The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • The Faleye metaphor

    The Faleye metaphor

    A young Nigerian’s educational dream is about being aborted due to lack of funds

    When Oluseun Samuel Faleye received his letter of admission into Shenyang Aerospace University (SAU) in China in September, 2011, to study electronics and telecommunications engineering, in furtherance of his course at the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, his joy and that of his parents knew no bounds. Faleye had in 2011 concluded his diploma programme at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, which on March 30 of the same year signed a memorandum of understanding with SAU for the purpose of admitting the college’s products for a two-year degree programme.

    His father, Chief S.A. Faleye, had in a letter of consent to the consular-general in the Chinese Embassy in Lagos, undertaken to take full responsibility for the payment of his school fees and any other financial involvement, before things started going awry. Any parent would not have thought twice before consenting to such a project. Prior to the signing of the MOU with the Chinese university, products of the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology used to secure employment with the airlines or other aviation agencies with their diploma certificates. Faleye had hoped to get a job after the Zaria training.

    However, a new policy which made it mandatory for those of them from the Zaria college seeking employment in the aviation agencies to have first degree came into being at about the time Faleye was leaving the college. This apparently informed the college’s decision to sign the MOU with the Chinese university so that the diploma holders would be able to go there for their first degree programme.

    Faleye and his colleagues were thus in a quagmire, as none of those agencies employed the Zaria college’s diploma holder after that policy too k off; at least initially. It was after he had stayed at home for about a year doing nothing that his parents decided to fulfill all righteousness: if what would get him employment was obtaining the first degree in the Chinese university with which the college had signed an MOU, so be it. So, they pulled resources together to ensure that their investment on their son in the aviation college would not be in vain.

    Unfortunately for him, it was after he had left for China that some of the aviation agencies changed their mind and recruited some of his colleagues. Unfortunately too, for him, things did not go as planned as they sometimes don’t. The projection of raising the about N4million needed for the school fees soon got derailed. And that is the challenge that Faleye is facing right now in China. As a matter of fact, his father, in his 70s, had to sell a few properties to ensure he completes his studies.

    His programme which commenced in 2011 is supposed to end in July, just three months away. But Faleye, the last child of his parents, is in a quagmire: he is not sure of concluding the programme due to the financial challenges he is currently facing. About N1million is standing between him and the conclusion of his programme. If help does not come, all the investments in China since 2011 when he secured admission into the college would go down the drain.

    When he realised the precarious situation in which he is, he managed to secure a teaching job in China. But that country is a no-nonsense country, they quickly stopped him because, as they said, the job is for their citizens. As things stand, Faleye is willing and ready to enter into agreement with any individual, corporate organisation or institution that is ready to offer assistance, on how the money would be repaid.

    As a matter of fact, he is even contemplating deferring his course and returning home if it gets to that, at least pending when things improve, but he does not even have the means to transport himself back. That shows how tight things are. The story is too long to be captured here; but, this, essentially is the message.

    Sadly, Faleye is probably not alone in this kind of an avoidable mess. One shudders at the number of our youths who are in dire straits and could have their fortune reversed simply because no one cares for them. The point is that Nigeria cares about no one in particular. It cannot pay pension to old people. It cannot ensure that its youths get access to good and qualitative education, and even when the youths manage to find their way, they are left hard and dry in the middle of nowhere if they suddenly run out of funds.

    The sadder aspect is that most of those who’ climbed the ladder before removing it’ as it were (those who are now making things difficult for others today) benefited from one scholarship or government sponsorship or the other in their school days. They had the best of life in and out of school; many of their children enjoyed the same opportunities too. One would think the government should have some ‘crutches’ for people in Faleye’s shoes, some shoulder to lean on; unfortunately, the government thinks otherwise. Rather than put money where it has meaning, the government is pumping money into private businesses which the owners ran aground, in the name of bailouts. We have had these in the agricultural sector; we have had it in the textiles sector; we have even had it in the aviation sector which the government is threatening once again to give another round, in spite of the failure and ridiculous allegations that trailed the last bailout in that sector. It is not that bailouts are inherently bad; the problem in our circumstance is that, like most things Nigerian, they are abused and no one is punished for such abuses. As a matter of fact, bailout in Nigeria has become euphemism for doling out government money even to those who already have, to do as they please, when there are people out there genuinely in need of money but cannot have it.

    The course that Faleye is studying that is about to be truncated at the ninety-ninth hour due to lack of funds, electronics and telecommunications engineering, is one that should be hot cake in the country. It is a course that any country with vision should be interested in.

    Although Faleye is the reason for this piece, the point should not be lost on us, and particularly the governments at all levels, to begin to address in concrete terms the challenges that leave our serious-minded youths stranded, whether at home, or, worse still, in foreign lands, in pursuit of the proverbial golden fleece. This is the only thing that can check the inequity and iniquities in the system and also ensure that we all are able to sleep with our two eyes closed when tomorrow comes.

    But, if you are touched and feel like helping, please contact Samuel Oluseun Faleye on phone number +8615040317741. Better still, you may wish to contact Richard Chen, the Dean of International Education College, Shenyang Aerospace University, 37, Daoyi South Avenue, Daoyi Development District, Shenyang, China, 110136 or phone 8624 89724578.

  • Now, Okon propounds a culinary theory of national chaos

    After an Easter celebration filled with bombs and bombasts, snooper had settled into a post-Easter rumination about the fate of the country. One is now slowly coming to the conclusion that things will not get better in this country in one’s lifetime. It is a psychological therapy called reconciliation under duress. No matter how you look at it, it is not a bad development.

    It consoles and soothes and helps you put a glossy sheen on things no matter how depraved and degenerate they may be. It allows snooper to reach back for historical comparison. Almost every Yoruba child born between 1823 and 1875 was born into a situation of great strife and turmoil. This was the period of the Yoruba Mfekane, or dispersal of the tribe.

    But Okon was having none of that. There is something to be said for the vitality and energy of youth. As snooper slipped deeper into this anti-revolutionary mush, Okon was all boundless energy and initiative. One morning, the bounder showed up in the sitting room dressed like a respectable Niger Delta chieftain.

    “And where is Asari Dokunmu heading for this morning?” snooper asked with a sarcastic leer.

    “Oga, I wan reach Abuja make man attend dem Congress of oil-producing Nationalities (CON) Dem say we dey meet for dem Hall 419 for dem Sheraton. We wan talk before oil scatter obodo as dem mala wan drive Jonothan comot with dem tira and dem wahala”, Okon replied with a frown.

    “ So what are you going to tell them at the conference?”

    “Ha oga dat one dey easy. I go tell dem say obodo problem be like dem problem of dem yeye Yoruba soup. As dem Yoruba soup get too much oil, obodo Nigeria too get too much oil. Make we remove dem oil and everybody go scram and we go get peace for obodo, When dem oil no dey again, you go dey hear dem mala scream, tefi mana, tefi mana”, Okon chortled with devilish relish.

    “Quite some culinary theory of national chaos”. Snooper mumbled to himself.

    “Oga dis no be time for grammar, na dem Yoruba grammar finis us before before, all dem Lagos lawyers and dem Shakabula journalists who dey answer Oyinbo name, yeye people”, Okon sneered. Snooper suppressed his mirth at the boy’s militant malice compounded by sheer ignorance.

    “So Okon, what else are you doing in Abuja?” snooper cautiously demanded.

    “I wan reach Aso Rock make I grab dem amnesty from dem Jonathan. He be like if dat one just dey distribute amnesty like dem Red Cross rice. Dem amnesty na for my brother sub-lieutenant William Oyazimo. Na dem Yoruba people finis dat one for Bar Beach becos dem think say na Ibo” Okon submitted.

    “Is that not the WAHUM armed robber of the early seventies?” snooper asked in alarm.

    “Him no be armed robber. Na dem Yoruba finis am becos him go knack dem Yoruba wife for dem barracks. You no say for dat time dem wuruwuru man for Dahomey come kill him number two dem Captain Aikpeh becos him say dat one dey knack him wife. Oga rubbing no be robbery” Okon flatly propounded. It was on that note that snooper wished the loony boy God’s speed.

  • Mali needs a takeover, not an exit strategy

    Mali needs a takeover, not an exit strategy

    No sooner had the French cleared Mali of Islamist terrorists than talk turned to exit strategy. Although no one thinks the threat over, the thought is of training the Malian army to take responsibility for securing the country’s long and porous frontiers when the French leave.

