The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Mark denounces national conference at NBA meeting in Calabar

    The amendment process to the constitution is a continuing one and the current exercise is contemplating an amendment to the constitution that will provide modalities for the making of a new constitution.

    “The 1999 Constitution (as amended) made provisions for its alteration. It did not make provisions for any new constitution. It is in answer to the clamour for a new constitution by vocal sections of the polity that an amendment to make provisions for how a new constitution can come about is being contemplated. In making these calls, suggestions for the process of making a new constitution have been made. These range from a constitutional conference to a ‘sovereign’ national conference.

    “The National Assembly recognises the right of Nigerians to aggregate, assemble or meet in any legitimate form or manner to discuss the affairs of their country and indeed encourages such fora as it is a constitutional right. A mark of such encouragement is the elaborate public hearings that have become part of our constitutional amendment process. We however have difficulties with the calls by certain sections of the polity for a “sovereign’’ national conference.

    “The 1999 Constitution (as amended) with all its imperfections, including its debatable origin, remains our grundnorm, our supreme law from which all other laws derive and expresses our sovereignty. It creates all the powers, institutions and authorities of the State to which we have all submitted. We have challenged its provisions in Courts of law established by it and obeyed the decisions of these courts. We have therefore ratified the constitution by our conduct. The 1999 constitution (as amended) is a reality. Consequently, where will the ‘sovereign national conference’ be deriving its sovereignty from, and under what framework? How will the conference be convoked and by whom and under what terms? I have been confronted by the argument that sovereignty derives from and belongs to the people. This is certainly beyond argument. How then do we get the people to confer sovereignty on such a conference? There are intractable issues to be addressed by the agitations for the ‘sovereign national conference’ and that is why I subscribe to the proposal for an amendment to the 1999 Constitution to provide for the making of a new Constitution.”

  • Fifth anniversary of the global economic meltdown of 2008: counterintuitive anti-capitalist reflections (2)

    Fifth anniversary of the global economic meltdown of 2008: counterintuitive anti-capitalist reflections (2)

    If, as I argued in last week’s column, the unregulated and perhaps even unregulatable exercise of greed within capitalism was the evil, the rot that led to the global economic meltdown of 2008, perhaps the greatest lesson that came from the crash is the fact that the greed that capitalism had perpetrated ‘abroad’ in the developing nations of the world came to wreak terrible, unmitigated havoc at ‘home’ in the rich nations of the global north. Fortunately, the outlines of this tragic reversal can be stated succinctly, without any equivocations, any ambiguities.

    The central global division within capitalism for much of the second half of the 20th century was the division between capitalism at the center and capitalism at the periphery. The colonial stage of imperialism had ended and there were no colonies left, but the old division continued in a new and extremely invidious distinction between ‘capitalism at home’ and ‘capitalism abroad’. For the five decades of the post-Second World War period before we get to 21st century capitalism, the working and non-working poor of the neo-capitalist nations and societies in the periphery bore the full brunt of the exploitative ravages of the capitalism of the rich countries. With very few exceptions, as the affluence and consumerism of these rich countries of the global north were extended to ever-widening circles of their workers and the general populace, the workers and non-working poor of the developing countries saw ever declining levels of quality of life, even though a greater proportion of the planet’s deposits of natural resources are located in the global south. This chokehold on the lives of the masses of the developing countries came to a climax in the so-called Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that were imposed on the third world countries starting from the mid-1980s. As nearly everyone in the world knows, SAP left a trail of devastating impoverishment in the developing countries that is still unfolding, that will indeed take generations to reverse.

    Well, with the crash of 2008, the chickens came home to roost: when the economies of the rich countries crashed, when the national or sovereign debts of these countries spiraled out of control, SAP took a detour from the global south and came visiting the shores of the global north, like the grim reaper with his unforgiving harvesting scythe. In the words of the Yoruba cautionary adage that serves as the epigraph for this essay, beware when you throw ashes to the winds for quite often the ensuing trajectory is not windward, it is leeward and you end up being the hapless receiver of the ashes you threw into the winds.

    I hasten to say that I do not make these observations in a spirit of gloating. Exploitation, impoverishment and suffering, whether in the developing countries or in the rich countries, are to be carefully studied and resolutely resisted. One of the great lessons to be learnt from the worldwide crash of 2008 is how closely linked are the fates of the poor and the marginalized of the world. This is not a pious, moralizing observation; it is a claim I make on the basis of an acute awareness of the fact that under capitalism, the rich of all the countries and regions of the world extract surplus value from their working and non-working poor by basically the same means, the same mechanisms. As a matter of fact, this claim should draw our attention to perhaps the single most unexpected development from the crash of 2008, this being the fact that the rich countries have now joined the rest of the world in the widening of the gap between the few extremely rich and the rest of the population. Since this is an absolutely crucial, it needs to be restated carefully.

    For most of the second half of the 20th century, the ultimate claim of triumph over socialism that apologists and ideologues of capitalism made vigorously was based on the assertion that, without bloody revolutions, the rich countries of the world were narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor and doing so in leaps and bounds. Well, the crash of 2008 has exposed this claim as a premature declaration of victory over socialism and as a completely bogus and misleading claim. Indeed, in the long historic view of the impact of the meltdown of 2008, it may well be that this exposure of the claim of a continuous narrowing of the gap between the rich and the poor as nothing but a myth will turn out to be its greatest intellectual legacy. The ramifications of this demystification are worthy of note.

    The rise in the number and the ranks of the working and non-working poor in the rich countries of the world since 2008 has been nothing short of dramatic, at the same time that wealth continues to be concentrated in the hands of a very tiny minority. As everyone knows, the figures are more bracing in countries like Greece, Spain, Ireland and Italy, but even in the United States, the centre of gravity of global capitalism, the figures are so striking that they led to the so-called “Occupy” movements that started, inevitably, with “Occupy Wall Street”. What is worthy of especial note in all these countries is the fact that it is the market, it is market forces that threw hundreds of millions of people into poverty. Conversely, it has been the state in its diverse incarnations that has been called upon to effect redress, to put a human face to capitalism. But all things considered, the market is fiercely holding its own against the constraints of the state and public institutions and considerations. What does this portend?

