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Category: Columnists

  • Fayemi: I have never been enlisted in a worthier cause

    Fayemi: I have never been enlisted in a worthier cause

    when he  says  his government  will do so and so  for a community, that community can literally go to sleep in complete  trust that  he will not fail them.

    I seek the indulgence  of  readers, following upon my last week article, to  briefly touch on the matter  of the National Conference and  ask a few questions  from those  who still  see  the conference as  the  ‘deus ex machina’  to Nigeria’s multitude of problems. Let me first and foremost; concede that of a truth, President Jonathan, for the love of country, had a change of mind. Are we to ‘ipso facto’,  assume that Mr David Mark, the Senate President was, by some telepathy or an angelic visitation, suddenly divinely  instructed to equally change his own mind or has the Nigerian sovereignty, to which he had hung his opposition like forever,  unknown to us lesser Nigerians,  suddenly taken leave of his National Assembly?

    This could still jolly well be a happy coincidence. But what then are we to   make of the Pauline conversion of Chairman Tukur, the relentlessly sabre-rattling boss of the ruling party who, only some days before the Independence Day Presidential declaration, wanted  Baraje and company  behind bars, to  suddenly  go soft,  go  on bended knees,  begging the same Baraje to bury the hatchet and join him  in presenting  a united front at the conference?   Are we to assume that all these three persons, and more, are united by love of country?  Can’t Nigerians see this Greek gift and well calibrated diversion, thrown like meat to the dog for the simple aim of keeping it busy on a useless piece of bone?

     Let me equally hazard a guess: in some very coy ways, Nigerians will soon come to see very senior academics, well known for their brilliance, recruited to interrogate the scheme as we saw in the IBB SAP debates. It is a beaten path of unscrupulous politicians cleverly leveraging on these individuals’ integrity.  After all, a night or two at the NICON NOGA will not be a bad idea. Fortunately, there is nothing we cynics can do as it has become a ‘fait accompli. But I will be mightily surprised if the cynics do not laugh last.

     As we wind down to the 3rd anniversary of the inauguration of the  Fayemi administration in Ekiti state, it is apposite for me to take a critical look at a man, and a period, in my home state, which have been  truly phenomenal. I am currently writing a book; not an autobiography, nor one to give earth-shaking behind-the-news  stories  of  epochal political decisions,  having really never been a  politician  in the Nigerian sense;  but one in which I have solemnly declared that, and I quote: ‘ I have never been enlisted in a worthier cause than that of Dr Kayode Fayemi’. And that is neither talking glibly nor intended to patronise.  I have been privileged to be part of building a University from scratch just as I have worked very closely for upwards of three years  with eminent Yoruba citizens, among them the likes of  Lt. General  Alani Akinrinade, Dr Amos Akingba, Professors  Bolaji Akinyemi, Jide Osuntokun, Wale Omole,  Rear Admiral Akin Aduwo, Taiwo Alimi,  Mrs Tola Adenle, Mrs Dupe Ajayi- Gbadebo and Dr Dele Sobowale, to mention but a few, in mid-wifing  a Pan-Yoruba  Socio-Cultural organisation,  but seeing how Fayemi has fundamentally impacted  on Ekiti, my primary community;  his focus,  determination , commitment and self denial,  I have nothing but thanks to God that I am found lining behind a man of such  integrity  in his unstinting service to Motherland.  A man  to  whom, in his back,   Ekiti people have  recently  added  another  appellation  to his ‘ILUFEMILOYE 1’ , as they now call him O WI BE SE BE – ( certainly not deifying him), but  saying that this is a man who, when he  says  his government  will do so and so  for a community, that community can literally go to sleep in complete  trust that  he will not fail them. Such has been his believability that every city, town, village, hamlet and every human settlement in the state has, at least,  one project, completed or on-going. This is, of course, not surprising since his government’s annual budget is structured bottom up as  he and his  team  visit all nooks and cranny of the state to identify the peoples’ needs which then form the locus of the year’s budget. Whatever could not be accommodated that year is an automatic item in the next budget.

    This article is therefore not solely about enumerating brick and mortar, important though they are as it will also dwell on the Fayemi persona. He has remained truthful, not only to the state but, fundamentally, to himself. He has therefore spared nothing towards achieving his promise of making poverty history in the state – a pivotal part of his 8-Point Agenda. This obviously is not a 100 metre dash but rather, a long distance, multi-faceted project which he has followed with every sinew of his being. I once described him as a product of his upbringing and this has helped him greatly. Not one to carry position on his head, his calmness and simplicity – You need to have seen his equanimity fighting those men playing  god for his mandate – have all  made him extremely  easy to work with. Not for him the airs and garrulity so common with public office holders  in our country. Everything he does attests to these and as all, except the thoroughly politically jaundiced would see, he has become a man  after everybody’s heart:  serving as the pivot  of not only his Regional Governors’ Forum but a distinct leader of both the Progressive Governors Forum  and  the much-feared Nigerian Governors Forum, just as he is  a leading light of the All Progressives Congress Party, where those who should know, attest to his sterling contributions. One thing that particularly gratifies me is that when in those uncertain days I, at great risk,  elected to line behind him, people in power were eagerly seeking my support.

    At his inauguration on October 16, 2010, Dr Kayode Fayemi declared: ‘As am ushered into the governor’s office in Ado-Ekiti, make no mistake about it, I will ensure that you the good people of Ekiti state, own this government. I will do this by redesigning my agenda through the village square and town hall meetings. I promise to ‘democratise  governance, modernise agriculture, improve infrastructure, promote free and qualitative education towards the development of functional human capital, provide free health and social security to the disadvantaged sectors of our state; ensure industrial development, tourism and sustainable development as well as promote gender equality and women empowerment’.

    Dr Fayemi has never looked back.

    Today, education which had  reached its nadir in the state has since turned the corner. In addition to free education up to secondary school level and improvements in infrastructure and teacher quality, a total of 183 secondary schools and 836 primary schools have been renovated. Equally 48,000 laptops were distributed to secondary school students as additional 25,000 are already on order. The result was a quantum leap in the last WAEC results in the state which went from about 20 percent last year to about 70 per cent this year. Agriculture has been socialized and today over 20,000 youth have enrolled in the YCAD –the Youth Commercial Agricultural programme – in which they are not only trained in agricultural practice, given implements and additives but  also  given seed money. The programme is now being aggressively aided by a massive irrigation programme funded from the combined constituency projects of majority of the state’s National Assembly members.

    Health has received such a massive boost that only this past week, the Adunni Olayinka Diagnostic and Wellness Centre in honour of our unforgettable late Deputy Governor, for an array of cancer screening for early detection, was commissioned by the governor. This year, all hospitals in the state are being renovated and are to be more equipped.

    The mother of all the Fayemi quiet revolution is the unprecedented N5000, monthly  social security stipend to the elderly which now goes to no less than 25000 over 70 year-old citizens of the state.

    These wonderful efforts are replicated in every sector of governance.

    The governor is ably assisted in all these by two main persons and his entire team, namely,  his wife, Erelu Bisi Fayemi. Those interested in knowing more about this Amazon should please read my article: ELECT ONE, GET TWO, 19 June, 2011 which, in fact must now read like ancient history given her new exploits in empowering our people. The other is Professor Dupe Adelabu, who has fitted seamlessly into the Deputy Governor’s position. She was before her new appointment, the Chairman of the State SUBEB and remains a strong force in the trajectory of education in the state. As things stand today, Ekiti people could not have asked for more. Yet, there are lots more from where all  these came. To God be the glory.

