The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • The regime denuded

    The regime denuded

    Perhaps the only accident about Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai’s The Accidental Public Servant is the author developing a Samson complex; that seemed to care less if the tinselled edifice crashed on him –and the rest of the establishment. So brutally candid was the exposé!

    Such is the angst of a court revolutionary!

    No surprise there – that the gadfly denuded Olusegun Obasanjo and his “democratic regime” (crazy oxymoron, to be sure; but all-too-grim reality of the Nigerian polity). At the end of it all, Holy Sege, the pope of the Lugard establishment of his era, did not appear so pious after all!

    In contrast, Holy Sege’s No. 2, ab initio no hero of the gadfly, did not (at least in El-Rufai’s fierce opinion) levitate above his presumed moral universe; where scandals and rumours of scandals are allegedly fair fare. Still, both President Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar have made their stands, for good or for ill; and await the verdict of history.

    But for this polity, for the umpteenth time, a single personage has succeeded in turning a putative democratic republic into a monstrous regime. A single man has moulded a country in his own image; and all the rest could do is gawk at the monstrosity!

    Now, is it just déjà vu, or an outright jinx – 1960, 1966, 1983 and 1999: important junctures that threw up inadequate personages, and changed for the worse the course of Nigerian history?

    1960: under Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, it took less than three years for Nigeria, putative model of African democracy, to abort into fascism, anomie and eventual anarchy.

    1966: Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi inherited a coup he knew nothing about, and was consumed by its violent contradictions, leaving behind the northern anti-Igbo pogroms and Civil War (1967-1970).

    1983: lieutenants of Shehu Usman Shagari, trophy of the Obasanjo junta’s manipulation, rigged out the Second Republic only after four years and three months.

    1999: Obasanjo, another trophy of Army Arrangement (apologies to Fela Anikulapo-Kuti) has turned this democracy into a burlesque, with dire consequences of its high-stake tragi-comedies.

    El-Rufai might come across to many, after reading his book and its comments on his fellow- establishment men and women, as rather too clinical, too antiseptic, too spick-and-span; as he galloped from victory to victory; solving one problem after another with near-divine aplomb and moral panache.

    Doesn’t blood flow in his veins, many are wont to ask? Was he living in Jupiter before he swooped in, like some super-human UFO, to salvage the Nigerian establishment, teeming with moral savages?

    These, to be sure, are tough questions to chew for Malam El-Rufai and his friends; even as his foes – and of those he has quite a myriad, who dismiss him as a maverick – as the debate on how Pentascope killed Nitel, and who was and was not responsible for it rages on.

    Still, in his book, El-Rufai, despite the cockiness of one cantering away on a moral high horse, trailed by a dust of self-praise, came across as a witness of truth: named names of his benefactors, his traducers and those in-between; and provided, in the appendices, letters, memos, facts and figures to back his claims.

    That leads to his take on his fellow “reformists”.

    Nuhu Ribadu: a fierce and volcanic anti-corruption crusader who nevertheless was no less fierce and volcanic in court politics and intrigue.

    Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: the Breton Woods expat expert (apologies to Wole Soyinka’s biting sarcasm in The Interpreters) who, next to spreading the gospel of IMF and World Bank, logs fierce political ambition, far beyond the narrow prism of finance, debt forgiveness and allied affairs.

    Chukwuma Soludo: adept orator, dashing power dresser and dazzling intellectual showman who nevertheless was not averse to executive kowtowing to claim a coveted Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor trophy, when Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, head of Obasanjo’s Economic Management Team, would not share her glory with anybody!

    The words above were not exactly Mallam El-Rufai’s. But they pretty much summarised his portraiture of his co-technocrats and flower of the Obasanjo administration. So, why would El-Rufai want to paint his friends in such not-too-flattering though apparently honest and candid view?

    He wanted to knock off everyone and, like his sweet-sour benefactor, Obasanjo, become the last man standing? Or because, even with the best of brains, Nigeria still had not found the right mixture of brilliance and character to become a model country?

    Only El-Rufai can pronounce on El-Rufai’s motives. But from the malice-less portraiture of these “reformists”, among whom El-Rufai was a prime member, the second supposition would appear more probable.

    It, of course, shows the futility of pushing personal daring to correct a systemic problem, as this column has always held. It was always going to end up in fiasco.

    Obasanjo came with a messianic air, built on nothing but personal daring, hung on personal rectitude and piety. But all too soon, it became clear that perhaps both traits were, for their Baba, a bridge too far!

    That seems to have bred the dissonance that made El-Rufai dismiss, with flat contempt, Obasanjo’s collapsed third term project and other presidential malfeasance like the presidential library moral swindle.

    But then, the harm is done. As it was in the Bible, Saul had killed his thousands and David, his ten thousands. Obasanjo, piety and all, got away with his presidential library extortion. So, why shouldn’t Goodluck Jonathan, following Obasanjo’s pious profanity, get away with his own presidential extortion in the name of God?

    The harm is done – and permanently perhaps: and not even El-Rufai’s moral outrage in his book could change that. But by trying to push himself as the exemplar of what Nigeria needs to succeed – intelligent, competent, fearless and daring – without addressing the systemic flaws that aided Obasanjo’s fiasco, El-Rufai appears fated to the same mistake.

    Nigeria needs competent and brilliant and resourceful and fearless and upright leaders to save her. But even more, Nigeria needs a structure that would build on Nigeria’s multi-national reality; and somehow weave, from this salad, a strong national fibre that proclaims a Rainbow Nigeria but does not decry the different colours that make up that brilliant rainbow.

    That is the point El-Rufai’s brilliant book missed as it went in quixotic search of the “de-tribalised Nigerian” – whatever that means.

    It is restructuring, stupid!

     

  • Days of Lazarus

    Days of Lazarus

    On Sunday, I read the story of Lazarus and the rich man, and wondered why no one has observed it as a parable on Nigeria. Mind you, the Bible refers to two Lazaruses. One of them died and enjoyed the gift of resurrection from the Trojan spirit of the Christ. The other was the man of sores and crumbs who was transported to the bliss of Abraham’s bosom. The first was reported as a true story in the scriptures, the other of the ulcerous sore was a parable from the Lord himself.

    Nigeria is the Lazarus of the parable. I daresay that the rich man in the story is also Nigeria, a Nigeria of oil whose table abounds with the aroma and sights of the choicest delicacies. The rich man also is like the rich among us, dressed in glamour outfits, with the top brands on earth, carted in excess luggage in first class in some of the tony airlines that bustle through the clouds.

    Their gates are high and impregnable portals. But the rich man is Nigeria with lots of jewelry and bluster and contempt and palaces here and there. Their mansions compare in frills and ostentation with the marble redoubts of upscale neighbourhoods anywhere.

    Lazarus is a mere beggar and remains at the gate. When the flamboyant rich man has finished his meal, the crumbs drop on the beggar’s hands, the Lazarus, who represents the majority of Nigerians. He is the metaphor of the abject underclass of the day. He waits for the rich to take the most of the oil wealth. After that, he settles for the crumbs of federal allocations, of oil subsidy windfalls, of contracts awarded but not executed, of excess crude largesse, church and mosque offerings and tithes, of salaries not paid because they were tucked aside in the bank to generate interests for months.

    The crumbs cannot pay school fees, house rents, food or pay for minimal medical fees. They are the real Nigerians. The Lazarus and the rich man story says that we live in a society of great social chasm. When Lazarus died, he goes to Abraham’s bosom, which some bible scholars call heaven, but they have no evidence of that because Christ said no one had ascended into heaven before he came on earth. So I see it as a fantasy for Lazarus. Lazarus goes to a better place, while the rich man goes to hell burning with fire.

    I see the story of Lazarus going to hell to mean the consequence of the mismanagement of resources in this country. Nigeria, as it is, stands as a dead wasteland like the first Lazarus, who died and waited for the benignity of Christ’s miracle. The rich man had all the abundance but the riches are of no benefit for the poor. They keep him hungry, and his legs are full of sores and dogs lick the sores for nourishment.

