even while it is clear from motion and still pictures that the man is not in a position to catch an ant. It is in the PDP that an ailing president would not want to vacate office even while it is glaring that his health could no longer carry the weight of the enormous responsibility of office. Mandela did not belong to this category of sit-tight leaders.

    Right now, second term is at the core of the crisis that has torn the ruling party apart. In some cases, even second term would not do as we witnessed in the Obasanjo presidency: baba wanted a third term! Today, people are busy arguing over whether the president signed a one-term pact and the presidency is on the defensive. What is particularly painful is that the people clamouring for more than one term in office do not have any tangible thing to point to as their achievements beyond their usual deceitful backslapping in their political party. Mandela gave his all, including his life, in the struggle to emancipate his people from the shackles of apartheid.

    The PDP should stop disgracing our country in the comity of nations. It has had 14 years to etch its name in gold but has failed so far; but all hope is not lost if only it can redeem itself before 2015. As William Shakespeare observed, “some are born great; some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them”. Unlike ‘PDP’s Mandelas’, despite the fact that Nelson Mandela was born great (born to the Thembu royal family), he also worked hard to sustain his greatness, rather than have greatness thrust upon him. How many people that the PDP is placing in his class can we say the same of? Mandela went to jail for political reasons, the few persons in the PDP that had gone to jail did so for corruption. Majority of them who should be cooling their heels in jailhouses are still walking the streets free.

    It would have been better for the PDP not to eulogise Mandela than ridicule the man the way it did. By the ruling party’s standards, it could talk of its own Mandelas, that is ‘PDP’s Mandelas’. After all, ‘in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’. I have always argued that there is nothing on earth that does not have a fake. Remember the advert of that analgesic? So, if it is not Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, it cannot be the same as Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela; the Madiba of whom the world sings.

    Adieu Mandela, the ‘troublemaker’ with a cause.

  • Okon bids Mandela goodbye

    It was early morning. Snooper had been groggy with sleep. The wild carousal in the village was finally taking its belated toll. A historic hangover ruled the cranial roost. As a freak rain clattered and pounded the aluminium roof, Snooper coiled up in bed like a mamba, waiting for whoever would be foolish enough to knock the door. Suddenly, all hell was let loose as Okon barged in, frantic and panting with excitement.

    “Oga, oga, where you dey? Baba don die oooo”, the crazy boy chanted breathlessly.

    “It’s about time”, Snooper moaned, cursing the mad boy’s ancestors.

    “I no dey talk about dat wuruwuru Baba. Dat one dey do two fighting with dem Jonathan. Na dem go kaput each other. Hausaman kill Fulaniman no be case for court. Na crazy man go carry him crazy pikin or as dem Yoruba people dey say na baba’s goat dey chop baba’s corn.. But as I dey say na Mandela who come quench ooo” Okon sang.

    “What?” Snooper screamed and jumped out of bed to switch on the television. There indeed an iconic cameo of humanity was unfolding. A million dancing feet were converging on Mandela’s residence. It was a modern epic of grief and celebration of a life lived truly and totally at the behest of the people. Snooper was close to tears. A few days after, Okon came in again, this time dressed like a traditional chieftain from the South South with resource control cap to match.

    “And where is Etubom Okon coming from this time?” Snooper sneered.

    “Oga I dey come from dem South African Embarrassy” the crazy one retorted.

    “To do what?” Snooper demanded.

    “I go sign dem condomless register for Baba Madiba.” The mad boy intoned.

    “I see. Is it riffraff like you that they want there?” Snooper asked trying to suppress his mirth.

    “Oga, dis one no be time for big grammar. Dem Rufai dey there and dem Rafiu boku for dem place. He get one old Yoruba politician who dey cry say him papa don die, so I tell am say if him no clear for Okon, I go beat am silly. Dem Naija leaders no get shame at all. If dem Mandela be Naija man dem for don kill am for Kirikiri long time. You no see how dem Mandela people come put Jonathan for dem small corner? Na African proverb be dat”, the boy ranted.

    “Okon, so what did you put in the register?” Snooper cautiously enquired.

    “Ha, ha, I tell Baba Mandela, make him go well. He don try him best, But I tell am say if suffer no whack am enough, when he dey come back make him come back as dem black man. Dis time suffer go whack am well well. Dem Oyinbo people go jail am again and dis time him go kaput for jail..”

    It was on this note that Snooper waved away the mad boy.