    This is sheer delusion. Even before the Islamists hit town Mali was a barely functioning state. A military coup last year, led by a 39-year-old army captain who, one year on, is still pulling the strings, put paid to any notion that Mali was a democracy. Long before the coup, corruption had eroded the rule of law to the point where many of Mali’s institutions had ceased to function effectively.

    Despite training by US Special forces, the Malian army is ill-equipped, ill-disciplined and underpaid. When the Islamists arrived, it disintegrated at the first whiff of grapeshot. Already, even before the French have turned their backs, the army has resumed harassment of civilians. What is needed is not an exit strategy, but a strategy for the long term. Without one, there is a danger that the country will disintegrate as soon as the foreigners go home.

    Mali is only the latest example of that growing phenomenon: the failed state. Somalia is the supreme example, but we can all think of others. Liberia (currently under its formidable president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, enjoying a respite from decades of turmoil) has been the subject of three UN interventions. Sierra Leone, rescued from implosion by British military intervention, remains fragile; likewise Ivory Coast, recently the subject of another French intervention and presently hosting an 11,000-strong UN military mission. In Sudan, no less than three separate UN military missions are doing their best to maintain stability.

    Then there is the misnamed Democratic Republic of Congo, a vast, chaotic, dysfunctional kleptocracy. The armed forces are bloated, parasitic, disloyal, and generally useless except in so far as they threaten the civilian population. No one knows how many have died in the years of mayhem in eastern Congo. The figure is in the millions.

    What is to be done? There is no simple solution but I wonder if the time has come to experiment with a new, more robust form of intervention, one that recognises that some states have failed so completely that any short term fix is doomed; that we need to start from the scratch and, subject to the consent of the people, stay for the long term. And I mean for a generation.

    Some years ago, when a Foreign Office Minister, I stayed with John Blaney, the US ambassador to Liberia from 2002 to 2005, in his fortified mansion in Monrovia, overlooking the Atlantic. It was he who saved Liberia last time round. While the last bout of violence raged, desperate Liberians were literally pulling their dead outside the gate, begging for US intervention.

    Unfortunately Liberia scarcely featured on the radar of the neocons then in charge in Washington. Eventually, they were persuaded to dispatch a naval task force, which, to everyone’s dismay anchored out of sight over the horizon. Mr Blaney received a message from the admiral saying that they were sending a helicopter and that he should fly away leaving the Liberians to their fate. He refused saying: “I take my orders from the state department, not the Pentagon.” The marines had to land, and barely had their boots touched the ground than the chaos subsided.

    Mr Blaney had clear views on what needed to be done. It wasn’t enough to send troops. A stronger UN mandate was needed, which gave it the power to run the country in the medium to long term. “Everyone is afraid of upsetting the African Union, being accused of neo-colonialism or racism. The fact is this is a failed state. There aren’t any functioning institutions to plug into. We’ve got to do what helps people. What works. So why don’t we sit down and talk about it?”

    Our man in Congo, the late Jim Atkinson, said much the same. “There are no altruistic Congolese. You have only to look at what the rulers have done to their people in the last 40 years. A mandate is the only way. The international community is wasting its time on half-hearted measures. They should either takeover and do it properly, or get out.”

    Instead of scuttling at the earliest opportunity, a UN Special Representative should run Mali for as long as it takes to build stable institutions. Not just an effective military, but a fully functioning administration so far as possible funded out of local taxation, supported by the rule of law, and subject to the approval of the people by way of referendums every four years. This would be a better way to deal with failed states than anything we have so far tried.

     

    Culled from The Times (London)

    February 8, 2013

     

  • Will nations align anew?

    Will nations align anew?

    •History tends to vindicate those who keep their eyes on it

    For all the righteous melodies coming out of Western capitals exalting the rule of law, openness and democracy, when their money is jeopardized, these governments reach for a different fiddle to play a discordant, crasser tune. The rule of law retreats in the face of the imperatives of power. These nations berate African states for inconstancy in economic and financial policy and practice. When it comes to the crunch, we now know these countries commit similar misconduct. In fact, they may have authored it.

    Decades ago, a courageous intellectual, Walter Rodney, wrote the seminal work How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Sadly, Rodney left us prematurely without finishing the contributions he could have rendered to mankind. If alive today, the West Indian would likely feel a sense of vindication, even schadenfreude, at the economic woes Europe currently experiences. The book he would write today would bear a startling title: How Europe Underdeveloped Itself.

    A few weeks ago, a courageous Cypriot government tried to buck the heavy financial pressure levied against by a venal trinity: the German government, the EU and the IMF. The rebellion offered by the tiny island was as futile as it was brave. Given the size of the island’s economy compared to three behemoths against it, the Cypriots’ stood not a chance. We predicted they would be forced to do what they loathed. The choice before the beleaguered people was one no sovereign nation or innocent person should face. By sticking to principle, they would face sudden and certain financial death. Through surrender to greater power, they would consign themselves to protracted economic recession tantamount to death through slow but gradually compounding torture. Since the latter delayed the execution, thus providing a sliver of a chance for reprieve, the proud Cypriots bowed their heads, tendering to Berlin and its cohorts their dignity in exchange for the less dramatic but equally moribund fate. With heads lowered, they were forced to drink of a bitter cup, the taste of which shall sting well into the next decade.

    The price they paid was a steep one. The Cypriots relinquished to the Venal Triumvirate the scant chards of economic sovereignty the island still possessed. The harsh trio showed little mercy in putting the island to the lash. With the strength of an absolute monarch’s medieval edict, the Venal Trio turned the rule of law into the rule of might with one tragic blow. Heretofore, bank deposits were sacrosanct, insured so savers felt secure in parking their earnings in banks. This no longer applies to Cyprus. The largest depositors lost most of their funds through no fault of their own save bringing their money to Cyprus in the first instance. This effectively destroys the nation’s commercial banking sector. Now only the maddest of mad man would lodge his money in Cyprus. The only men known to be that insane are the North Korean and Syrian leaders both of whom are currently too preoccupied with other matters to bestow such largesse at the moment. For a nation where banking stands as one of two major industries, this is not a mere knell. It is the presence of Death itself.

    Moving from the terrible to the sublimely catastrophic, the Trio of Doom imposed currency controls on Cyprus. Basically, any euro already there must remain on the island. Any that enters must stay save a minimal amount per individual exiting the isle. Also, most business transactions on the island have been reduced to cash. However, there is daily maximum limit on bank cash withdrawals. With these restrictions, the only tourists with the desire to visit Cyprus will be ascetics who neither like money nor enjoy the normal comforts upon which money is spent or those who have so little money that the restrictions are inapplicable and who most likely cannot afford to come to the island in any event. Upon neither class of people can tourism be revived. For a nation with tourism as its other large industry, this is akin to deboning a turkey while the fowl is yet alive.

    Add to these debilitating measures, the biting fiscal austerity placed on government expenditures, Cyprus has descended into the deepest gaol of depression. The island state shall not see the light of prosperity until after it has forgotten such a light exists.

    These controls blatantly contravene the EU treaty’s (Articles 26 and 63) provisions guaranteeing the free movement of money, people and goods. When it comes to extracting demands from weaker nations, the Unholy Three have the same lack of qualms as a hardened racketeer. They gutted core EU principles in order to extract a pound of Cypriot flesh. For them, the rule of law comes distant second to the rule of money. To legitimize their mischief, they passed measures and regulations giving the appearance of propriety. No matter the ribbons and bows place on it, what they did remains a strong-arm confiscation as if done at gunpoint. Pasting butterfly wings on an elephant doesn’t convert it to a jumbo jet. Drafting these onerous measures on EU parchment neither eases the misery caused thereby nor makes the overbearing intimidation any more ethical. There lies a broken body in the street, the casualty of a financial mugging of the worst order.

    In superficially attempting to save the Euro, this martinet plan makes the first structural crack in the euro zone’s architecture. The essential principle of a monetary union is that of a uniform currency. This is no longer the case. The dire restrictions placed on money in Cyprus means the “Cyprus euro” is less useable, thus valuable, than the regular euro. Two currencies effectively are in use. Cyprus now exists in a netherworld. It is of the euro zone but not completely in it. Only the future can tell if it returns to full membership or goes in the opposite direction. Exiting the zone’s strictures would better serve the nation’s interests but it would take politicians of the rarest courage to hew that path. Thus, the nation’s future is to be written by the pen of sorrow. Meanwhile, predator nations will swoop on the supine island and purchase its ample gas reserves on the cheap. Have you ever seen an island sink? It is a rare thing but you shall witness it if you keep your eye trained on Cyprus.