    The rich in Nigeria do nothing for the poor among us. How many Nigerians with their fabled wealth have endowments for the poor in universities or scholarships for the indigent in primary and secondary schools? How many donate equipment to hospitals or adopt wards or devote money for specific disability care in this country? All we see is the obsession with the top brands peddled in Manhattan or London or Paris.

    That is the story of the rich man. But if, eventually, the rich man went to hell, why did Lazarus go to a better place in Abraham’s bosom? Was poverty, therefore, a good thing? I see it differently. The death that takes place is the revolution. The death was the end of the order of things that created the class chasm between the all-powerful, well-heeled rich man and the Lazarus who is the wretched of the earth. When the revolution came, the rich man cried to Abraham, who was the revolutionary, and begged for a drop of water from Lazarus who was in the lap of luxury. But he was denied. The illusion was that the rich man thought he did Lazarus a favour by giving him crumbs.

    That is also the tragedy in Nigerian society today. We have millions who slave but their employers think they work. They merely survive. They toil to justify their pride. If you work merely to live another day, then you are no better than the Lazarus of the pestiferous sores.

    The Lazarus of the real story is Nigeria of today awaiting resurrection. As a nation of the 1950’s and 1960’s, we were a half-made, half-born society. From the 1970’s, we retreated to a coma, and later died since the 1980’s. We are looking for a miracle like Lazarus.

    But Lazarus the dead cannot become Lazarus of the Abraham’s bosom without a pursuit of justice, or a revolution, or without an Abraham. Abraham, for the purpose of this essay, implies a revolutionary leader. The half-born society of the 1960’s was full of promise. At that time, we beat Indonesia, Australia, India, South Korea and Brazil in many indices. We did not have the epaulet of the rich man of the parable: oil. We had groundnuts, palm produce, cocoa, enough to usher in an era of prosperity. That society died when oil came.

    The rich man was a metaphor for deadness because it was an embarrassment of riches. In those years, Nigerian ruler General Yakubu Gowon said the problem with Nigeria was not how to make money but how to spend it. Our state has never known the value of money. That is why the Secretary to the Government of the Federation is trying to galvanise money in the name of a phony centenary glee to build a gate, a city like Dubai, roads, schools, etc. The Government announced this as though we just started the project Nigeria, and we had never needed to renew our cities, build roads, and schools and other nonsensical projects to fritter away the wealth that belongs to our Lazaruses.

    All the countries that were behind us have had their Lazarus moments. They went through years of miracle while we slept. Governor Kayode Fayemi, the enlightened governor of Ekiti State, engaged this theme in a recent lecture on rebranding, and demonstrated how some of these countries have overcome their anomies. They did that through vision and industry, through the work of a dedicated citizenry inspired by the example and tenets of thinking elite. India is a high-tech miracle, China is on the verge of topping America as the world’s biggest economy, Brazil jolted a generation of about 30 million people out of poverty, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore were labeled Asian tigers. Even next-door neighbour Ghana, which once poured its refugees into our bosom, now educates a generation of our children.

    As Governor Fayemi noted, these are not perfect societies. India reels from sectarian woes and ineffable poverty. China is entangled in democratic barbarities. Japan still snorts with cultural drawbacks in the work place in spite of its world-class brands. Class chasms still dog Brazil and terror pangs rankle Indonesia.

    Lazarus the dead will not become Lazarus of Abraham unless we address the challenges of waste and inequality among us.

    Revolution will not come when we celebrate these rich men and see our sores and crumbs as gestures of divine kindness on which we celebrate our tithes in churches and zakat in mosques. Meanwhile, the pastors, soldiers, businessmen and politicians mock us with crumbs like the rich man.

  • Uwazuruike’s war drum

    Perhaps, nothing illustrates more clearly, the contradictions in the senseless killings in the north than recent statement by the leader of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike. He had threatened to launch a war against the north if the killing of the Igbo persists.

    But he was quick to add a caveat, “the Hausa community living in the South-east should not be afraid, no one will attack them. We are not going to resort to reprisal attacks but soon I will declare a full scale war against northerners in the north. We can’t take it anymore. We will take the war to their doorsteps now”.

    It is evident from the above that the MASSOB leader is not happy at the unprovoked killing of the Igbo in the north since the Boko Haram insurgents struck. He feels his group can no longer watch helplessly while their people are killed daily for no just reason. The bombing of a motor park in Kano in which scores of people were killed may have further angered him.

    For these, he is now ready to do battle with the north and northern interests. But the battle is not going to be waged in any other place other than northern soil. That is why he has urged northerners living in the South-east not to worry as nobody will attack them. And that is what makes this battle a very peculiar one indeed.

    No doubt, it is going to be a difficult battle. It remains to be imagined how MASSOB hopes to wage war against the north on northern soil and hopes to succeed. Not with the sophistication of the insurgents and their easy resort to suicide bombings. It also remains to be imagined how MASSOB will move its members to the north in large numbers without being confronted by the security agencies.

    It would appear therefore that Uwazuruike and his group may be heading for a suicide mission if they make good their threat to attack northerners on their soil. What one can glean from the dilemma posed by this resolve is the frustrations of the group in the face of the regular killing of the Igbo without the government finding a quick handle to it. Such killings have forced many to flee the northern states thus questioning our claims to one and indivisible country. Matters are not helped by the selective nature of the killings which seem to be in line with the avowed commitment of the sect to drive southerners out of the north.

    But despite all moves to force southerners out of some of these states, many have refused to abandon their hard earned investments and are not likely to do so.

    The terror group seems to be saying that since southerners do not want to leave, they have to pay dearly for it. Hence the selective attacks as witnessed in the Kano suicide bomb at the motor park. Of course, the sections of the country anticipated to die in that attack were known. The luxury buses, those who patronize them and their owners were selected for maximum impact. It is true that some other people died from the attack especially hawkers and sundry helpless people. But that does not in any way obliterate the target population as the casualty figure will reveal.

    Uwazuruike’s threat therefore brings to the fore the frustrations of a people that profess one and indivisible country yet citizens cannot freely live in some other parts of it. It also raises question as to what remedy there is for these non indigenes in the face of constant and unprovoked attacks on their lives and properties. This is more so when the government has found itself incapable of finding lasting solutions to the menace.

    The MASSOB leader thinks the Igbo should no longer be at the receiving end of these senseless attacks. He thinks it is a huge contradiction that citizens of this country can no longer live freely in some other parts of the country. He also reasons that such a situation should not be allowed to persist. He has a point here.

    As a solution, he has vowed to levy war against the north on their soil to make the point very clearly that no citizen should be debarred from that inalienable right to live in any part of the country. By promising to fight back on northern soil, he is saying that this country belongs to all of us and not body should force any citizen out of his area of abode through acts of intimidation and violence. He is saying that the Igbo have the right of self defense and could also turn out to be purveyors of violence even in the north.

    And that even the northerners themselves could also be attacked on their own soil as no body has the monopoly of the means of violence. He is saying that the Igbo have a right to live and do business in any part of the country just as other ethnic groups live in other parts of the country including Igbo land.

    Is it not a contradiction that southerners are being driven out of the north through selective attacks and killings yet northerners are comfortably living and doing their businesses in the south? One had expected that if Uwazuruike really wanted to do battle with the north, the starting point would be the South-east where his men hold sway. But he says no. He has urged northerners living in the south-east to go about their normal businesses as his group will not attack them. For him, the war will only be fought on northern soil. It is therefore not that the MASSOB leader is a war monger. Far from that! The nature of his anticipated war and the difficulty in prosecuting it, underscore the inherent contradictions in the continued violence in the north against southerners. He is drawing attention to the danger in allowing these unprovoked attacks and killings to fester and the wider repercussions should those at the receiving end resort to self help.

    That to me is the symbolism of the threat of MASSOB to wage war against the north on northern soil. If they were really interested in waging a war, the starting point could not have been northern soil.