  • Mandela’s legacy, Obasanjo and Jonathan

    Mandela’s legacy, Obasanjo and Jonathan

    Tomorrow in S/Africa , Madiba Nelsonn Mandela , whose body has been lying in state in the Government Building in Pretoria for three days will be buried in his home town. This week 91 heads of state attended a memorial service for the former president of S/Africa as if the UN General Assembly has shifted base to S/Africa to honour the man who served a prison term of 27 years in defiance of the system of apartheid that discriminated against the majority blacks of S/Africa for decades.This was before former President de Klerk called a truce and released the world’s most famous prisoner from prison in 1990. Mandela went on to become S/Africa’s first elected black president in 1994 and refused to serve a second term after his single 5 – year term ended in 1999. This was a man who could have been life president of his nation for the asking but instead he stepped aside to give the younger generation an opportunity to prove their mettle at political leadership. With a single act of denial Mandela showed African leaders that it is not mandatory to cling tenaciously to office and that it is more honorable to quit while the ovation is loudest. For Mandela the ovation was louder out of office and loudest at his Memorial Service this week. Today I pay tribute as a Nigerian to Nelson Mandela and it is not an easy task for me .This is because I have a lot of admiration for the great S/African leader whose body will be interred tomorrow and I hope I will be able to do justice now to my self given undertaking. In truth, I acknowledge that Mandela’s life, sacrifice and leadership evoked in people emotions of guts, courage, defiance and a dogged commitment to principles in the face of overwhelming odds. To many Africans and even to the whole world, as President Barak Obama attested at the Mandela Memorial Service this week, Mandela inspired a global audience to stand up for human rights and dignity without counting the costs, no matter the odds. Today I salute Nelson Mandela, the tall man with the winsome grin, the dancing, arms shuffling S/African leader with the trade mark three piece suits as president. Later, in retirement, Mandela wowed the world with the famous, flowery Philipino shirt which he wore and with which he gave joy and pleasure to the people of the world in the way he carried himself, as if 27 years of incarceration on Robben Island was an ordinary event – when indeed the world is yet to recover from the incredibility and amazement of his surviving such long punishment , even as he makes his final journey to immortality tomorrow . In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Mark Anthony said that ‘ the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones ‘. Mark Anthony might have been speaking of Mandela in Ancient Rome although in different terms as he mourned the great but fallen Julius Caesar in the great Roman Empire then. For unlike Julius Caesar Mandela’s good deeds lives after him while his lapses are easily forgotten. But then, Rome was at the center of the civilised world and this week, and God willing tomorrow, the world will stand in awesome salute of respect and love as Mandela’s body descends for ever into his hallowed grave. As Mandela returns to Mother Earth tomorrow he goes with the fanfare, pomp and pagaeantry reserved for the Emperors of Ancient Rome in those days of yore. For in life as in death, Nelson Mandela bestrode our world like a Collosus just as Caesar was said to have done in his time. Indeed Mandela was our modern Ceasar who represented human dignity, honour and respect and we must thank him profusely for coming this way and leaving us with such pleasant memories of his sojourn of 95 years, albeit with 27 of them in prison, in our midst. We take consolation however in the fact that the spirit of Nelson Mandela like that of ‘Johnny Walker at 120, keeps matching on’ and this time not only globally but very much so in Nigeria. Last week I invoked the spirit of forgiveness and tolerance inherent in Mandela’s life to prevail on ASUU and the FGN to end the strike in our universities and it is nice to see that this week, the two have resolved their differences and signed an agreement which means that studies can resume in our universities. We thank the two bodies for their positive response and resolution of the crisis and wish them the best in their future endeavors. My concern today however is with regard to correspondence between two Nigerian leaders who attended the Mandela funeral but came back at loggerheads from the event. The two are former President Olusegun Obasanjo and incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. I do not think their disagreements started at the funeral. If so, they will not be alone in that as S/Africans seized the opportunity of the Mandela Funeral to give their President Jacob Zuma a piece of their mind by booing him before an audience that included 91 heads of state. Obviously Zuma must belong to that category of leaders that US President Barak Obama castigated at the funeral for praising Mandela publicly while not emulating his virtues of forgiveness and tolerance in their leadership style at home. More embarrassing for the S/African authorities was the fact that a sign interpreter who was prominently working alongside heads of state as they made speeches at the Memorial was said not to be qualified for the job and has gone missing since the assignment, as the S/African authorities are said to be looking for him. Which sadly showed the state of porous security and corruption in S/Africa and coming with the booes for the S/African president, clearly showed that the ANC government in power in that nation needs to put its house in order urgently, now that the holding presence of Nelson Mandela on the masses is gone. In Nigeria again the spirit of Mandela was manifest in a letter written by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to President Goodluck Jonathan titled ‘Before it is too late‘. The letter as its title said was a desperate call by an equally desperately concerned former head of state to a sitting president that the ship of state is desperately floating rudderless towards a dangerous rock. Given tha OBJ said he was ready to die for what he has said and that he will speak the truth no matter whose ox is gored in the interest of the nation, you could call the letter his’ last testament‘. Also since the letter made gross accusations against the president in his handlingof the PDP crisis, his giving presidential reception to a murderer and using facilities by Abacha’s goons to train security personnel perhaps for the same purpose Abacha used them, then you could label the letter a’ suicide’ note. OBJ’s letter portrayed the president as a serial denier of his intention to contest the 2015 election and the former president said the incumbent president has failed in his imporimportant role in the five dimensions of presidential power that he identified. These are as party leader, as political leader of the nation, as head of government, as chief security officer of Nigeria and as Commander in Chief of the Armed forces of Nigeria. These indictment included the fact that the president was hobnobbing with a drug baron in the ruling party in Ogun State who had an extradition order on his head from the US, a fact he claimed had been ignored by the PDP overall leader. Of course it is easy to tell off the former president for washing the dirty linen of his ruling party in public which this time he has really gone out of his way to do. Even one can tell OBJ that in accepting that he fought and worked hard for those he wanted to succeed him he had opened another can of worms on tampering with the electoral process in Nigeria. Having said that however this missile from the Nigerian leader again showed his bravery and candor in the best spirit of Nelson Mandela , who respected OBJ immensely for Nigeria’s contribution to the anti apartheid struggle during his tenure as a military president and admired him for his courage in telling Abacha off and going to prison for that. Now OBJ in this his ‘testament ‘recalled that he was in prison in Yola where he was sharing facilities with inmates of an asylum nearby during his incarceration by Abacha and wondered what change of status was worse than that for a former head of state . Since OBJ himself is not a saint on the Nigerian political scene, having been twice president with 20 years in between a military and a civilian president when he served for 8 years, I am sure a lot of people will tell him that those who leave in glass houses should not throw stones. But that is for another day as here today we pay tribute to Nelson Mandela who was also a great friend of the former Nigerian president. We can therefore safely speculate that perhaps Mandela’s death opened OBJ’s eyes to Jonathan’s many iniquities and denials like Apostle Saul’s eyes were open on the way to persecute Christians in Damascus. Now OBJ has decided to make a clean breast of the mistrust and misdemeanor of his protege and in the process has opened a can of worms on the security and politics of Nigeria. Surely Nigeria’s politics has been given a big jolt by the OBJ letter and whether you like it or not, it cannot be business as usual. For OBJ has blown a whistle with a loud crescendo and the dogs of war in Nigerian politics cannot wait to make a kill. Like Tony Enahoro reportedly said in 1958 as he moved for Nigeria’s independence in Parliament – This is the beginning of a chain of events the end of which no man can predict. To me really, the OBJ letter is fighting for the soul of the Nigerian state and as he himself said – in a bloody fight no one knows whose blood will be shed last. So for now, we can say – every body for himself, God for us all. Amen.