    We know from history that there is nothing new in this role of the market in mass exploitation, this tendency of market forces to enslave and degrade human beings on a colossal scale. At different periods but with fairly regular consistency, the market has aligned itself with capitalism to perpetrate historic horrors like slavery, colonialism, workers’ exploitation in factories, patriarchal exploitation of women in what is known as the feminization of poverty and the kind of jingoistic-nationalistic militarism that the world experienced in the First and Second World Wars. I will be the first to admit that market forces have also historically led to progress and to the discovery of new knowledges and the construction of new and better ways of organizing production. But it has never been the case that the market all by itself achieved these laudable goals without the intervention of human solidarity with those caught in the traps of the darker and more destructive aspects of market forces. In the very early days of capitalism when its classical theorists were still casting about to provide justificatory explanations for the significant role of the market, they theorized that a so-called “invisible hand” was at work in the world of trade and commerce coordinating the infinite number of competing operators and interests at work in the market. That theory has been discredited many times over but that has not stopped the ideologues of free market capitalism from resuscitating the theory again and again in one version or another in the last two hundred years or so. The end of this perpetual revisionism is nowhere in sight.

    Since 2008 in the rich countries of the world, unregulated or minimally regulated capitalism has been on the defensive and currently, it has its back to the wall of credibility and viability. Memories are still keen, still sharp on what a casino-style unregulated capitalism can do to the life savings, the jobs, and the futures of hundreds of millions of ordinary men and women. But the apostles and warriors of free market capitalism are not conceding defeat. Far from this, they have in fact of recent gone on the offensive and are doing all they can to reverse all the legislations put in place after 2008 to regulate the market more diligently and efficiently. Let us not be mistaken in appraising why the struggle is so fierce between the forces of regulation and deregulation: the bottom line is whether the wealth that is created by and in society will be equitably distributed or cornered by a powerful and oligarchic few.

    In Nigeria and many other African countries, it is as if these battles between the forces of regulation and deregulation are not taking place in the heartlands of global capitalism. In our country in particular, the ideologues of the deregulated market are extremely sanguine in their promotion of the total surrender of the state to the market. True, they sometimes talk of the trinity of the P-P-P, this being the so-called public-private partnership. But don’t be deceived by this subterfuge, compatriots! The “public” in this triad really means a state, a government that is completely beholden to a tiny kleptocratic elite because it has been massively privatized. Let me spell out this claim very clearly, compatriots.

    Every time that you hear the likes of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nasir El-Rufai and Charles Soludo talk of the public-private-partnership, run for cover because behind their notion of the “public” is a massively privatized state, a looted state, a comatose state. I mention these three names deliberately because they have been the most articulate and the most authoritative and militant defenders of free market capitalism in Nigeria since the inception of the current Fourth Republic in 1999. Of recent, Soludo has been making a tentative or hesitant review of his positions on free market capitalism but perhaps because he is currently in the grip of APIP – Any Party In Power – and is desperately looking for a party in which his unrelenting ambition to become Governor of Anambra State can be realized, he is distracted from a full-scale revision of what the promotion of free market capitalism, in theory and in practice, really means in Nigeria at the present time.

    In my view, the so-called informal or parallel market is the only truly unregulated market in Nigeria today. On this view, the official, regular market is no more or less than an extension of the state, the massively privatized state. This is obviously because most of the capital with which privatized public enterprises were bought was looted from our national coffers. But in addition to this, the privatized state is too compromised, too weakened to carry out any regulatory functions on the market – even if the political will was there to do so. Effectively shut out of both the formal, official market and the privatized state, the overwhelming majority of Nigerians subsist in the informal, parallel market where you can buy and sell any commodity in the world, where no taxes are paid, and where cheap, meretricious goods rub shoulders with genuine articles of trade. Some economists put the size of this informal or underground market at twice the size of the formal market; that is how big it is.

    To some analysts, the size of the Nigerian informal market indicates that Nigerians are, deep down, natural or inveterate capitalists in the sense in which over the ages, capitalism has always resisted all attempts to regulate it, to subject it to other values beyond those in the service of cutthroat competition and unlimited accumulation. I beg to disagree with this view. The informal, underground market thrives everywhere in the world where the state has been taken over by mediocre, thieving political elites unwilling or incapable of running a well organized modern capitalist or social democratic state. Nigeria is thus only an exacerbated example of this universal pattern. We must take back the privatized state from the looters, the kleptocrats. The starting point for this is the demystification and rejection of privatization and deregulation as the only panaceas for the discontents of capitalism. The global crash of 2008 provides ample evidence that this is on the agenda of the political and economic affairs of every nation, every region of the world.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • …Gives disingenuous support

    Let me counsel that we make haste slowly, and operate strictly within the parameters of our Constitution as we discuss the national question. We live in very precarious times, and in a world increasingly made fluid and toxic by strange ideologies and violent tendencies, all of which presently conspire to question the very idea of the nation state. But that is not to say that the nation should, like the proverbial ostrich, continue to bury its head in the sand and refuse to confront the perceived or alleged structural distortions which have bred discontentment and alienation in some quarters. This sense of discontentment and alienation has fueled extremism, apathy and even predictions of catastrophy for our dear nation.

    “A conference of Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities, called to foster frank and open discussions of the national question, can certainly find accommodation in the extant provisions of the 1999 Constitution which guarantee freedom of expression, and of association. To that extent, it is welcome. Nonetheless, the idea of a National Conference is not without inherent and fundamental difficulties. Problems of its structure and composition will stretch the letters and spirit of the Constitution and severely task the ingenuity of our constitutionalists. Be that as it may, such a conference, if and whenever convened should have only few red lines, chief among which would be the dismemberment of the country. Beyond that, every other question should be open to deliberations.

    “However, I hasten to add that it would be unconstitutional to clothe such a conference with constituent or sovereign powers! But the resolutions of a national conference, consisting of Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities, and called under the auspices of the Government of the Federation, will indeed carry tremendous weight. And the National Assembly, consisting of the elected representatives of the Nigerian people, though not constitutionally bound by such resolutions, will be hard put to ignore them in the continuing task of constitution review. But to circumvent the Constitution, and its provisions on how to amend it, and repose sovereignty in an unpredictable mass will be too risky a gamble and may ultimately do great disservice to the idea of one Nigeria.”

