The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Still on ‘The Faleye metaphor’

    Last week, I carried the pathetic story of a young Nigerian, Oluseun Samuel Faleye who is studying electronics and telecommunications engineering in Shenyang Aerospace University (SAU), in China, on this page. He had obtained his diploma at the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, and proceeded to the Chinese university for his degree programme. Those who read the piece last Sunday would have seen the sequence of events that led to his being stranded just about four months to the end of his degree programme. His programme ends in July; but the efforts of the last20 months in China might be in vain unless he is able to get about N1million needed to complete his course.

    As a matter of fact, the money must have increased as we speak because I gathered his visa expired at the end of last month and this means an additional N9,000 per day, since the policy in China is ‘no school fees, no visa’. This means an additional N277,500 per month until and unless he is able to pay the fees.

    This recap is necessary for two reasons: first, because of the seriousness of the matter and second, for the sake of readers who felt I should have left an account number in Nigeria where people touched by the young man’s plight could give their widow’s mite. All the contacts I gave last week were in China so that those who might want to verify the genuineness of the case could easily do so. We thank the professor who set the ball rolling by giving N100,000 to alleviate Faleye’s plight. His name and other donors will be made public at the appropriate time, unless they choose to be anonymous. You want to help? Please pay into the following account numbers: Samson Adewole Faleye, A/C No. 3027450379 First Bank, or Samson Adewole Faleye, A/C No. 0112611856, GTB. Thank you.

  • Power without control

    Things have fallen apart in the Super Eagles. Law has broken down. Paucity of cash has compelled the NFF to cut players’ bonuses, prune the team’s backroom staff and withdraw the country’s home-based Eagles from the 2014 version of the Africa Cup of Nations meant for local groomed lads.

    Many had looked forward to the two-legged ties between Nigeria and Cote d’ Ivoire, with many memories of the historic moments in late January, when the tottering Super Eagles shocked the star-studded Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire 2-1 in a quarter-finals game.

    Coach Stephen Keshi defied his employer’s request to appear before the body’s technical committee on Tuesday to defend his 2014 World Cup programme and discuss the team’s technical report for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations held in South Africa.

    But the biggest hurdle facing the Eagles is Keshi’s refusal to participate in a fence-mending meeting with his employers, occasioned by the feuding in the team, especially the ones involving the players and the coach.

    Keshi sought permission to go on holidays in California, United States, from his employers but was told in writing to wait until he had discussed his 2014 World Cup plans.

    The NFF men also felt that it was expedient that the coach submitted a technical report of how Nigeria excelled at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations to guide the federation in future competitions.

    Indeed, part of the fallout of Nigeria’s feat in South Africa was the angst from Emmanuel Emenike – and rightly so – that nobody, including the coach and the federation, bothered to find the state of his niggling knee injury, which he sustained while playing for the country.

    Emenike’s outbursts culminated in Joseph Yobo’s stinker that Keshi didn’t deem it necessary to inform him as the team’s captain that he won’t be invited for the March 29 World Cup qualifier in Calabar.

    In fact Yobo chose the media to condemn Keshi’s action. Sports Minister Bolaji Abdullahi was worried. He talked with Yobo on telephone to stop the bickering.

    The minister immediately directed the NFF to wade into the matter, among other issues, so that it doesn’t jeopardise the country’s quest for the Brazil 2014 World Cup ticket.

    Keshi responded to his employer’s request for his 2014 World Cup programme by releasing a 30-man squad for the exercise in which the team would play over four games June.

    The coach, however, left the country without permission, shunning all entreaties from friends that he should attend the Tuesday session with his employers.

    Keshi informed his friends that he had booked his flight and would love to see his family in California. Couldn’t Keshi have rescheduled his trip? After all, it is NFF that would provide the cash for the re-issuance. Or is it NFF’s duty to refund the money spent on the trip when he returns?

    What does Keshi’s contract say on vacation?. This writer was informed by NFF eggheads that Keshi is entitled to 14 days annual leave. But he must notify the federation with a letter. He can only proceed on such a vacation when he gets the body’s approval. Did Keshi get his employer’s permission? We are told that he didn’t. Many have asked why he left the country without permission. Could it be that he now has new bosses?

    Yet, the more fundamental issues are: Was it wrong for NFF to have invited Keshi to defend his 2014 World Cup programme? Is it not about time Keshi submitted the technical report of a competition which ended on February 10 – 62 days after AFCON held? Is it an offence for the NFF to intervene in matters concerning the Eagles, especially as it affects the coach and the players? Or was intervene in matters concerning the Eagles, especially as it affects the coach and the players? Or was Keshi expecting the NFF to watch the players use foul language on their boss in the media?

    Clearly, Keshi is superior to the NFF – if he can brazenly ignore their directive. Even though they are his employers, he is not obliged to do their mandate, if it conflicts with his personal plans. Put simply, Keshi is bigger than Nigeria, since NFF is the face of the country in the global football space. What a pity!

    What we have on our hands is a man who wants power without control. Keshi wants to sit in judgment over his players without qualms, yet does not want to subject himself to any form of supervision.

    This oddity can only happen in Nigeria because we treat serious issues with levity. When we even decide to take any action, we allow sentiments to rule our sense of judgment. We opt for political solutions to crises and everyone is a winner, instead of wielding the stick against offenders.

    Would we sweep under the carpet this disobedient act on the altar of not wanting to rock the boat like we did with the resignation saga in South Africa? Can’t we see that we are the laughing stock?

    If this were done elsewhere, the coach would have been fired. Or is a superior body granting the coach his requests and making the NFF look like Lilliputians?

    How does Keshi expect the players to respect him when he disregards his employers? Respect begets respect. He needs to know that the players are watching. Who can stop this sickening trend?

    Technical director job

    Nigerian coaches never cease to amaze me. They swallow their pride and munch their vomit with relish. In doing so, they say that their people pleaded with them to go for the job as patriots.

    I’ve been pinching myself to find out if any of the five coaches who attended the technical director’s job session would deny the story.

    Instead, we are being told that Shauibu Amodu has nicked the job with Kashimawo Laloko and James Peters playing other key roles in the technical department.

    These three coaches (Amodu, Laloko and Peters) are eminently qualified for the job. But it is the acrimonious manner in which they left previous jobs with the NFF that has set me thinking. Would they have any moral right to complain about anything when it isn’t forthcoming?

    I hope they are ready to weather through the body’s shortcomings and face the job of getting the country a template that will see our national teams play in a distinct Nigeria way, like we see with the Dutch, the Brazilians, the Germans, the Spaniards, the English etc.

    Laloko is not a new man with grassroots soccer development. He knows his onions. But what happens to his Soccer Academy? Will he leave the kids with his lieutenants? We will wait and see.

    For Amodu, his running battles with our sports administrators are legendary. An achiever, Amodu, like Laloko, dislikes being dictated to. Again, what will become of the youth soccer academy, which he started in Edo State?

    Perhaps, both men have seen that they need to be at the NFF to integrate their programmes into the national sphere. One hopes that they can use this platform to unify all the soccer academies in the country.

    They should insist on the true ages of the talents discovered at the grassroots. We need to see age-grade competitions as developmental programmes and not one on which we must win.

    Age grade tournaments should be the platform to expose talents discovered at the grassroots. Each time Nigeria fields over-aged men as school boys they inadvertently release these kids into the world of crime.

    Clap for Yobo, Mikel, Moses

    Nigerians have something to look out for in the semi-finals of the 2012/2013 Europa Cup competition.

    We may also watch Joseph Yobo, John Mikel Obi and Victor Moses play against each other, if Chelsea overcomes Basel and Fenerbache beats Benfica in the tow semi-final matches.