  • What would Mandela do?

    What would Mandela do?

    The event had been expected all along.

    The icon was advanced in age. His health had deteriorated dismally. He had even been on life support for some time. But when Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s long and eventful journey through life reached its final terminus, the world received the news with shock and sadness. Yes, death is perhaps the most ubiquitous of human phenomena. It is the inevitable end of all sentient beings. But its occurrence never ceases to surprise. Every mortal harbours the illusion of endless longevity. But at the end of the day, the bell that tolls for one peals for all.

    But of course, Mandela had been different. He had come to terms with the ephemerality of human life decades earlier in his youth. He had thus averred his readiness to die if necessary for the cause of freedom for his people. He was sentenced to a living death; a prison sentence that wasted the best and most productive years of his life. But he emerged from captivity after 27 years triumphant and unbowed, a symbol of the resilience and amazing generosity of the human spirit.

    His jailers showed what depths of depravity and degeneracy man is capable of descending to. By repaying unspeakable wickedness with forgiveness and love, Mandela demonstrated what heights of grace and nobility man can soar to. Man can be vulture and feed on rotting flesh. Man can be Eagle and roam the skies in kingly majesty. Mandela chose the latter. Is it any wonder that mourning him has been a universal celebration; his death some sort of resurrection?

    Presidents and peasants, potentates and prisoners, saints and sinners, all were one in the canonisation of this secular puritan. Remember the words of Jesus: Unless a seed first of all dies, it cannot sprout and live. In life, Mandela died to self. In death he lives for the ages. What glory!

    Here in Nigeria, of course we have not been left out of the euphoric ‘Mandelamania’ of the moment. President Goodluck Jonathan did the right and proper thing. He organized a memorial service for Dr Nelson Mandela at the Presidential Villa chapel. Yes, in many ways Mandela was a Nigerian. This was one of the first countries he visited on his release from incarceration. This was an act of gratitude by the great man for the invaluable role Nigeria played in the struggle to liberate his country from apartheid. But, then trust Nigerians, we ended up doing the right thing in the wrong way.

    In his tribute at the Aso chapel service, President Jonathan spoke glowingly about Mandela’s humility, forgiving spirit and ability to unite people. Shouldn’t the President have stopped there? No sir. Apparently unable to forgive his critics and opponents or like Mandela offer any gesture of reconciliation on such a solemn occasion, Dr Jonathan went on the offensive. It was operation no mercy from the apostle of humility. He berated those unspecified Nigerian politicians who speak “as if Nigeria is their bedroom from where they make proclamations and intimidate others”.

    Jonathan said these Nigerian politicians (he certainly did not have Jonah Jang, Godswill Akpabio, Peter Obi or Seriake Dickson in mind) could not compare with Mandela as they threaten, boast and play little gods. It is not unlikely that his poisoned arrows were directed at a certain Owu farmer (no less vindictive himself!) when he described the still unmentioned politicians as tiny men who lack good character of leadership. The occasion was to honour Mandela. The President’s words sadly did not reflect that spirit.

    But then, Dr. Jonathan was right in a way. Our politics is tiny. Our leadership is puny. Our institutions, not least the presidency, are so terribly diminished. This was vividly demonstrated by the embarrassing anonymity of the Nigerian President at the state memorial service held for Mandela in South Africa. There is absolutely no reason on earth why Dr Jonathan should not have been listed to join the likes of President Barack Obama, President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Vice President Li Yuanchio of China, President Hifepune Pohamba of Namibia, President Pranab Mukherjee of India or President Raul Castro of Cuba to pay public tribute to Mandela. The South African authorities could not treat Nigeria that way if we got our acts right.

    In his book, ‘Nigeria: A Nightmare Scenario’, Professor Patrick Wilmot writes of how the Northern region government of Sir Ahmadu Bello gave Nelson Mandela a donation of 10,000 pounds to support the liberation struggle when he visited Nigeria in the first republic before his eventual arrest, trial and incarceration in South Africa. Mark you, this was in the 60s! So committed was Nigeria to the liberation struggle in the Southern Africa region that she was recognised as one of the frontline states of the region. General Murtala Mohammed’s famous ‘Africa has come of age’ speech at the OAU Heads of State Summit in Addis Ababa in January 1976 played a decisive role in shifting the balance of forces in support of the progressive movements for the emancipation of the region.