     Next week – A peep into  Fayemi’s 2nd term

  • Jonathan’s SNC: a gathering of the elites, by the elites and for the elites? (1)

    Jonathan’s SNC: a gathering of the elites, by the elites and for the elites? (1)

    For the moment, I shall leave aside two important issues pertaining to the recent announcement of President Jonathan’s intention to convene a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) and proceed directly to the composition and agenda of the conference. These two issues that I shall for the moment leave aside are, first, the reasons why we need the SNC now and have in fact needed it for a long time and, secondly, Jonathan’s probable motivations now, at this moment, for convening the SNC. I shall return to these two questions at the end of the two-part series in which I wish to reflect primarily on the composition and agenda of the conference. But why this emphasis on the composition and agenda of Jonathan’s SNC?

    It is only with regard to the composition and agenda of the SNC that we will be able to tell whether Jonathan’s SNC will be substantially dominated by our political elites and their interests or will be truly democratic and include the interests of workers, farmers, tradesmen and women, youths, pensioners, the unemployed and future generations of Nigerians. In other words, it is by its composition and agenda that we will know whether Jonathan’s SNC will be a gathering of the elites, by the elites and for the elites or, conversely, a gathering in which the non-elite plurality of Nigerians will be present and will have their interests and the interests of future generations of Nigerians ably represented.

    At this point, it is necessary for me to state that my reflections in this piece do not come from a vacuum but are instead deeply informed by the widely publicized and debated views of individuals and groups that have been the loudest, the most insistent and, I might add, the most persuasive in the calls for the SNC in the last decade and half. In the light of these dominant views, the composition of the SNC should be based primarily on the so-called federating ethnic groups and geopolitical zones of the country. Everybody knows that this means the elites of the ethnic groups and geopolitical zones of the country. And with regard to the agenda of the SNC, the individuals and groups that have been tirelessly calling for the SNC place their focus almost exclusively on relations between the centre of power and authority in the federal government in Abuja and the regions and states of the federation. More pointedly, these individuals and groups see the roots of all that is wrong and perilous in our country at the present time in the over-concentration of power and authority at the centre. On this account, all the corruption, all the waste, all the squandermania, all the ineptitude, all the insecurity, and all the fractious disunity plaguing Nigeria and its citizenry flow from Aso Rock and Abuja and from that cesspit wash over the whole country. In other words, Boko Haram, the militants of the Niger Delta, the pipeline vandals, the extortionate and marauding gangs of kidnappers, the growing ranks of ethnic militias are all the direct and indirect products of the over-concentration of power, authority and sovereignty at the centre in Abuja.

    There is not the slightest doubt that there is some truth in this composite view of over-concentration of power and sovereignty at Abuja as the main structural basis of the crises of politics, society and economy in Nigeria at the present time. For in all states of the world, power, authority and sovereignty are the bases on which both the happiness and the unhappiness of people rest. In states like the Nigeria of Obasanjo, Yar’ Adua and Jonathan in which power, authority and sovereignty are over-concentrated at the centre and are routinely misused and abused, there usually is no peace, no security of life and possessions and no just and equitable distribution of wealth and resources. This is made even more harrowing in a country in which the citizenry and the polity come from diverse ethnic, regional and religious communities. To put their argument on this issue in plain language, the main proponents of the SNC are insistent on the claim that power, authority and sovereignty ought not to be concentrated at the centre in a multi-ethnic and pluralistic country like Nigeria. If for one reason or another power and sovereignty have been historically concentrated and have been routinely misused, the most urgent thing to do is to, first, reduce the concentration and secondly, share sovereignty among all the constituent, federating parts.

    On its own terms, this general profile is accurate and incontrovertible. But seen in the light of some large historical realities and circumstances, some questions arise that make it imperative for us to think beyond over-concentration of power and sovereignty at the centre as the only, or even the most important challenge that we face in Nigeria at the present time. Here are some of these questions: What if the over-concentration of power at the centre is not the only source of our problems and crises? Indeed, what if that over-concentrated power and sovereignty is itself the consequence or effect of a deeper malaise, a greater contradiction that cuts across all the ethnic, regional and religious communities in the land? What if the economic, scientific and technological forces of development and modernity that all the communities in Nigeria face are the same and produce broadly similar effects everywhere in Nigeria, West Africa and the African continent? What if our political elites, with few exceptions, have been remarkably clueless as to how to engage these forces and currents of modernity? Finally, what if, indeed, we can meet these forces of capitalist modernity infinitely far more effectively as a united country than as a band of small, autonomous and loosely connected ethnic and regional communities?

    Let me be very clear and upfront about the basis of my position on the SNC: As much as I worry about the over-concentration of power and sovereignty at the centre and the myriad of distortions that it causes, I am far more worried about the hardship and suffering caused throughout the length and breadth of the country among the vast majority of our peoples, north and south, and east and west. I am far more worried about the fact that wealth and power are so vastly unevenly distributed between the elites and the masses in our country than the sharing of power and wealth unequally among our political elites. And simply stated, I cannot imagine that any genuinely democratic SNC at the present time will not place the terrible state of poverty, joblessness and insecurity among the vast majority of Nigerians at the centre of deliberations at the Conference. For poverty, together with the corruption, waste and squandermania that cause and exacerbate it, is, by a long shot, the most important crisis among the myriad of problems and challenges that we face today.

    Out of every 10 Nigerians, 7 live in absolute poverty, this in a land overflowing with oil wealth. Indeed, in many of the rural communities in the land, the figure is close to 8 out of 10. Among our youths, educated and uneducated, the unemployment rate is well over 40%, this in a land in which the median age is 19 – which means that half of the total population is under the age of 19. Moreover, the gap between the tiny haves and the teeming have-nots is not only great but is growing at an alarming rate. These figures are fairly uniformly distributed across the whole country; no region, no ethnic group, no religious community is exempt from the miasmas of poverty, destitution and insecurity ravaging the land. As a matter of fact, ethnicity, regionalism and religion have all been massively and successfully co-opted as powerful tools of mystification by our political elites in keeping things the way they are at the present time.

    There is no reason in the world why the SNC being convened by Jonathan should not combine these two broad profiles: on one hand, redefinition of relations between the centre and its constituent parts, together with reinvention of true and equitable fiscal and administrative federalism; on the other hand, a pooling of all our human and natural resources throughout the country to confront the forces of capitalist modernity. So far, most commentators and proponents of the SNC have been either totally silent or lukewarm on the necessity of linking the two. How this might be accomplished by a careful attention to the composition and agenda of the Conference will be the starting point in next week’s concluding piece in the series.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • From my Sms portal

    “VIBRANT and robust intellectual cross-pollination of ideas attended and tempered by a higher sense of maturity, nobility and humility is timely called for. Although one should not rule out occasional testy and tetchy exchanges, I implore you that they are still largely done in a manner devoid of personal brickbats and diatribes. So, our dear linguistic avatars (Bayo Oguntunase and Ebere Wabara), let ideas exchange the fisticuffs; let ideas wrestle one another—robust intellectual contestation is the in-thing. Again, as observed earlier, most of the corrections made are hardly noticed by the people concerned. They are repeated with jarring regularity. But again, the two of you should not be dissuaded. Some people out there are taking note. (Folorunso Babafemi/Babfranc Educational Services/Ilesa/08133197524)”

    “EBERE, please when next you publish Mr. Oguntunase’s replies, exclude words like ‘witch-hunting’ and ‘upliftment’ which you have many times explained and which, I believe, should not carry ‘ing’ and ‘ment’, respectively, because his insistence on the usage of such words sets us back ages! (Elder N. E. Ijachi/Otukpo/Benue State/08052612721)”

    FINALLY, one of the readers of this column faulted my declaration of “very best” as wrong, citing Longman Dictionary to buttress his assertion. I have always maintained in this column that it is not everything that is in the dictionary or other reference sources that must be swallowed dumbly. If “best” is a superlative word that achieves the peak of my application, why do I need to embellish, pad, inflect or adumbrate it? We must develop critical-mindedness and challenge some entries—that is the hallmark of scholarship and knowledge transformation. If anyone decides to remain incorrigibly gullible, blame not the gods!