    In effect therefore, the threat of the MASSOB leader should be seen as an act of desperation of a people who have constantly been victims of acts of violence in the north. It is an indication that their patience is fast running out and government must take decisive steps to reassure them that their lives have value. The impression is fast being created that each time there is crisis in the north the South-east must suffer for it. This has to be quickly arrested.

    Northern leaders must take the responsibility of ensuring that non indigenes live and do business in that region without let or hindrance. That way, we can stave off the temptation for those who have been at the receiving end of these attacks to take laws into their hand.

  • Are there any signs or resources of hope in this troubled land (and this earth)? (1)

    Are there any signs or resources of hope in this troubled land (and this earth)? (1)

    Religion is the opium of the people; it is the soul of a soulless world.

    Karl Marx

     

    I admit it. Something seemingly inconsequential or even embarrassing prompted the series of reflections that begins this week on whether or not there are signs and sources of hope in our troubled nation, especially as we approach the year 2015 and the next cycle of presidential and gubernatorial elections in our country. That “something” is the acronym, IJN. I suppose everyone in Nigeria but myself knew what it stands for: In Jesus’ Name. For a long time, every time I saw the acronym – mostly through phone text messages sent to me by relatives and friends who refuse to give up on me even after futile years and decades of trying to reconvert me to Christianity – I wondered what it stood for, this IJN. Then one day last week, someone actually sent me a text message that combined both the acronym and its meaning. IJN, In Jesus’ Name: All will be well; whatever the problem whether personal, familial, national, continental, global or intergalactic, all will be well. God is in control. Christ is the answer, whatever the question.

    I intend no sarcasm in starting this series with this wry observation concerning the links between religion and hope, with particular regard to contemporary Nigerian Christianity. Like most religions, indeed perhaps more than most religions, Christianity has extraordinarily a powerful and evidently efficacious array of rituals, symbols and parables that produce indomitable hope in periods of great personal and/or collective privation. For this reason, for most members of the Nigerian Christian community, especially those of the Pentecostal persuasion, the question that serves as the title of this series – are there any signs or resources of hope in our troubled land? – is almost completely redundant, if not even blasphemous. If you have Christ, if you are born again in His name, if you serve Him faithfully and put all your trust in Him, you are not without hope and He will not fail you.

    This is both an article of faith and a materialised sign that is inscribed on countless billboards, posters and advertising slogans and legends that we see everywhere in our country, perhaps more than in any other nation on earth. Apart from the innumerable churches and mosques in our towns and cities, you will also see these materialisations of hope and faith in shopping plazas, in roadside shops and stalls, and in even ramshackle shacks of dealers in articles of commerce of every kind: “Salvation Bakery”; “Revelation Pharmacy”; “Second Coming Welders”; “Everlasting Shopping Plaza”; “Blood of Christ Nursing Home and Infirmary”; “Omo Jesu Barber”; “Hope and Mercy Hair Saloon”. A recent visitor to Nigeria who has done much traveling in our continent and other parts of the world informed me, as she was about to leave the country, that the thing she found the most intriguing about our country was the fact that, more than any other place she had ever visited in the world, the sings of religion are everywhere, to the point that not only is this reality inescapable, it is in fact a superabundant facet of the physical, social and existential landscape. If this is the case, if the physical and expressive landscape of our country is so massively dotted with the ubiquitous signs of hope and faith, on what basis can I then pose the question that gives this series its title: Are there any signs and resources of hope in our troubled land?

    The answer to this question is simple and unproblematic: Without discountenancing the importance of religion, I am referring to secular, rational and idealistic signs and sources of hope. Let me put this as sharply and as provocatively as I possibly can. Without leaving Jesus in particular and religion in general out of the equation, the question I am really posing is this: How and where can we find and expand secular, rational, critical and idealistic signs and sources of hope in our troubled country at the present time?

    We cannot leave religion out of the equation, not because the signs and markers of religion are everywhere on the horizon of the present, and not because of the undoubted God-obsession that has gripped the mass psyche of Nigerians in general, but because historically, religion has been both a source of hope and liberation for the enslaved and the powerless and a bulwark for the tyrannical social power of oppressors and exploiters. In other words, if you leave religion out of the equation, if you don’t try mightily to nudge it in the direction of social justice, peace and progress, it will, at best be neutralised and at worst be co-opted by the enemies of human equality and progress.

    This last point compels me to be completely honest about my feelings and thoughts on both official and popular contemporary Nigerian religiosity on the matter of hope and faith. In this piece, I have commented rather extensively on the fact that the signs of materialised hope and faith are so ubiquitous on the expressive landscape of our country that we can validly talk of an over-saturation. Is this not an indication of the thoroughgoing domestication or neutralisation of religion as a potential force for beneficent social transformation in our country? Everywhere you look there are all these signs of robust religious hope and faith, and yet there is a surfeit, a perpetuity it seems, of so much irreligious stealing and looting, so much unholy use of state and non-state violence and terror, so much ungodly spreading of desperation in the land. Short of a massive and totally unprecedented irruption of a miraculous or mystical transcendentalism in the economic and social affairs of our country the type of which has never been recorded in history, is there the slightest doubt that the overwhelming majority of the thousands of small business enterprises that boldly display signs of religious hope and faith in our country will never in fact ever make it to the big league of the rich and powerful in the land? Do these ubiquitous signs of religious hope and faith not in fact mystify and confuse praying with preying in the ways in which they ignore or hide the real means by which wealth and power are in reality cornered by the few to the detriment of the many in our country at the present time?

    Karl Marx, in one of the most often quoted remarks in political and intellectual history, famously remarked that religion is the opium of the people. What is often ignored is the fact that this is only half of the full sentence, for in the other half of this often quoted sentence, Marx also observed that religion is the soul of a soulless world. Side by side with often being a metaphysical opiate that deadens the traumas and sufferings of unrelentingly harsh economic and social conditions for most of our peoples, if religion is to become a real and powerful resource for hope in our country it must also begin to act as the soul, the conscience of the nation – as it has historically done in many other nations and regions of the world.

    As I have remarked earlier in this piece, in this series my emphasis will be on secular, rational and idealistic signs and resources of hope in our country and the world in which we live, the world that constitutes the outer boundary of the conditions of possibility for justice, peace and progress in Nigeria and Africa. Let me put this observation in the form of a question, though in very concrete terms: How can mystification and superstition, religious and non-religious, that are so prevalent in our country at the present time, be contained by the rational exercise of the collective mind, especially with regard to the knowledges available to us in the world of the 21st century? This question may at first sight seem laughably audacious. Our country may be world famous for the number of its churches and mosques and the size and variety of its denominational congregations, but it lags far behind countries that have solid infrastructures and institutions for teaching, research and inventions. Without such infrastructures and institutions, the gifted, active mind works in isolation, bereft of the kind of supports that make the mind – any mind – productive and socially useful. Since we do not have such infrastructures and institutions in place, how can I seriously or realistically hope for the rational exercise of the mind in our country in line with the great advances in knowledge in the 21st century?

    This question is falsely put and this is the fundamental basis of this series. There are no reasons in the world why, under the right socio-political conditions, we cannot rapidly but solidly build and maintain infrastructures and institutions of genuine learning, research and innovation that will in no time at all dissolve the fogs of mystification and superstition that now almost completely becloud the operations of the collective mind in our country. Thus, my question really boils down to this: Are there women and men in our country, are there currents of thought and action that could coalesce into a powerful movement that would fundamentally change the socio-political order in our country such that the institutions and infrastructures that seem so impossible for us to build and sustain at the present time will in short but effective order become a vital part of the exercise of the mind in our country?

    My answer to this question is, of course, yes. But I admit that it is a tentative, unsure and provisional yes. Without being sectarian or dogmatic, let me say that the reason for this tentativeness lies in the present almost comatose state of the Left, the democratic, egalitarian and humanistic Left that was a very big movement in our country in my youth and that has been the most dominant ideological, ethical and emotional force in my public and private life. Without that movement – in whatever form or expression it is reinvented as long as it is mature and genuinely humanistic – the signs and sources of hope in our country will remain very dim, very weak and impotent, if in fact things do not get far worse than they are now.