    In the conclusion of that historic oration, Murtala thundered: “Africa has come of age. It is no longer under the orbit of any extra continental power. It should no longer take orders from any country, however powerful. The fortunes of Africa are in our hands to make or mar. For too long have we been kicked around: for too long have we been treated like adolescents who cannot discern their interests and act accordingly. For too long has it been presumed that the African needs outside ‘experts’ to tell him who are his friends and who are his enemies…” Ah! Those were the days.

    One can therefore understand the anguished words of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) when he said “In a very cruel irony, history is being revised. The people who collaborated with the government that enthroned apartheid at that time are the people that are paying the greatest tribute now. But I ask myself: Is this not the time for reflection? I doubt if any African country expended as much time, as much money and as much commitment as the Nigerian government”. This is the sad truth.

    Yes, the peculiar circumstances of Nigeria may have precluded the emergence of a national leader with the towering stature of a Nelson Mandela. But Nigeria has produced great politicians of no mean intellect, vision and character. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s example inspired many African nationalists to fight for the liberation of their countries from colonial bondage. Ahmadu Bello by the force of his personal vision and charisma forged a remarkable commonality of interest among the disparate peoples of the north. Obafemi Awolowo led a government in western Nigeria which is still unrivalled in Africa in terms of its developmental attainments and administrative dexterity. Aminu Kano in terms of his ideological clarity and revolutionary fervour was surpassed in Africa perhaps only by Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Olusegun Obasanjo in his first incarnation as military Head of State was venerated as a global statesman for voluntarily relinquishing power to a democratically elected government in 1979.  One can go on and on.

    It is true that the quality of leadership in the country has steadily deteriorated over time. We have had a succession of hopelessly corrupt and venal leaders. They have annulled elections. They have sought to perpetuate themselves in office unconstitutionally. They have been administratively inept and famished of vision. They have subverted state institutions to intimidate and harass their opponents. They have been intellectual and moral Lilliputians. But Dr Jonathan has absolutely no reason to follow in the footsteps of such leaders. After all, he has the advantage of being able to learn from and avoiding the mistakes of his predecessors.

    One test Jonathan should always give himself is simple: would Mandela do this? Would a Mandela seek a second term at all costs even if at the expense of the unity of his country? Would a Mandela manipulate state institutions to undermine a legitimate government as is currently happening in Rivers State? Would a Mandela immorally support a minority faction of the Nigerian Governors Forum to declare itself the majority? If he honestly asks himself this question and acts as Mandela would, Jonathan may yet confound his critics, snatch victory from the jaws of imminent defeat and attain greatness.

  • Preparing for Brazil 2014

    Since the draws of the 2014 World Cup were made last week, one has watched in awe the way we seem to have “qualified” for the second round without kicking a ball. No problem with being optimistic, but that is where the Super Eagles’ wahala begins.

    Anytime the Eagles are tipped to win matches with aplomb, they totter. But when faced with daunting tasks, they excel. It is instructive to note the Bosnia-Herzegovina is rated 33rd in the world. It means they are better than us in FIFA’s ranking. We are rated ahead of Iran, yet the technical savvy of their coach Querioz is awesome, given the fact that he was deputy to the king-of-the-dug Sir Alex Ferguson. That is not to say that Stephen Keshi cannot match him since we have better players. After all, it is the players who will deliver, not the coaches.

    Visualising where we would be at the end of the first round in Brazil, my mind went to the forthcoming Glo-CAF Africa Footballer of the Year Award. I sighed, knowing that it offers the best chance for us to reinvent our football. In the past, the award could be termed our birthright.

    I saw Emmanuel Emenike being crowned the winner. I shouted ‘no’. What happened to John Mikel Obi? In figuring if I was in a trance or sleep walking, an inner voice asked what I would do if Vincent Enyeama is crowned the winner. Confused, I said: “Enyeama ke? How can that be? How can the Israeli league be pitched against the most popular league in the world? Shouldn’t exploits in the most prestigious UEFA Champions League and the Europa League rank higher than exploits in other competitions?” It dawned on me that I had no say in the matter. Voting is done by coaches, club captains and top football experts.

    January 9, 2014 will be a watershed for the game here. There will be dead pan silence when the compere opens his mouth to announce the 2012/2013 soccer season’s Africa Footballer of the Year.

    Pointers to who the eventual winner would be don’t favour the yearning of Nigerians to have their own mount the rostrum as the winner. If history is anything to go by, then Cote d’Ivoire’s Yaya Toure looks like the odds-on-favourite to nick. The 2012/2013 British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC’s) Africa Footballer of the Year winner is Toure. He was also shortlisted for the 2012/2013 Ballon d’Or Award, until the list was pruned to three. These feats usually translate to winning the Africa Footballer of the Year Award. I hope not this year. I digress!

    Picking a Nigerian from the four-man (John Mikel Obi, Emmanuel Emenike, Ahmed Musa and Vincent Enyeama) pack will serve as the impetus to drive others in the Super Eagles’ squad to produce their best at the Mundial.

    It would further boost our game, if another Nigerian quartet gets listed for the Glo-CAF Africa Footballer of the Year for 2013/14 season. We need to scratch our heads to remember the last time Nigerians made the roll call for the best player in Africa back-to-back. If that happens, then the rebuilding by Stephen Keshi would be worth the efforts to galvanise the Eagles.

    The Nigerian fights for his soul when he/she has his/her back on the wall. And it is this Spartan spirit that we need to become the first African side to qualify for the semi-finals. It must be said that at the semi-finals, anything is possible especially if the competition’s Cinderella team is not Nigeria. If this happens, it means that the world would behold a new winner outside the intimidation league of Brazil, Spain, Germany, France, Italy etc. Our football needs this fillip to measure our growth in the game as we prepare for the daunting but achievable task of shocking the world in Brazil.