    Moses and Mikel play for Chelsea while Yobo plays for Fenerbache. It is good to know that our stars are playing in the big competitions in Europe. We hope that they can play for the Eagles with the same spirit and commitment they exhibit for their clubs.

    One only hopes that Eagles chief coach Stephen Keshi attends both semi-final matches which would be played on different dates. He would have four opportunities to watch at least two of his key players. He could also do a re-think, when he watches Yobo, especially now that he is fully fit.

    A Chelsea versus Fenerbache final is my take although this prediction could go awry. As a consolation, I want one of the teams where Nigerians play for to qualify for the finals and lift the trophy.

  • Boko Haram: The problem with amnesty

    Boko Haram: The problem with amnesty

    Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. At moments like this I do not envy President Goodluck Jonathan. Leadership demands tough decisions and choices. And the buck stops on his table particularly in our presidential system of government. There have been persistent calls in recent times across partisan and sectional divides that the Boko Haram insurgents that have killed thousands, maimed thousands more and spread blood, tears and sorrow across the North and beyond over the last two years be pardoned or granted amnesty. Many of those making the case for amnesty mean well. They contend that the military offensive against the terrorist group is not working. Rather, the Joint Task Force is alienating host communities by killing and molesting innocent civilians whenever soldiers are killed. Advocates of amnesty want peace and restoration of normalcy at all costs. It is difficult to blame them. The economy of the North has virtually been paralysed. Poverty has deepened. Fear reigns supreme. Furthermore, the precedence of the Niger Delta is cited. There, militant insurgents that waged war against oil installations and almost crippled the Nigerian economy were granted a general amnesty by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. If peace could be bought in the Niger Delta, why not in the North?

    Unfortunately, President Jonathan seems unable to make up his mind on how to handle the Boko Haram challenge. He angered many Nigerians, especially Christians, when he suggested last year that Boko Haram members are our fellow brothers and dialogue with the sect should not be ruled out. Many people felt they could do without such murderous brothers. During his last visit to Borno and Yobe states, the President talked tough by declaring that his government could not negotiate with ghosts. Yet, so shortly after, it has been reported that the same President has now set up a committee to consider the possibility and modality of granting a general amnesty to the Boko Haram sect. President Jonathan does not appear to be showing leadership on this matter. He is simply bowing to whatever is the latest conventional wisdom. The President ought to be aware that the primary constitutional responsibility of the state is to maintain the security and promote the welfare of its citizens. People must first be alive before they can work, worship, pursue leisure or do any other thing.

    Those who predicate amnesty for Boko Haram on the Niger Delta precedent make a serious error. The so-called Niger Delta amnesty has not solved the fundamental problems of the region. It has only postponed the evil day. Yes, a few ex-militants have become emergency billionaires. Thousands of ex-militants are practically being bribed to maintain peace in the region so that the country can continue to exploit and export the crude oil without which she cannot survive. The Niger Delta amnesty has become a huge scam spawning the political economy of primitive accumulation – massive corruption. The arrangement is clearly unsustainable. Recurrent violent demonstrations by other militants left out of the deal make this so clear. The problems of environmental despoliation and desperate poverty remain as glaring as ever in the Niger Delta even if certain Ijaw elite that form part of Jonathan’s inner circle are enjoying the time of their lives.

    In any case, as many analysts have rightly pointed out, the Niger Delta insurgency was qualitatively different from the ongoing Boko Haram carnage. The Niger Delta struggle was about the damage done to the environment due to oil exploration as well as the unacceptable level of poverty in the region. Oil facilities and workers in oil companies were the prime targets of attack. There were no generalized, indiscriminate massacres like that being perpetrated by Boko Haram. This then is the basic problem with any proposition of amnesty for Boko Haram. What exactly is the fundamental grievance of the group? To the best of my knowledge, their objective is the Islamisation of northern Nigeria. Now, Nigeria is a multi-religious society. The constitutionally guaranteed secularity of the state is a necessary condition for peaceful co-existence in any such society. Nigeria’s secularity is thus non-negotiable. How then do you even begin to negotiate with a group whose primary objective is the erosion of that very secularity?

    Beyond this, members of Boko Haram have shown no remorse for the thousands of innocent lives they have wasted. A splinter group that hinted that it was prepared to negotiate some time ago gave no intimations of regret at the mindless killings perpetrated by the group. Is it thus any wonder that the leader of the group, AbubakarShekau, has been quoted in an audio recording as pointedly saying that “Surprisingly, the Nigerian government is talking about granting us amnesty? What wrong have we done? On the contrary, it is we that should grant you a pardon.” Really, can you fault his logic? Boko Haram has not conceded to doing any wrong. In fact its misguided members believe they are fighting a righteous cause. How then can you pardon a group that believes it is the wronged party?

    There is no doubt that the Niger Delta amnesty emboldened Boko Haram to believe that it could forcefully wrest concessions from the Nigerian state through terror. Let us not forget that the defining essence of any state is its legitimate monopoly of the techniques and instruments of violence within a given jurisdiction. Once this monopoly can be successfully challenged by rival groups the “stateness” of the state is irreparably devalued. Many of those who make the case for amnesty contend that the military option is not working. This implies that the Nigerian state must negotiate with Boko Haram from a position of weakness because of a perceived imminent military defeat. What this will do is only to encourage other groups to adopt violent methods in dealing with a Nigerian state perceived as lacking in efficacy to secure its territory.

    Of course, I agree that individual members of Boko Haram who overcome their delusions and voluntarily give up their ways of terror should be pardoned. This could encourage more members of the group to come out of the shadows and live decently among civilized communities. However, the entire Boko Haram tragedy only illustrates the urgency for more drastically addressing the fundamental problems of the Nigerian state. For instance, the need to convene a national conference has become imperative. If at such a conference, for instance, the majority of the people in any state or region opt for sharia law, they should be allowed to have their way. Those whose religious beliefs are incompatible with such a law should simply relocate to areas where they can practice their faiths without hindrance. Again, it is obvious that the present over centralized, unitary security structure is ill-suited to a federal society like ours. It is time to decentralize the Nigerian police force through the creation of state police. If states have their own police outfits comprising officers and men from the local communities, they will be in a better position to detect and prevent criminal activities including terrorism. For, contrary to President Jonathan’s claims, Boko Haram members are not ghosts. They live among human communities. Ghosts do not detonate bombs and crush innocent lives.

    Ironically, it is the elite of the north, the region which is most negatively affected by the current malformed structure of Nigeria, that are most vehemently opposed to these necessary measures! Currently, a huge chunk of the country’s budgetary resources is being expended on security with little positive impact on effectively protecting lives and property. The prevalent insecurity across the country has obviously only become another ready source of corrupt capital accumulation by unscrupulous officials. With fundamental decentralization of powers, resources and responsibilities to the component parts of the country, there will be more money available at the grassroots to address the poverty and inequality that, in the final analysis, lies at the root of the Boko Haram menace.

  • Leaders, justice and legacies

    Leaders, justice and legacies

    I use anecdotes and personalities to dilate on the topic of today. I start with the premise that leaders in what ever walks of life must aim to be just and fair in whatever endeavour they pursue, and their legacies must be measured by that immutable yard stick, at all times and in all seasons. Let me state that the death of the Iron Lady of Britain Baroness Margaret Thatcher this week provided the prodding for a topic of this nature. Secondly an interview I read about former Commonwealth Secretary General Emeka Anyaoku who turned 80 recently provided another impetus. Thirdly a lecture I attended last Tuesday at the prestigious Island Club, given by the Governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, together with the news of the cleaning of the Augean stable of our judiciary by the helmsman of the system, the Chief Justice of Nigeria Justice Mariam Alooma Mouktar came in to complete the jigsaw puzzle on this topic. My approach to this analysis will include making passing comments and in some cases leaving hanging statements to enable readers to reach their own conclusions.