    Perhaps there is no need for me to explain why this observation is, for me at least, not sectarian or dogmatic, but I shall do so anyway. Quite simply, I am not talking here of a Left that has a monopoly on moral rectitude, patriotism and dedication. As a matter of fact, it could be said of the Nigerian Left, of the Nigerian progressive movement that it has perfectly mirrored all the social pathologies of the ruling elites in the post-civil war period. I would even go further to say that it has also been as infected with the malaise of mystification and superstition as the rulers and the ruled in our country. The apple does not fall far from the tree: the Left, the progressive movement in our country has been, in the last two or three decades, a perfect mirror of all the social ills that bedevil the country. In fact, this is the reason why, in this series, I decided to start, through an exploration of contemporary religion and the operations of spirit and psyche in Nigeria at the present time, on the subject of mystification and superstition. In next week’s continuation of the series, we shall move to the more secular domains of the operations of the secular mind and the imagination as resources of hope in our troubled land.

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

     

  • Nigeria’s fault lines threaten Jonathan’s presidency

    Nigeria’s fault lines threaten Jonathan’s presidency

    Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan became acting president in February 2010 following the incapacitation of his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua. Elected in his own right in April 2011, Jonathan now stands near the midpoint of his first full term in office. His People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which has won every election since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, dominates the executive and legislative branches of the federal government and governs 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states.

    The advantages of incumbency and party dominance will likely assure Jonathan another term when Nigeria votes again in 2015. Yet insecurity, corruption and stalled policy implementation have provoked broad criticism of his performance, and the remainder of his term is likely to be characterized by high levels of political tension.

    Jonathan’s difficulty in reducing violence was on display last month in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, Borno State, which Jonathan visited for the first time as president on March 8. Maiduguri is the nerve center of the Muslim militant group Boko Haram, whose name is a Hausa phrase that connotes opposition to Western education and culture. Boko Haram previously launched uprisings in 2003-2004 and 2009, before Jonathan became president. Since September 2010 the group has attacked numerous government, Christian and infrastructural targets and has become a central challenge for Jonathan’s administration. Along with its splinter group Ansar al-Muslimin (Arabic for “The Defenders of Muslims”), Boko Haram has kidnapped foreigners, including a French family seized last month in Cameroon. The Nigerian military’s Joint Task Force has occupied Maiduguri since June 2011, and has repeatedly claimed success in the fight against terrorism. But its repressive tactics themselves have partly fueled Boko Haram’s grievances.

    Within hours of Jonathan’s departure from Maiduguri, seven bombs exploded. Days later, two PDP officials were killed in Borno. As a result, Jonathan’s trip, rather than inspiring confidence in his ability to manage the crisis, drew criticism from local residents and media commentators. Jonathan remains unpopular in the north, where he received less than 20 percent of the vote in many states, including Borno, in 2011. The trip heightened the contrast between Jonathan and an emerging coalition of opposition politicians, the All Progressive Congress, who held their own meeting — without violence — in Maiduguri on Feb. 28. Boko Haram thus threatens not only Nigeria’s security but also the president’s political fortunes.

    Persistent corruption, both at the highest levels of government and in ordinary people’s daily lives, has also sapped confidence in Jonathan, though it is a problem that predates his presidency. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index showed Nigeria occupying roughly the same rank in 2009 – 130th out of 180 countries – as in 2012 — 139th out of 176 countries. Yet many Nigerians and outside observers believe that corruption is the core problem underlying the country’s other challenges, from poverty to security, and many have seen Jonathan’s failure to reduce corruption as a broader political failure.

    Jonathan’s recent pardon of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor and Jonathan’s political mentor who was convicted of corruption charges in 2007, sparked outrage and further undermined his anti-corruption credentials. Alamieyeseigha governed Bayelsa state from 1999 to 2005, with Jonathan as his deputy. In 2005, when Alamieyeseigha was arrested in London on money laundering charges and subsequently impeached, Jonathan became governor — a turning point in the current president’s political ascent. Some observers read in Jonathan’s pardon of Alamieyeseigha a willingness to prioritize political relationships over accountability.

    Bayelsa’s location in the Niger Delta, the heart of Nigeria’s oil production, highlights the gap between rich and poor in Nigeria. While politicians like Alamieyeseigha accumulate fortunes, many delta residents confront environmental degradation and grinding poverty. Militants there, demanding a greater share of oil profits for local communities, rebelled against the federal government from 2006 to 2009, when Yar’Adua extended amnesty to the rebels. Jonathan has continued the program, but it is scheduled to end in 2015, and oil theft by disaffected residents and former militants who complain that amnesty has failed to provide jobs is rising.

    Meanwhile, despite international praise for his economic team – especially Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former World Bank official – Jonathan has also struggled, and at times failed, to implement his economic agenda, which has been dogged by controversy. The administration advocates budgetary reform, even if it means economic pain for ordinary Nigerians.

    Critics charge that privatization initiatives and austerity measures will shrink the meager benefits citizens receive from the state while expanding opportunities for politicians to steal public money. In January 2012, Jonathan abolished subsidies on fuel, leading Lagos, Kano and other cities to erupt in protest. The administration partly reinstated the subsidies, but the debate remains unsettled.

    Similarly, a bill meant to reform the oil industry has met countless delays. Many observers still expect it to pass. But as one Nigerian journalist wrote, recent debate in the Senate over the bill “further exposed our delicate [regional] fault lines” – the same fault lines that Jonathan has encountered in other domains, from his own election to the security crisis in the north.

    The more Jonathan flounders, the more opposition he will face from within his party. Some northern PDP members resent him for disrupting an internal party agreement to rotate the presidency between the north and the south. Some southwestern members feel that Jonathan has excluded them as well, and that he favors members of his ethnic Ijaw group. The opposition’s attempts at coalition-building give the PDP an incentive to preserve party unity, but regional rivalries and a multiplicity of big personalities within the PDP may produce a bruising nomination fight in 2015.

    With two years left before Nigerians return to the polls, Jonathan faces an array of challenges, a host of critics and a list of unkept promises. In 2010 and 2011, Jonathan defied predictions of his political demise during his tumultuous journey from vice president to acting president to president. The PDP’s structural dominance may ensure his victory in 2015. Yet security threats, corruption issues and a stalled legislative agenda will continue to consume much of his energy and limit his effectiveness.

     

    · Courtesy: World Politics Review

  • Mirroring media grammar

    NATIONAL MIRROR Views Page and other components of the April 4 edition offered readers copious solecisms: “Our home grown (home-grown) terrorists are hitting very hard at us….”

    “…when in the past we assisted in restoring peace in (to) neighbouring countries torn apart by internal strife.”

    “Paradoxically, the call for amnesty for Boko Haram is coming on the heel (heels) of the upsurge in its nefarious activities.”

    Next is NATIONAL MIRROR Editorial of April 4: “…the ex-president alerted the nation on (to) the dangers of an army of….”

    “…while others have drift (drifted) into all manner of….”

    “…the harsh effects of unemployment failed woefully (abysmally) and was thrown out by the lawmakers….”

    Lastly from NATIONAL MIRROR Editorial: “To be forewarned is to be forearmed.” All the sides: Forewarned is forearmed. There is no need for ‘to be…is to be’!

    The Back Page of NATIONAL MIRROR circulated some infelicities before the weekend: “But fresh evidence emerged yesterday that it was the dramatic (sic) personae (dramatis persona) himself….”

    “How should corporate managers react in (to) turbulent economic times, when the burden of crisis (crises) appears too heavy to bear?”

    “…to a five-day management conference starting this (next) Sunday (April 7—not March 31) since the extract was published on Thursday, April 4!

    “How many persons would they need to deploy to (in) each university for the proposed period of two weeks….”