    Going to the World Cup has been a hectic assignment for Nigeria but a piece of cake for others because of the inherent structures. Elsewhere, governance is a continuum, with everyone knowing what to do at the appropriate time.

    Here, we do things on our hunch. We are proponents of quick fixes, with most of our administrators thinking through their pockets. For others, anything without their inputs isn’t done well. And such has been the problem with NFF’s preparations for the World Cup. But it appears that the Aminu Maigari-led board solved this crisis when they decided that Keshi would pick the team’s training base and other ancillary needs for the Eagles. This is a brilliant move as it will keep Keshi et al quiet when the chips are down in Brazil.

    Such mundane talk of the propriety of the NFF picking the team’s training base ahead of the coaches would be far-fetched. The interesting aspect of this development is that we were the only country where the coach picked its training camp. In fact, among the five qualifiers from Africa, only Nigeria and Ghana’s coaches attended the event. It can’t happen here for Keshi not to attend FIFA’s World Cup draws.

    Indeed, Keshi has confirmed that he would get Nigeria the best facilities. So, the aspect of NFF cutting corners for such an arrangement with FIFA is forbidden.

    This approval given to Keshi shows that the NFF learnt from the 2010 experience where the imbroglio from the Hamshire Hotel ruined our preparations for the South Africa 2010 World Cup tournament.

    The furore from the Hamshire Hotel saga set the NFF against the Presidential Task Force (PTF), with the National Sports Commission (NSC) serving as the battle axe. Hiding under the obnoxious Decree 101, which gives the sports minister discretionary powers to intervene in matters of football that bother on national interest, the Hamshire Hotel ruse provided the platform to divide the stakeholders and even the players.

    PTF members saw themselves as having the powers to run our football. Former NFF President Sani Lulu, a stickler for the enforcement of the tenets of the FIFA statutes, ensured that the body did its job. While others were busy preparing their national teams for the Mundial, our PTF experts and, indeed, the former minister did several visits to FIFA, seeking to oust the NFF with the PTF. Things got so bad that the former minister wrote to FIFA, urging it not to release our World Cup earnings to the NFF. It was that bad. We became the laughing stock.

    Our situation was a clear case of a divided house; it fell like a pack of cards. FIFA chiefs were wondering how we opted to dig landmines for our team even before the competition began. Will the NFF cede the task of picking the hotel where the Eagles will stay to Keshi? What is wrong with that if that will prevent any buck passing, not forgetting that the location of the hotel where our players stayed in 1994 in the United States (US) contributed greatly to our exit, despite our superlative showing. Clemens Westerhof still feels that we could have qualified for the semi-finals, if our administrators had done his bidding to relocate the players from the noisy hotel in the US.

    The Maigari-led NFF can also cede the choice of hotel for the team to Keshi. The NFF will eventually pay; so, it doesn’t really matter. Such mundane things shouldn’t distort our preparations. If Keshi feels that it would further burden him, he should be made to put it in writing. It is good that we will be going to the Mundial as African champions. This feat is chiefly responsible for the absence of another PTF.

    Preparations for our trip to Brazil should be hinged on the lessons of the past. I always feel bad about Nigeria when teams arrive at World Cup venues in their country’s national carriers. My pain starts when countries start to paint the designated aircraft with World Cup insignia. It is always a thing of pride watching countries board the aircraft in their national dresses. It shows a sense of belonging.

    Airlifting the Eagles to Sao Paulo is another contentious issue. We need to fix this aspect. The government should assign an aircraft for this exercise. The African champions’ arrival in Brazil should be celebrated with ceremony. The last NFF board had issues with flying the Eagles so much so that an empty aircraft had to be flown from Nigeria to England to take the team to South Africa. It shouldn’t happen again.

    It is heart-warming that the NFF is considering an international friendly against England at the Wembley Stadium. Such high profile games will help the coaches to correct the flaws noticed. It would also help them in picking their players because the World Cup is not a tea party.

    Nothing can be better than the news from Brazil during the week that Maigari and Keshi agreed to work together. I believe them and I hope that they don’t listen to fifth columnists gained from the past rifts.

    History will remember Maigari and Keshi, if Nigeria plays in the semi-finals of the Brazil 2014 World Cup. The minister captured the new direction for our World Cup campaign by insisting that no target should be set for the team. Such targets are meant to witch hunt the players and coaches as well as oust the NFF board. Nigerians await the NFF board that would return after the Mundial. Would Maigari’s board break that jinx? Like the Edo people will say, Oba Khato Okpere, Ise!

  • As Madiba goes home

    As Madiba goes home

    I recall and reconfirm my tribute titled “An Exemplar of Humanity” on the 92nd birthday of Africa’s greatest son, Nelson Mandela, on July 18, 2010.

    Mandela’s life is a shining example of the actualisation of the desirable potentials of human existence; it is a testimony to the possibilities of human goodness; it is a justification of the rationality of faith in humanity; it is a vindication of God’s purposive creative endeavor.

    I plead against misunderstanding. Madiba is still human. He cannot be a saint for now, at least. But I offer a tribute to a human who towers above his peers in public life, and who as such offers us a glimpse into what we are meant to aspire to, a sample of what we also can be. Why we or at least those of us that choose public life like him fall short terribly at so many fronts is a question that screams out for answer.

    What matters in the life story of Madiba is not the royalty of his birth. Neither is it the ultimate victory of the cause he championed. It is not even the crown of honour he wore as the first president of a democratic South Africa.