  • National Conference’s many controversies

    National Conference’s many controversies

    When this column tackled the proposed national conference idea on September 22, it was then just a rumour fuelled by the unexpected conversion of both President Goodluck Jonathan and Senate President David Mark to the idea of a dialogue between Nigeria’s interest groups. Since neither of the two leading politicians offered any corroborative explanation for their conversion to an idea they had long sneered at, suspicion was rife that both gentlemen, and perhaps their party, were up to some designs. The president’s first strong indication he had embraced the national conference idea was when he received The Patriots pressure group on August 29. Responding to his visitors, he had suggested he was reaching out to the National Assembly to persuade them of the need to convoke a conference. It was a little shocking to everyone, for the president was until then vehemently opposed to the idea.

    But nothing quite prepared the country for Senator Mark’s spectacular volte face. Three weeks or so before the September 17 resumption of the Senate from break, he had in August during the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) conference in Calabar harshly denounced those calling for a conference. When, like the president, he became a convert, perhaps because the presidency reached out to him, he offered nothing by way of scientific explanation to justify his turnabout. It was, therefore, based on the suddenness of the conversion of the two leading politicians that this column warned three weeks ago that Nigerians needed to be wary of their subterfuges.

    However, since that warning, a lot has happened, the most remarkable of which was that a president who only last month merely flirted with the idea of a national conference suddenly told the nation on October 1 that a national dialogue would be held. Nothing was stranger than the fact that the announcement almost immediately generated a nasty controversy between what can be loosely described as supporters of the conference and its opponents. It must be clarified that opponents merely take exception to the timing, not the idea itself. On one side are those who appeared contented with the mere mention of a national conference, an idea they had championed for decades. It required little push to make them jump heedlessly on the bandwagon. And on the other side are sceptics who by years of experience, and possessing a knack for political subtleties, have suggested that the country should not give Dr Jonathan the benefit of the doubt until he offers convincing proof that his conversion is genuine.

    With the inauguration of the advisory committee, with the president’s seductive and soothing platitudes on the virtues of dialoguing, and with the ingratiating manner some members of the committee became proponents of the idea, the controversy is bound to become accentuated in the coming weeks, even as the dividing lines harden. The reason is not far to seek. Though the plain outlines of the president’s schemes are not yet apparent, with some suggesting he plans to use the conference both as a pernicious distraction and as a ploy to buy time, he was at least cunning enough, if not outrightly cynical, to saddle the responsibility of designing the conference’s framework on not only a Yoruba politician, but one who had whooped for the idea with theological zeal for years.

    Fortunately for everyone, the dividing lines cut across political affiliations. Though the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not officially responded to the conference idea, a national leader of the party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has daringly and unequivocally poured scorn on the decision to convoke a conference at this time. According to him, he sees nothing but subterfuge in the decision to hold a conference now, given its nearness to the next general election. In offering his radical and provocative view on the conference, Asiwaju Tinubu is not deterred by the fact the Southwest has for decades been at the forefront of championing the convocation of a national conference or that he could become the butt of fierce criticisms. More, he is even surprised that Nigerians could be so easily lured to support a project of indeterminate dimensions, one he described as a Greek gift.

    Predictably, he has been excoriated by proponents of the conference, many of them his bitter Southwest opponents, whom he knew would descend on him if he championed such incendiary views on the conference. For a politician of his stature, and given the nearness of the next general elections, not to talk of the huge ambition being nurtured by the APC to win the centre, it requires enormous amount of courage and risk-taking to contradict the majority and walk alone. Some leaders of the APC have, however, since embraced his scepticism, even if he still appears the most brazen of the conference’s opponents. The rump Afenifere, a Yoruba socio-political and cultural organisation, has impatiently dismissed any opposition to the conference in its condescending manner, and has fulsomely lent weight to it. Last week, the Awolowo Foundation also eagerly lent weight to the conference, suggesting it is both the right thing to do and also timely. Indeed, it is not even clear that many who support Asiwaju Tinubu are not doing so simply out of respect for him.

    As the advisory committee continues to sit, the scepticism, I am persuaded, is bound to grow, for many will begin to see the dangers and impracticality of holding such a momentous event close to an election year. Already, many commentators are beginning to wonder whether there is not in fact an agenda behind the sudden volte face of the president and the National Assembly leadership. For instance, during the inauguration of the conference advisory committee, the president himself cheerfully argued that the conference would reinforce the unity of the country. Is that a predetermined goal? Could the conference, which the president and the committee said would not have no-go areas, not call into question the unity of the country?

    More importantly, the opposition to the conference is hinged on two planks: the president’s suspicious motive, and his poor timing. Given Dr Jonathan’s fanatical desire to win a second term, and the mercenary zeal with which some of his aides are conjuring circumstances and ideas to favour that second run for office, it would be reckless to think the president is altruistic in championing the conference. And for a president who has waffled over what to call the conference, whether dialogue or conference, national or sovereign, or of ethnic nationalities or of class and social representatives it would be overly optimistic to suggest he is himself persuaded about what he plans to achieve with the exercise, or whether he would be willing to accommodate a radical restructuring of the country.

    On timing, only the most sanguine will suggest that a conference, which may not be held rancour-free, will lead facilely to a peaceful grafting of its decisions into the constitution before the next polls. There is no precedent, either pre- or post-independence, to demonstrate this grafting or implementation can be done surgically neat and easy. It is unlikely that the president does not know the dangers inherent in the process he is casually triggering. The suspicion is that he hopes to capitalise on the rumpus that may eventually accompany the exercise, with some suggesting that if it proves extremely difficult for him to fight for and win a second term, his plan may even be to extend his tenure as a fall-back option. At the least, it is also argued, he could use the conference to keep his opponents busy and distract them from his irresolute handling of the economic, social and security problems besetting the country.

    Dr Jonathan has a fondness for delegating the complex issues of governance to others, particularly committees, until the issues fall into abeyance. There is no proof he is not doing the same even now. If his speech during the inauguration of the conference advisory committee is anything to go by, as well as his October 1 Independence Day address, there is sadly nothing in them to suggest the president and his aides, and other experts drawn inexorably to his bureaucratic shenanigans, have had the time and intellectual resources to examine the steps he is taking on the conference. My suspicion is that very little time was spent on the idea, which in the first instance came either to him or to one of his aides impulsively. It seemed good, and it seemed it would lead to some desired outcomes, and so Dr Jonathan embraced it. There was probably no serious brainwork involved, no privately commissioned expert panels within the presidency, and no attempt to study what the pitfalls of a conference at this time could be, other than perhaps a historical basis for organising such a conference.