    “There is corruption in the award of contracts, especially by the universities governing councils.” Education as I see it: universities’ governing councils

    Wrong: I cannot remember

    Right: I do not remember or I cannot recall/recollect

    Please note that while ‘obituary announcement’ is wrong, ‘obituary notice’ or just ‘obituary’ is acceptable. (Thanks to Baba Bayo Oguntunase for this contribution)

    One of the expressions daily abused by the Nigerian media is ‘flag off’ (clearly an ungrammatical global sporting creation for motor racing competitions!): there is no such phrasal verb in any formal/official/standard English language environment. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2012 New Edition, declares: flag (verb) (flagged, flagging): to make a mark against some information to show that it is important. Example: I have flagged the parts I want to comment on.

    Additionally: to become tired or weak. Example: By the end of the meeting we had begun to flag.

    The final entry: Flag somebody/something down (phrasal verb) to make the driver of a vehicle stop by waving at them. Example: flag down a taxi. From these explanations, I do not understand why the two expressions should persistently be abused by the Nigerian media.

    Another word that suffers abuse is ‘arguably’! Once more, Longman to the rescue: ‘arguably’ (adverb—sentence adverb) used when giving your opinion to say that there are good reasons why something might be true. Example: The Nation is arguably the best newspaper in Nigeria. Now, how do you explain this kind of cloudy thinking: ‘Lionel Messi is arguably the best footballer in the world?’ Obviously, the writer does not know the meaning of ‘arguably’ because Messi is incontrovertibly the best footballer in the world today closely followed by Cristiano Ronaldo, who, by the way, made me to fall in love with Manchester United before his record-breaking movement to Real Madrid.

    “As at press time, there has not been any frenzy of activities at INEC headquarters.” Matters arising: yank off ‘has’ for ‘had’.

    “The NUJ press centre in Benin City is just a stone throw from her home.” Pedantic view: a stone’s throw.

    “Relatively new on the Nigerian scene, the company has joined the bandwagon….” My diary: climb or jump on/aboard (not join the bandwagon).

    “Today, however, that social buffer hardly exists any more, as a number of the offsprings are themselves either unemployed or financially prostrate.” Travails of language: ’offspring’ is non-count.

    “…the brouhaha of Jonathan’s political future vis-à-vis 2015 has elevated what was once considered a past time of clowns and scoundrels to a new pedestal.” No dilemma: pastime.

    My own misapprehension last week: “It has to be one of this: last/this/next Thursday.” How did this slip by: ‘this’ instead of ‘these’? I tender my unreserved apologies—excuse the cliché!

    “…they will not dare do that if he becomes a civilian head of state, under a party platform.” Succession rules: on (not under) a platform.

    “Recently (a coma) some traditional rulers from the Igbo speaking (a hyphen) areas of the East have (sic) pledged their support for Jonathan….” No further comment.

    “Cultism in schools are growing in leaps and bounds.” Error of attraction: Cultism in schools is….

    “If so, why is it rather difficult for many people especially those outside the corridor of power….” Grammatical landscape: corridors of power.

    “In order words, if Goodluck Jonathan were to run….” In other words, there is consensus on ‘order’ and ‘other.’

    “And if from this cacophonies….” Indeed, a cacophony from This Life….

    “…Nigeria emerged a nation with a defective system of government fashioned out from series of compromises by our political leaders.” Our right foot forward: a series of compromises.

    “There is now a manifest agenda in totally negating the idea of a truely federal territory.” Spell-check: truly.

    “Such dislocation may even be dictated (detected) early enough but no one wants to stand out from the crowd.”

    “Thus, the issue of maintaining peace in crisis-ridden parts of the world have for decades become an important aspect of our foreign policy.” Error of attraction: the issue…has (not have).

  • An afternoon with Iku Baba Yeye

    An afternoon with Iku Baba Yeye

    What can we do without our royalty? And how will the world as we know it be without kings? Kingdoms and empires seem to vanish, but kings and emperors have remained with us forever. Radical historians and other intellectual regicides view them as risible relics of a feudal past that is better forgotten. But the joke appears to be on the revolutionaries. In traditional societies transiting to modernity, royalty seems to playa a critical and crucial role.

    For over three hundred years, the Yoruba have been engaged in a war of will and wits with theirs. Sometimes, they succeed in banishing a few or sending the odd royal to his maker. But as a long term strategy in a war of attrition, they seem to have settled for the policy of giving unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar. The king does not die, and neither does kingship. Please note that king, Caesar, Czar, Tsar and Kaiser are all etymological variations of the same word.

    The English succeeded in decapitating one of theirs in an epochal revolution. But after the Cromwellian levelling became a joke taken too far, they quickly signed on a new royalty. It might have been a typical English fudge but it works. The English royals are the nearest object of reverence and national veneration in Britain up to this point. Surprisingly, when the Spanish monarch asked the late Hugo Chavez to shut up in full public glare, the Latin American revolutionary promptly shut his trap.

    The French sent off their royal couple to the guillotine only for emperors and presidential monarchs to surface like social submarines. The Elysee Palace can only be occupied by royalty. After they blew up the entire royal family, the Russians found themselves cursed with Leninist and Stalinist Tsars until the revolution collapsed one sunny morning. Now, Vladimir Putin is behaving like another Russian Tsar, minus the pomp and pageantry and the Russians are not exactly resentful.

    In the case of the Americans, they, vowed from the word go never to have anything to do with royalty. They seemed to have learnt their lessons from the implacable tyrants they fled from in Europe. But with the regal Reagans and the kingly Kennedys, the Yankees appear to have spoken too soon.

    Always centralise! If this is the motivating motto of all modern societies, it also tells us why we seem to be stuck with kings. There can be no centralisation without a central figure. As long as this remains the preferred mode of human organisation, revolutions and the dissolutions of empires may consume royalty but only for new royalties to emerge. Napoleon acidly noted that a throne is but a bench covered with damask, but the sly Sicilian eventually ordered one for himself too.

    Snooper spent last Thursday afternoon watching a grand royal opera. It was as magnificent as it could have been in the ancient times of magical lore. The event took place at the Wallan Hall of D’Rovans Hotel, Ibadan. It was at the formal presentation of a collection of essays on chieftaincy laws in Nigeria in honour of his Imperial Majesty, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi 111.

    The Oyo monarch is a principal emblem of royalty in Nigeria and Africa and one of the most sacred totems of the unyielding potency of the institution. When it is said that Africans cannot build durable institutions, you can always point at the institutions of obaship which has survived and thrived for centuries. It is colonial and post-colonial disorientation which have made it impossible for Africans to adapt to western institutions.

    Built like a compact but supple prize fighter and without any hint of mechanical inflexibility, his Royal Highness exudes supernatural self-assurance. With his charisma, carriage and comportment , the Oyo monarch is a royal showstopper any day. The finely chiselled features hinting of centuries of breeding and genetic refinement, the Alaafin is the ultimate advertisement for royalty anywhere in the world.

    Like most exceptional kings, the Alaafin is many things rolled into one: scholar, diplomat, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, raconteur, warrior, political strategist, traditional savant, writer and supreme athlete. In these days of sharp and severe division of labour even within the same profession, this kind of royal polyvalency is a throwback to some earlier times of superhumans.

    Ironically because of its virility and continuing efficacy, the obaship institution in Yoruba land often feels like a jungle of royal adversaries with our traditional fathers often jostling for supremacy and superiority of dynastic lineage. Snooper does not have the capacity or sagacity to dabble into the cloak and dagger world of Yoruba royal politics..

    Suffice it to say that while Ile-Ife was, and remains, the ancestral homestead and originating sacred site and spiritual shrine of the Yoruba race, it was the old Oyo Empire that took the race to the pre-colonial zenith of its military, political, diplomatic and economic genius.

    All the children of Oduduwa must be grateful to both founders and pathfinders alike for bequeathing a sophisticated culture which has transcended its origins in the forest to become a global brand. While it was the centralising genius of Oduduwa that cobbled and fused the disparate strands into an organic ethnic group, it was a succession of Oyo kings that expanded this into an empire with sub-continental reach.