    Starting with Baroness Margaret Thatcher – 1925 – 2013 – there is no doubt that a great woman of substance has passed on. The time of her death however deserves some comments even more than her legacies, which are monumental and historical. She has died during the tenure of her party -the Conservative Party, leading a coalition government, and as such British PM David Cameron will be the best chief mourner Thatcher could have wished for. Thatcher’s main legacy economically was that her policies on privatisation, free market economy and cutting the powers of trade unions on strikes were not changed but adopted by her successor opposition Labour Party government under Tony Blair. In diplomacy her main achievement was in collaborating with Ronald Reagan in bringing down the communist rule and hegemony of the former USSR under Gorbachev. Thatcher visited the Soviet Union and declared that she could ‘do business’ with the new Soviet leader and that business was giving freedom to the 15 former Soviet States to go their separate ways .In this regard Eastern Europeans loved her just as Argentines hated her for launching an armada across the world to defeat the Argentina over the Falklands Islands . For her feat, the Argentines tried and sent to jail the military president who led them during the Falklands war – General Galtieri for taking Argentina to war unprepared . Although one could say Thatcher could not have died at a better time some, would say she couldn’t have died at a worse time. If you saw in recent times, the riots in European capitals in the euro zone, offshoots of the adoption of Thatcherism in these European nations –Portugal, Ireland. Greece and Spain – the PIGS nations of the EU- then you could say that Thatcher has died while her legacy of Thatcherism is in tatters in Europe and has led to the London riots in recent times.

    That would explain why some people were reportedly celebrating her death in Glasgow, Bristol and London and were reported to have said rather cruelly that she should be buried in private, but they would like to know her grave, so that they can go and dance on it. In addition, the Argentines may have had the last laugh as the new Pope in the Vatican is one of them and Pope Francis has already used the word Malvinas, Argentina’s name for the Falklands, to refer to the Falklands, much to the chagrin and consternation of the British who have not invited Argentina’s President Katherine Katchener to Thatcher’s elaborate burial on April 17. All the same, I think Thatcher has earned her ceremonial burial and her chequered place in British history and this is shown by the fact that the Queen will be attending the funeral, only the second of such Her Majesty will be attending, since the funeral of the great Winston Churchill, Britain’s war time PM. Personally, even though I disagree with some of Thatcher’s anti welfare policies I cannot but admire her leadership credentials of firmness, focus, guts and grit no matter how grudgingly I give that admiration or salute. May her great soul rest in peace Amen.

    As I was pondering on the Emeka Anyaoku interview, I heard the radio news that the Lagos State government of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola has named a new housing estat, the Millenium Estate after the former Commonwealth DG. Really I do not think that has stolen my thunder on the contents of that interview. In the interview Chief Anyaoku narrated how he was able to remain the Commonwealth DG after Nigeria was suspended when the late General Sanni Abacha killed Tsaro Wiwa and co in spite of late appeals from world leaders including the great Nelson Mandela. He was also able to show how he resigned from the Nigerian diplomatic service during the civil war in protest against the pogrom during the civil war and he was still able to keep his job as a Nigerian diplomat working at the Commonwealth Secretariat. After the civil war he came over to the Nigerian side to help with the Gowon’s post war 3Rs of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation and again he was able when asked why he did not support the Nigeria war effort to insist that he could not do so because of the pogrom against his people.

    I state these events to show the leadership virtues of fairness, justice and respect for human dignity inherent in this distinguished diplomat’s actions while in office in spite of great constraints and challenges of his posting and office In addition Chief Anyaoku identified the present problems facing Nigeria as first the high cost of running our government involving 36 states, 36 bureaucracies and 36 legislatures leading to our spending 75% of our resources and revenue as running costs. The second he called negative politics in which people go to politics not to serve but to enrich themselves. The third problem he traced to the failure of our federal system due to military intervention and the foistering or imposition of the military’s unitary command structure and line of command on our federal constitution.

    To me what the distinguished Nigerian diplomat is saying is that we have been running a federation with weak states and a strong center which is more like a unitary state and is anything but a federal system which can not lead to growth and prosperity of the federating units. This however is in sharp contrast to the position taken by the Oyo State Governor Senator Abiola Ajimobi in his brilliant Business Lecture at the Island Club last Tuesday . The Governor held the view that the 36 states provide opportunities for development and investment at the grassroots for the three tiers of government. This to me tallied with what the Governor of Oshun State Ogbeni Aregbesola said at a different forum that the ACN states will use the needs of the people they govern to drive economic growth. Governor Ajimobi went on to say that the ACN states are driven by efficiency and effectiveness in contrast to the large and unwieldy size of the ruling party which lacked both virtues. The Oyo State governor then highlighted the challenges of state development in our federalism which included the lopsided revenue allocation formula which gives the FGN 52.8 % of revenue and the 36 states 26.72% and 774 local governments share 20%; the delineation of responsibilities in the Concurrent and Legislative Lists. According to the governor, the FGN controls 68 legislative items under the Exclusive List and shares 24 with State governments on the Concurrent List; and the issue of security being ceded to the FGN as well as agriculture and the Land Use Act which he criticized.

    However it was in the manner of the delivery of his lecture that the Oyo State governor stole the heart of his audience. He displayed great mastery of the subject and even during the Question and Answer session that I anchored, he was witty, and quite knowledgeable in the simple and disarming way he answered questions . Indeed when the question was put that Nigerian politicians are lawless he was able to react that the masses benefit more from politicians than soldiers in that politicians distribute the largesse of office, whilst soldiers in government hoard the national patrimony to their family. He blamed Military intervention for the pervading culture of corruption in the nation and noted that the politicians must keep shouting wolf when even there is none at least to keep the military at bay and avert military intervention by all means. He then went on to market the achievements of his government in Oyo State which was quite easy and effortless on his part as he was an oil Marketing Guru before he went into politics.

    Lastly the news that Nigeria’s first female Chief Justice has given the red card to fraudulent judges has shown that the Nigerian judicial system is determined to play its role as expected in our constitution. Indeed I recall that the statue of justice is that of a blindfolded woman wielding a sword to show that justice will be done blindly and without favors, no matter whose horse is gored. To me Justice Alooma Mouktar is a ‘Daniel Come to Judgement ‘as in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, when the young lady lawyer asked the wicked Shylock to take his pound of flesh without the loss of any pint of Blood from his hapless debtor. The Nigerian CJN has reportedly said that any judge found to have given a biased judgement will face the full wrath of the law. Already she has set up 23 Committees to investigate allegations of judicial malfeseance against as many judges. She has said that judges will be judged on their performance by the report of the Performance and Evaluation Report set up by the National Judicial Council. Especially, judges who are found guilty of selling judgements will be shown the exit, disgracefully from the judiciary.