    The circumstance of his birth was just a chance affair. Nothing morally substantial follows from that accident of history. If you believe in destiny, you would probably find some explanation. But you must be hard pressed to show why many of blue blood ended up as abysmal failures in life. Or when, as a result of the heritage of birth, they ascend the throne of their forebears, nothing consequential followed. And as we know, in quite a number of cases, even in our own clime, humanity fared worse.

    The victory of the cause Mandela championed is indeed a big deal, one of the most spectacular in the dying years of the last century. Yet that victory would still be a forlorn hope if he didn’t make the choices he made in the first place. And of course, the honour would be a dream if the cause had been lost.

    What matters then, from a moral point of view, which is the only point of view that really matters, are the choices that Mandela made from the onset of his adult life. And following the course of his life, every step of the way he has most assuredly been concerned about principle. Confronted with the injustice of racism and apartheid, he chose to fight it. Confronted with the natural inclination to vengeance and retaliation, he chose to reject it. Confronted with the African propensity to hang on to power, he chose the dignity of early retirement.

    At the young age of 24, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela had his first degree and was studying to become a lawyer. His life prospects were bright, especially coming from a royal family. But two years later, he chose to join the African National Congress. When the ruling National party declared its apartheid policies, Mandela chose resistance. The rest is history. For a young man, the meaning of these choices was clear. He knew he could run into trouble. But he was undaunted, believing in the justice of the cause. This principle of resisting injustice wherever it occurred was made explicit in the Rivonia Trial:

    “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But if it needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

    These are the words that shaped the path of Mandela, as a freedom fighter and as the president of South Africa. The fight against domination of any shape or kind was a moral choice for him. Nothing else, including life itself, really mattered more. He was prepared to die fighting against domination.

    How many of our so-called public servants from the lowest to the highest level of governance can truly mouth these words? Rather, do they not encourage ethnic domination, which is just as barbaric as racial domination, as a means to their own personal advancement? And when confronted with bare-faced injustice from hate-mongers and ethnic war-lords, did they not run for cover, stepping aside to enjoy their loot?

    Mandela chose to fight for the “ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities.” The resistance of the apartheid regime against this ideal was self-serving. But it was also clear that it was imprudent and short-sighted since the resistance did not serve the interest of White South Africans as much as they thought. It would, perhaps if there was no resistance from its victims. But how can anyone think there wasn’t going to be such a resistance?

    Sadly, in our context, that ideal remains only a dream even without the elephant of racial domination in the room. We do not have a democratic and free society. There is no harmonious living among our people. And there are no equal opportunities. Without democracy and freedom, there is no harmony and peace. It is the law of nature. Old kingdoms and empires were crushed by the power of the people yearning for freedom. Why are so-called leaders not mindful of history?

    Mandela suffered the indignity of prison life for 27 years because he chose to fight for the ideal of freedom and equal opportunities for all, even when he could have just cared for himself and his family. When he was released, the world, including those individuals and governments that collaborated with his tormentors, jubilated over the triumph of the cause for which he suffered. He had the world at his feet. He could dictate his terms. He chose, again, the consistency of his ideal, to promote harmony in a free and democratic society, rather than pursue revenge and retaliation.

    Mandela set up the True and Reconciliation Commission with the legendary Archbishop Tutu, a fellow freedom fighter and Nobel laureate as its chairman. Despite the doubts of the effectiveness of the commission, and the fear that injustice was being rewarded, the path of forgiveness chosen by Mandela meant that South Africa could face the future a united nation. It was this approach that earned the trust of Whites inside South Africa and further established the credentials of Mandela as a statesman. The subsequent honours that came the way of South Africa, including the hosting of the FIFA’s World Cup are directly related to this display of a large and forgiving spirit.

    Finally, Madiba chose the path of honour and dignity when he voluntarily withdrew from the presidency at the end of his first term. With this choice, he sent a clear message to the Big Man syndrome in African politics. He put a stamp of approval on the idea that because one led the struggle for the liberation of a people, one doesn’t thereby acquire a natural right to lead them for life.

    Mandela’s decision to remain behind the scene and provide useful advice and direction when needed is a welcome development on the continent. But it has been a hard act to follow by so many of our sit-tight politicians. Still the choice is consistent with the foundation principle which has guided him all along: fight against domination wherever it occurs. Obviously if you dedicate yourself to such a cause, you cannot also engage in domination in whatever guise.

    Principle matters; and consistency with principles is what is meant by integrity. We owe a debt of gratitude to President Nelson Mandela for showing us the possibilities of our common humanity.

    As the Hosts of Heaven celebrate the bountiful harvest of Mandela’s return, we earthlings celebrate his triumphant ascension.

  • ‘Welcoming the other’

    The title of today’s article in this column is the theme of the 9th Conference of ‘Religions for Peace’ held in Vienna, Austria, about three weeks ago. This year’s World Assembly of Religions for Peace (RfP) focused on building bridges and greater social cohesion amongst the world’s religions. The theme also imports a focus on religious repression among and within the world’s religions.

    After two days of intensive deliberations, in Vienna last November, the Assembly resolved to make a declaration which may serve as guidance for religious leaders all over the world and the declaration was unanimously adopted as follows:

    “We – more than six hundred religious leaders and people of faith representing all historic faith traditions and every region of the world – have convened in Vienna, Austria as the 9th World Assembly of Religions for Peace.1

    We have come from the global Religions for Peace family of ninety national inter-religious councils and groups, five regional councils, one world council, and international networks of religious women and religious youth. Our respective religious traditions have called us to work together for Peace. Previous World Assemblies of Religions for Peace have discerned positive elements of Peace, common threats to Peace, and a multi-religious consensus expressed through shared values for Peace. We commit to common action based upon these deeply held and widely shared values, as a foundation for affirming the imperative of “welcoming the other” as the heart of our multi-religious vision of Peace.