    Like his martial ancestors, the incumbent Alaafin has phenomenal guts and what they call plenty of cujones to spare. It was an unusual act of personal bravery for a prince of Oyo to train as a professional boxer. The boxing ring does not recognise royalty. You are all alone and on your own. Only the handlers and the proverbial towel can save a prince from punitive pounding, particularly from adamant regicides on the margins of society roused by class hatred and envy. For every prince, there is a waiting pauper.

    The early life of the future Oba is the stuff of magical fables. Like all prize fighters, the Alaafin has taken a couple of hard blows. But he has also managed to deliver some sledgehammers. By his own public admission in Ibadan on Thursday, Oba Adeyemi has been involved in about a hundred litigations, ninety five of which he won by technical knockout and a few through lack of diligent prosecution on the part of his opponents. In boxing parlance, this is the equivalent of an opponent not answering the bell for the next round.

    It was as if from birth, his father, a strong-willed monarch, strenuously prepared the young prince for royal ascendancy. From early childhood, he was sent off as a royal apprentice to serve in the household of foremost traditional rulers and notables. It was an exacting and tasking royal journeymanship/.

    A series of character-steeling adversities ensued. In the event, his father was deposed and banished by the then Action Group government. Inevitably, the new political elite thrown up by the colonial irruption came into conflict and collision with the old traditional class. Oba Adeyemi became a principal casualty of this shift in the locus of power.

    In the north, the same dynamics was to see to the removal and banishment. of the old Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi. Whereas the ordeal of Sanusi exemplified the tension between the old Kano metropole and the new Sokoto caliphate which began with the Othman Dan Fodio conquest, in the west there was a hint of old sub-ethnic rivalries and pre-colonial animosities about it all.

    Ahmadu Bello had fought with his cousin, Sultan Abubakar for the Sokoto throne and even after becoming the de facto ruler of Nigeria, this was still the prize he coveted most. Obafemi Awolowo, on the other hand, belonged to the new ascendant class who owed their hegemony to the colonial disruption of the old order.

    But looking at a king’s mouth, one would never have imagined that he ever sucked at his mother’s breath. At seventy three and after forty two years on the throne, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi has worn very well indeed. The entire hall erupted in swooning adulation and veneration as the royal retinue, replete with dancers and drummers, heralded the arrival of his imperial majesty. Resplendent as usual in fine native plumage, his royal highness was quite a sight to behold.

    Perhaps one was going to get a gift of royal dancing. Like all gifted musical artists, his royal highness has a supreme sense of inner rhythm which translates into exquisite fancy footwork and the inimitable regal trot. But it was not the time for royal cantering. This afternoon, his imperial highness seemed to have weightier matters on his royal mind. The scholar and the cultural warrior were ascendant.

    As he sat impassively on his chair behind a wall of practised silence like an all- seeing, all-knowing, all-hearing deity, you get a sense of why the Yoruba consider their kings as being next to their traditional gods. The ways of these deities are truly mysterious.

    You got a sense that your number was up when a native enforcer informed snooper that the Alaafin had ordered that he should be brought before his royal presence. But it was to exchange witty banters. As the king would later publicly reveal, he keeps a file on all major writings in the country. Needless to add that he has a capillary network of informants where it matters most. It doesn’t get more chillingly impressive.

    It has been an engrossing encounter in Ibadan with a worthy embodiment of arguably the most durable and viable institution thrown up by the ancient Yoruba society. In his rigour and painstaking devotion to duty, this remarkable traditional ruler shows just how sophisticated and socially advanced the pre-colonial political order could have been. The life of the Alaafin teaches us two important lessons: The immutability of destiny and the fact that it is not life that matters but the courage you bring to bear on it. Here is wishing the Iku Baba yeye many more fruitful years on the throne of his ancestors..

  • Whoever believes in Nigeria should please stand up!

    Whoever believes in Nigeria should please stand up!

    Today, reader, I am not talking about anything in particular; I am just going to ramble on and on about a topic dear to my heart: why no one seems to believe in Nigeria. Indeed, everyone appears to be filled with doubt about the survivability of the country and then do everything they can to make sure it does not survive. Get me, I hope so, because sometimes, I can hardly catch up with my own thoughts. Sometimes, they seem to run away with me, sometimes they just seem to fly from me.

    Anyway, doubt, like a yawn, is contagious. For example, whenever there is a couple to be joined together in holy matrimony, just watch the face sitting next to yours as it goes all wrinkly in doubt as the owner is obviously thinking: will these ones make it past their second year? They are hardly even talking to each other at the altar! You also take a second look at the front and find that only the pastor is smiling; the couple is all frowns and wondering why the pastor is smiling. But that doubt is nothing compared to this one: let your kitchen plumbing go all kaput and let your man pick up the hammer and wrench. A mighty but wisely unspoken doubt seizes you as you watch him knock the sense out of the pipes, wrench the life out of the pumps and drain all the blood out of your own veins as you hope there will still be a kitchen to use after he is through. That is still nothing yet compared to this. Now, should there be a knock on your door at midnight and a voice asks you to open the door for you are about to be robbed and the head of the house marches forward in great indignation holding nothing but a cudgel, I think the mother of all doubts will seize you at that scene. The prospect of anyone successfully confronting guns with a cudgel is nothing but hilariously doubtful, I think.

    Truly, doubts tend to creep up on us whether we want them to or not. In a well-known and widely circulated joke, a jury was once said to be confronted by the strong arguments of a defence counsel who vehemently denied that his client was responsible for a murder. In just one minute, he confidently told the jury, the dead man would walk in. The jury expectantly looked towards the door. There, triumphantly cooed the counsel, you looked because you doubted.

    One of the major things occupying the mind of every thief, I guess, is to ensure that their crime scenes are wiped clean. One man was so incensed at his son for stealing jam that he called him to reprove him. Son, he said, I am not mad with you for stealing the jam. But why on earth would you leave your fingerprints at the scene of the crime? Create reasonable doubt, he admonished!

    The British architects of what we regard today as ancient and modern Nigeria (oh yes, there is an ancient one) deliberately planted reasonable doubt as to the possibility of the new nation surviving by forcefully fusing three completely parallel nations together and choosing doubtful leaders. Monumental doubts seized then them, and have continued to trail all leaders ever since. Since independence, successive leaders have adopted an attitude towards nation building that only a one-eyed giant can have: keep one eye on the eventuality that the contraption may collapse. This means there has been no eye to keep on the development road since then. Like Moshe Dayan, who wore an eye-patch said, with one eye on the road, which eye can I now keep on the speedometer? So, for want of a good second eye, our leaders have not worked since independence. Most have been too preoccupied with saving for that rainy day of eventuality, when they expect Nigeria to break up.

    This is why I believe that Nigeria has the highest number of plunderers of any country on earth. And no nation that has such a vast number of people more interested in taking than in giving has been able to survive. Nigerians have indeed turned themselves into worms eating out the core of the national apple (or national cake as we love to call the metaphor) that my fear is that sooner than later, all the core will be gone and we will be eating each other. Perhaps then, we can sigh and begin again. Indeed, the fact that Nigeria continues to survive today amazingly defies logic, my logic, that is. You see, in my logic, no nation governed by half-literates can survive; no nation ruled by self-absorbed neonates more interested in owning the best shoes and handbags can do a thing about its future; no nation standing on its head, with the best visionaries hidden at the bottom of the heap and the little men who cannot muster half a cow’s brain between them standing at the top, should survive. But then, that’s just my own logic.

    So, here we are, all logic is thrown to the wind, and the country only just plodding on because everyone is too distracted to do the right thing. Governance, right now, is comparable to chewing a piece of rock with one’s teeth. In that set-up, no one is comfortable; neither the teeth, nor the rock. Neither the government nor the governed can claim to be comfortable in this hot-bed called Nigeria. And there is only one reason for this: Nigerians do not believe in Nigeria.

    The various levels of unbelief are too apparent to even the blind. It is in the fraudulent voting system, the corrupt civil service system, the ineffective federal, state and local governance system, the fallen educational system, and even the rural system. Did I tell you that even the village chiefs have now perfected their own system of exacting tax from the wealthy surviving relatives of deceased members of the village? Oh ho, you will not believe it, but you better pray that you don’t lose any member of your family (as I also pray) so we don’t fall into the hands of the village mafias.