    What this boils down to is that Nigeria is now about to experience real rule of law. For when judges dispense justice impartially, according to the law, the citizens feel safe and confident to seek redress from the courts as expected in an effective democracy where the courts are the final arbiter in any disputes in the polity. This has a way of stabilizing any political system and Nigeria cannot afford to be an exception. In a nation being terrorized in the North by Boko Haram for whom the Northern leaders have asked for amnesty – which the leadership of Boko Haram has rejected, saying it has done nothing wrong and that it should be asked to give pardon instead to the Nigerian state for killing its members, a just and honest judiciary is an urgent and much needed institutional relief to adjudicate on issues of amnesty and terrorism and give direction to avert the present trend and drift towards political mischief, confusion and anarchy in our governance structure. Justice Alooma Mouktar has my support and admiration and she reminds me again of the late Margaret Thatcher and I wish her all the best in the daunting and salutary goal she has set herself of purging corruption in our temple of justice as the Iron Lady of the Nigerian judiciary. For the sake of the Nigerian nation and all of us I say – Best of luck, Iron Lady , God Speed and Protection Amen.

  • Still a country on the brink of jagajaga

    Still a country on the brink of jagajaga

    I am not a big fan of the Nigerian hip hop artiste, Eedris Abdulkareem. Not even in his very active days as a musician in the 1990s and early part of the millennium. That was the period before his infamous clash with the Grammy Award-winning American rapper, 50 Cent, during the Star Mega Jam, a musical concert sponsored by Nigerian Breweries in 2004, after which his profile as one of the leading Nigerian artistes began to dip.

    Before then, he had released one of his popular songs, Nigeria Jagajaga, an onomatopoeic reference to the unruly and disorderly nature of the Nigerian society. But the song drew the ire of the then Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, who publicly hit back at Eedris for showing lack of faith in the future of his own country. If any jagajaga place ever existed, Obasanjo argued, it was not Nigeria, but Eedris’s father’s house!

    It is more than a decade since the song was released, but the echoes of jagajaga seem to assume higher decibel with each passing year, in spite of Obasanjo’s swipe at Eedris. To Obasanjo and other impenitent patriots, Eedris’s song bordered on blasphemy and gross lack of patriotism. But the more rational of our countrymen have argued that patriotic acts do not occur in a vacuum. In other words, the extent to which the average citizen is patriotic is reciprocal to how much the nation itself cares about the citizen. To this category of Nigerians, among whom I count myself, the famous saying of the former American president, John F. Kennedy, that Americans should think what they can do for their country and not what their country can do for them would have attracted missiles and not applause if the Nigerian condition had prevailed in America when he pronounced those words.

    The experience we have had with our successive leaders is that they continuously ask us to sacrifice our sweat and blood for the nation’s growth, while they themselves feed fat on the populace and complacently flaunt their ill-gotten wealth. They eat free food, ride free cars, use free fuel, consume free electricity, earn huge salaries and still pilfer the public purse, while the tailor, the barber, the welder and other artisans whose lives depend on electricity are starved of same and are made to pay for fuel through their noses.

    During the Obasanjo administration between 1999 and 2003, Nigerians had to contend with increased pump price of fuel seven times. From N20 per litre when he assumed office as president in 1999, the pump price of petrol had risen to N70 by the time he left in 2007. Yet there was nothing to show for the hikes in the pump price of fuel in terms of infrastructure and social amenities. The roads remained the death traps they had always been, the hospitals remained mere consulting clinics, the water taps ran dry, while the government agency saddled with the supply of electricity dispensed darkness in spite of the whopping $16 billion the administration sunk into the power sector.

    Unfortunately, the Jonathan administration has continued in the same path. While his immediate predecessor, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua, reversed the price of fuel from N70 to N65, President Goodluck Jonathan on January 1 last year raised petrol price to N97. And the regime is now threatening to completely remove the purported subsidy on fuel, a decision that would see the ordinary citizen paying more than N200 for a litre of petrol. The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had told Nigerians who in January last year massively protested against the nocturnal increase of fuel price from N65 to N97 per litre that by the middle of last year the government would have so much transformed their lives with the extra income from the new fuel price that they themselves would clamour for complete removal of subsidy. But almost one and a half years after, the good life Okonjo-Iweala promised Nigerians through her SURE-P programme remains a pipe dream.

    The frustrations resulting from the foregoing have turned Nigeria into a haven of crime and breeding ground for criminals. So much so that all the features of the state of nature painted by the 16th Century British philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, prevail in profuse abundance in 21st Century Nigeria. The state of nature, according to Hobbes, was one that prevailed before the institution of government. It was a state devoid of law and order, where survival was for the fittest and the life of man was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

    Now, what further evidence of jagajaga does one need from a country where the tell-tale signs of the Hobbesian state are all too evident; a country whose citizens walk the streets in utter trepidation for fear that the next bomb could explode at any point; a country where the president has conceded a part to terror gangs and would have to be pressured by the opposition and guarded by 3,000 heavily armed policemen to contemplate a visit in two years; a country where convicted pilferers of the public purse are feted with state pardon and may soon enjoy national contrition in addition?

    Greed and avarice, two features of a disorderly society, cling to our leaders like the pincers of a lobster. They seek to make the most of personal gain from the ugliest of situations, thinking nothing of the public good. That partly explains why it has been difficult for our security agents to check the activities of militant groups that have turned the nation into a den of vampires. A police friend told me, for instance, that one of the reasons the Boko Haram insurgency has been difficult to check is that the security agencies now enjoy more than three times the sums allocated to them before the Boko Haram insurgency and would do anything to ensure that the largesse does not cease any time soon. In fact, the police friend swore that some officers would be willing to start their own version of Boko Haram if the sect decides to observe a ceasefire.

    In the face of current realities, I wonder if Obasanjo, even with his overarching patriotism, would still take as much offence to Eedris’s song as he did a decade ago. Security is virtually at zero level, and like Evangelist Ebenezer Obey once sang, death has become two per penny. What becomes of ordinary mortals when soldiers, policemen and others in whose hands we entrust our security are being cheaply eliminated by hoodlums? Our country is certainly on the brink of jagajaga if it has not become a jagajaga country. God forgive Nigeria.

  • Poverty: Alleviation or prevention?

    Poverty: Alleviation or prevention?

    ‘In Islam, it is forbidden to live permanently on begging. Only necessity should force a Muslim into begging and such necessity must be temporary. As soon as the problem that leads to it is solved, begging in whatever form, must stop. Any further begging thereafter is an abomination’

    “I shall pass through this world but once; if, therefore, there is any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being,

    let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it; for I may not pass this way again”.

    Little things that turn out to form the particles of greatness in human life do not necessarily emanate from men or women with silver spoon in the mouth. Greatness is neither by birth nor by heritage. No notable Prophet of Allah, whether Ibrahim (Abraham) or Musa (Moses) or Isa (Jesus) or Muhammad (SAW) was born great in the temporal sense.

    Yet all of those Prophets personify greatness in all its ramifications. History bears testimony to this.

    Perhaps the above quoted poem motivated an unassuming woman of substance to initiate a poverty alleviation foundation called in 2009.

    She is Dr. (Mrs) Lateefah Moyosore Durosinmi, a Senior Lecturer of Chemistry who is also the current Dean of Student Affairs, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Coming from a humble background this indefatigable woman’s topmost aspiration has consistently been how to show meaningful appreciation to the Almighty Allah over His bountiful blessings for her in life. The opportunity for making that aspiration a reality came in 2009 when she turned 50 and was incidentally elected the National President (Amirah) of the Federation of Muslim Women Associations of Nigeria (FOMWAN) that same year. Rather than celebrate her birthday with fanfare in typical Nigerian style, she chose a rare

    noble course that could assist her to leave a footprint on the sands of time.