    Since Cyprus is such a small economy, all this might seem like a tempest in a teapot. More accurately, it is a teapot tossed in a tempest. A majority of banks in the EU are illiquid; many of these are insolvent. This means the EU financial crisis is buried but not dead. Like most living things, it detests life underground. It wants to surface. More banks will crash. EU officials now contemplate applying the Cyprus medicine to banks in other nations. Even the American Federal Reserve is considering measures that will lessen the government’s heretofore ironclad guarantee of bank deposits.

    Before our very eyes, a financialism counterrevolution is underway even before the progressive revolt was had. If this method of writing off bank losses becomes practice, depositing savings in a bank will soon assume the same risk as investing in the stock market. The very nature of savings and commercial banking will alter. People will feel compelled to ply their savings into more speculative forms of investments. Non-bank investment houses, known as the shadow banking sector, will enjoy a field day.

    If this becomes fashion in the developed economies, it may quickly infect African economies given our penchant for mimicking what comes out of the West without fully understanding the consequences.

    However, what recently took place in South Africa offers a thin hope that the days of mimicry may be ending. On March 26-27, BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) held a summit in Durban whereby they attempted to turn their grouping into something more material than just a notion. They tried to bring some organizational structure and purpose to the unit. They succeeded in part and failed in part.

    At its most ambitious stance, BRICS represents the non-Western world’s latest attempt to restructure the global economic order. BRICS nations are not paradise and their leaders are not always sufficiently versed or statesmen enough to overcome the peculiar national tasks they each face. Thus, creating a supra-national entity transcending geographical bounds and somehow harmonizing these disparate economies is a herculean endeavor. But, some of these leaders tend to run when it comes to most forms of heavy lifting.

    Heretofore, the unity of BRICS has been a negative one. BRICS joined hands not because of what they were; they did so because of what they were not: they were not the West. However, this anti-identity does not do much except if all that is wanted is a new global platform to publicize Western failings. Those failings are so self-evident that limiting BRICS to such a role would quickly render the grouping an intricate but wet fuse.

    BRICS needs to be something more than a club of large economies not situated in the North Atlantic. In Durban, the process of lending the group a positive identity took a few steps. The most noteworthy is the agreement in principle to establish a development bank. Funded in the amount of 100 billion dollars, the bank is envisioned as an alternative to the rabidly financialist IMF and, to a lesser extent, the World Bank. Such a bank will be condign but all will be opposed by established powers. They will see it as directly threatening their ability to impose conservative economic strictures on struggling, beggar nations that now must visit the IMF because there is no other place to go. But IMF remedies are like those of the mad physician who relieves a patient’s pain in the neck by poking a sharp dagger in his back.

    Unfortunately, the agreement regarding the bank was only in principle. The summit could move no further on this issue because BRICS members disagreed over structural and operational details for the bank. Also, it is one thing to stand before the klieg lights and pledge 100 billion dollars before a supportive audience. It is quite another thing to return home to write the checks. Allocating funds to the bank entails cutting funding for extant priorities. Influential elements in each government will be unhappy, seeing the bank as a foreign policy romp prematurely, thus quixotically, made. BRICS also stepped toward strengthening their Business Council. Also, China promised African nations 20 billion dollars in concessionary loans.

    In all of these, China is the biggest winner. Under cover of BRICS, China will pursue its agenda to influence numerous African nations, thus securing supplies of raw materials. However, instead of chasing the hare as a unilateral action, China will do more of this as a member of the BRICS collective. This may help Beijing blunt criticism that it pursues an agenda as equally hegemonic as those of developed nations. However, such criticism is proper and justified given Chinese recent antecedents in Africa. Its policies have revealed a China disinterested in Africa’s independent development. China’s driving mission is to position itself to control African raw materials and strategic industries at their source. The neo-imperialism of the West focuses on gobbling African raw materials then exporting finished manufactured goods and specialized business services to Africa.

    Departing from this model, China reverts to old fashion colonialism. They want to snatch raw materials but are all too willing to export millions of Chinese citizens to run factories and open businesses in Africa. The face of 21st century resident colonialism in Africa is not the face of the Occident. It is the face of China. The “chinafication” of African economies is noticeable in several countries. It may initially bolster local production and GDP. The uptick comes at the longer-term price of mortgaging the nation’s economic sovereignty. As Cyprus and the other nations of the southern tier of the euro zone have shown, sacrificing long-term independence for short-term profit is a wretched bargain.

    Consequently, Africa should applaud the ongoing institutionalization of BRICS. At this point, a group offering a perspective of the world economy different than Western financialism is a positive counterpoise. Western financialism is a corrosive way to model any economy. It is especially disastrous for Africa. We need something else. BRICS may not be the final remedy but perhaps it may be a transition providing some breathing room. For BRICS to be more than a stopgap, it must expand its membership and advocate a more reformist agenda than the one now implied. In some ways, BRICS nations don’t want to amend the current system. They just want to negotiate more room for themselves at the top of the appalling heap.

    With this in mind, Africa must keep an eye on the West and one on China. Both want to keep Africa in subordinate so as to exploit her resources. Africa must be wise by leverage each against the other. If not, this century will not be the advent of Africa’s climb out of poverty. It will be the century of Africa’s compound abuse because this time it will not be just the West larruping us the East too will pounce and extract its portion.

    In the end, talk about economics as an exact science and about the objective rules of finance is the stuff of fables. This is an elaborate nursery tale told to those who the architects of the current global economy would rather have believe in make believe. Too many of Africa’s people are too poor to afford the luxury of believing in things that do not exist and in ideas that do not work except against those who obey them. Africa needs to come to the place where it understands the rules of the current game offer it no respite. The economic and financial regimes set by organs such as the IMF and World Trade Organization are so stacked against the evolution of African economies that should one of them a grow into a developed economy, it will be by accident. Africa needs to confront these regimes to which it has sheepishly agreed. The continent needs to formulate ideas, ways and means that promote its own interests. Then it must use these things to build its own positive economic life and structure, brick by painstaking brick.

     

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  • Generation of change: Young and old people in culture 2

    Generation of change: Young and old people in culture 2

    Serious-minded and well-planned trans-generational collaboration is needed now more than ever

    In these and other writings of Achebe, the country’s new ancestor made it clear to his readers that the responsibility or duty to create a good life for people in pre-colonial and post-colonial Nigeria rests on the shoulders of old and young alike, particularly on the shoulders of all human beings who are emotionally intelligent enough to know that good values lead to good change in the hands of old and young people alike. In other words, Achebe did not see a world divided along binary lines. He saw a world that is driven by ever-present possibility of ‘unitiveness’ or ceaseless negotiation between elements on what appears to be a divide on the surface.

    While Chinua Achebe deserves to rest in perfect peace for the many good ideas he had bequeathed to Nigeria, the call for dialogue on Thursday at Bola Tinubu’s birthday colloquium is timely, coming at a time that our nation needs to change its ways, if it is not to go the way of dinosaur, perishing by avoiding to change.

    We concluded this column last week by saying that the call for inter-generational dialogue at Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s 2013 birthday anniversary colloquium: “Beyond Mergers: A National Movement for Change – A New Generation Speaks” is most timely, coming at a time that our country needs to change its ways, if it is not go the way of dinosaur, perishing by avoiding to change.

    Exactly a week after the colloquium, the British Council released a report that contains more dismal statistics or scary statistical interpretation about the country. Titled ‘British Council Raises Alarm,’ the report says in summary that Nigeria’s population is heading in the direction of swelling by 63 million people by 2050, with the likelihood of becoming the 5th most populous country in the world, and with the likelihood of teetering on the edge of ‘demographic disaster,’ unless the country’s stagnant economy improves rapidly enough to support its teeming population of young people.