     

  • Fire on the Mountain, pray, pray, pray!

    Today, the shine has gone from what is left of the fire engines in our
    nation’s fire stations. Most of them just sit out their days on display only.

    Some weeks back, I watched absolutely horrified as a sudden power surge provoked a fluorescent bulb in my sitting room and set it alight right before my very eyes. My mate, an untrained fireman, quickly sprang to action to attack the flames. Me, I did the most natural thing in the world: I jumped on a chair and began to scream, flapping my arms in absolute horror like a demented fish seller while intermittently pointing at the offending flames as if it was invisible to everyone else but me. I like to think that the fire respected my screams but I suspect it responded more to the pragmatic measures taken by the emergency ‘fireman’ who went at the flames with much more respectable vigour and implements. I shudder when I think that that could easily have happened when no one was home, or if I was home alone.

    The statistics of fire disasters that happen in this incredibly easy way is simply unimaginable. The other day, a friend’s house burned completely to the ground from a fire that was said to have sparked off from ‘the top of a wardrobe’ – i.e. an electrical spark. Many homes in Nigeria have gone up in flames because of one freak accident or the other. True, a few of those fires may have broken out while the cook was consulting her cookery book and trying to decide whether one teaspoon of oil might not be better than one tablespoon owing to the spots on her face! That usually happened to new wives.

    Most neighbourhoods have learnt to rely on other measures such as gathering their own buckets of water. I learnt from experience that the fire brigade is every wise Nigerian’s last resort. When an unoccupied house across my street caught fire sometime ago, I dialled 199 before finding out that no one respects that number, least of all the police. And to invite the state to respond to any emergency in your vicinity, you have to know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows their secret, unlisted number! I have no social connections to speak of.

    Anyway, I finally knew someone who knew someone who knew the fire station’s number and when I called, the voice that responded assured me the fire brigade would come in a short while from then. In the meantime, could I and others around me attack the flames with whatever came in hand? I said we would try since water was scarce and all we had were a few buckets, so could they hurry? He said they would. When the smouldering flames grew in intensity to a near conflagration consuming the ceiling and the roof, I panicked and called the fire station again. The cool voice contrasted sharply with my shrill one as he assured me they were still coming. At the third ‘We’re still coming’, I remembered that the linguistic behaviour of Nigerians compels them to say they are coming when they are going in the opposite direction to your voice. So, I gave up expecting them and those of us around the burning house just concentrated our energy on making sure the fire did not spread to our turfs. Luckily, providence relieved us of our anxiety; it soon began to rain, and the fire died from natural causes.

    I remember very well how the fire engines in the Oyingbo-Lagos station used to attract more than a passing glance from passersby, back in those days. And it wasn’t just sitting pretty either. Its clanging tones rang frequently in response to distress calls from new wives in new kitchens, with the firemen springing and swinging artistically into action in ways that brought stinging tears into our eyes in appreciation. They even had a training school which, I am sure, attracted many who joined out of admiration for the engines. Today, the shine has gone from what is left of those fire engines in our nation’s fire stations. Most of them just sit out their days on display only.

    Traversing the high street in my city takes one past its only fire station. Though visible to all as it sits on a knoll, there is, indeed, less to the building than meets the eye for all the impact it has on our lives. I have never heard it ring its emergency bells, nor have I ever seen it race to the rescue of anyone. That means I have never been asked to give way to its vehicle while in traffic; rather my car has been frequently shoved aside on the road for some bullion van or governor or some other fellow not necessarily in a hurry but who is hurrying through traffic just for the fun of shoving me aside.

    I asked around if anyone had ever known the firemen respond to any emergency call in this city. Someone said yeah, well, once in his school days but they turned up only after the fire had died – at the children’s hands. It happened in a students’ hostel. The students went at the fire in indignation because it ate up all their provision boxes, and no one, but no one, is allowed to eat up students’ provisions but students: not thieves, not any fire. Clearly, motivation is the guiding principle for many an emergency ‘fire fighter’ now. Just as you provide other amenities for yourself in this country, you not only also make your own fire, you get to put it out yourself.

    I read a news report many months back about a fire that broke out somewhere in one of the states in the western part of the country and the fire brigade was summoned. Quite unlike my own story, the firemen did turn up, but in a taxi. A disbelieving crowd asked them what they had come to do. They replied that they had been sent to come and assess the fire, then they would know if it warranted their bringing their engine or not. Someone in the crowd said, ‘don’t mind them; their problem is that they have no engine to bring.’ The reason was that the same station had been summoned to an emergency previously somewhere else in the town and the firemen had had to hitch a ride from the complainant. At that, the report said, the crowd forgot the fire and concentrated their energy on lynching the firemen.

    What has brought our fire stations to such a sorry pass can only be conjectured. In the first place is the excruciating neglect of the fire services. In many states, the governor’s car polish has a higher budget than the fire stations. Now, that’s corruption. Combine this problem with the water shortage that besets many parts of the country all the year round, it translates to the fact that we cannot get round to borrowing a few litres of water from the Atlantic Ocean, or any other river, sitting at our backyard to recycle for our daily fire-quenching needs. Then of course, there is the problem of indifference to duty, a disease of epidemic proportions, attacking most Nigerians…

    The last resort of course is still prayers. Most emergency fire situations seem to have been fought with that weapon anyway since independence in Nigeria. And, owing to the efficacy of this strong implement, I have come to believe that there is a fire station up above looking out for Nigerians’ distressed voices. So whenever you next hear children at the game of ‘Fire on the mountain!’ just teach them to end it with ‘Pray, Pray, Pray, Pray!’ It is good for them to learn early.

    This article was first published in 2006 by New Age.

  • Is Kaduna about to break jobs jinx?

    At the state and federal levels, the unemployment profile is depressing. The last time he checked the statistics, Dr Christopher Kolade, chairman of the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SureP), found that over 40m Nigerians were without jobs. This figure, grossly underestimated and clearly a year or two behind current profile, does not represent everyone that is not working. Those who can work, though are not prospecting, are not included. The figure essentially, if roughly, covers those who are looking for work. Add 40m to the other undocumented segment of the jobless and you have a bustling, frustrated and angry army in our midst.