    Re-affirmation

    We reaffirm the positive elements of Peace shared by our respective religious traditions:

    Peace is central to our respective religions, and our diverse faiths compel us to work together to build it;

    Love, compassion and honesty are stronger than hate, indifference and deceit;

    All men and women are endowed with human dignity, share common humanity, must care for one another, and are called to consider the problems faced by others as their own;

    We accept the call to stand on the side of and raise up the most vulnerable, and to promote just and harmonious societies;

    We value women and men as equal partners in our efforts to build peace;

    Children are a paramount concern; the special state of childhood deserves our protection and care, and should receive priority from among our societies’ resources;

    Non-violent conflict transformation through dialogue and reconciliation are central to peacemaking;

    The use of nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass and indiscriminate destruction is immoral; and

    Advancing human development and protecting the earth are part of the struggle for Peace.

    The positive elements of Peace we share are inextricably linked to our shared calling to confront common threats to Peace. These threats include:

    The misuse of religion in support of all manner of violence, including violent extremism;

    An ongoing spiritual crisis that erodes values that support life;

    Violent conflict and the proliferation of arms;

    Extreme and growing inequality, including widespread violations of basic rights;

    Violence against women, abuse of children and weakening support for families;

    Extreme poverty, preventable diseases left untreated, and broad scale lack of opportunity; and

    Environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, and climate change, all of which threaten civic order and human flourishing.

    Confession

    While we confess that some religious believers betray the peace teachings of their faiths, we continue to commit ourselves – and our communities – to a culture of Peace that advances shared well-being, grounded in common healing, common living and shared security.

    Rising hostility

    The 9th World Assembly of Religions for Peace calls attention to a new threat to Peace – rising hostility.

    We are deeply troubled by this rising hostility, in society and within and among religious communities. This hostility toward the “other” is an extension of intolerance, and too often takes the form of violence. Victims of hostility are often vulnerable populations, including members of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities; migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless persons….

    1. Religious communities can work to reverse the rising tide of hostility toward the “other” by advancing a multi-religious vision of Peace and through multi-religious action. Specifically, the Religions for Peace World Assembly calls on Religious leaders and people of faith to:

    Honour and protect human dignity whenever and wherever it is under attack;

    Foster more active collaboration between women and men in exalting the dignity of women and girls, and work together to prevent violence against them;

    Speak out on behalf of vulnerable individuals and groups, and all people persecuted, or whose existence is denied, because of their faith;

    Recognise that the well-being of immediate and extended families, as well as of communities, are a prerequisite to the well-being of children;

    Address issues of responsibility and accountability for the causes of climate change;

    Acknowledge the value of youth-led, grass-roots initiatives aimed at welcoming others and promoting sustainable Peace;

    Advance spiritual values essential to shared well-being;

    Reinforce acceptance of diversity in our communities;

    Welcome the other through prayer and service;

    Engage in multi—stakeholder partnerships to welcome the other; and

    Leverage the power of multi-religious networks to “welcome the other” by advancing human dignity, shared well-being and citizenship through concrete multi-religious action.

    2. Governments, international organizations and civil society to:

    Promote transparent governance that ensures and protects the development of comprehensive well-being and full enjoyment of universal human rights for all;

    Provide legal remedies for victims of intolerance;

    Promote social policies and legal norms that recognize the dignity of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless persons;

    Advance citizenship that ensures human dignity while protecting the safety and well-being of all individuals, including freedom of religion or belief, and other rights of individuals and groups, whether in the majority or in the minority;

    Ensure the protection of places of worship;

    Eliminate nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, and stem the proliferation of small arms;

    Promote restorative justice to heal both the victims and the perpetrators of violent conflict;

    Address threats of nuclear exposure and contamination to protect all living things and future generations; and

    Support and partner with people of faith, religious leaders, religious communities and religious networks in their efforts to welcome the other.

    3. All people of good will to:

    Call attention to, and work to eliminate, all forms of intolerance and discrimination by states, by non-state actors, by civil society, by religious groups and leaders, and by individuals.

    Welcoming the other

    We, the Delegates of the 9th World Assembly of Religions for Peace, are united in our commitment to resist threats to Peace that take the form of hostility toward the other, and to take positive action to welcome the other by promoting the true flourishing of all human beings. These dual commitments and corresponding calls to action express our multi-religious vision of Peace”. This Declaration was made in Vienna, Austria this day of 22 November 2013. More will come in this column about Vienna Conference of ‘Religion for Peace’ in the near future.

  • Elite scum and other abstractions

    Gold plated doors and sofas. Plastered walls and Venetian glass. Platinum pumps and home theatre. Spring locks, expensive cars and wine cellars. Trophy wives and concubines among other things epitomize the good life; in our fatherland.

    Civilization has been improving our houses and husks no doubt but it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. Great thanks to modernity, we have learnt to build castles even as we cannot yet create noblemen and scions to inhabit them.

    In our fatherland, the “civilized” citizen and elitist’s pursuits are no worthier than the savage’s. He spends the greater part of his life in pursuit and acquisition of basically gross necessities and luxuries that at the end, impoverishes him worse than the most contemptible barbarian.