    If the presidency had reflected long and deep on the matter before going public with it, officials within the presidency and the National Assembly would have doubtless seen that courageous and deliberate legislative action to tackle the country’s structural imbalances would have made a national conference superfluous. And if in the hypothetical final analysis the conference report terminates at the National Assembly, the public will wonder why it was necessary in the first instance for ethnic nationalities to do the job of the legislature. There are many battles ahead. But until he encounters serious bottlenecks, the president will go ahead with the conference, for he will feel diminished to look back after putting his hand on the plough. Yet, it is hard to see how the exercise will not miscarry, for too many things are stacked against its success, not the least among which are poor timing, suspect motive woven into political ambition, lack of concise vision, and a disconcerting unwillingness to take strong and timeous steps to remedy the country’s diverse problems.

    The Southwest is the most enthusiastic supporter of the conference, and have been intemperate and credulous, in spite of all their learning and supposed democratic credentials, in dismissing opponents of the conference. But I am afraid they are being duped, as they have always been since the Second Republic when they reposed hope in a military overthrow of the Shagari government, and acquiesced to the imposition of Chief Obasanjo in 1999 as sop and conciliation to the Yoruba. Indeed, had fate not intervened, they would have had Mulikat Akande-Adeola as Speaker of the House of Representatives, thus completing the circle of servility and credulity begun when Chief Obasanjo, still energised by his fresh exit from government, foisted Patricia Etteh on the lower legislative chamber to the consternation of every judicious Nigerian.

  • The Teacher’s Burden of Proof

    Too often, the teacher’s employer has interpreted his/her cry for help as a war cry and demanded proof or brought out the armoury

    I’m sure you’re going ‘Oh no, not the matter of teachers again!’ and I’m going ‘Oh yes, it is the matter of teachers again!!’ You remember those famous lines pupils throw at teachers when they arrive late in school? I think they go something like ‘Sorry I’m late to class sir, but I have an excuse’. Well, this column is late celebrating teachers this year but it has an excuse. You see, on my way to, err, the school last week, a plane crash occurred. Which teacher will believe that? Now you know why teachers never believe students’ excuses. But, as we say in Never-never-land, it’s better late than never.

    Today, however, we will be chewing our curd on why the teacher has to perennially provide the burden of proof when he/she cries for help, as in ‘Come on, give me something to work with’, ‘Your child is not behaving well’, or ‘I need more pay in order to even eat decently, you know, like a human being.’ Too often, his/her employer has interpreted it as a war cry and has demanded proof or brought out the armoury. So, the teacher is not only deprived, he now carries on his already scraped head the burden of proof. He must show that his stomach is empty by throwing up bile.

    At various times, secondary school teachers have gone on strike to draw attention to some extremely egregious things. And, as we all know, the members of the academic staff of Nigerian universities and polytechnics have been on strike for a while now. Everyone also knows that is a perfectly legitimate way of crying for help. No matter how serious or frivolous that cry is, however, a decent society should immediately bring out the microscope and swing into action. It would critically examine the issues on their own merit. Certainly, you would not expect a sensitive society to laugh at or deride or even be scornful of a grown man’s cry for help. However, the reactions coming from the government is proof that these cries have been seen as nothing but war hoops to suspect.

    I have always believed in this Chinese dictum that says if you have a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail. The government of this country obviously has a hammer (politics), and it is seeing every problem as a nail (politics). It is therefore swinging that hammer wildly, heartily and with all its strength. In other words, it is going at it with great abandon. First, we are told, those negotiating for the government laughed at the teachers’ demands because they appeared to be outrageous. That laughter must be contagious because right now, the world is laughing at these same people for erecting or buying houses at the deranged sums of billions of Naira. Many who built such houses have since bowed to the merciless hands of death. Sadly, the houses are still there – derelict, unkempt, and ignored by the living – serving as monuments to human foolishness and selfishness, and reminding us that no fond dreams of living on forever can live forever. Pardon the pun.

    Obviously, the laughter treatment did not put the teachers off. Instead, they continued to press on and the government now swung its political hammer wildly at the enemy within. Or is it without? Never mind. The government now says that the teachers are being sponsored by political enemies to score political points. This is called arguing against the man. It is a falsely persuasive tactic that I chide my students for using when they run out of points. Don’t mind the lazy things; when they can’t knock out their opponents’ argument, they then try to knock out the opponent.

    I don’t think any teacher needs to be sponsored by any political foe to prove that he is being underpaid. All the government needs to do is look at the teacher living nearest to Aso Rock. They are many I assure you; they are the thin ones who look mistily at The Rock as they pass by each morning when going to work. Nobody passes by the place except politicians? Are you serious? Pardon me, I really have no idea where the blessed thing lies, being such a stranger to the high and mighty places and people in this country. Then, the government should just ask a few flowing, excessively starched, Agbada to take a trip to a Nigerian classroom for proof. I would have said the cloth alone will do because they will be less prejudicial, but then you need the wearers as well. They will find that it’s worse than a Nigerian police college dormitory.

    Those starched politicians would certainly swing their political hammers less wildly when they are accosted by sights meant only for museum houses. For instance, when they enter a secondary school classroom and find one hundred pairs of eyes staring back at them where there should be only thirty five, with one wretchedly dressed teacher in front, a shudder will pass through them like lightning bolts from their consciences. Then, when they move to a university classroom and find a thousand pairs of eyes sitting, lounging or standing to receive a noon-day lecture in one airless room (the students are now the windows), and all breathing heat and fire on one tiny lecturer, they will exclaim involuntarily like Chief Zebrudiah, ‘Chineke!’ They will wonder why they bothered to send their children abroad to go and learn about human nature when those ones could easily have been in those classrooms sharing all the fun. But wait, there’s more proof to come.

    Then, we can ask our starched agbada to stay and observe a few lessons, and believe me, they will be illuminated on just how well or otherwise the Nigerian student is being groomed to take over from him. Actually, I think that is what will solve this whole problem. They will find that the children of the government functionaries who have not been placed in schools abroad are ruling our classrooms here at home. They bring into class those things the teacher does not even know exist or how to operate. I think they call them electronic gadgets. Then, they bring more money into class that the teacher dares not seize because the children have more access to the law than him/her. They bring more mannerisms into class than the teacher can ever hope to understand or correct because the children have more access to the law than him/her. In my depressed moments, I like to predict that by the time the children we are not grooming now take over the world, the word ‘sanity’ will no longer be a word; it will be a myth. ‘Once upon a time, there was a concept that went by the strange name ‘sanity’…’

    In one of our universities, a student could not pay his school fees on time. A fellow student, related to a serving government functionary, lent out the sum (close to five hundred thousand Naira). The borrower was in for a shocking surprise, if you will pardon the expression, for when he tried to return the money, the lender was surprised and declared it was a gift. Now, how many teachers (primary, secondary, or university) can afford to see, hold or give out that sum in spite of all their labours? The government wants proof the teacher is not being used? Clearly, it cannot handle the proof, for there is your proof.