    This dismal picture is seen across the country and it worsens every year in spite of the rhetoric and best efforts of the state governors and federal authorities.

    Something good seems to be happening in Kaduna State. Reports suggest the textile industry there may come to life after it was left to decline over the years, with much of it eventually dying off. After talks with the Governor Mukhtar Yero administration, foreign investors are said to have visited the state with a view to assessing business viability and setting up shop. Textile is reported to be one crucial area of interest, although other businesses have also caught the eye of the investors. Pakistanis seem to be ahead of the Indians and Chinese in reviving comatose industries in Kaduna.

    Textile holds a lot of interest to me, too, though not as an investor, of course. The industry is a veritable employer, and therefore a problem solver. A recent report said in Kaduna, textile firms had a 300,000-strong combined workforce. That was many years ago when the population of the state was nothing to compare with the present figure. Those workers took their incomes home and sorted out many needs. As everyone knows, unsettled is the home whose bills are scarcely ever settled. And it also spills into the outer society. Brothels, I imagine, are filled with women who were once girls growing up in unsettled homes. Among the community of armed robbers I am sure you will find a good number with similar backgrounds, young men from homes whose breadwinners lost their sources of income because the firms where they worked wound down.  The causes of our jobs crisis are not difficult to determine. Nor do you have far to look before seeing why just about every state seems to be perpetually strapped to federal allocation, which in itself has created another problem of its own. There is almost as much hustle for federal cash as there is to share it, fuelling Nigeria’s most intractable problem: corruption. The drive of industry has remarkably slackened, and with it the dignity of labour. There is this thinking that every seat of government, whether local, state or federal, has some good cash to throw around and if you are smart you just might catch as much as possible. Once thriving local industries have since collapsed, giving rise to roadside entrepreneurs: mechanics, vulcanisers, battery technicians, commercial motorcyclists and tricycle operators and such other hard-working but low-earning workers. Among them, unfortunately, you will find graduates of tertiary institutions.

    One other troubling thing. Whereas Kaduna textile firms once engaged over 300,000, our universities and other tertiary institutions are reckoned to be graduating about that number every year without any hopes of jobs for them.

    If industries are revived in Kaduna it is a good thing. But politicians are difficult to follow. Sometimes the picture they project may differ from reality while what they promise may tarry interminably.

    Still, the news from Kaduna is uplifting. If the dead factories do indeed rise up again, the residents will tell new and exciting stories. Some have argued eloquently that the insurgency in the North fed directly from immediate social dislocations, including poor jobs profile in the region. I agree and I also believe that getting industries working again will make insurgency less attractive.

    What about the rest of the country? I am persuaded that each of the regions has or had its own brand of insurgency, even if by other names. But at its heart is a common economic cause. The Niger Delta question is still fresh in memory. The violence started with breaching pipelines and taking some expatriate oil workers hostage, then the scope widened, with the kidnapping of kings, grandfathers and their grand kids. While all that lasted, the economy of the region suffered as firms were locked up, some relocating to safer grounds far afield. The national economy was hurt too. Can anyone say how much taxpayers’ money went into containing the Niger Delta violence. And who can tell how much the federal government sank into the amnesty programme which involved not just getting the fighters to lay down their arms but also to train many in professions and skills and starting them off in their new vocations?

    If it gets it right, Kaduna may be on the way to inspiring a brand new order in the country. It just might be leading everyone in the direction of solving old problems by exorcising the demons of joblessness.

  • Moses walking alone

    Moses walking alone

    The most popular football league in the world will soon witness a Nigerian raise his humble beginning with a meteoric rise to stardom, wearing the jersey number 12 at Anfield.

    Victor Moses is poised to hit the headlines, with his sublime skills and his goals that could break the 28-year duck for Merseyside giants Liverpool. The Reds haven’t won the Barclays English Premier League diadem since it started 20 years ago. But Moses’ creative instinct and whistling shots could serve as the match sticks to burn this Liverpool title hoodoo.

    Many a Chelsea fan predicts that Jose Mourinho would regret Moses’ sale when the league season comes to an end in May 2014. We all say a big Amen.

    Significantly, this Nigerian’s emergence in England smacks of pity, having been declared a refugee occasioned by the bloodshed that sacked Kaduna, including the death of his parents. But he has put those traumatic periods behind, preferring to make his mark through soccer.

    Not many were surprised that Liverpool manager Brenda Rodgers gave Moses a debut appearance because he had known the Nigerian as a kid in Chelsea’s youth squad and followed his growth while with Crystal Palace and Wigan.

    Scoring a goal on his Liverpool debut is the fillip Moses needs to roll back the years for the Reds. With this weekend’s game against Southampton at Anfield, all eyes will be on Moses. If he scores a goal and four-goal hero Sturridge doesn’t, the media will start a countdown to see if he would surpass Sturridge’s four-goal record over the four matches.

    Moses is in good hands at Anfield. He won’t be the main striker for the crunchy tackles, given Sturridge’s exploits this season. He also would be given less attention with the return of Liverpool attacking gazelle Louis Suarez from a 10-match ban for biting Chelsea’s defender Ivanovic.

    With two prolific strikers in Liverpool, cameo outings for the Reds won’t be enough to attract markers, since many of the clubs would rather hold down Suarez and Sturridge.

    It has been quite a while that a Nigerian held the English game spell bound. Recall the days of Austin Okocha and Nwankwo Kanu. Most pundits won’t forget Kanu’s sterling show at Stamford Bridge, where he scored a hat-trick to nick the game for Arsenal 3-2. That game was the beginning of Kanu’s superlative outings for many English teams.

    Okocha didn’t play for the big clubs as Kanu, but he was so good that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) twice named Jay Jay the best African player in the English game.

    A few other Nigerian stars, such as John Mikel Obi, Yakubu Aiyegbeni, Obafemi Martins, John Utaka, Joseph Yobo, Victor Anichebe and enfante terrible Osaze Odemwingie, have either played or are playing in England with credible marks that have enchanted the fans and made many a European manager crave to have young Nigerians in their teams.