    That has to be shocking given that in the prime of his life; at the apex of his growth and self-actualisation, he becomes a President, Governor, Industry titan, religious leader and “very successful” activist or media consultant to mention a few. Ultimately, he becomes “rich” fundamentally in societal terms.

    The Nigerian elite is “rich” and yet irrevocably poor. This poverty that I speak of connotes the poverty of his intellect and psyche. Insidiously weaned and self-propelled by a discontent that is at once insatiable and detrimental to his being, he engages in an eternal pursuit of luxuries and accoutrements that to him and his privileged peers indicates the “good life.”

    Basically, he is handicapped. And this handicap of his extends beyond the familiar trope of the human forelock or Intelligent Quotient (I.Q.) if you like. Like a canker, it eats into his psyche and ravages him till he becomes not much in constitution and expression.

    Thus the alarming desperation by which he strives as a constituent of the Nigerian society; hence his many vanities and vulnerabilities, particularly his inclination to engage in everything and anything in pursuit of money and attainment of the “good life.”

    The Nigerian elite perpetuate the irony of a contrived metaphor. Although by virtue of its purported civilization, it is expected to serve as an instrument of positivity and progress, it isn’t. Rather than facilitate the process of growth that till date, remains elusive to the Nigerian State, it terminates it; rather than ignite hope in their less privileged compatriots, it extinguishes it. Every day, the citizenry watches helplessly and in awe, the appalling recklessness with which it extinguishes their hope and profit from such enterprise.

    It would be overkill perhaps if I endeavour to relate Nigerians’ political hara-kiri at the recently concluded general elections to a treacherous and annoyingly insolent elite class. It could be akin to giving a skunk a bad name if I hereby blame Nigeria’s crushing woes on the highly selfish and hypocritical elite piloting her ship of state.

    This is neither to flay the elite for the villainy it perpetrates nor is it meant to castigate it for the eternal hopelessness it fosters. This is to commiserate with the nation’s elite class, middleclass, upper-middleclass, upper class, aristocracy or whatever highfaluting title appeals to their ego.

    A savage lust is basically its woe. Take for instance, the abject horror the nation’s government perpetuates in the name of providing decent shelter or “affordable and low-cost housing for all.” It would no doubt be deemed preposterous to allege that via such “citizenry-centred” and over-celebrated efforts, they brazenly embezzle public funds.

    So doing, it perpetrates a two-pronged atrocity with chain reactions: it defaults in its promise of “affordable, low-cost housing” and subjects the citizenry to untold hardship characterized by homelessness thus the burgeoning shanties and slum republics prevalent in our most high-profile cities.

    To this, I guess not a few elitists in government and their acolytes within and outside the corridors of power would argue that it is not the duty of the government to put food on everyone’s table. They would argue that the government couldn’t provide decent shelter for all even if it tried. Then they would seek refuge in the workings of capitalism which purportedly provides for every man to fend for himself, according to his means.

    Not a few elite would pertinently state that the persistent failures of their class to facilitate an acceptable human state of affairs in the country are hardly unforgivable failures. They would claim that they merely add up to their inability to fulfill their constitutional obligations due to the “Nigerian factor” and because doing so would impose avoidable inconveniences on them. They would aver that it would be basically inexpedient to fulfill their statutory responsibilities given the unstable and feral nature of Nigeria’s democracy.

    Simply put, it is the moral character that breaks down. How many Nigerians can afford to pay N7 million, N15 million or more cash-down or within a year, to acquire our elite-driven two and three-bedroom contraptions shamelessly dubbed “affordable and low-cost housing estates?

    Truth is, it’s the cronies and associates of serving public officers that are able to afford such conveniences at such ludicrous rates. Once they acquire them, they put them up for lease at rates that makes Shakespeare’s Shylock fundamentally, a saintly man.

    Even in the medieval era, every family owned a shelter sufficient for both its coarser and simplest wants. Today, in Nigeria’s towns and cities, where civilization supposedly prevails, the fraction of those who own houses is negligible. The rest pay an annual rent that basically renders them impoverished and barely able to feed and clothe, not to talk of owning a house.

    The Nigerian elite care less about such issues than about getting one of its own into power. Its members are loyal not to posterity and ideas but to the pursuit and attainment of wealth and power by any means.

    In an ostensibly capitalist country, these self-styled vanguards of capitalism espouse and brazenly perpetrate an oppressive social philosophy that upholds the existence of the average Nigerian as an imperceptible social organism—a view which implies that his needs are not valid instruments for perceiving social reality and improving it.

    So doing, they project themselves as the chosen few supposedly endowed with special insight and ability to direct others. This implies the existence of an elite foundation of knowledge and aristocracy; a socio-political arrangement inaccessible to logic and beneath the mind.

    Notwithstanding its astounding rise to relevance, the Nigerian elite will be toppled off its high horse sooner than it can ever imagine. This is unavoidable in spite of the citizenry’s seeming idiocy and duplicity.

    Preoccupied by pursuits antithetical to national development, the Nigerian elite obviously do not know that it has lost the weaponry that guaranteed its rise to eminence and made all of its conquests possible: idealism and morality. It had to lose them precisely at the height of its success, since its claim to both was a fraud; the evident realities of its politics demonstrate the brute illogicality and inhumanity of its social code and gospel of sacrifice.

    The Nigerian elite do not preach sacrifice as a temporary means to some desirable and lasting end. Sacrifice is its end—the sacrifice of the lives of others. It is the commoner’s independence, prosperity, and happiness that the elite wish to destroy. And it is succeeding in its plot.