    Some of her colleagues, friends and well-wishers who had always admired her exemplary humaneness and humility rallied round her to ensure that her golden wish of gratifying Allah was fulfilled. That

    wish was translated into a book entitled ‘Women, Islam and Current

    Issues in Development’ to which those who value knowledge and intellectualism contributed. The book jointly edited by Dr. Wole Abbas of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Ibadan and Barr. Jade Muhammad, a Principal Lecturer at the Federal Polytechnic, Ede, Osun State, was publicly presented and the proceeds there from were dedicated to the establishment of a foundation. The name of the foundation is Lateefah Moyosore Durosinmi (LMD) Foundation. Its objective of was to assist the less privileged people, especially among women and children in laying hopeful stepping stones for them in their life’s odyssey.

    The Foundation has a Board of Trustees (BOT) consisting of the following eminent personalities who are well familiar with the grassroots people: Fatimah Abdul Kareem, a Professor of Morbid Anatomy, University of Lagos (Chair); Muiz O. Durosinmi, a Professor of Dermatology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (member); Dr. Lateefah M. Durosinmi (founder and member); Dr. Wole Abbas, Senior Lecturer, Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Ibadan (member); Barrister Jade Muhammad, Senior Lecturer, Federal Polytechnic, Ede, Osun State; Dr. Sururah Apinke Bello, Lecturer, Computer Engineering Department, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (Secretary).

    The Foundation also has an Executive Committee which consists of the following people: Dr. Lateefah Durosinmi (Chairman); Barrister Jade Muhammad (member); Alhaji Abdul Rahman Balogun (member); Mrs. Misturah Sanusi (member) Mrs. Misturah Sanni, Lecturer, Computer Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, (member); Dr. Rafiah Oluwatosin Lawal (nee Durosinmi) and Dr. Sururah Bello (Secretary).

    The first presentation of such assistance to the beneficiaries came up in 2012 at Ile-Ife, Osun State, where 50 indigent primary school pupils were aided with educational materials ranging from text and exercise books to complete school uniforms and some cash sums. It was a great delight to the parents of those pupils most of whom could no longer cope with the provisions needed by their children despite the free education policy of the government.

    The second presentation came up on Monday, April 1, 2013 at ‘FOMWAN HOUSE’ in Akobo area of Ibadan. The beneficiaries this time were 24 mainly underprivileged Muslim women from Ogun, Osun and Oyo States who were financially aided with various cash sums. The number was in accordance with the applications received by the Foundation. And yours sincerely was invited as Guest Lecturer at the occasion. The theme of the lecture was ‘Concept of Poverty Alleviation in Islam (with references to Islamic history’).

    In the lecture, I queried the word ‘ALLEVIATION’ which I had always perceived as unnecessarily political because it was the coinage of the ruling class used to deceive the poor masses in the society. I insisted that the word PREVENTION ought to have been used instead of ALLEVIATION as it was better to prevent poverty than to alleviate it.

    I then told the audience that once you allow poverty into your life it becomes very difficult if not impossible to alleviate it because poverty is like virus which forages all organs of the body. The more you try to curb it in one part of the body the stronger it waxes in other parts. I pointed out that it was wrong to limit poverty to lack of possession of money or material substances alone and classified poverty as physical, mental, spiritual, psychological and material. If a person is lacking in health or in spirit or in contentment or in conscience or in morals he can be said to be poor and no amount of money he possesses can rescue him. But since the focus of today’s world is money along with material substances, it may become necessary

    to examine the causes of material poverty.

    CAUSES:

    Material poverty is caused by a variety of issues and circumstances some of which can be enumerated as follows: (1) natural disasters like flood, drought, famine and epidemics (2) government policies like demolition, inflationary measures (e.g. increase in fuel price and power tariff), relocation or change of environment as well as prohibition of sale of certain products or banning of their importation (3) weather variation such as excessive of rainfalls or unexpectedly prolonged dry season or devastating dunes (4) self-enticed poverty like war, extravagancy, ostentation and prodigality. Of all these causes, none is as biting as self-enticed poverty which is particularly rampant among Nigerian women who must wear the latest fashionable dresses in vogue at all costs and celebrate birthdays and funerals with borrowed money. And after spending so much on such unnecessary trivialities, some necessities of life will surface at a time when the wherewithal would have been exhausted thereby pushing the concerned person into the market of borrowing and indebtedness.

    Women are also the ones who must celebrate their children’s birthdays every year with pump and pageantry thereby showing those children how to spend money without showing them how to make money. Thus, by the time such children grow up into men and women they would have become so much accustomed to spending spree that working for the money being spent would look like an aberration. As a result, poverty will set in and they will embark on stylish begging in the name of poverty alleviation.

    Every living thing created by Allah is endowed with sustaining wealth which is called talent. One man’s wealth may be his mouth (e.g. comedian), another man’s wealth may be his legs (e.g. footballer).

    There is no human being or animal or even plant without an endowed wealth. The duty of identifying such wealth and utilising it to one’s advantage is then left to every individual.

    In Islam, it is forbidden to live permanently on begging. Only necessity should force a Muslim into begging and such necessity must be temporary. As soon as the problem that leads to it is solved, begging in whatever form, must stop. Any further begging thereafter is an abomination. Even the institution of Zakah which is a whole pillar of Islam was introduced for the purpose of solving immediate problems for the poor, the indigents and the needy. No Muslim except an ally of Satan will take begging for a permanent job.

    A poor man once approached Prophet Muhammad (SAW) seeking his financial assistance to enable him and his family feed that day. He told the Prophet that he had nothing at home with which to feed his wife and children. The Prophet then asked whether he had anything in his house that could be sold to enable him and his family feed for the day. In response, he said there was nothing. Then the Prophet pressurised him to think of anything in his house that he could sell.

    The man then remembered a small bowl made of bronze which someone had given him several years back. He, however, told the Prophet that no one would want to buy it because it was useless. The Prophet told him to go and bring it. When he came back with the bowl, the Prophet took it from him and sought from his companions if anyone of them could pay for it. Sensing that the Prophet had reason for putting the bowl up for sale, one the companions volunteered to buy it for only one Dirham. The Prophet further sought to know if someone else could pay more for it. And another companion volunteered to pay two Dirham.

    Then, the Prophet took the money and handed over the bowl to the buyer while he gave the money to the owner of the bowl instructing him to spend only one Dirham on food and the remaining one Dirham to purchase an axe.

    The poor man rushed home and returned later with an axe as instructed by the Prophet. Then the Prophet told him to use the axe to fetch firewood and sell it so that he could use the money realised from it to feed his family the following day. The man followed the Prophet’s instruction scrupulously and after one week he returned with a better dress and informed the Prophet that he had been making 15 Dirham every day and therefore had no more problems feeding his family. There and then, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) came up with the Hadith that says: “the upper hands are always better than the lower hands” meaning that the giving hands are better blessed by Allah than the receiving hands. (This Hadith was related by Abu Huraira).

    The wisdom in the above Hadith is not just about dignity of labour but also about self-esteem in feeding from one’s sweat. This is the wisdom which Dr. Lateefah Durosinmi intends to inject the poor Muslim women who will be benefitting from her philanthropic largess some of whom were granted interest-free loan. The objective is to let those women know that it is far more dignifying to sell coal, firewood or sachet water to earn a living than to depend on begging for survival.

    If about one thousand other privileged Muslim women in the Southwest Nigeria could embark on a similar rewarding venture, surely, a reduction of poverty in this region would have become manifest by now.

    The book that led to the establishment of LMD Foundation is still available for purchase by any good-hearted person who may wish to support the foundation in one way or another.

    “Who shares his life’s pure pleasure and walks the honest road; who trades with heaping measure and lifts his brother’s load; who turns the wrong down bluntly and lends the right a hand; he dwells in God’s own country and tills the Holy land”. Dr. Lateefah has done this much.

    We are witnesses. She deserves encouragement from all those who want to join in sharing the bounties of Allah with her.