    Indeed, most pundits have envisaged a naughty 2014/2015 transfer showdown between Chelsea and Liverpool, if Moses hits the mark that many are envisaging. They have foreseen a situation where Moses will insist on remaining with Liverpool and what happened between Tottenham and Real Madrid in the sale of Gareth Bale will be a child’s play. The pundits feel strongly that Mourinho made the wrong decision to loan Moses out

    Moses’ absence was felt on Wednesday night during the game against Basel FC of Switzerland as Chelsea didn’t have a player in Moses’ mould who could hold the ball in the midfield and spray the defence-splitting passes to open up the Swiss for goals.

    Moses helped Chelsea to lift the Europa Cup last season. His goals brought smiles to Chelsea fans’ faces. Rafa Benitez didn’t flinch in giving Moses a starting line-up in the Europa Cup.

    It was shocking when Mourinho declared Moses a surplus to his team’s requirement. At the pre-season, Mourinho poured plaudits on Moses. But after Nigeria beat South Africa 2-0 in Durban during the Mandela Challenge, Moses may have incurred the Portuguese’s wrath when he returned late to England from Durban. Moses has moved on, leaving Mourinho to stew in his selection mess as seen in Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to Basel in the UEFA Champions League.

    A regular first team shirt for Moses would affect his performance for Nigeria, now that qualification for the Brazil 2014 World Cup is but a piece of cake for the Super Eagles, if our players play to their strengths.

    The Eagles have the Ethiopians as their last group opponents. With a galaxy of stars such as John Mikel Obi, Emmanuel Emenike, Shola Ameobi, Ahmed Musa, Brown Ideye et al, the Eagles should bury the Ethiopians with goals over the two-legged ties.

    As for Eagles chief coach Stephen Keshi, a last fixture against Ethiopia is the icing on the cake of his efforts to rebuild the squad. Having lost the opportunity to lead Nigeria to the 2002 Japan/Korea World Cup and Togo to the Germany 2006 World Cup after securing the qualification tickets for both countries, Keshi won’t want to miss this attempt.

    It would be foolhardy to dictate what he should do. He knows what the stakes are and cannot afford to make any mistakes with his team selection and tactics.

    We only hope that the Tom Saintfiet’s racist saga doesn’t put a spanner in the works for the Big Boss. Thank God Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) eggheads participated in answering the query sent to Keshi by the Federation of International Football Federations (FIFA).

    This writer doesn’t expect any stiff sanction against Keshi, a first-time offender (that is if any harm was done, in the first instance). The lesson from the Saintfiet saga is that Keshi must henceforth be drilled on how to answer questions before he faces the media.

    Keshi must understand that mind games are meant to unsettle the opposition. It behoves on him to ignore such distractions, no matter how irritating they may be and focus on ensuring that his boys whip such coaches and their teams silly on the field.

    I was impressed with the introduction of Mikel into the Basel tie on Wednesday. It showed clearly that Mourinho didn’t have any reason to keep the Nigerian on the bench.

    The pre-match claim that Mikel was struggling with a knee injury looked like a hoax, given the way he played to help salvage at least appoint for Chelsea, which eventually became a mirage as the visitors stole away the vital three points with a 2-1 victory.

    Wanted: Official stadium for Eagles

    In other climes where there are official match venues for national teams, games such as the Nigeria versus Ethiopia tie are prosecuted with celebrations.

    Considering the fixture’s significance, FA chiefs and government officials pull all the stops to create the ambience to celebrate their stars and sponsors. The carnival setting on match days compel other sponsors to tag their products and services to the beautiful game.

    Tickets are sold out immediately the fixtures are announced. Advertisers launch new facilities to capture the audience and the overall setting forces the fans to throng the stadium in their numbers since there are compelling reasons for them to do so.

    Not so for Nigeria because of frequent changes that make it impossible for any firm to identify with our sports not just football. A classic case for a permanent venue for the Eagles is manifest with the return of the fans to watch last weekend’s Federation Cup finals.

    The fans stormed the Teslim Balogun Stadium because they liked what they saw last season. Besides, they planned ahead for the game, having known that the finals for the next three seasons would be played in Lagos. Is anyone shocked that fans hardly leave their homes to watch the Eagles play, in spite of the fact that the team is the most loved by Nigerians?

    I cannot understand the noise surrounding the likely change in venue for the final qualification game against Ethiopia.

    Much as I appreciate all the Cross River Government has done to galvanise the team to where it is today, we would be better playing against Ethiopia in Abuja because the Stadium’s setting will intimidate the Ethiopians, who may not have played before such a large crowd.

    It may be quite premature to start talking about where the team should play. But, talking about the Eagles drawing 2-2 against Guinea is bunkum because the Eagles couldn’t beat Kenya in Calabar, in the team’s first game as Africa’s champions. That draw against Kenya almost scuttled Nigeria’s quest for the ticket, until we salvaged it with an away win over the Kenyans in Nairobi.

    I will support NFF if they choose to compensate Cross River by insisting that the Eagles play in Calabar. It will be the best way of showing appreciation. But it doesn’t foreclose the need for the Eagles to have their own stadium where matches are played, reminiscent of England’s Wembley Stadium or Brazil’s Maraccana Stadium. The choice is NFF’s to make and I hope they make the wisest choice.

  • Is Kaduna about to break jobs jinx?

    At the state and federal levels, the unemployment profile is depressing. The last time he checked the statistics, Dr Christopher Kolade, chairman of the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SureP), found that over 40m Nigerians were without jobs. This figure, grossly underestimated and clearly a year or two behind current profile, does not represent everyone that is not working. Those who can work, though are not prospecting, are not included. The figure essentially, if roughly, covers those who are looking for work. Add 40m to the other undocumented segment of the jobless and you have a bustling, frustrated and angry army in our midst.

    This dismal picture is seen across the country and it worsens every year in spite of the rhetoric and best efforts of the state governors and federal authorities.