    On the other hand, it is not too difficult to know a believer. Just look around you at your typical religious pundits, which we are not going to do here. Anyone who believes in Project Nigeria can easily be known. First, let’s shop around among our leaders for a good example. Err… err… Ok, let’s not shop among our leaders; let’s go into the civil service for a good example. Err… err… Ok, let’s not go into the civil service; let’s go into our religious institutions. Err… err… Ok, let’s not go there; let’s go into our tertiary institutions. Err… err… Oh dear, where then shall we go for a true believer?

    Reader, Nigeria is in dire straits because we all to a man and woman, who should be strenuously working at nation building, are more interested in pocket building. The fact that Nigeria has not collapsed in spite of all these shenanigans may be telling us something: it is time to get serious because we’re going nowhere. Let’s get serious with the transportation system; let’s get serious with energy production; let’s get serious with leadership and begin to hold everyone accountable. Above all, let’s get serious about changing our attitude and begin to think that the country may not disintegrate after all and we may end up passing it to our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. Oh, please!

  • Retrogression and paralysis in Africa and Nigeria

    Retrogression and paralysis in Africa and Nigeria

    Less than a decade after most African countries got their flag independence, some of their leaders became acutely aware of the corrosive effects of neocolonialism. To counter this problem, they attempted a cocktail of cultural, economic and political policies to neutralise the negative effects of colonialism up to as far back as the curse of the Berlin Conference of 1884-85. Leaders of Africa’s independence movements knew, and to some extent accepted, their limitations in trying to redraw the debilitating maps drawn arbitrarily by the Berlin conferees, but they didn’t entirely give up. They were not only passionate about their countries; they were also largely well-educated, cerebral and innovative. To supplant the destructive impact of colonialism on the African mind, these leaders promoted the ideals of pan-Africanism in order to give the continent an identity, instil confidence in young Africans, and give them a reason to look forward to a greater tomorrow where they could stand tall and equal with the young of any other continent, especially Europe and America.

    Barely half a century after independence, however, all hope of a greater tomorrow has virtually evaporated. Not only are the continent’s current leaders half-educated daydreamers and cannot, therefore, tell the difference between colonialism on one hand and neocolonialism on the other hand, they are simply too desensitised to the dangers of harmful external influences to care what happens to the continent or how its peoples are regarded by the rest of the world. It wasn’t too long ago that great minds walked on the continent, minds like Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Tom Mboya, Amilcar Cabral, Kenneth Kaunda et al, but their walk was both too brief and sometimes inexpert to help create enduring ideological and institutional legacies for Africa’s freedom and economic independence. Yet, for all their faults, it was never said of them that they were too stupid not to comprehend the denigrating impact of foreign influences.

    In contrast today, there is hardly any African leader with the depth of understanding, political ingenuity and moral fortitude needed to galvanise the continent away from the looming apocalyptic path of recolonisation. West Africa has become a barren landscape of short-sighted leaders who can’t tell the difference between leadership and feudalism. Even when a few honest leaders come along, they lack the rigour to reclaim and promote the visions of past continental leaders. Ghana’s present leaders, for instance, are the beacon for the sub-region, but beyond offering their country technocratic competence, there is precious little else. Whatever they call vision today can’t hold the candle to Nkrumah’s vision. Both Sierra Leone and Liberia fought senseless civil wars, in spite of their poverty, and Cote d’Ivoire and Mali needed their former colonial master, France, to restore stability and order. And self-destructive Nigeria is, of course, boiling with largely self-inflicted and man-made sectarian cum socioeconomic revolt.

    Southern Africa was a hotbed of apartheid, but when they finally emerged from servitude one after another, only Nelson Mandela exhibited the character of a leader. Sam Nujoma had to be pressured not to amend Namibia’s constitution to serve tenure extension, and geriatric Robert Mugabe has become a burden greater than apartheid upon his people. Successive leaders of Angola and Mozambique have also not been too inspiring, while Central Africa is probably the worst served by incompetent leaders. Since Britain’s MI6 plotted the death of Patrice Lumumba using the façade of Belgian, French and local forces, the hapless country has grappled with a succession of inept rulers, including the two Kabilas, Laurent and Joseph. Central African Republic (CAR), which is embroiled in non-ideological, distasteful and interminable rebellions, has not fared better.

    While ethnic groups in Rwanda nearly exterminated one another, and Uganda reels under rebel attacks, and Burundi stagnates, it took spectacular incompetence, as Mo Ibrahim observed, for Sudanese leaders to infuse religious dogmas into their country’s body politic thereby destabilising and fragmenting it. East Africa is also entrapped in rebellions and poverty. Ethnically and religiously homogenous Somalia is just emerging from state failure begun in 1991 and orchestrated by local rebels, Ethiopia and Libya working in concert. And Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti at the horn of Africa oscillate between pointless wars and horrifying famine.

    The retrogression in Africa is so numbing and so nearly complete that whispers are beginning to be heard in many European capitals that what is needed is a complete takeover, a recolonisation. (See Box, and note the factual inaccuracies). The consequence of the massive retrogression is that future generations of Africans will become humiliatingly less globally competitive than their European, American and Asian counterparts. The gap is widening into a chasm, and it is only a question of time, if things are left unchecked, before active calls for recolonisation receive favourable attention in many key world capitals. Except the continent puts behind it the effects of the trans-Saharan slave trade (which are factors in the Mali turmoil), the even greater evil of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the most crippling effects of colonialism that virtually distorted the economy, culture and thinking of the colonies, the continent’s problems will worsen and predispose it to recolonisation.

    Indirect rule made it difficult for Britain to retain a strangulating hold on its former colonies. It consequently could not actively pursue the establishment of military bases in Africa as successfully as France has done in more than half a dozen of its former colonies. But it nevertheless has advisory presence in Kenya and Sierra Leone. France’s colonial policy of assimilation facilitated the insidious subjection of its former colonies. From Central Africa to West Africa and even to the Horn of Africa and the Maghreb, France has sustained its military presence and bases, and intervenes when the need arises. The relationship between France and its former colonies goes beyond military, however. In foreign policy and the economy, the former colonies still look up to France. China is doubtless elbowing its way in. But many analysts suggest that the disturbances in Mali, CAR and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and especially the promptness and assertiveness of France in those trouble spots, could not be detached from the rising economic profile of China in many African countries.

    During the Cold War era, many African countries were cajoled into taking sides with the Eastern or Western bloc. In the Berlin Conference, which was chiefly triggered by the quest for raw materials to feed European industries, Africa had no say on how its internal borders were drawn. The fresh campaigns for the recolonisation of Africa can also not be detached from economic reasons. For instance, all seven French West African countries are connected to the French Central Bank. The fall of former Ivorian leader, Laurent Gbagbo, was partly a consequence of his dispute with France over Cote d’Ivoire’s external reserve. Niger is as important to France economically (supply of uranium) as Nigeria is important (oil) to the United States. France, Britain and the US are now engaged in strategic military cooperation involving deployment of drones. On another side, China is also steadily and aggressively pushing in into Africa for raw materials to feed its massive industrial complexes and huge population. To facilitate this push, China deploys financial and other kinds of assistance to needy African countries. It may not be too far-fetched to say that China and the West have begun a new scramble for Africa, as the September 2011 election in Zambia proved, and as the creation of the US African Command (AFRICOM) is also indicating.

    If the creeping recolonisation of Africa is not to become a fait accompli, Nigeria must experience revolutionary changes in order to offer the leadership necessary to reclaim Africa from its local and foreign oppressors and reposition its peoples for greater competitiveness in the coming decades. If things remain as they are for much longer, the image of the continent will be battered and its chances of securing a glorious future compromised. Fundamental changes must come to Nigeria, for it is the only country with the potential to offer that leadership, not South Africa, not Ghana, and not Egypt. Sadly, in spite of the momentous events happening around it, Nigeria has remained silent, phlegmatic, inept and docile. It lost confidence in handling the Mali conundrum, ignored the CAR troubles, and has said little on DRC. It is high time visionary and ideological African leaders emerged, leaders who have the depth, intellect and passion to create and drive technological advancement, cultural renaissance and new and sustainable democratic paradigms.