    The British Council’s report further observes that large cohorts of unemployed and underemployed young people have the propensity to destabilize society, boost crime and foment conditions where civil conflict becomes more common. The report pontificates that any country that is not well prepared to make the best of its Baby Boom generation can find itself in the midst of ‘a demographic disaster.’ It concludes that if Nigeria fails to respond positively to employment needs of its rising population of young people, it stands the risk of getting its youth radicalized, particularly in the direction of Boko Haram and its Al Qaeda mentor.

    As is expected, Nigerians with fathomless and infectious enthusiasm have not failed to addtheir comments at the end of the British Council’s report online. Some of such comments go thus: “Our stagnant economy of 6.1 growth rate will soon be supporting UK’s stagnant economy of negative -4.6% growth rate,’ and ‘This seems devastating, but before then d youth of Naija will put things in order. Lets (sic) empower one another cos its (sic) one of the way (sic) out.’

    The call for the empowerment of the country’s youths to avoid a demographic disaster is evident in thinking of the organisers of this year’s colloquium in honour of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and in the presentations of the speakers at the colloquium. Certainly, the young Nigerians that spoke to their elders at the colloquium fully understood the problem facing the country when they insisted that senior citizens in party politics must engage them optimally if they are to drive the country from its current position of inertia and ritual celebration of percentage of growth in the last few years to an ethos of action and development that provides employment for the nation’s youth and thus predispose them to self-actualisation.

    One theme that was announced at the colloquium is that Nigeria’s young men and women less than 40 years of age are technology lovers, and like youths across the globe, more computer savvy than their parents who are currently directing the country’s politics in all the political parties. Without doubt, young Nigerians are capable of using Twitter and Facebook and other devices to mobilise citizens to participate in demands for equity and social justice, just as their counterparts in the Arab world were able to do before and during the Arab Spring. Young people thus need to be attracted to joint meetings on the way forward for Nigeria from its decades of self-paralysis.

    The responses of most of the elders at the colloquium suggest that the celebrator’s party is not just interested in creating a large party to take over power from the ruling party of today or to stiffen competition for power between APC and PDP. Elders driving the merger appear interested in more than allowing the younger generation to speak. They want the country’s youth to join them on the train of change. The elders do not seem to be interested just in the technological advantage or superiority of the youth; they are desirous of drawing young people into the new political configuration that is expected to bring new ideas and positive change to the people of the country.

    While the elders have no reason not to acknowledge the technological advantage of Nigerians under 40 years, they also must know that technology is not an end and that the technological wonders of our century is a product of ideology and culture in other parts of the world.Useful as it is, the technological skills of young Nigerians should not be the focus of trans-generational rubbing of minds. What is needed is intellectual and emotional honesty of young and old in efforts by concerned Nigerians in progressive political parties to construct a worldview that can galvanize Nigerians to acknowledge the imperative of change.

    What is most needed is the continuation of the dialogue started at the colloquium beyond the walls of the venue of this year’s festival of ideas. Young people are not to wait to be invited to join a party that is being projected as the party of change. They are expected to insist and act as co-founders of the Merger for change. Young men and women are thus not to wait until the party’s ideology is cast in stone before they engage party leaders on the way forward for the country.

    This is the time for focused trans-generational meetings on the ideology that is capable of keeping the country united and at the same time poised for the kind of economic development that can ensure equity and justice for all. Young people need to be in the boardroom of ideas that create the ideology to change Nigeria from its present paralysis to actualization of the potential of young and old as well as boys and girls. Veteran politicians and aspiring ones need to realize that political culture determines economic development or lack of it. There is no better illustration of this than today’s Nigeria. Both groups ought to create a conducive environment for collaboration on how the new party plans to move millions of the country’s youths out of unemployment or underemployment.

    Similar efforts had been made before. Chief Obafemi Awolowo in his forties joined hands with the likes of Chief Anthony Enahoro then in their twenties to prepare an ideology of Freedom for All, Life more Abundant. This ideology popularized among young and old the duty that political power puts on those in charge of governance, particularly the principle that people voted into power are duty-bound to create and implement policies that assist citizens to have a sense of fulfillment in life and not fight alienation through life as most citizens do in our own country today. Alhaji Aminu Kano also popularised similar ideology of equity and justice in his time in NEPU. The principle that government is created to serve the interest of the people it governs went from Action Group to Unity Party of Nigeria and, to a large extent, to M. K. O Abiola’s Social Democratic Party. It surfaced again in AD and later ACN and in other parties now in the process of merging.

    Serious-minded and well-planned trans-generational collaboration is needed now more than ever, more so at the instance of a new party that sets out to be a national movement for change.

  • Coach’s captain or players’ choice

    Coach’s captain or players’ choice

    I’m not an alarmist. Nor do I claim to be a seer. But my hunch tells me that there are problems in the Super Eagles we need to resolve, if Nigeria must hoist her flag among the football fraternity at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

    We have before us a clay-pot-and-rat setting, which we must handle with care. Two top figures in the Eagles are at daggers drawn. Hitherto, they were not telling us the truth about their deep-seated wahala.

    But Yobo broke his silence on Tuesday on 88.9 Brila FM when he said: “I’m disappointed nobody called me before the team list was announced. It’s disrespectful. I feel disrespected. I’m the captain of the Super Eagles and I thought the coach should have put a call across to me. I have no problem being left out.”

    Keshi may shrug his shoulders and say he is not obliged to do things the players’ way. But he must accept that this feud could be our albatross when the chips are down at the bumpy Kasarani stadium in Nairobi on September 5.

    Keshi needs the big boys to pull through the Kenyans in Nairobi. Dutchman Johannes Bonfrere tried the stunt of ignoring the big boys and paid dearly for it. Nigeria lost to Sierra Leone in one of the Japan/Korea 2002 World Cup qualifiers in Freetown and it marked his sack from the team. Eagles had 14 men to play with and we lost 1-0.

    The player who will be having a good laugh is the irritant Osaze Odemwingie and I won’t be surprised if he tweets again to capture the whole scenario. It would be caustic. I digress.

    There will also be the harsh weather conditions. We, therefore, need the full complement of our players who are driven by one goal- to ensure that Nigeria qualifies for the Brazil 2014 World Cup and not the divided house that we have today.

    The disturbing aspect of this time bomb is that both parties are feigning ignorance of the problem. Yet the team is broken along the lines of loyalty to either of the men.

    The players are unhappy with the Eagles’ technical crew over their ploy to deny Yobo a place for 100 international caps for Nigeria under the spurious grounds that he is “out-of-favour”. Whose favour? In this group are the regulars and their grouse is that the coach ought to have identified with this Yobo dream rather than blow him out of the team like catarrh inside the nostrils.

    The pro-Yobo group is pointing to the fact that Coach Keshi enjoyed sufficient respect from the Eagles’ coaching crew then headed by Clemens Westerhof in the twilight of his career. They are miffed that such a man could brazenly drop a player he knew was burdened by a niggling injury, which they say has healed fully, culminating in Yobo’s five-star outing for his Turkish side in their last Europa Cup competition.

    The thrust of their angst against the coach is that they have likened what is about happening to Yobo as the typical Nigerian use-and-dump attitude. They have vowed to resist it, insisting that it is about time Nigeria celebrated her big stars instead of easing them out like ice cream under the scorching sun.

    When this informant dropped his call, what struck my mind was – which do we prefer, the coach’s captain or the players’ choice? For me, we need the option that would guarantee Nigeria a place at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

    From my interaction with the chief complainant, they didn’t have any problem with Vincent Enyeama as their captain. They felt sad that Yobo was being dumped without honour. They said this had been the lot of great players in the Eagles, vowing that the trend must stop with the Yobo/Keshi saga. Is Enyeama a better captain than Yobo? Keshi had better ask his fellow former international, Samson Siasia. Enyeama knew he made the starting squad because of Austin Ejide’s injury; otherwise, he had been sidelined.

    This is what Enyeama told a radio programme and it is very instructive, lest They said this had been the lot of great players in the Eagles, vowing that the trend must stop with the Yobo/Keshi saga. Is Enyeama a better captain than Yobo? Keshi had better ask his fellow former international, Samson Siasia. Enyeama knew he made the starting squad because of Austin Ejide’s injury; otherwise, he had been sidelined.

    This is what Enyeama told a radio programme and it is very instructive, lest Keshi burns his candle on both ends. Enyeama said: “We have to be careful how we handle senior players… experience… leadership serves as motivation to younger players.”