    Something good seems to be happening in Kaduna State. Reports suggest the textile industry there may come to life after it was left to decline over the years, with much of it eventually dying off. After talks with the Governor Mukhtar Yero administration, foreign investors are said to have visited the state with a view to assessing business viability and setting up shop. Textile is reported to be one crucial area of interest, although other businesses have also caught the eye of the investors. Pakistanis seem to be ahead of the Indians and Chinese in reviving comatose industries in Kaduna.

    Textile holds a lot of interest to me, too, though not as an investor, of course. The industry is a veritable employer, and therefore a problem solver. A recent report said in Kaduna, textile firms had a 300,000-strong combined workforce. That was many years ago when the population of the state was nothing to compare with the present figure. Those workers took their incomes home and sorted out many needs. As everyone knows, unsettled is the home whose bills are scarcely ever settled. And it also spills into the outer society. Brothels, I imagine, are filled with women who were once girls growing up in unsettled homes. Among the community of armed robbers I am sure you will find a good number with similar backgrounds, young men from homes whose breadwinners lost their sources of income because the firms where they worked wound down.  The causes of our jobs crisis are not difficult to determine. Nor do you have far to look before seeing why just about every state seems to be perpetually strapped to federal allocation, which in itself has created another problem of its own. There is almost as much hustle for federal cash as there is to share it, fuelling Nigeria’s most intractable problem: corruption. The drive of industry has remarkably slackened, and with it the dignity of labour. There is this thinking that every seat of government, whether local, state or federal, has some good cash to throw around and if you are smart you just might catch as much as possible. Once thriving local industries have since collapsed, giving rise to roadside entrepreneurs: mechanics, vulcanisers, battery technicians, commercial motorcyclists and tricycle operators and such other hard-working but low-earning workers. Among them, unfortunately, you will find graduates of tertiary institutions.

    One other troubling thing. Whereas Kaduna textile firms once engaged over 300,000, our universities and other tertiary institutions are reckoned to be graduating about that number every year without any hopes of jobs for them.

    If industries are revived in Kaduna it is a good thing. But politicians are difficult to follow. Sometimes the picture they project may differ from reality while what they promise may tarry interminably.

    Still, the news from Kaduna is uplifting. If the dead factories do indeed rise up again, the residents will tell new and exciting stories. Some have argued eloquently that the insurgency in the North fed directly from immediate social dislocations, including poor jobs profile in the region. I agree and I also believe that getting industries working again will make insurgency less attractive.

    What about the rest of the country? I am persuaded that each of the regions has or had its own brand of insurgency, even if by other names. But at its heart is a common economic cause. The Niger Delta question is still fresh in memory. The violence started with breaching pipelines and taking some expatriate oil workers hostage, then the scope widened, with the kidnapping of kings, grandfathers and their grand kids. While all that lasted, the economy of the region suffered as firms were locked up, some relocating to safer grounds far afield. The national economy was hurt too. Can anyone say how much taxpayers’ money went into containing the Niger Delta violence. And who can tell how much the federal government sank into the amnesty programme which involved not just getting the fighters to lay down their arms but also to train many in professions and skills and starting them off in their new vocations?

    If it gets it right, Kaduna may be on the way to inspiring a brand new order in the country. It just might be leading everyone in the direction of solving old problems by exorcising the demons of joblessness.

  • Is Kaduna about to break jobs jinx?

    At the state and federal levels, the unemployment profile is depressing. The last time he checked the statistics, Dr Christopher Kolade, chairman of the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SureP), found that over 40m Nigerians were without jobs. This figure, grossly underestimated and clearly a year or two behind current profile, does not represent everyone that is not working. Those who can work, though are not prospecting, are not included. The figure essentially, if roughly, covers those who are looking for work. Add 40m to the other undocumented segment of the jobless and you have a bustling, frustrated and angry army in our midst.

    This dismal picture is seen across the country and it worsens every year in spite of the rhetoric and best efforts of the state governors and federal authorities.

    Something good seems to be happening in Kaduna State. Reports suggest the textile industry there may come to life after it was left to decline over the years, with much of it eventually dying off. After talks with the Governor Mukhtar Yero administration, foreign investors are said to have visited the state with a view to assessing business viability and setting up shop. Textile is reported to be one crucial area of interest, although other businesses have also caught the eye of the investors. Pakistanis seem to be ahead of the Indians and Chinese in reviving comatose industries in Kaduna.

    Textile holds a lot of interest to me, too, though not as an investor, of course. The industry is a veritable employer, and therefore a problem solver. A recent report said in Kaduna, textile firms had a 300,000-strong combined workforce. That was many years ago when the population of the state was nothing to compare with the present figure. Those workers took their incomes home and sorted out many needs. As everyone knows, unsettled is the home whose bills are scarcely ever settled. And it also spills into the outer society. Brothels, I imagine, are filled with women who were once girls growing up in unsettled homes. Among the community of armed robbers I am sure you will find a good number with similar backgrounds, young men from homes whose breadwinners lost their sources of income because the firms where they worked wound down.  The causes of our jobs crisis are not difficult to determine. Nor do you have far to look before seeing why just about every state seems to be perpetually strapped to federal allocation, which in itself has created another problem of its own. There is almost as much hustle for federal cash as there is to share it, fuelling Nigeria’s most intractable problem: corruption. The drive of industry has remarkably slackened, and with it the dignity of labour. There is this thinking that every seat of government, whether local, state or federal, has some good cash to throw around and if you are smart you just might catch as much as possible. Once thriving local industries have since collapsed, giving rise to roadside entrepreneurs: mechanics, vulcanisers, battery technicians, commercial motorcyclists and tricycle operators and such other hard-working but low-earning workers. Among them, unfortunately, you will find graduates of tertiary institutions.

    One other troubling thing. Whereas Kaduna textile firms once engaged over 300,000, our universities and other tertiary institutions are reckoned to be graduating about that number every year without any hopes of jobs for them.

    If industries are revived in Kaduna it is a good thing. But politicians are difficult to follow. Sometimes the picture they project may differ from reality while what they promise may tarry interminably.

    Still, the news from Kaduna is uplifting. If the dead factories do indeed rise up again, the residents will tell new and exciting stories. Some have argued eloquently that the insurgency in the North fed directly from immediate social dislocations, including poor jobs profile in the region. I agree and I also believe that getting industries working again will make insurgency less attractive.