    An enemy has done this, the government said? Pshaw! The enemy is within us if politics will make us so blind we call black white and white black. When that happens, it is proof indeed that the government does not have much understanding beyond its ears.

  • Sovereignty, authority and  global justice

    I  read  some  where that colonialism    ‘with its across   borders  and across  seas‘  nature was indeed the forerunner of globalization  and I  sneered then that someone was trying to glamorize colonialism  in contemporary  terms  to make it relevant perhaps     to accommodate it in modern history . Events in the last week   however have shown that my skepticism  on the issue was misplaced.

     Just  look  at the foray  of US special  forces into Somalia and Libya this   week   and the reactions of the bona fide governments in both  nations and you see all the imprints of a new form of colonialism  actually mocking globalization as we know it today . When  you also hear  that former Liberian strong man Charles Taylor  who has been jailed for various crimes including rape, terrorism and the use of child soldiers in Sierra  Leone’s war is to serve his 50  years sentence in a British prison because Britain requested for this,  then you  see how colonialism  is very akin to globalization. Furthermore the  news that Cameroun’s  military chasing Boko  Haram   terrorists  off their  territory   informed their Nigerian colleagues  across  the border to make sure that the  terrorists  did   not escape really showed that ECOWAS’ cooperation   in fighting Boko Haram  can take shape in spite of colonial heritage,  its differences,  and history. Again,   the decision of the US  to cut military aid to Egypt  and the Egyptian government’s retort  that it will not yield to US pressure but   that Egypt will pursue its own path  to democracy say a lot about the topic of the day.

    Starting with the overnight strike  of US special  forces   in Somalia    and Libya, the reaction   of   the two  governments was markedly different. The  Somali  PM  welcomed the development and praised the Americans .He  told his interviewer   that Somalia  welcomes the intervention of its   foreign partners in fighting Al Shabab anywhere including  Somali territory. Ostensibly the Americans had come to attack or kidnap terrorists who had bombed the Westgate Mall in Nairobi  Kenya killing over 65 people. But  the raid in Somalia this time was not successful because the Americans had a new rule of engagement which did not allow them   to attack  where civilians are engaged. To the Somali PM then, sovereignty was a not an issue, and he had no qualms in the Americans usurping , as it were,  the authority of the de facto and de jure government of Somalia, as  long as the objective is to flatten the nose of Al Shabab  operatives which Somali leaders regard as a form of international justice being meted out to Al  Shabab.

    In  Libya, the Americans  carted away an Al Qada  operative who took part in the bombing of the US embassy  in Dar Es Salaam sometime ago. They kidnapped him in Tripoli and took him for questioning on a ship in the Mediterranean. The  Libyan government was livid with rage and summoned the US Ambassador in Libya  for explanation. Worse still,  over 100  gunmen were reported to have  captured  the Libyan PM Ali  Zeidane  only to release him  after 8 hours . Before his kidnap  and arrest,  the Libyan PM  had appealed to the International Community to help his government because it could not control the volume of arms flowing in and out of Libya,  which he feared would destabilize the entire region. After his  bizarre  kidnap and release, the Libyan PM  thanked those who worked for his release and noted that the issue was a distinct Libyan   problem that would be resolved in- house.

    What  is clear is  that the Libyan PM  has scant authority ,if any,  and his tenure is at the mercy of those    who brazenly arrested and later released him, as there was nothing stopping them from a repetition of the drama. Zerdane  lost power albeit momentarily and was lucky that he did not or has not lost his life yet. In  effect then the militia that detained Libya’s PM  took umbrage  at  the capture  of the Al Qada  operative   on Libya’s soil  and used the PM’s arrest to protest American violation of the territorial integrity   and sovereignty of Libya. Yet  the minlitia knew it had no authority for what it did   and returned the PM to his impotent office while it took cover in the oblivion from which it emerged to kidnap Libya’s PM.

    In  effect then both  Libya and Somalia showed their vulnerability as failed states last week. The difference is that while Somalia  is reconciled  to its fate, Libya is remonstrating like a  school boy who lost his toy and did not know who to blame but to break into childish tantrums only to calm down and live with his loss.

    In Charles  Taylor’s case one can only have some admiration for British sense of justice no matter how grudgingly. As  far back as 2007  the British had passed an Act of Parliament to  allow Taylor to serve his sentence in the UK  at the cost of government. This is because the Sierra Leonean  and Liberian government did not want the Liberian war lord to serve his sentence in the region for obvious reasons. According to the British,  the conviction of Taylor is a landmark moment for international justice. This is because it shows  that no matter how long the mills of justice  grind slowly  they  will grind exceedingly fine  and catch up  with those   leaders who rule their   people with impunity, any where in the world.

    It  is in this light that I look at the request of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta’s  that he could face his trial for post election violence on video rather than going to the Hague as his Vice President William Ruto  had  done for charges against them for post election violence in Kenya’s 2007  elections. Kenyatta’s request should be granted as he is a seating  president. His request still shows respect for international law  and the rule of law and is a climbdown from  the resolution passed by Kenya’s parliament not to recognize the ICC. Really  I think Britain’s  willingness to play gaoler to Taylor would have moved the Kenyan leader in the direction of trial by video rather than outright refusal,  given that Britain was the colonial government in Kenya and both  the British  and Kenya and indeed the Kenyattas  know each other so well. Which  again is a positive development  for global justice  brought about  by globalization en route colonialism.

    Similarly,  the  border cooperation between the Camerounian and Nigeria military  over the elimination of terrorists  is a welcome development in the region. This sort of accord should be extended to nations that border Nigeria in the North  East  especially Niger. Before this,  the language of the Colonialist namely French and English  had created mistrust amongst the armed forces of both nations with France encouraging cooperation amongst Francophone states to the exclusion of the armies of former British colonies like Ghana and Nigeria. Such close ties with France have been more pronounced in recent times. That  was why it was not ECOWAS that intervened in Ivory Coast to displace Laurent Gbagbo and install President Ouattara but French  troops that came and fought on the streets  of Abidjan. The  same goes for the French troops intervention in Mali  while ECOWAS  was still vacillating and dithering on getting forces  and  logistics of intervention ready .Cross  border cooperation between sovereign forces should be recognized if ECOWAS is to contain the   fast  and viral rise of terrorism in the Sahel,  especially the Boko Haram threat that is giving the Nigerian government a run for  its  money, by killing students and burning churches and mosques with impunity.

    Lastly,  the way the US  government of Barak  Obama has cut some military aid to Egypt goes further to show the confusion of the US government in the way it is selling democracy to the whole world. US  policy  on military coups with friendly governments is to cut off aid. Everyone in this world knows that the displacement of Egypt’s elected government  of Mohammed Morsi was a military  coup except the Obama government.  The  army in Egypt had asked that people come out to demonstrate against an elected government and that call was heeded  and the army proceeded to form an interim government which is the precursor of military intervention in politics called military coup. Yet the US cannot call a spade  a spade and apply its own policy. Of  course the Egyptian army knows that the US present administration has no stomach for any fight as in Syria and will  dig in like Assad and evolve its democracy on the blood of demonstrating  and defiant Egyptians who think the initial street revolution fuelled by the US has been hijacked by the military in Egypt. Well,  the US president is   is  busy at home fighting for his   economic and social legacy over debt  ceiling with the Republicans in the US and has scant time for Egypt and its tottering democracy or is it diarchy? So  in Egypt  the sovereignty lies  between the army and demonstrators with the army having the upper hand. Even with the suspended military aid the Army is stronger. In terms of global justice however the US president is learning at great cost what his predecessors have known to their  cost. That is that if you abandon foreign policy for too long for domestic policy your diplomacy will be in tatters sooner that you can ever expect   and vice versa.