    The role of Zakah in poverty prevention and alleviation as well as the general misconception about Nisab which has turned many potential Zakah payers into Zakah recipients will soon be discussed in this column in sha’Allah.

    Erratum

    A verse of the Qur’an about the devastating effect of imperialists’ intrusion into a territory as discussed in this column last week was inadvertently misquoted as Chapter 12 verse….. instead of Chapter 27 verse 34. My attention was drawn to this by General Abdus-Salam of Nigerian Army. I pray Allah to reward him abundantly.

  • We are very bad people (3)

    We are very bad people (3)

    Someday, death will become more than an unexplainable mystery to the incumbent ruling class. Every public officer will die; their family members too. Despite their inhumanity, they are human after all. They breathe and bleed just like we do. At their demise, they shall discover what manner of life they deserve in the afterlife. They shall find that money and rank they covet are useless after the last howl had fallen silent, at their funeral. They shall learn that currency-activated prayers their clerics hoist above them shall serve like raincoats under a blitz of cannon balls, at the end.

    In the wake of their demise, how shall they be remembered? How do we remember men who summon our joys to harness it with a sable bind? Shall we remember them with rage and rant? Shall we wish they burn in the earth, like splinters of wood fed into the hearth to spite the fire? Shall we wish that they lie in plagued repose low down with the worm and ant?

    How shall we be remembered? How shall posterity remember the ones who have perfected the art of letting their voices trail off in confusion at decision time? What will our children think of our desperation to keep the worst of our kind in power? What pantheons or dungeons shall we inhabit in the annals of Nigerian politics?

    The troubles of our world are unwieldy like a storm. By our perversions, we impregnate and corrupt history and civilization 53-years old. Great evil lies in you and me, and by our perpetuation of it, we make history the way of the diabolic that decapitates his newborn to satisfy his hunger pangs. Too many threads of heedlessness, woven of gluttony and lust, of racism and fear, inequality and blind hate of the stranger, form in our souls, a thick network.

    Yesterday, we suffered violence and bloodshed by militants in our creeks, down in the Delta. Today, we suffer violence and bloodshed by Boko Haram. Every day, we suffer greater violence and bloodbath by murderous and incompetent ruling class. The most remarkable characteristic of the Nigerian ruling class, according to Prof. Itse Sagay, “is its complete and total insensitivity to the public outcry and outrage over the percentage of our resources that the members appropriate to themselves for their own consumption.”

    Sagay, in his lecture on ‘Good Governance and Enforcement of Law and Order’ at the Nigerian Institute of Management’s 2013 Management Day, lamented that while Nigerian Senators and House of Representative members earn $1.7m and $1.4m respectively per annum, American Senators and British parliamentarians earn 174, 000 and £65,738 respectively per annum.

    Yet income per capita for the US and UK is $46,350 and $35,468, respectively, while that of Nigeria is $2,248. Simply put, Nigerian legislators pay themselves the highest salaries of all legislators in the world, even though their country is amongst the least developed in the whole world.

    More worrisome is the government’s inequitable distribution of benefits and punishments meted out to people from different classes and professions, along with the asymmetrical distribution of respect and dignity. Eventually, you get the feeling that some people don’t count and never expected to count in the Nigerian State.

    In the wake of violence and bloodshed by successive terrorist groups, mostly constituted by youths, in the country, Mr. President, legislators and governors simmer in frustration and moral outrage. Jumping on to the bandwagon of these elected representatives’ deceitfulness and officialese, monarchs, clerics, newspaper columnists and other bastions of society pay lip service to the degeneration of the Nigerian youth and State.

    It is hardly astonishing that the government and cohorts resort to explanations of criminality, a feral underclass, and dysfunctional parenting. These are easier explanations for which the government does not need to accept responsibility. However, a careful assessment of the situation reveals that a greater percentage of the culprits are motivated by poverty, illiteracy, dysfunctional parenting, unemployment and inequality induced by unfair government policies, insensitivity and oppression by the ruling class.

    But such cruelties by the most insidious leadership as we currently have do not justify the descent of the Nigerian youth into barbarism or bloodthirstiness of any kind – but they do anyway. Insensitivity and bloodlust enjoy sweet repose in the psyche of the Nigerian youth thus habituating them to all manners of savagery and triviality.

    Hence it wasn’t surprising to see the Nigerian youth, the media and the general public descend on Shema Obafaye, former Lagos State Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) as violently as a mugger, as frighteningly as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man, over his gaffe when he featured as a guest on a breakfast show on Lagos-based private television, Channels Television.

    For Obafaye’s “My oga at the top” slip-up and his inability to accurately state his organization’s internet address, he became an object of nationwide ridicule. Footage of his blunder went viral on the social media making him an object of malicious jokes and caricature on Facebook, Twitter, Blackberry Messenger, T-shirts, and rascally musical medley by local disc jockeys (DJs).

    It was one gaffe that Nigerian youths particularly, couldn’t forgive; consequently, branded mugs, face-caps and T-shirts with the inscription: “My oga at the top!” were produced and sold at a profit in merriment over Obafaye’s gaffe.

    Several celebrities cashed in on the madness and donned the branded T-shirts to major public events in pitiful desperation to replenish their dwindling acclaim. A smart movie producer attempted to cash in too on the national ridicule of a man and public servant while it lasted by hastily putting together and releasing a film titled, “My oga at the top.”

    Nobody cared what sorrow or misery burdened Obafaye’s heart nor did anyone pause to imagine what shame and disillusionment his wife and kids are forced to relive and suffer daily long after the mockery had quieted to a murmur.

    If the Nigerian citizenry, the youth particularly, could be so coordinated and methodical in their perpetration of such “good-natured” ridicule and hate, would it not do Nigeria immense good to have us unite in more coordinated and disciplined revolt against the oppression and cruelties of the incumbent ruling class?

    We are past the novelty of coordinated mockery and moral outrage. The most powerful indignation we could express exceeds the pages of acerbic columns and social media; it subsists in latent courage and will we haven’t yet summoned the courage to express.

    Until we mature in grace and learn to apply ourselves to passionate pursuits for the love of the good, our pains shall run amok where we seek ease and bliss, always. It’s a matter of choice; to which system of thought should we commit our lives to? Is there anything in our norms worth saving? Shall we define the Nigerian dream in the language of humanity? Shall we begin to officiate for posterity’s sake? Shall we begin to affect the honesty and decency to which we pay lip service? Shall we choose the right candidates and vote them in at election time?

    It’s about time we refined the subtleties that make the Nigerian dream the fantasy of thieves, looters and blinkered murderers.

  • Homosexuality, America and the end of humanity

    Homosexuality, America and the end of humanity

    That is why God let go of them and let them do all these evil things, so that even their women turned against God’s natural plan for them and indulged in sex sin with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sex relationships with women, burned with lust for each other, men doing shameful things with other men, and, as a result, getting paid within their own souls with the penalty they so richly deserved. Romans Ch. 1 vs 26-27 (TLB)

    Woe alas, the end has begun for humanity! America is capitulating and falling. Madmen are chasing away the specialists; deviants are finally winning the battle. Woe alas, the world stands on its head. Come June, the United States Supreme Court (USSC) will decide whether same-sex (SS) marriage could become the norm in the U.S. With about 58 per cent of Americans already loving SS union; with a serving president endorsing it; with bishops and archbishops proudly being gay and consecrating ‘strange’ wed locks, and some influential countries around the world already practicing it, the USSC would be hard put not to give its nod to it; if only to rest the matter once and for all.