    What about the rest of the country? I am persuaded that each of the regions has or had its own brand of insurgency, even if by other names. But at its heart is a common economic cause. The Niger Delta question is still fresh in memory. The violence started with breaching pipelines and taking some expatriate oil workers hostage, then the scope widened, with the kidnapping of kings, grandfathers and their grand kids. While all that lasted, the economy of the region suffered as firms were locked up, some relocating to safer grounds far afield. The national economy was hurt too. Can anyone say how much taxpayers’ money went into containing the Niger Delta violence. And who can tell how much the federal government sank into the amnesty programme which involved not just getting the fighters to lay down their arms but also to train many in professions and skills and starting them off in their new vocations?

    If it gets it right, Kaduna may be on the way to inspiring a brand new order in the country. It just might be leading everyone in the direction of solving old problems by exorcising the demons of joblessness.

  • An opening

    An opening

    “The ice is melting. The door has been opened. We are inching closer. We must seize the moment.” Thus spoke Opalaba, in his new role as the Oke-Ogun oracle.

    “What is this about?”

    “From “forget about it,”we are now hearing “maybe it’s time for a national conference,” and you still don’t get it? Just weeks ago, the Number 3 citizen ruled out even the idea of a sovereign national conference because there is no constitutional provision for it. Now he sees the light and is willing not only to entertain the idea, but to give prospective organisers his blessing. On my part, I see an opening and it must be exploited and taken advantage of.”

    “That’s wonderful, my friend,” I responded. “But since when have you been excited about anything that comes out of NASS? You have always been the Cartesian skeptic. Nothing would assure you of the sincerity of purpose of our lawmakers until they deliver. So why is this case any different? Are you so sure that our Senate President doesn’t have a joker up his babaringa?”

    “More importantly” I continued, some of the best minds who have remained for more than three decades at the forefront of this issue have expressed doubt and concern concerning the genuineness and reliability of Senator David Mark’s new position. While some kicked “against a National Conference without sovereign power”, others described it as “diversionary” according to media reports. So tell me, Opalaba, what do you know that they don’t?”

    “And before you answer, there is something that I thought you are missing. In your enthusiastic response to Senator Mark’s new insight, you didn’t quite pay close attention to what he said. He still doesn’t endorse a conference with sovereign authority; the conference he endorsed is still not going to be a sovereign national conference; for him we have to settle for a national conference.”

    “You are right”, Opalaba responded. “And I am not visually handicapped. I can read and understand. I know that Senator Mark pulled back from a full endorsement of a sovereign national conference. But can’t you and your progressive friends give the man some credit? Do you know where he had been? This man is a soldier—an officer and a gentleman. Do you think it was easy for him to admit that he was not quite right just a few weeks ago? Moving from an absolute “no” to a maybe “yes” is certainly a big deal for him and it is for me an opening. The question is whether you folks will take advantage of it.”

    “What is striking to me”, Opalaba continued, “is that this born-again approach is not just coming from NASS. I read that a few weeks ago, Oronto Douglass, the influential Special Adviser to President Jonathan observed that “a we the people agreement” must “be midwifed by all Nigerians for the good of Nigeria.” Whatever you think about that statement, it appears to me to represent a rethink on the part of the President who had also ruled out an SNC.”

    “It is important to bear in mind where we came from and how we got to where we are now. The military truncated our democratic journey in 1966. They dictated to us what the norms of governance had to be for thirteen years during which period they moved us into the wilderness of unitarism. Then in 1979 they gave us a bit of a democratic respite but ensured that the unitary system wasn’t tampered with. They took back the reins of power after four short years and remained in the saddle for another fourteen years. In the circumstance, even quite a good number of the non-military folks among us have only the vaguest ideas of what a true federal system is and they need the most gentle orientation and accommodation.”

    “Furthermore”, Opalaba continued, I am aware of the polar opposites of extreme absolutes and the havoc they wreck on a political community. My way or the high way is a prescription for chaos and terrible impasse. Against the insistence of the “absolute no to SNC” there is the “absolute yes.”Between the two, nothing gets done, except for those that derive satisfaction from indefinite struggle on the rhetorical level. But the most productive politics is the one that allows for compromise. It’s how policies get made for the benefit of the people. It’s how politicians get credit for their actions.”

    “So Mr. Wiseman, what are you suggesting?” I inquired of my friend.

    “If you would know and would not think that it is below your dignity to negotiate, I see an opening for negotiation and compromise for us to have a national conference of ethnic nationalities. If my assumption is correct, by now, the leading organisations in the advocacy for a sovereign national conference have their various position papers not only on the substance but also on the procedure. The first step then is for these organisations and groups to get together, compare notes, and come up with a consensus on how to move the agenda forward.

    “My second step would be this.Once there is an agreement on the part of all the pro-national conference organisations, then they need to approach the office of the Senate President for a dialogue on how he and his team would make good on his words. I don’t agree that Senator Mark, an officer and gentleman,just threw out lines without any intention of following through. In any case, even if that was what he did, we will not know until we make the effort to reach out to him and his team. Moreover, in view of the statement attributed to Oronto Douglass, I would not leave out the Office of the President.

    “Here is the foundation of this approach. Politics is about interests and at any point in the life of politicians and the political environment that they inhabit, there are plural interests a good number of which cross and interlock in a good number of concentric circles. The loop between the circles sometimes has strange bedfellows occupying it.It is a confirmation of the famous saying that in politics, there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, just permanent interests. The idea of permanent interest is also suspect. An interest in getting elected into an office may bring two politicians together. Once and if they lose and the ticket is disbanded, that interest is rendered impotent. Therefore all along, it appears that it is a temporary interest.

    “Who knows what, in light of everything going on around him, the interest of the president is at the present time? If he has an interest in a lasting legacy that would place his name in the annals of Nigerian history, not just as a “me-too president” but as one who laid the foundation of a truly federal republic, then he might be willing to work with advocates of a national conference to get it done now. This is why I see this recent development as an opening and we must take the initiative, seize the opportunity and enter the room of negotiation and compromise now.”Thus sayeth Opalaba in his moment of reflection.