  • No ‘bus stops’ in the skies

    Apart from walking or riding on a donkey from one rural community to another, there is no better way to travel than flying. In towns and cities, cycling and motorcycle rides have been proven to claim more lives than shuttling in the skies. Car and bus rides are also far more dangerous. This leaves the air space the safest way to travel.

    But if the airplane is the champ of travel, why is there so much heat when it crashes? Penultimate Thursday, a small aircraft went down just outside the Lagos airport shortly after takeoff. Of the 20 people on board, 16 died, while the rest were taken to hospital seriously injured. The plane, belonging to Associated Airlines, was conveying the remains of former governor of Ondo State, Dr Olusegun Agagu, to Akure, the capital, for burial. A son of the late politician, also a commissioner in the state, died in the crash.

    Since the incident, there has been so much heat in the country, and it is not just the hot exchange between Mr Femi Fani-Kayode, a former aviation minister, and Ms Stella Oduah, the current chief. Nor is it merely that Oduah’s submission that the crash was an act of God has in itself won her much criticism. Temperatures have risen in private places as well as at the highest levels of government. President Goodluck Jonathan has offered his regrets and ordered an investigation. The revered chambers of the Senate have equally been heated up as lawmakers fulminated over the October 3 crash and others.

    Why do air crashes trigger such emotions? Put it down to a number of factors, some profound, others neither here nor there. Air mishaps tend to involve more of the rich and powerful since they prefer the skies to the roads. And everyone knows that the more the clout of the victims, the higher their news value and the more the focus on the incident. Also, plane crashes claim so many lives instantly, especially if they are commercial flights. The Bellview crash in October 2005 left all 117 people on board dead. One year later, when an ADC Airlines flight crashed with 104 passengers, Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Maccido, and his son were among the casualties. This incident triggered so much heat, with many calling for the overhaul of the aviation sector. Mid last year, over 160 people perished in the Dana Air plane crash. There were several other mishaps.

    Now, this. And to think that in a matter of weeks, the skies have been a constant source of apprehension. From Lagos to Kano to Sokoto, air passengers and even people in their homes have been struck by fear. A plane filled with pilgrims crash-landed. There were reports of tyres exploding. There was another report of an air return, that is, a flight suddenly returning to base without getting to its original destination. Shortly after, the airline, Dana, to give it its name, was forbidden to fly until further notice. This is scary.

    There are also issues of aviation regulators’ integrity and competence, as well as concerns over the Ministry’s perceived faults. Then, add to that the cry that airlines are grappling with grave odds, some complaints being that staff are owed salaries and may even be poorly remunerated.

    All that should leave Ms Oduah worried. But she should not only be worried; she should fix the problem. To be fair, under Oduah’s watch, the airports are looking inviting, but some reports point to unflattering deficits, too. For instance, it is said that communication facilities at the airports are poor, making pilot-air-controller link-ups difficult. This is dangerous, if it is true, and will undermine the efforts and the huge cash sunk into making the airports look tempting.

    Flights are mechanical, and things can, and do, indeed go wrong sometimes, anywhere. Perhaps, that was what Ms Oduah was hinting at when she said the October 3 crash was an act of God. But the right words let her down.

    The minister will not deny that air mishaps are threatening to sully her grand efforts. She will do well to address the sources of those threats.

    Air disasters have their deathly peculiarities. No passenger wants to hear the voice of the captain announcing that some turbulence lies just ahead, let alone that the flight may not land safely. And this is for very obvious reasons. At such peculiar moments, the best engineers on board will not be able to go under the flying airplane to fix any mechanical problem. Potential problems ought to have, to a reasonable extent, been detected and sorted on the ground before takeoff.

    Again, once airborne, there are no air safety personnel positioned in the clouds to prevent an imminent danger. There are no bus stops any where, as it were, to quickly tackle a present threat. Tyres ought to be certified fit before flying. Nothing should be overlooked. The plane conveying the body of Dr Agagu, for instance, was reported to be overloaded with fuel. This is not acceptable.

    The air remains the safest route to travel but it also presents its own peculiarities, making it probably the only transport mode that requires the most thorough attention.

    I am sure Oduah knows this more than anyone else. Now, what she has to do is move quickly to correct what could possibly overshadow her aviation efforts.

  • National conference as ‘defensive radicalism’

    National conference as ‘defensive radicalism’

    The late political economist, Professor Claude Ake, had an uncanny ability to create fascinating concepts to illuminate aspects of social reality under his scrutiny.One of such concepts coined by the erudite scholar is that of ‘defensive radicalism’, which he utilised in his book ‘Revolutionary Pressures in Africa’, to explain some of the antics employed by conservative, even reactionary, ruling classes in Africa to maintain destructive strangleholds on their societies. The concept is seemingly problematic. It sounds contradictory. Yet, its explanatory power is phenomenal.

    Ordinarily, there is nothing defensive about radicalism. It is a necessarily offensive concept. Radicalism denotes an aggressive momentum to dislodge the status quo. It embodies a commitment to fundamental change and transformation in society. When then does radicalism become defensive? This happens when individuals, groups and social forces benefitting from a given iniquitous and inequitable status quo affect deceptive radical stances and become emergency advocates of change. This deft move disarms opposing forces and reinforces the capacity of the pro-establishment elements to maintain and continue to exploit a system that requires urgent and drastic change.

    Thus, beneficiaries of the status quo become the most eloquent and passionate exponents of social or national transformation. Yet, this strident advocacy is a grand pretence. In reality, the more things seem to change, the more they remain the same. There is so much motion but little or no movement. While their feigned transformational radicalism lulls society to somnolence, fuel subsidy gangsters continue to smile to the bank, pension fund fraudsters continue their feast of obscene opulence, the Nigeria Ports Authority Board remains the preserve of party election fixers and aircraft routinely drop from the sky as alleged acts of God while satanic party contractors aggressively white wash airports. Some transformation!

    An excellent example of defensive radicalism at work was former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s unprecedented anti-corruption war. It was fierce. It was intense. It was relentless. Yet, it was horrendously hypocritical and ineffectual. Right from inception in office, the Ota farmer projected himself as a veritable anti-graft radical saint. He ensured the enactment of stringent anti-corruption laws by the National Assembly. He set up anti-corruption agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He mercilessly made a mince-meat of his corrupt political opponents who were foolish enough to play into his hands. It seemed that the slightest scent of corruption made the immaculately clean General sick and mad.

    Yet, behind this huge obscurantist cloud of anti-corruption radicalism, government contractors, mega companies and even public institutions were corralled into donating lavishly to our hero’s private presidential library project. He was allocated huge shares in the Transcorp Corporation project initiated by his government. The petroleum sector, particularly the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) remained a cesspit of graft throughout his tenure.

    The National Assembly’s probe of the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) revealed that our ‘Chichidodo’ could enjoy a feast of maggots after all while affecting a public disdain for faeces. And we can all still recall the brazen third term agenda that remains the single most atrocious case of political and alleged pecuniary corruption in this political dispensation. That then is how defensive radicalism works. An aggressive anti-corruption war was feigned only as a cover for the consolidation of corruption.