    I know that the coach has the right to pick the captain that he can work with. Yet he needs the team to win matches; otherwise, his job is on the line. Coaches would rather keep their jobs than allow infighting to lead to their sack.

    The power of players in sacking their coaches is best captured at Chelsea, even though they argue that it is the owner, Roman Abrahamovic, that does all the sacking. No one tells the current Tottenham FC of London’s manager Andre Villas-Boas that story, having encountered Chelsea stars in his short stay at Stamford Bridge.

    Keshi must understand this fact -that no coach goes to the field to play; he relies on the players to do the job. If they are displeased, they won’t give their best. Can we see any correlation between this setting and the way our African champions tottered before a seemingly weaker Kenyan side, if we juxtapose what the Eagles exhibited in their last three games at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations? No comparison! Keshi must, therefore, tread with caution on this matter.

    Players-versus-coach imbroglio is always expected, yet it is how the parties settle to achieve the set objective that makes the coach who he is. The salient fact as we move to scuttle this impending mutiny in the Super Eagles is that most of the players have reached their self-actualisation point. They have played at the World Cup and know that Nigeria cannot win it. They have won several bronze medals. And with the gold medal around their necks as Africa Cup of Nations champions, anything can give way. It doesn’t really matter for a country where we don’t have the culture of celebrating our heroes.

    What is currently playing out actually started with the Big Boss himself? So, it is interesting that it is all coming back to him now as a coach. Under Westerhoff, Nigerian football followers knew that the Big Boss was literally a spare tyre who was tagging along in the twilight of his career. Yet he lifted the trophy as the team’s captain. So, what is sauce for the goose should also be sauce for the gander.

    If he saw nothing wrong in being taken to the 1994 World Cup in US, as a non-playing captain, if anything, to booster his colleagues’ morale, he should be seen to be doing the right thing. And in that way, he will stave off rebellion and keep his job.

    But more seriously, when has a player become an institution to be consulted on the team’s selection? If it has ever happened elsewhere, it is not a written pact, but merely a coach’s discretion. But again, it does appear to me that a precedent may have been set where players in Nigeria feel that their opinion or input matters in the choice of their colleagues to be invited for the national team assignment.

    Last word: A potential landmine is being laid for Keshi as he tinkers with his team ahead of the Kenya encounter. Big Boss, be courageous, but be wise.

    Enugu Rangers, Kaduna Utd’s sanctions

    The only way that Nigerians can throng the stadium to watch matches will be for the place to be safe.

    No Nigerian would risk his/her life or that of their siblings to be at the stadium, if players who should be entertaining them beat up a match referee to a pulp.

    What these unruly players don’t know is that these referees are people’s fathers, uncles, brothers, in-laws and bread winners. I wonder how they would feel if their fathers, for instance, are brutalised like they do to these referees to intimidate them to do their biddings.

    Stop this supporters’ aircraft stuff, please

    Gradually, the private aircraft syndrome started by our super rich pastors is beginning to take hold on other strata of the society. How can one explain the sudden desire of the Nigeria Supporters’ Club to acquire their own aircraft?

    I thought it was a joke taken too far up the sky, when I first read of the club’s intention to buy an aircraft. I laughed when they argued that owning an aircraft would reduce the cost of travelling to root for the Super Eagles during matches.

    What struck me was to ask if the game won’t hold in their absence? I felt that they needed to be told that owning an aircraft would be more expensive as they would have to pay for parking, pay the pilots and the accompanying staff, the engineers and other logistics to keep the aircraft air worthy.

    We salute the supporters for rooting for the national teams during competitions. But the decision to own an aircraft was not well thought out. Somebody should please instruct the authorities never to consider this ambitious request.

    President Goodluck Jonathan recognised them by giving them N5 million. The President could also instruct the National Sports Commission (NSC) to include the supporters’ budget in our request because they play a pivotal role in galvanising the players during matches. Globacom boss Mike Adenuga has always supported the club. Maybe, they could consider a launch before big competitions. They need financial assistance; not an aircraft.

  • Why political parties matter

    Why political parties matter

    One of the disturbing weaknesses of the current dispensation of civilian rule, which commenced in 1999, has been the relegation of political parties to the background of near irrelevance. Once they assume office, elected office holders especially the executive arm of government simply carry on according to their whims and caprices with scant regard for the party. This is the most unfortunate trend that transcends partisan boundaries and is evident at all levels of government. Yet, the party is one of the most important and critical institutions in our own variant of the presidential system of government. The political party aggregates interests from a broad cross section of the population. It articulates those interests, values and desires into a broad policy framework known as its manifesto. The party sponsors candidates for public office who, if elected, are expected to govern on its behalf and on the basis of the party’s philosophy and programmes that is its binding social contract with the electorate. If the party’s role is so critical, why is it run in a most lackadaisical and informal manner across the polity? Why should our political parties be often subjected to the dictatorial control of the wielders of executive power? Why is it so difficult to find, in many instances, any meaningful nexus between a party’s manifesto and the actual policies being implemented by many governments across the land?

    I ask these questions at a critical moment in the evolution of Nigeria’s party system. The old order is dying but struggling desperately to remain afloat. A new order is struggling to be born. The institutional electoral mid-wife, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), seems to be in a dilemma. Should it aid the perpetuation of an old order that has impoverished the vast majority of our people or should the commission help bring about a new electoral system that will be more competitive and help meaningfully to promote development through democracy? No matter how we look at it, the country is at a critical cross road. The battle for the soul of Nigeria over the next two years will be fiercely and bitterly fought. The emergence of the All Progressive Congress (APC), a merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) sends strong signals of the possibilities of change come 2015.

    Of course, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which has held on firmly to control of the centre since 1999 will not be expected to fold its arms and welcome the emergence of a formidable force capable of dislodging it from its current privileged position at the centre. Yes, the party’s National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, had boasted that on the field of Nigerian politics, his party can be likened to the mercurial Argentine soccer star, Lionel Messi with the opposition having no chance at all in an electoral contest. But the attempt to undermine and ambush the APC by getting shadowy elements to hurriedly register two parties with INEC and with the same acronym; a project that allegedly has the imprint of the ruling party shows that the PDP is taking nothing for granted. INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega has courageously declined the registration of the African People’s Congress (APC) because of its not satisfying section 222A of the constitution, which requires that the names and addresses of national executives of an aspiring party must be made available to the commission. As for the other shadowy party, the All Patriotic Congress (APC), it has reportedly agreed to adopt a new name to avoid controversy.

    It is important for the INEC Chairman to know that Nigerians are more politically sophisticated than ever before. They know which group first announced the name APC as its identity. They know which group can legitimately claim the acronym as its intellectual property. They know who the shadowy impostors trying to hijack a party name they were too lazy to think up in the first place are. Professor Jega’s handling of this issue will go a long way in determining how much trust the people will repose in his credibility and integrity to conduct satisfactory elections in future.In any case, Professor Jega’s INEC only recently de-registered a myriad of unviable political parties that existed practically only on paper. It would be a contradiction in terms for the same INEC to now register shadowy organizations hurriedly formed to thwart the emergence of a stronger, healthier party system in the country’s interest.

    But the APC leaders will be living in a world of illusion if they think that everything will be smooth sailing for the emergence of the new party. They should expect more surprises, even betrayals from right within their ranks. But those are unavoidable birth pangs of an emergent new dispensation. If the salvation of Nigeria is truly their aim, then they should put the nation above personal ambitions and work assiduously to overcome all the land mines that will most surely be put in the way of the new party. The prime objective of the new party must not be simply to replace the PDP as the behemoth in control of the centre. Rather, it must present the electorate with concrete alternative programmes in diverse spheres including national security, education, power and water supply, a modern rail system, reconstruction of our highways, agriculture, a transparent and efficient oil sector, job creation, poverty alleviation and a workable federal constitution among others. What the APC leaders are doing is indeed the first time in the history of Nigeria to form a genuine merger of parties. What we had in the first and second republics were two broad based alliances of parties that agreed to work together but retained their separate identities. In both instances such alliances proved electorally ineffective to dislodge the party at the centre.