  • Big Brother’s guinea fowls (2)

    The Chase” game show, she would have become a proud recipient of a $300, 000 cash prize, organized razzmatazz, inexplicable movie roles and corporate endorsement deals. But she didn’t win. Even though she had to get naked and engage in a sexual act in the bath with fellow “inmate,” South Africa’s Angelo Collins, to the delight and revulsion of the show’s teeming audience.

    Beverly didn’t win but she emerged from the house a heroine of sort. Her mother must be proud of her; the Nigerian society too. Thus her celebration by the print, broadcast and social media. A local newspaper reports that: “Beverly Osu made history by becoming the first BBA contestant that was never nominated for eviction since the inception of the African franchise of the television series in 2003. Twenty four hours after she arrived Nigeria, the BBA ‘The Chase’ finalist, Beverly Osu (sic) was rushed to Faith City Hospital, Oju Olobun Close, off Bishop Oluwole Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. The BBA star was admitted for treatment due to a sprain ankle she suffered in the BBA house, a day to the finale…”

    Embellishments of the quoted report abound in mainstream media across the country. The message is clearly woven to arouse sympathy for Beverly, particularly amongst local moralist circuits. By endorsing her claim to celebrity status, the media confers on Beverly, the iconic image of a national heroine.

    Journalists are supposed to be aristocrats of the spirit, projectors of the just, decent and humane; not promoters, hustlers and salesmen for the high jinks and infamy of every middling creature with a narcissistic streak – yet many a Nigerian journalist opts to fulfill roles characteristic of the latter. So doing, a character like Beverly is projected as role model to millions of Nigerian youths.

    If Beverly had won, she would have become another living proof that decadence and idleness are preferable to decency and hard work. Ordinary folk’s decadent fantasies of fame, success and fulfillment would have been perpetuated and substantiated by her. Yet in her loss, these fantasies are irreverently stoked by the media, perceived moral agents who amplify reality TV’s culture of illusion and persuade us that the shadows are real.

    The contemporary media landscape has changed significantly thus affecting the nature of the press’ involvement in the construction of citizenship and cultural identities. There is no gainsaying that the Nigerian media is wholly perverted by this wave of change. The changes are evident in relevant parlances where prime time local and educational cultural content have been displaced by commercial and transnational media offerings like the BBA game show on TV. In the print media, pages that could be devoted to thrashing developmental issues and moving them to the front burner of national discourse and resolution are dedicated to promoting the agenda of international media companies like Endemol and the shenanigans of participants in its perverse entertainment and lottery offerings like the BBA.

    Consequently, BBA producers attempt to appropriate the functions of the media as societal watchdogs and moral agents – particularly the reconstruction of citizenship and cultural identity of a state and national community. The agenda of BBA isn’t quite difficult to detect. Although producers and fans of the show explain its depravity away as a realistic take and mirror of human behaviour; the Big Brother game show seeks to repudiate and destroy ancestral cultural norms and ethics of morality.

    Its mission is to desensitize its teeming audience, particularly the youth, to base urges and primal instincts that renders brutes like the stray bitch and guinea fowl the lower beasts they are. Little wonder the Big Brother game show thrives on its x-rated scenes: the shower hour and the party nights. These scenes are scripted to celebrate sexual freedom and irresponsibility but defenders of the show argue that there is no compulsion to view the scenes. Often times, they argue that since the show’s x-rated scenes are viewable only by subscription to VIP access via pay-TV, critics of the show have no justification.

    Of course such argument pales to reality: the fact that the show’s x-rated scenes and pictures are downloadable on the internet renders its apologists’ arguments invalid. As you read, impressionable minors of primary and high school ages across the country have easy access to BBA’s porn scenes.

    In the show’s recently concluded edition, Natasha, a BBA ‘inmate’ from Malawi masturbated before live audience, while having her bath. Of course she knew she was being broadcasted to millions of viewers worldwide and therefore, endeavoured to put up an excellent performance for her voyeuristic audience.

    Pan over to Beverly and Angelo; the latter who had a serious relationship with his fiancée back home in South Africa, indulged in steamy smooch sessions in the bathtub with Nigeria’s Beverly thus repudiating moral and romantic notions of love, loyalty, decency and responsibility. Sierra Leonean Bolt who was actually a husband and a father and Betty, an Ethiopian School Teacher equally put up a daring bathtub performance, similar to Beverly and Angelo’s.

    With such characters in the house, BBA’s “The Chase” successfully projected flawed and debauched characters as worthy role models for the African youth to emulate. It’s all part of a grand plot: Endemol’s Big Brother, having identified Africa as yet a virgin territory for defilement seeks to infest her with perversions from the west even as it stirs up and legitimizes similar but latent perversions that has so far being curtailed by the African continent.

    Very soon, producers BBA producers will introduce two homosexual couples – male and female – into the show. Sex between the gay couples will be used to legitimize African homosexuality and desensitize Africans towards it.

    As Okwuanya Pius rightly notes, Mary Cover Jones’ desensitization theory as adapted by Joseph Wolpe, a South African psychologist infers that when an individual or a group is desensitized towards an activity, they quickly move to another activity that will best hold their interest. He termed it “systematic desensitization.” Now that Africans, Nigerians in particular have been desensitized to voyeurism and random sex, the next stop is homosexuality and bestiality otherwise known as sex with animals perhaps. Who knows? African youths, Nigerian youths in particular, may yet revolt against established norms and demand the institution and legitimization of incest.

    Eventually, human beings become a commodity in celebrity culture. Poor, unemployed and desperate youths learn to fantasize and obsess about chancing on unearned acclaim and affluence. Beverly, in perpetuation of this reality is objectified by her performance in the BBA game show. Like every other participant in the game show, she has become an object like consumer products. But celebrities like consumer products have no intrinsic value.

    Very soon, she will be subjected to the inescapable debasement of the currency of celebrity: the impossible illusions inspired by BBA’s celebrity culture and perpetuated by the media to substantiate her glaring insignificance will soon begin to pale away. But unlike many a consumer product helplessly caught in depreciation, Beverly will beg for more. And the Nigerian media will continue to aid her simply because it’s hip, lucrative and socio-politically correct to do so. The society will be worse for it.

    To be continued…