    The masters of political deception are at it again. Radicalism has suddenly gone rampant in unexpected quarters. First to set the ball rolling was none other than the Senate President, the venerable Saint David Mark. At the resumption of the Senate, he announced his conversion to the idea of a national conference. It appears that his dramatic encounter with truth occurred, not on the road to Damascus like Saint Paul, but on the highway to Boko Haram’s Damaturu. But then, he was only John the Baptist; a voice in the wilderness preparing the way for a greater one whose shoelace he was unfit to untie.

    And verily verily, on October 1, the political Messiah emerged. In his national day broadcast to a surprised nation, he announced: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of the national conference is at hand. Verily verily, I say unto you, unless you are born again to the cause of a ‘national conversation’, you cannot enter the Kingdom of the new Nigeria”. And of course, the desired effect is largely being achieved. President Goodluck Jonathan is being lauded to the high heavens by advocates of a national conference who see this as a triumph of their long cherished desire. The ever so lucky President must be chuckling happily to himself: “Ah! The kingdom of a second term come 2015 seems to be at hand”.

    But then, have advocates of a national conference clamoured for it over the years simply for the sake of having a dialogue? I do not think so. The calls for a Sovereign National Conference have been made within the context of the erosion by the military of the country’s federal and democratic ethos. After the thorough devastation and despoliation of the country for close to two decades, the discredited military oligarchy beat a retreat in 1999, but carefully engineered the emergence of the PDP as its successor to ensure the preservation of the decadent and dysfunctional status quo even in a supposedly post-military Nigeria. The PDP has faithfully performed this task over the last 14 years. It has largely retained the military’s structure and philosophy of governance and virtually all sectors of our national life have steadily degenerated under its inept and venal watch.

    Why is Nigeria in the pathetic and prostrate condition we witness today? It certainly is not because a national conference has not taken place. On the contrary we have had several national conferences. It is the absence of a progressive, change-oriented government at the centre since independence that has retarded Nigeria’s progress and aborted her potentials. The lesson of our history is that without a government with the requisite ethos, vision and values at the centre, a hundred national conferences cannot change Nigeria. And if you have such a government with the courage and competence to initiate fundamental change, a national conference may be totally unnecessary.

    While inaugurating the Senator Femi Okunrounmu-led advisory committee, for instance, President Jonathan averred that the 1957 conference “effectively prepared Nigeria for independence”. So why had the country degenerated to military rule and outright civil war six years after independence? The answer is the lack of a visionary government at the centre. The President lauded the 1978 Constituent Assembly for saddling us with the 1979 presidential constitution “with its attendant checks and balances and fundamental human rights provisions”. But a succession of inept and visionless administrations at the centre have utilised the immense powers of the wasteful presidential system to undermine accountability, erode the rule of law and worsen underdevelopment.

    President Jonathan claimed that the 1995 conference gave us the informal concept of a six-zonal structure. But governments at the centre that do not believe in a genuine federal ethos have still kept us bound to an essentially unitarian structure that breeds inefficiency, corruption, poverty and is fast turning Nigeria to a failed state. Without a fundamental change in the values, orientation and vision of the government at the centre, the planned constitutional conference jamboree will be another exercise in futility.

    For the first time since independence, the mainstream, unitarist forces that have ruled Nigeria since independence under both civilian and military rule are politically vulnerable. The President’s undisguised second term ambition has badly fractured the ruling party at a time when the opposition is getting its act right for the first time ever. Thus, we have this sudden manoeuvre of having a distracting national conference when the 2015 elections, according to the electoral law, must hold by December next year. It has taken 14 years for the PDP to see the light. Are Nigerians too gullible not to see through this trickery? I hope not.

  • The way the music dies (1)

    The music dies because we kill it; every second, every minute, every hour, every day. Shame. Shame being the appropriate tribute to those of us who diminish the music in order to find it and hear it. Shame being the fitting apparel to those of us who make smaller, the luxuriant tropes of the bight of the muse.

    Shame on all powerful and giant telecommunication networks spending a few millions to rip us off hundreds of hard earned millions in the name of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)…in the name of the music. Shame on the producer, director, video-jockey (VJ), dancer, artiste and songwriter perpetually burying the essence of the music for the sake of a few desperate Naira, and more. Shame on you and me.

    And yet the greater shame on us for whom and what we have become to the music; we, the hideous trolls dishing discordant tunes to the sound of the music; we, the standard-bearers on whose watch the music skits and grinds to a stop.

    Thus we go nameless and artless in music; the music we make becomes the echo of something else, like nothingness and vile. The artistes we make and celebrate annoy us, disrespect us and confound us. And the music they make is hardly the work of genius. It’s simply deafening and hogwash. Bet you hear their crinkle and chirp like crickets gone nuts: Senge Menge…Wiskolowiska…Je ka collabo…Baby je ki’n sangolo, sangolo eee…I’m in love with two women; I don’t know which one to take; and you could still dance to it. Do you?

    At least, for the artistes, it foots the bills for the easy girls, flashy cars and bling-bling. More importantly, it provides the wads that fit into colourful envelopes of various shapes and sizes, the soul of entertainment journalism. Perhaps put more precisely, the life-boat of charlatans selling off news pages – that ought to be hard-earned – for as little as N10, 000 for two pages and N5, 000 or N3, 000 for a page, while passing themselves off as entertainment writers to the detriment of journalists who would remain true to journalism and music.

    Mad? I guess. How easy it is to dismiss this or at least dislike the import simply because it evokes that cheeky music critic cliché that makes you want to brick yourself, I do not know. How consolatory it might be to dismiss this too as some idle rant of that typical whiney, sanctimonious warhorse that fears change and hates everything novel to trade in nostalgia and jaded musings on the way things were and how they ought to be, I do not bother.

    Who knows, some sunny-minded reader and music enthusiast may bother to discern and see past the ominously-wrought rant, passionate jazz-vibes and end-is-nigh metaphors to appreciate this take, however discomforting, on the deplorable state of music and entertainment journalism in the country.

    Questionable awards and the obsession with being number one diva, lyricist and most sought-after entertainment writer cum artiste manager are killing the music. It’s completely true; blogs give rise to non-professionals, mediocrity blooms and cash rules us and everything around us in the music journalism parlance of the Fourth Estate. No? Of course it does.

    Between the music journalist and the artiste, there is ever an unasked question: unasked by most due to feelings of delicacy; by others due to the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter around it and avoid it.

    Thus we approach every upstart or wanna be music star belly-in-mouth, wit-disarmed – in a half-hesitant sort of way, eyeing them expectantly, patronizingly and then, instead of asking directly, “Why do you steal from foreign artistes?” “What is music?” “How would you define your music?” “What is the story behind the music?” “How does it feel to churn out confusing music or something like it?”

    “Do you not think you are a problem to music?” we ask: “Are you a sharp-dresser?” “How do you cope with female fans and admirers?” “What is your beauty routine?” “Are you a perfume freak?” “Who is your favourite designer?” And then we pick up the camera we hardly get to use, the tape recorder we hardly get to use and leave, comfortable in the realization that we have done nothing to jeopardize our “right” to “flava” (financial gratification) and other perks.