    The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) cannot midwife the necessary fundamental changes Nigeria and Africa need. On its part, it is anticipated the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) will whittle down its ideological purity and political idealism to stand a chance of birthing a new party (say, the All Progressives Congress) capable of beating the PDP. I am, however, not too optimistic that within the existing Nigerian political structure and given the nature of party politics, the changes the continent desires and deserves can be achieved.

     

  • What is Professor Jega up to at INEC?

    What is Professor Jega up to at INEC?

    President Jonathan has to step into the ups-manship in INEC

    With the fresh petition delivered to the Chairman, Senate Committee on INEC, by employees of INEC on January 7, 2013, it would appear that matters are far worse today than they were when the article below, mildly edited, was published on 12 September, 2012. Like it or not, President Jonathan would now have to find a way of stepping into the ups-man-ship going in that agency because of its possible negative consequences on the 2015 general elections.It is now in the open why Jega wanted to be all-in-all as he recently requested of the government. Happy reading.

    What game is the North up to at INEC?

    Can Professor Jega, a celebrated academic and former University Vice-Chancellor, double as an ethnic bigot? Is the famous Professor Oba, former Vice Chancellor, University of Ilorin, working in tandem with Jega in the former’s usual role of a Northern irredentist? Or is it as simple as the Federal Character Commission becoming comatose and toothless wherever in the Nigerian polity the North wields an unfair advantage? These and more questions agitate the mind on reading the advert: THE TAKE OVER OF INEC published in the Monday, 20 August, 2012, edition of this newspaper by the ELECTION INTEGRITY NETWORK but which in itself emanated from an earlier story by TheNews Magazine. It will be a little disingenuous, even unfair, to claim or even pretend that

    INEC has just so suddenly become a Northern enclave. The story has always been the same since there is literally a Northern Executive Secretary, permanently in place, but with the addition of Jega as Chairman, cronyism and outright nepotism have assumed an industrial scale with Oba’s FCC’s ludicrous connivance.

    For ease of reference, let us quote directly from the advert under reference. According to the publication, INEC’s top management is made up as follows:

    1. Prof Jega (Chairman)- Kebbi 2. U.F Usman (Director of Logistics) -Kebbi

    3. A. Muktar (Director of Human Resources) -Sokoto

    4. A.A Uregi (Director of Finance) – Niger

    5. M. Kuta (Internal Auditor) -Niger 6. E.T Akem (Director ICT) -Benue

    7. I. Biu (Director of Voter Education) – North East

    8. I.K Bawa (Dep. Director, Legal) – Plateau

    9. Okey Ndeche (Director,

    Operations) -Anambra

    10. Nyise Torgba (Director M& E/ Performance) -Benue

    11. A.A Adamu Head, Commission, Secretariat) -Kogi

    12. M.Ekwunja (Director,

    Civil Societies)

    13. E. Umenger (Director, Public

    Affairs) -Benue

    14. Regina Omo-Agege (Director, Political Monitoring) -Delta.

    15. B.E Edoghotu (Estate & Works).

    Those heading its key committees are also quite revealing. They are:

    1. Col. Hamanga ( Chairperson, Logistics Committee) -Adamawa

    2. Dr Nuru Yakubu ( Chairperson, Operations Committee) -Yobe

    3. Ambassador Wali (Chair person, Procurement Committee) -Sokoto

    4. Prof Jega (Chairperson, F&GP) -Kebbi

    5. Prof Jega ( Chairperson, ICT) -Kebbi

    6. Hajia Amina Zakari (Chairperson, Political Monitoring) -Jigawa

    7. Membership of its 9-Man Strategic Planning Committee reads as follows: Nuru A. Yakubu, Istianus Dalwang, Mustafa Kuta, M.S Mohammed. Torgba Nyitse, Emanuel Akeem all from the North with the exception of the duo of Mike Igini and Okechukwu Ndeche from the South. Add to this, the Executive Secretary who is from the same geo-political zone with Jega and, who, by the way has long passed the official retiring age. How blatant can some supposedly educated people get?

    It’s impossible not to wonder how an otherwise accomplished academic conveniently overlook the fact that Nigeria has a a Federal Character prescription in its constitution. What will Jega claim as alibi for this totally unacceptable lop-lopsidedness in an agency that is so critical?

    I found the following comments by Ifeanyi Izeze very useful in taking a look at the Federal Character Commission. Wrote Izeze in 2011 : ” When Nigeria’s Federal Character Commission (FCC) was established in 1996, it was supposed to enforce the federal character principles which aimed at ensuring fair and equitable distribution of posts; social-economic amenities; and infrastruc-tural facilities among the federating units of the nation. The intention was for it to be the watchdog of government ministries, departments and agencies to ensure an evenly distributed workforce that reflects ethnic diversity and the geopolitical divides of the country’.

    In recognition of its failings, wrote Izeze, the Commission after a Port Harcourt stakeholders retreat recounted as follows: ‘The FCC has delineated the country into national, state and local government levels as channels of distribution among the federating units for ease of implementation. Allocations at the national level, it said, will now be based on the 36 states and Abuja or the six geo-political zones or north and south …’ Apparently under Professor Oba, all these have been thrown into the trash can such that today, the North can completely dominate INEC with literally all its consultants coming from the North with nary a voice of warning from the Federal Character Commission.

    Given Professor Oba’s history as Vice-Chancellor, University of Ilorin, I am not in the least surprised that under his leadership, the Federal Character Commission has decided not know that INEC exists within the country’s laws.

    It is here that one begins to suspect a collusion with the PDP Federal government, given the ringing silence from the office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation. Not even a single warning to that office for its total ineffectiveness nor to Jega for the nauseating ethnic domination in INEC. Add to this, Jega’s clandestine decision to now use permanent voter’s cards for the next election, which cards will be obtained in the most dubious of ways as it will permit the registration of, not only minors, but totally non-existent persons, just so INEC can unilaterally swell registration figures in some given areas.

    I doubt if Jega’s defenders know what incalculable damage they do to his reputation when, in mitigation, they claim that he met everything in place. If in all these years he cannot right the obvious wrongs then he certainly does not deserve all the adulation he got at his appointment by a man who, we now know, truly did not know him at all.

    What then are the probable calculations? The Election Integrity Network is of the view that the structural iniquity in INEC epitomises nothing but a skewed regional interest especially at a time when geo-political struggle for power has assumed a violent dimension. The body believes that this is a carefully planned restructuring in which the most important organs responsible for future elections are placed smack in the hands of the North.

    The only time in recent memory that I can recall a similar scenario was during the Abacha era when you could hardly find four Southerners on the list of the topmost twenty security officials and a security council meeting could hold with no southerner, whatever, in attendance, if you go strictly by rank.

    Without a doubt, this arrangement at INEC cannot be a happenstance; rather it is the result of cold calculations aimed at the next elections. Nothing, for instance, stops some of Jega’s Northern top men in INEC from being transferred to other sections of the service as long as they do not lose their seniority. But nobody will dare.

    The sponsors of the advert in question bemoaned the fate of the Southwest in the agency.

    For me personally, this is a non-issue since it is a failure of the Yorubas in the PDP who are obviously not treated as equals as was recently eloquently demonstrated by Chairman Tukur who unilaterally sent its Yoruba Secretary packing. If these people now traversing the South-West ahead of the next elections were treated as co-equals, having lost the Speaker-ship of the House, they should have since ensured that they are adequately represented in agencies like INEC. This, however, will never happen since they are keener at feathering their individual nests as opposed to corporate South-West interests.

    As things stand in INEC today, Mr President owes it a duty to Nigeria to clear up, the Augean stable as a stitch in time could more than save nine.