    Even as the APC leaders continue with the arduous challenges of forging a merger, the PDP is embroiled in a deep seated crisis that may well lead to its implosion if not carefully managed. But not even the most implacable foe of the PDP must pray for its disintegration into anarchic fragments. Yes, it would do the polity a lot of good if the PDP’s overweening influence is significantly diluted. But the party must continue to exist as a cohesive entity to confront another equally viable party, the APC, in an emergent two-party dominant system that will make electoral choices easier for the electorate as well as encourage voting across primordial ethnic, regional or religious fault lines. But the APC would do well to learn the relevant lessons from the PDP crisis. At the root of the party’s current raging inferno is the over concentration of power in the hands of whoever is the incumbent President to the detriment of the party. This started with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who assumed the role of national leader of the party. In that capacity he appointed and removed Chairmen and other national officers of the party at will. Now, President Goodluck Jonathan is following in the same steps and Obasanjo and his acolytes are on the receiving end! What goes around comes around. Due to the personalization of power within the party by the President, the PDP’s zoning formula was recklessly abandoned to favour President Jonathan in 2011. That sacrifice of principle on the altar of expediency continues to haunt the party and the entire country till date.

    No elected officer, no matter how exalted his position, must be above party discipline, guidance and control. This is true not just of Nigeria but also even of the United States from where we copied our presidential system. In his book titled ‘Running Alone: Presidential Leadership – JFK to Bush 11’, the American political scientist, James MacGreggor Burns, made precisely this point. He traces the decline in the quality of presidential leadership from John Kennedy through to George Bush 11 to the tendency for Presidents to run for office and govern alone with little input from their parties. In his words “America needs better leaders. Since Thomas Jefferson, great leadership has emerged from strong parties, from leaders who have run with such parties and presented Americans with genuine alternatives”. Professor Burns’ conclusion is equally poignant “In the past, political parties have been the vehicle for the empowerment of workers, farmers, African Americans, immigrants. Do they empower large masses of people today? Only to a modest degree. But given the challenges that confront any effort to achieve real change, they are the only institutional recourse if tens of millions of the unequal and the un-empowered are to run together and ultimately to govern together”. That is why parties matter.

  • Social  equities  and values

    Social  equities  and values

    When  the concept  of Federal  Character  was introduced into  governance in Nigeria, I  believe the motive was to  ensure fairness in the allocation of public offices such that  a sort of balance  and equity is achieved in terms of such distribution of positions. Thus the concept was a good one to achieve fairness such that no section of the Nigerian society took unfair advantage of the  other in terms of a head start for economic growth and use or misuse of power.  Globally too,   societies  and political systems try to reduce inequalities and disparities in incomes  between the rich and the poor so as to spread the national wealth in the hope that this will minimize friction and envy which can overheat the socio  economic environment and lead to violence  and chaos if not outright anarchy. I  acknowledge at the outset of this piece that there is not much difference between the two major ideologies capitalism  and socialism in this regard as  the advent of welfarism has been   suitable a bridge of sort in ameliorating over the years, the extreme claims of either ideology. Yet  some glaring anomalies exist   globally ,  in terms of values  and equity  both on the corporate and political scenes ,  in the execution of socio economic programs of  the  ideological divide  of these two systems, that we shall consider  here  today.

    Let  us start  with the incredible threat  this week  by North Korea that it will  attack  the US and that the attack includes a possibility of a nuclear attack. Some have said  this is a gimmick  but supposing it turns out to be  a real threat,  as the US  itself has acknowledged, and is not taking chances. What  could be the motive of the young man now in Charge in North Korea? In  Nigeria a list of key positions in INEC – the nations Independent National Electoral Commission  – was published  and almost all these positions were occupied by Nigerians  from the North West  and North East of the nation. What happened to the concept of Federal character and why the lopsidedness or monopoly of two geopolitical zones, in a nation of six of such, in the organization of elections which is key to the survival of any democracy,  not to talk of a volatile one like Nigeria?

    In  the UK  a new categorization of social classes has been evolved by sociologists who believe the old ones are not realistic enough in today’s modern society and new realities. Again the essence of this is to identify and   acknowledge socio economic disparities  and the sociologists say they have used three criteria namely economic  status, social standing  and culture to identify the new social order which is quite interesting. In  the same UK, Barclays, the banking giant,  commissioned a study on what led to its waywardness in cheating on interest rates on LIBOR  charges    some time ago    and the CEO  of the bank agreed with the report which  concluded that Barclays had deviated from its original culture of honesty and integrity and employees were more interested in short term gains  motivated by the greed to get bonuses.

     Also,  in the US  it  is the Republican Party that is left holding the can in defending the    Defence of Marriages Act   of 1996 –  DOMA – a law on marriages between  a man  and a woman. This  is because the Obama Administration  has abandoned the law  and refused to defend it because it discriminates against giving benefits to  gay couples  and the Obama Adminstration is committed to promoting gay rights.  DOMA  was made during the Clinton  presidency although   both Bill and Hillary Clinton are  now for gay rights like Obama. Yet  in Africa the  Democratic    Party  of the Obamas  and the Clintons is more popular than the Republican Party which is upholding traditional marriage between a man and a woman  which is the accepted norm in most African nations today. Really  it  is of such of surprises in terms of values and conceptions, strange bedfellows you may call them, that I want to talk about today   in the context of changing values and the quest for equity in pursuing such emerging  values.

    In  the Vatican  in Rome, Italy,  the new Pope  Francis set the tone of his Papacy by refusing to live for now in the posh palatial residence of his predecessors,  preferring to share a residence with some Cardinals instead . For a  new Pope who remembered to go  back  and pay his hotel bill  after his election as Pope, the message is that he will lead in a way that will not leave  simplicity, accountability and transparency, too far behind and he will  not be too far from the poor and needy and even prisoners who were included in the first set of people he prayed for on assuming office. In addition   the Francis Papacy’s hall mark is respect for the poor and a resolve  to lift those in the mire of poverty out of their misery. That to me looks quite commendable and laudable on its own. Let us see   however, how the other issues I have raised fair in comparison with Pope Francis’ new resolve in the Vatican.

    We start with  the list of INEC  directors in which almost all of them come from the NE  and NW of Nigeria. This is anti federal character and against the unity of our nation. Indeed it makes a mockery of the concept of unity in diversity and calls for an urgent explanation from Professor Jega , the Head of INEC  and a distinguished professor of political science. Professor Jega needs to be reminded that the Federal Character issue was initiated to make the north, which was lagging behind the south in terms of education,  to catch   up  and  a lot of catching up has been achieved ever since and some are even wondering if  the federal character is still relevant or useful any more. Definitely, no one will however  suggest or moot that it should be substituted or replaced by another northernisation, north easternisation  or   north  westernization   of  federal institutions in Nigeria, especially an important one like INEC. There is urgent need  therefore  for INEC to make a statement announcing an urgent review of its management structure,  as this is an issue that has damaged the impartiality  or credibility of INEC before the whistle has been blown on the 2015 elections. Or else,  the only fair and credible alternative is for Jega to make way for a more federal minded and fairer referee of elections,  instead of  the  blindly partisan one that the INEC list   key  directors has revealed.

    We  go next to North Korea where I believe there is real danger to world peace stemming from the economic quandary that N Korea has created for itself in having food shortages that make it unable to feed itself. The present leader’s grand father and father used the same tactics of nuclear threat to barter for less sanctions and more funds from the international community. This young new leader however looks so immature that one cannot ignore his threats. Perhaps because he thinks South Korea has a new president who happens to be a woman he can bluff his way through. But the new S Korean president too is the daughter of a former military president  and  is well groomed for the job and is familiar  with the antics of the ancestors of the young N Korean leader. Anyway I pray fervently that global peace is not disturbed unnecessarily  by a cash strapped, exuberant  and inexperienced N Korean leader, with his hand on the nuclear button.

    The  Barclays issue on culture drift speaks for itself and it shows again how financialism  has affected  the global financial business. Barclays was  a bank built on integrity, hard work and honesty which went to the dogs as employees were promoted based on their  greed for success and not hard work. Bonuses  overtook work ethics and customers and stakeholders interests  and this led to eventual tarnishing of the hard earned image of Barclays as a leading  global banking institution famous for the honesty and hard  work of its employees and management.  It  was nice however  to hear the Barclays CEO who commissioned the study say that    although  the document made uncomfortable reading but the right lessons will be learnt from it. That  really is the good news from a dismal past   for the present Barclays bank.