    Thus we snuff out the life of the proverbial classic music reviews which among other things, explores an artiste or band’s social context, their history, future and explains in glistening prose, their palette, pacing and lyrical nuances.

    Today, we murder the music to appreciate it. Today, we label every mediocre…every lyrical hopeful and wanna-be idol with a demo track, a star, just because we make it easier for them to get on the airwaves and dominate our entertainment pages albeit undeservedly.

    We can blame it on the internet as much as we like…reality is; we have boxed ourselves into the tightest of corners. We are hardly the music gate-keepers we were meant to become. You see, the average music enthusiast no longer needs you or me nor any other form of music gate-keeper or standard-bearer to explain why some piece of music is worthy, ever-green or life-changing when they can just form their own opinions – however mediocre or misleading – buy it, download it and dance to it.

    You see, writing about music is hardly the revered art of expose, trashing of mediocrity and vetting of musical masterpieces as it used to be. And we have painstakingly made it so.

    The readers whose interests we ought to serve and whose interests we continually compromise for the love of the “flava” have decided to jettison their loyalty and reverence of our approximation of how a particular song sounds or what emotions it evokes, however articulate it may be, ever since they discovered that it’s not just that we have sold out professionalism for the “flava” but that we have increasingly become shorn of the mandatory musical gen and artistry – while parading an army of bedazzled wanna-be music critics and bootlickers masquerading as entertainment reporters and writers.

    It’s so amazing, isn’t it…that a pioneer hip hop artiste once deemed his fellow artistes, “errand boys” – and so-called established artistes at that – and yet we who should serve as their conscience and nemesis painstakingly and merrily serve as their errand boys. Sublime, isn’t it?

    Truth is, our music suffers and flutters due to the dearth of competent music journalism, among other factors. The best that we have done and that we could ever possibly do is to serve as errand boys and publicists to every wanna be music star, acclaimed star and charlatan with N10, 000, N5, 000 and well slanted interview plants, prepared in question and answer formats by individual artistes’ in-house publicists and managers.

    Yet our talk is of respect while we serve as errand boys to the artiste, MTN, Globacom, Nigerian Breweries and every other musical show sponsor with the deep-pockets.

    Just recently, an esteemed reader and music enthusiast marvelled why seven national dailies would parade a struggling music star and music talent hunt finalist on their entertainment cover. The answer is simple: she got “flava.”

  • National confab: Jonathan admits failure

    National confab: Jonathan admits failure

    It’s a cop-out. Finally, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has (perhaps unbeknown to him!) openly admitted that he is not the man for these times. He is not the game changer; he is not the great Nigerian who would lead us into that glorious modern nation we all yearn for. He is neither a man of history nor for the history books. After four year in Aso Rock, four years of commanding the Nigerian Armed Forces, four years of presiding over the Federal Executive Council and four years of shepherding over 150 million of the world’s largest and most dynamic Black race, calling for a national dialogue certainly cannot be the best option available either to the president or for the people.

    A RASH OF WORTHLESS CONFERENCES: Between the London conference prelude to independence in 1960, through Aburi down to the sham conferences of Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjo, any discerning mind would know that we have had enough national dialogue to solve our problems if the intent is to build a modern nation. President Jonathan by virtue of his learning, prominence and roles in national affairs in the past four decades is aware of this rash of conferences; and if not, he has access to them – the procedures and outcomes. Running through these conferences are the agitations, hopes and desires of Nigerians and the various ethnic groups. Some of them would also contain a notation of all the ills afflicting the country and some of the immediate and long-term actions required.

    IF JONATHAN WAS A BIT PERSPICACIOUS: If President Jonathan had it to give or if he was given to be the one to lead us into the new land he would have attended to some of the most pressing issues blighting the country by now. Do we need another national conference to realize that we are running a terribly skewed and unsustainable federalism? There are a slew of issues that the president could have attended to by merely pushing executive bills through the National Assembly or by taking advantage of the on-going attempt at constitution review.

    Who would quarrel with the president if he had for instance, started a gradual whittling down of the powers at the centre for the overall good of the country? Who would resist if he had made a moved to restructure of the Federal Revenue Allocation formula by conceding a little more to the states and local government areas? By the same token, he could have achieved immense result if he had allowed some partial autonomy to the states to control the police, collect some sales taxes (like VAT), run primary and secondary education fully among sundry other trivia that the federal government dissipate so much energy and resources upon yet does so badly.

    President Jonathan needs no national dialogue to bring his mind to bear on the question of statutory allocation to local councils which is perhaps one of the problems ravaging the polity at the moment. The rash of malcontents, social dissonance and a seeming state of unyielding poverty is not unconnected to the fact that huge funds meant for the third tier of government never gets there. This sad turn of event which has gone on since 1999 is obviously unsustainable considering its untold economic and socio-political costs to the nation. One expects the president to be at home with the import and magnitude of this grave national problem and to have proceeded to initiate policies to change it.

    CONFERENCE WITH AN AGENDA: It is amazing how naïve Nigerians can be especially when they choose to; how come everyone is singing alleluyah as if the mere act of calling for a conference has resolved all the problems buffeting the country. From the chairman of the agenda panel, Senator Femi okunrounmu to Father Matthew Kukah it is as if Nigeria has suddenly reached Eldorado. “Jonathan has just successfully carry out a bloodless ideological coup against the agitators and his enemies”, crooned eminent clergyman Kukah in an interview.

    But I put it on notice today that this dialogue is not unlike the contrivances of President Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and Olusegun Obasanjo which were just devices to buy time, deceive the populace and distract attention from their obvious leadership failures. Like these former leaders, Jonathan has failed woefully and now at the crossroads, he reaches for the old trick. Like these previous failed leaders and at least for self-preservation (that is what the so-called dialogue is all about anyway), the conference will be lined with all sort of landmines and hidden agenda. Would President Jonathan initiate and supervise a talk that will banish the centre and grant the ethnic nationalities their desire to live along regional and zonal lines?

    WHO PAYS FOR THE JAMBOREE? We do not require any special clairvoyance to see that Jonathan’s dialogue will end in disarray like Obasanjo’s or the report would be left to gather dust till post Jonathan. But the question we have not asked is who is paying for this folly? Government would shell out billions of naira for a talk jamboree yet it cannot fund our universities, most federal roads are in utter disrepair and capital expenditures are not being released to MDAs. We hope that the Okunrounmu panel in working out the agenda would also work out the cost of organizing the talk. Nigerians deserve to know and they must be told this time around, the cost of staging this show.

    Apart from the fundamental questions of our federation, will this conference lead to the creation of more jobs, to better funding of our education and improvement in our facilities? The answer is no. We all, including the president knows what Nigerians need – it is good, sincere leadership.

    LAST MUG: WHERE IS THE WORKS MINISTER? Yours truly travelled through the Lagos- Benin highway to Owerri last weekend and it was a patented nightmare of a journey. On the outward journey we were still for about two hours between Ijebu –Ode and Ore thus reaching Owerri late at night. The journey back to Lagos took a bizarre turn when Ijebu-Ode-Ore road was declared near impassable and we had to do a merry-go-round through Ondo, Ife, Ibadan to Lagos. We were on the road for 15 hours for an eight –hour journey. It is obvious that this Minister is incapable of repairing this stretch of road he has been joggling with for nearly two years. It is the same story in many other areas across the country commuters are going through hell on our highways. Who will show some compassion?