    THE FINAL FALL: Man has finally fallen from all grace. Across the ages, the battle between good and evil has raged. Homosexuality, one of the greatest human deviant behaviors had been with man from Adam. Man had fought it, consigning it to the closet for a long time but it refuses to be still. For instance, just 40 years ago, homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. Today, it is considered a normal sexual behavior and a human right issue. There are over 600,000 SS families in the U.S with about 115,000 of them raising children.

    Today’s licentious world has convinced itself that deviant behavior is okay and acceptable; it has allowed maladjusted people to have their way. They have allowed people who need help, who need prayers and divine intervention to reclaim their checkered lives to take control of the driver’s seat of the human race. It is most aptly captured in the Yoruba saying: k’afi ibaje se ayo – to glory in rottenness. As humanity wallows in rottenness and extreme carnality, they are far removed from the divine and the glorious. If our permissive world accepts that it is a man’s right to sleep with another man, by the same token, shouldn’t it be his right and sexual preference to choose to sleep with his dog, goat, cow and chicken? And why should anybody worry when strange diseases begin to ravage the world and seek to exterminate humanity? If we accept lesbianism and homosexuality, we must by the same token allow kleptomania, sadism and other deviant behaviours as norm and individual right.

    GOD, NATURAL ORDER AND SOVEREIGN WILL: Is any surprised that humanity has come to this sorry pass? For many decades, the Western world has repudiated God. It has civilized ‘beyond’ God. The West has bred generations of anti-Gods; denizens who never attended church, who read no scriptures; who have grown old soulless and never reading a word of the Bible. They have bred spiritual zombies, vacuous people who are infuriated by the very concept of deity or religious codes. The world is filled with carnal beings groomed on dollars, flesh and individual freedom. They are wise by themselves and are gods unto themselves; whatever feels good is okay, whatever their feeble minds can justify is right.

    Sometimes one wonders which god is referred to on the American dollar bill which proclaims, “In God we trust”. It must be the god of dollars.

    But God is God, his sovereign will is written and will be fulfilled in due time. Empires will rise and fall; superpowers will thrive and wane all according to his long-stated design. People of God must not despair but must remain in fervent prayers for the lost souls who have deviated from His natural order and are sold to the enemy.

    Let us close with the exchange between God and Elijah as recorded in the letter of Apostle Paul to the Romans (Ch. 11 vs. 2-4) in which the prophet Elijah confronted God lamenting that the Jews had killed all the Prophets and torn down God’s alters. Elijah even claimed that he was the only prophet left in all the land who still loved God and he lived with the imminent danger of being killed. And God replied Elijah: “No, you are not the only one left. I have seven thousand others besides you who still love me and have not bowed down to idols!” God’s elect will stand in the gap and His sovereign will only, will be done.

    FEEDBACK:

    Re: Trouble with Things Fall Apart

    Mr. Osuji I have just read through your article on page 22 of The Nation (April 5, 2013). I must admit that you are well aware of the ethnic politics that is ravaging us and your style of writing is living / alive. Please keep it up. Mrs. Fatoyinbo, 07030334456.

    Steve I agree totally with you that the trouble with TFA is the trouble with Nigeria. How could anyone equate Wole Soyinka with Chinua Achebe? Soyinka’s writings are esoteric while Achebe is lucid and devoid of jargons. If Achebe were to be a Yoruba, he would have been in the exalted horizon of literary pantheons. From Prof. S.O. Aghalino, UNILORIN, 08054896603

    My dear EXPRESSO Steve, God bless you on your write-up on Things Fall Apart. Your ink will never run dry – 08033100848

    Steve, on The Trouble with Things Fall Apart, I owe you a drink. From Ezeugo , Abuja, 08037003315

    Steve, the Achebe vs. Soyinka controversy is unfortunate. With or without laurels, both are African literary icons. Achebe was a great novelist who treasured simplicity like the romantics. Essentially, WS is a great dramatist. He takes much interest in the literary approach of the post-modernists, the celebrators of obscurity. But WS had the Jero Plays and A Play of Giants presented in a simple language. A simple language does not diminish the greatness of a literary work, it enhances it. Each writer should be seen within the limits of his genre. From Kamaldeen, Ilorin.

    Good work Steve. Talking about the Nobel, they seem to enjoy the writer who massages the Whiteman’s ego and WS played along and got the reward. Achebe had no time to massage anyone’s ego even for the Nobel. For instance, while in Death and the King’s Horse man, the author warns the reader not to hold the White man responsible for the wrongs in the play, Achebe stated clearly that our past was not one long night of savagery from which Europeans acting on God’s behalf, delivered us. He demonstrated it twice in the case of the National Award. From Prof. Emeka Nwabueze, fmr Dean. Fac. Of Arts, UNN.

  • Leadership matters

    Leadership matters

    The Presidency has responded to critics who accused it of complicity in the police detention of Leadership newspaper journalists on an allegation that the journalists deliberately published a false story. It is interesting that the “false story” itself was about a “Presidential Directive” on opposition leaders. And when that story broke, the Presidency was alleged to have directed the police to clamp down on the journalists. The Presidency has therefore been in the business of issuing directives. The response was to deny this allegation. Did it succeed?

    The Presidency rightly and, in my judgment, validly argued that once it convinced itself that the Leadership story was false, it denied it and “the rebuttal from the Presidency was appropriate.” We should also accept the suggestion that publishers and editors have the professional obligation to “double check their claims, and where errors had been made, to quickly retract the story.”

    Let us go further and accept the Presidency’s favorable reference to the principle that “the freedom of expression goes hand in hand with great responsibility” and that professional ethics requires that journalists abide by this principle at all times.

    The question that follows is this: Assume that a journalist errs and fails to abide by this code of ethics. Let us assume further that the said journalist does so deliberately and with malice. What, on the part of a republic that is founded on the rule of law, is the appropriate response to such a deviant behaviour? It is the response to this question that distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship and it is where the response of the Presidency still appears troubling.

    The presidential response speculates that Leadership story, which it considered “fictitious” was intended to “cause civil strife, engender a breakdown of law and order and negate the values of our democracy” and it concluded that it is a “very grievous act which should not be ignored.” We heard this before and it was not in a democratic setting! Once you start speculating about intentions, it is a short course towards clamping down “in the interest of the nation”, the interest which you determine on behalf of the nation. This has always been the challenge that democracies must respond to. No one—no matter how highly placed— has the right to determine the interest of the nation because behind every such move lurks ubiquitous self-interests camouflaging as national interest.

    The presidency response leaves no one in doubt concerning its leaning. Once it considers itself the aggrieved party, it has no problem claiming the right to feel offended and bruised. If a journalistic action that is judged to be a “disruptive act erodes the ethos of governance and professionalism,” as far as the Presidency is concerned, it “naturally stirs up those entrusted with the protection of law and order.” In other words, while the Presidency denies directing law enforcement officers to clamp down on Leadership journalists and detain them, it has no scruple defending the detention because it is “natural” for the police to “act in the public interest.”

    We are told by the Presidency that its response is not a brief for the law enforcement and security agencies, but it defends their actions by its insistence that “such a publication (as Leadership’s) like all others that threaten our democracy and undermine law and order, become the duty of the Police as an institution to investigate.” The danger here is obvious. It is the Presidency that has the certain knowledge that a publication threatens our democracy and undermines law and order. What is unclear is the basis on which the Presidency makes the judgment and, more importantly, what gives the Presidency the prerogative for that determination.