    In  Britain  a survey involving sociologists from London School of Economics and an American university has identified 7 social classes in the UK to replace the normal three of Upper, Upper Middle Class and working class. The seven range from the elite , to the affluent ending with the seventh – called the Precariat which are people with the lowest level  of social, economic and cultural capital. The beauty of this categorization  is that you can know your class yourself by   putting in data on your computer. I am sure this will interest advertising companies and those involved in making consumer goods tremendously. Also political parties which don’t want to waste time and energy  chasing the wrong target audience are well advised to tune in to this new class classification gimmick. Definitely    economic planning, demography, census and politics will benefit globally from this new class categorization that has started in the UK. The  thrill here is that you know your  position on the social ladder yourself based on your statistics. That I am  sure will minimize the feeling of inferiority which the earlier categorization seem to inflict on those down the  social  ladder. That  to me reduces tension and envy. Which really is some sort of equity which  can be a good booster to strive up the social ladder, and the society   could be  better for it, at  the end of the day.

  • Reverse moral revolution

    Reverse moral revolution

    Oke-ogun is on my mind today. But I need tofollow a detour to get to my favorite landscape and its innocent people.

    The credit for the 21st century popularisation of the term “moral revolution” is, without argument, Kwame Anthony Appiah’s. It was his 2009 book, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen that reintroduces the term and injects it into our modern consciousness as the moral equivalent of scientific revolution. In his account, a moral revolution occurs when a people who have been long engaged in a shameful, embarrassing, immoral way of life or behaviour abandon it in favour of a decent or morally defensible practice. Among his examples, one that resonates with us in this part of the world is the abolition of transatlantic slavery.

    The practice of hunting, capturing, parking, and transporting, against their will, thousands of human beings across the Atlantic and forcing them into servitude was so inhumane and barbaric that it is still now a surprise that it was considered acceptable and legitimate for such a long time in spite of the efforts of a number of abolitionists and beyond the lifetime of the pioneers. That is the nature of tradition.

    “Tradition” is a customary way of doing things that is unique to a group, a habitual way of life, what sociologist Edward Shils defines as “anything which is transmitted or handed down from the past to the present”. Of course, being handed down does not necessarily entail being accepted. A tradition is a tradition only because it is accepted by the next generation. The acceptance of a traditional idea, belief, or practice is subject to what the people it serves make of it in terms of their well-being. The notion that a tradition necessarily has a suffocating grip on a people is, therefore, misleading. The influence of a tradition depends on the moral weight that the people accord it. A tradition survives if subsequent generations accept it, and that also depends on how they assess it relative to their interests.

    Beneficiaries of the practice of enslaving African peoples obviously found it acceptable relative to their interests; hence their tardiness in accepting the abolitionists’ logic. When eventually they saw the proverbial light, the tide shifted and moral revolution occurred.

    With the foregoing as a backdrop, I am interested here in what appears to me to be movement in the opposite direction of the kind of moral revolution that I just described. Hence my title: reverse moral revolution.

    If there is moral revolution, can there be a reverse moral revolution? Can a people with a good moral tradition abandon it for whatever reason, reverse course, and initiate a practice or set of practices that negate human flourishing? To my mind, the answer is “yes” and there can be no better example than the realities of our everyday experience.

    We are heirs of a rich tradition of cultural and moral values which privileges the community as the bearer of value and the protector and benefactor of the individual. Distant relatives would gladly contribute pennies and shillings for the upkeep of a young boy or girl on the way to school or college. They saw themselves as the keepers of their brothers and sisters. Teachers were accorded due respect as the guardians and mentors of the youth. Religious harmony was taken for granted as clerics of all faith took seriously their calling as shepherds of the entire people. Religion was an instrument for forging communal peace and allaying fear about the unknown. For the Yoruba, the individual who exemplifies its ideal of the human person is an omoluabi and that was what everyone desires to be.

    Failure at realising the goal of becoming an omoluabi is not just the failure of a family; it is the failure of the entire community if the young ones turn out to be exiles from the moral community. When communal values that enrich human flourishing are set aside by a new generation, there is reverse moral revolution; and since such a revolution is against the ideal of human flourishing, it a communal failure.

    There is no doubt that this is where we are now even as we are yet to place our feet on the first step on the ladder of development. We have fully embraced the post-modernist distaste for moral values even as we collectively suffer from its suffocating grip.

    It is happening in real time in unusual places. As Georgia was on the mind of Ray Charles, so Oke-ogun is always on my mind. And as I sit by my current River of Babylon, contented and grateful for my life’s story, I cannot but remember my Zion, and I am certainly not ashamed to sing of its heritage, its innocence, its virginity, its rustic beauty, and above all, what I still celebrate as its core values: hard work and contentment. While the opportunities were limited, we learned that tenacity of purpose and perseverance paid out. And there was communal cooperation in the training of children. While four eyes were there in the making of the baby, two hundred are involved in its upbringing. It was the tradition I grew up in and my generation accepted it and passed it on.

    I am uncertain what is going on now and has been for some time. Do teachers still see themselves as the conduit for the transmission of communal moral values? Or are they overwhelmed by the incessant urge for primitive acquisition that defines our national life? Of course, teachers cannot take on the responsibilities that parents and the community abandon. And when parents run after the elusive happiness of material wealth, they ought to be reminded that the children they fail to train will end up squandering whatever wealth they are lucky to accumulate.

    The foregoing is not without a context. I received two calls in the past week from two friends for whom I have a lot of respect. They were both concerned about the current terrain of the moral tradition of our people. In particular, they raised issues about the young ones who cut school, do drugs, and engage in cult activities, and about parents who appear to have no time for the education and upbringing of their children. They offer solutions as well, which is part of what makes them respectable.

    One solution is the recruitment of role models among the successful members of the professional class—those who passed through the proverbial fire and were not burnt; those who did not reach the pinnacle of achievement by cutting corners, and those who do not take political activism and participation as a means to self-advancement at the expense of the community. I hasten to say that Oke-ogun is not lacking in such individuals who put others, and especially the community before self, and that is one reason I applaud and endorse this suggestion as a viable option.

    The issue, of course, is not all that simple. Successful role models are willing and ready to make contributions and pay back a debt of gratitude to the community that gave them a chance in the first place. But you don’t get clean hands when you use just one hand to self-wash. And when one side lifts, and the other pushes down, you don’t get the luggage onto the head as you desire.

    This is the predicament of Oke-ogun today as it is of Nigeria as whole. There is a side that is genuinely concerned about bringing up the next generation to their God-given potentials. And there is a side that sees the youth as exploitable entities. For the latter, good education is an impediment. I believe that the forces of good can and will overcome through tenacity and persistence. After all, that is the proud and enviable tradition of Oke-ogun.

  • By their script

    By their script

    “And beware of a calamity that may afflict not only the transgressors amongst you but also the innocent ones and know that Allah’s retribution can be very severe…..’’

    Q. 8:25

    Writing a drama is like conceiving a pregnancy. For the drama to be practically actable, the writer must take into consideration not only the theme, the setting, the characters and the complications of such a drama as they build up spirally to the climax. He must also think of the anticlimax of the drama as well as its possible denouement.

    Nothing shows the ingenuousness of a playwright as vividly as the crew of actors who put into action the script that gives birth to the drama in question. It is like delivering a pregnant woman of her pregnancy. If the delivery process is not carefully handled, the deliverer may end up becoming an undertaker. And that is when a drama is said to be tragic.

    Brilliant students of literature must have perceived today’s entire world as a paradoxical theatre in which over seven billion human beings, including Nigerians are watching a drama. For either ecstasy or dismay the viewers may randomly roar into controversies or anxiety as the drama progresses. But the main concern of each viewer is what may become of his favoured character.

    In the ongoing global drama against which we had been warned in the Qur’an as quoted above, the concern of this columnist in today’s article is the ‘colony’ called Nigeria. This is not just because the colony is my immediate and paramount constituency but also because Nigeria is the heart of Africa. And if anything negative happens to her, the whole of Africa will cease to be at rest.

    Currently, the Federal Government of Nigeria is half-heartedly preparing for the centenary anniversary of the country’s existence as a unified entity as designed by the colonialists in 1914. The anniversary is expected to come up in 2014 when the country will be 100 years old, God willing. But no one except the Almighty Allah, is cock sure of what may happen to Nigeria subsequent to its centenary anniversary. This is because the same deliverers of Nigeria as a country have prepared a mausoleum in anticipation of her funeral. A clandestine script was unveiled in 1995 predicting a tragic absurdity awaiting the most populous African country. The contents of the script revealed that this heart of Africa called Nigeria was heading for a break up by the year 2015 when she will be 101 years old. The designers of this devilish agenda had set a timeframe of 20 years for its execution without proffering any positive alternative. And to portray their dream as a realisable one they kept hammering the probability of the success of that obnoxious project citing some hazardous occurrences in the land as reason.

    For students of International Relations, such a prediction cannot be strange. It is part of the strategies often used by the imperialists either to re-colonise some old colonies or to scoop on and dominate their economies in a typical capitalist style. As a result of such an imperial strategy, Poland had once ceased to be a country for about 123 years when it was partitioned about four times by Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1772, 1792 and 1795. And for well over a century thereafter, the country did not exist. But the Polish people never gave up the resilient spirit of regaining their independence until the country was fully revived after the World War I in 1918. In contemporary time, the modern day imperialists have been doing the same successfully in some other countries none of which is now firmly on her feet. Countries like Vietnam, Korea, Yemen, China, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Sudan, Palestine and lately the entire Arab nations all of which have had their bitter share of the subtle pillage can testify to this assertion. It is a modern day equivalence of the 1884/1885 partition of Africa carried out in Berlin, Germany, by the European imperialists, which led to the colonisation of the black continent. If any of the above countries had resisted that obnoxious project at the planning stage and stood their ground in resistance to imperialism, perhaps the world would have been spared the throat-cutting threats posed today by the United States and her allies against what they perceive as lesser nations.

    Incidentally, the US had also once been a victim of this same imperialists’ guillotine especially in the hands of Britain. Yet, the cult of capitalism which has now become their common bond would not allow the duo of Britain and US (which had been mutually antagonistic) to dwell differently because it is only in such collaboration that the gains of their common interest can be accomplished. Unfortunately, Nigeria doesn’t seem to have learned any lesson from countries that had been tricked into toeing the imperialists’ path hook, line and sinker.

    Rather than looking inwards for solution to our domestic problems as the US did in her time of resistance to oppression, our own government does not beckon to Uncle Sam for solution even to a minor problem but also cries out randomly to the collective body of imperialists for help. The official behaviour of Nigerian government is just like that of a baby who has adapted to being spoon-fed at all times even while asleep. Today, Nigerian government can hardly think on anything without reference to American or European example.

    Whereas some progressive countries like Japan, China, India, Brazil and even the United States in their days of search for growth and development shut their doors to the world and made do with whatever they could produce internally which was why their sudden zoom into the limelight came to the world as a surprise, this has never taught Nigeria any lesson. Rather, all that matters here is empty and monotonous noise about becoming one of the biggest economies in year 2020 even when it is crystal clear that such aspiration will only end up being forlorn. No truly progressive country in modern time has ever indulged in such empty and wishful propaganda. What would have ordinarily justified such propaganda is a surprise zooming into the global economic stage as the above listed countries had done.

    It can only take a shameless country with so much wealth and without any visible progress in place to embark on such hopeless propaganda even as over 75% of her citizens wallow in penury.

    What our government ought to have told us is how billions of Dollars allegedly voted for revamping our electricity was spent without any resultant availability of power or the billions of dollars allegedly recovered from General Abacha’s loot or multi-billion naira realised from the so-called privatisation policy that threw our national economy into taters or the scandalously embezzled billions of naira realised from the arbitrary and callous increase on fuel price and many others of the like. On the other hand, the government ought to have shown Nigerians the blueprint that qualifies us for such empty propaganda about year 2020 since it is a Nigerian project.

    Now, by inviting foreigners, including the US and Israel, to help resolve the problem of insecurity in Nigeria, has the government not only admitted its incompetence in protecting the citizenry thereby surrendering its authority to the invited countries? And with that has it not also begun to compound the existing problems by externalising those internal affairs? After all, are these same invited countries not the manufacturers of the instruments of insecurity in our land? Security of a country is like the heart in human body. Handing it over to someone else is like paving way for one’s fortuitous death. No serious government will ever trivialise the existence of its nation to that extent. We all know that whoever pays the piper must surely dictate the tune. Iraq, Libya and Pakistan are living examples confirming that in diplomacy, a friend today may become an enemy tomorrow.

    Yes, in the name of solving Nigeria’s problem even when they have been unable to solve theirs, the invited countries may bring their arsenal to subdue some government’s perceived and imaginary enemies. But what is likely to happen thereafter is the question which many generations of Nigerians may not be able to answer for decades in future. This has happened in most of the countries which had solicited for military intervention of the imperialist countries. Today, those countries are licking their fingers in total regret. Yet, Nigeria’s ruling class which sees power as a matter of life and death is bent on forcing the country into the league of hopeless nations.

    A government is said to be in power only if it is believed to be capable of protecting its citizenry and defend the territorial integrity of the concerned nation. Any government that is incapable of doing this and rather decides to throw the gate of the nation’s security open to foreigners for whatever reason is unfit to be called a government.

    Globally, the US and Israel are known for their belligerence and implacable transgression against nations that refuse to comply with their imperialist policies. And it is probably in reference to such imperialist powers that Allah had warned mankind in the Qur’an over a millennium and a half ago thus: “When imperialists enter a territory they audaciously pillage and brutally destroy it even as they subjugate the juggernauts therein to the level of servitude”. Q. 12: 22

    The real problem of Nigeria is neither the destructive anti-economic activities of the Southsouth militants, nor that of the greedily callous Southeast kidnapers nor even that of the heartless Boko Haram bloodletting vandalism. Rather, it is the willingness of the so-called government to turn the country into an incubator of problems while relying on foreign imperialists for solution even when such imperialists cannot solve their own domestic problems. It is like the case of an infamy who consumes poison while depending on an antidote for safety. In an axiomatic stanza, an Arab poet once opined thus:

    “We all blame time for our misdemeanour; whereas, the misdemeanour blamed on time is actually in us; We smear time with all types of iniquities and yet expect time to cleans us of any blame; Were time endowed with mouth to comment on us; it would have blamed us for generating all crimes; No dog eats fellow dog; it is only men that eat fellow men’’.

    The truth of the matter is that the roots of the multi-dimensional problems staring Nigeria on the face are traceable mostly to the corridors of our government. Of all the vices that constitute seemingly insuperable problems for Nigeria today particularly corruption and injustice, none originated from a source other that of the government. The various high profile corruption cases since 1999 have confirmed this assertion. How, on earth, can any sensible person justify the case of immunity clause deliberately injected into our constitution to protect stealing of public funds either by the President or Governors in a country where overwhelming majority of people are so wretched that they can hardly afford even one meal per day despite the enormous wealth with which we are naturally endowed? And this so-called constitution was never subjected to any referendum as a way of assessing its general acceptability in the first instance.

    The real absurdity in that immunity clause is not just in chasing around the protected public thieves after vacating office but also in setting up anti-corruption agencies as a political camouflage. For God sake, if a person aids a thief in the casting away of his property has he not become an accomplice in stealing that property? What justification will such a person have in wanting to prosecute such a thief? Those who injected immunity clause into our constitution as well as those who are in position to remove it but rather chose to retain it are together accomplices in the entrenchment and spread of corruption in the land. Ordinarily, such people should never have moral right to talk of fighting corruption because they are its creators and sustainers but we live in a shameless country where conscience does not matter.

    We are our own problems. We know the sources of what we call problems and we incubate them. We know how to proffer solution to those problems but like ‘lotus eaters’, we are so much drunk with illegality that it has become so difficult if not impossible for us to part with it. Now, as we start importing imperial mercenaries into the country to solve our immediate problems, we must not forget the social and financial implications of their coming. And we must remember that those mercenaries will like to find a permanent seat here even if they will have to invent new problems for us in order to justify their profitable stay.

    This admonition may taste bitter especially to those in government who may have hidden agenda. But Allah’s words will never be in want of relevance. They are regularly accompanied by relevance. Allah warns us in Qur’an 13:11 thus: “Surely, Allah will not change the situation of a nation or community until they (the citizens) themselves, have resolved to change it through their attitude”. Whoever calls for equity must come with clean hands. Those in government must show good example of what they want Nigerians to be as citizens. Acting the imperialists’ evil script will do no one any good in Nigeria. Think before you act.