    Surely no person or agency is above the law. However, it is also true that we have separation of powers for good reasons, part of which is to avoid one arm of government from being the accuser, prosecutor, judge and jury at the same time to the detriment of the rule of law. The police is an agency of the executive for all intents and purposes. The reason that the Federal Government, including the Presidency, has been unsympathetic to the demand for state police and has blocked the amendment of the constitution to establish state police is the argument that state governments, including the governors, will use the police as a political weapon against opponents. There is understandable fear that this is exactly what is going on with the federal government.

    We can picture a different scenario. The Leadership newspaper publishes a story that the Federal Government deems false and defamatory. The Chief Law Officer of the Federal Government goes to court with a case against Leadership. Each side argues its case before a court of competent jurisdiction. The judge, an independent arbiter, pronounces a judgment. If Leadership is found guilty, it pays the price and other media houses learn from the case. This is the ideal path of democratic governance. More than a decade ago, we heaved a sigh of relief when we ushered in a new era of the republic and we vowed never to go back to the era of dictatorship and jungle justice. We cannot afford to go back.

    The Presidency suggests that the case of Leadership “offers the media an opportunity for introspection” on issues of “ethics and professionalism.” Indeed, it is also an occasion for the Presidency and governments at all levels to come to terms with the meaning and practice of true democracy. You are not going to like everything that citizens choose to say or do. But we have laws and processes. You have no right to abuse those laws and processes just because you feel offended and abused by a story. You do not have the right to determine what story endangers national interest. That is for the courts of law to determine. Each of us has a genuine interest in making sure that the rule of law is protected from those who would choose to drag it in the mud just because they have the power to do so. In the final analysis, it is what good governance is all about.

  • A hegemon in a peripheral region: The future of Nigeria’s foreign policy – 2

    A hegemon in a peripheral region: The future of Nigeria’s foreign policy – 2

    The fact of Nigeria being a hegemon in this sub-region is therefore firmly established and based on economic and demographic factors. There are other factors that add to the weight of Nigeria as a hegemon in the West African sub-region. Its location in the mid-Atlantic and also at the geographical heart of the continent guarding the waters of the West Atlantic and the South Atlantic adds to the country’s importance.

    But globally, Nigeria is in a peripheral region. This is simply because in terms of global trade, the entire African continent south of the Sahara currently contributes roughly about two percent to global trade. In 1984, sub-Saharan Africa’s contribution to global trade was about six percent, but by 1998, it had dropped to two percent. Recently, this trend is reversing as Africa’s GDP grows at an average of between five percent and six percent from 2002 to 2008. But in spite of this, Africa’s gross contribution to world economy is still abysmally low; and most of Africa’s contribution to global trade is in form of low agricultural raw materials and minerals; and Africa’s contribution is largely shared between the oil producing countries of Nigeria and Angola and the mineral-producing countries of Southern Africa including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

    Nevertheless, Nigeria’s role as an important member of the UN is epitomized by its large contribution to peace-keeping operations globally. It is these facts that have sometimes made Nigeria and others to suggest that as the pre-eminent black African country, Nigeria should have a permanent seat in a reformed and representative United Nations Security Council (UNSC) whether a re-structured UNSC would ever happen remains a moot question. South Africa for economic reasons as the largest economy on the African continent and Egypt for geo-political and strategic reasons see themselves equally worthy of representing Africa’s interest. If Africa wants to have influence in the rest of the world, it would have to concentrate on rapid economic development for which its vast natural resources entitle her. What is good for Africa is also good for Nigeria. Nigeria’s wealth is largely due to the fact of its possession of huge hydro-carbons deposits which are wasting assets and which by best estimate may last for another 40 years. There is therefore a need for a total restructure of the Nigerian economy to anticipate what would happen in the near future. The future may not even be as distant as the next 40 years. The determination of the western countries to reduce energy dependence has led to significant technological breakthrough in automobile and mechanical engineering. Automobiles of the future may not be powered by hydrocarbons, but by alternative energy sources that may be friendlier to the environment and therefore preferable. The United States that takes about 60 percent of Nigeria’s crude oil exports is now aggressively pursuing oil exploration and exploitation at home as well as development of huge shale gas deposit in continental North America. In the last four years of Barack Obama’s administration, the United States has reduced energy imports by 50 percent and President Obama says he is determined to further reduce energy imports in order to free its foreign policy from influence of energy exporters to the United States.

    This is of course directed at the Arabs and the Middle Eastern countries, but Nigerians should also take a cue from it. The Nigerian oil industry faces a difficult 2013 as shale oil in the United States takes an increasing share of the North American market. According to the Togo based Ecobank, Nigeria’s crude oil export to the U.S may fall by 25% from 800,000pd in 2012 to as low as 580,000pd in 2013. There are already signs of stress in the fact that there is a drop in commitment of oil lifting for February and March. The coming into the market of other West African new oil producers and the return of Libya’s oil production is making the premium grade of Nigeria’s ‘Sweet crude’ unattractive economically compared to the cheaper “sour crude” oil grades available in the international market.

    The decline in oil influence may gradually be noticeable even in West Africa where for years Nigeria’s oil diplomacy has been very effective. In the past, Nigeria sold crude oil to most West African countries with a payment schedule of 90 days. Countries like Togo, Ghana, Mali, for example, were sometimes tardy in meeting their financial obligations to Nigeria, and sometimes their indebtedness had had to be written off in the interest of regional cooperation and support of fellow Africans whose common denomination was poverty. But in recent times, almost every West African country has now discovered oil at different stages of crude oil exploration and exploitation. This of course should lead to greater wealth in the sub-region and less dependence on Nigeria’s oil largesse, but increased wealth if well managed should lead to increase in regional prosperity and trade. Nigeria has the largest industrial and manufacturing complex in the sub-region and with increased wealth in the region should come the expansion of the manufacturing and industrial complexes in Nigeria all things been equal.

    There is a nexus between foreign and domestic politics. A country that is strong at home would be influential abroad. Domestic strength largely depends on economic and political stability. Therefore for Nigeria to crave continued influence in the sub-region, it must do something about its economy. The credo of economic diversification should not only be the belief of Nigeria’s political leadership. It should be seen as a necessary imperative and desirable practical politics. Deliberate efforts must be made to support small-scale industries or enterprises which in order climes not only create wealth, but also generate huge employment. In order to strengthen its economy, Nigeria must embrace market economy as much as possible while not completely removing the role of the state in investing in critical areas that may not be attractive to private investors. The environment must be made friendly for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) while we must clean up the corruption in the capital market to permit inflows and investments with special focus on infrastructural development, construction of power plants for the enhancement of electricity generation, mining, health sector, agriculture and agro-allied sectors.

    Nigeria’s population is young and needs to be employed and unemployment is becoming a security issue in the country. In an age of knowledge-based industrial and economic development, it has become critical for Nigeria to produce the right calibre of man-power to drive the economy. When I was ambassador in Germany from 1991 to 1995, the then German Chancellor Herr Helmut Khol created what was called a Ministry of the Future and put a young and cerebral academic to run it. This ministry was given a huge budget and it was asked to recruit young scientists to dream dreams about the future. It is not surprising that Germany’s stature as the pivot of the economy of Europe has not only been confirmed but enhanced especially in the face of virtual permanent recession of most of the economies in the European Union. Nigeria can borrow a leaf from the German experience and invest in knowledge through building first class institutions and support research and development. This can be achieved not by the number of the establishment of unplanned universities but by strengthening the existing ones. The Universities and Research Institutes must also demonstrate competence and dedication so that the outcome of their research can be harnessed for Nigeria’s industrial development. Academics must be courted and cultivated so that they become critical stakeholders in Nigeria. The present situation where Nigerian parents spend close to 160billion naira annually on their children studying in other West African countries because of incessant strikes at home derogates from leadership role of Nigeria in the sub-region.