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  • The destructive triad of mediocrity-corruption-inequality in Nigeria: reflections (1)

    The destructive triad of mediocrity-corruption-inequality in Nigeria: reflections (1)

    Mediocrity, noun: the state or quality of being mediocre
    Mediocre, adjective, derogatory: not satisfactory, meager, middling, inferior. Related forms: second-rate; sub-mediocre; super-mediocre Dictionary.com (online) Nations enshrine mediocrity as their modus operandi, and create fertile ground for the rise of tyrants and other base elements of the society by silently assenting to the dismantling of systems of excellence because they do not immediately benefit one specific ethnic, racial, political or special-interest group. That, in my humble opinion, is precisely where Nigeria finds itself today!

    Chinua Achebe, There Was A Country.

    For those who read my reflections on Chinua Achebe’s new book, There Was A Country, that was serialised over the course of five weeks in The Guardian between mid-December 2012 and early January this year, it will come as no surprise for me to say in the present context that I consider Achebe’s engagement of the topic of mediocrity in post-civil war Nigeria in his book one the most important but also most controversial issues raised in that book. It is needless to repeat here in detail what I said on this topic in my reflections on There Was A Country. All I wish to state here is that I was greatly startled and disturbed by Achebe’s oversimplifications in his treatment of this topic in his book.

    I was greatly perturbed particularly because in spite of the celebrated elegantly simple and lucid quality of his prose style, Achebe had always striven in his writings to shun stereotypes and simplifications while vigorously exploring the complexities and ambiguities of our history as a once-colonised nation and continent. But in his treatment of the origins and scope of mediocrity in present-day Nigeria in his new book, Achebe oversimplifies and rather distorts things by reducing everything to ethnicity. Nevertheless, he is right about one thing and that is the fact that systems and practices of great merit and excellence did exist once in our country, even though the sheer colossal scope of mediocrity in Nigeria at the present time might indicate otherwise.

    Indeed, on this point, Achebe is echoing many other commentators who have again and again bemoaned the total collapse of the high standards that once existed in education, public sanitation, road building and maintenance and many other aspects of life in our country. It is against this background that in the two-part series in this column beginning today, I am returning to this topic with the intention to explore it way beyond the little that I had to say about it in my review of Achebe’s book. The reason for this, I hope, will become apparent as we proceed with the discussion.

    First, a necessary caveat. Mediocrity is a very delicate subject to write about. Unless he or she is a humorist or a satirist, anyone that writes about the subject cannot escape the uncomfortable feeling that he or she is being patronising or condescending towards those he or she considers mediocre. For the charge, the label of mediocrity is always attached to an individual, a movement, a practice, a group, a nation, or a region of the world and typically, the one making the charge feels ethically and practically at a considerable distance from those targeted. Of course, if the charge pertains to a megalomaniacal individual that is universally known to be a mediocre person falsely posturing as a genius, the matter is quite simple and uncomplicated. But this is not a typical scenario: as far as I know, Olusegun Obasanjo is the only ruler in our political history that left an appalling record of mediocrity as his legacy but nevertheless parades himself to his nation and the world as a statesman who is God’s special gift to Nigeria, Africa and the Black race.

    But there are not too many Obasanjos in Nigeria and Africa. Which is why the more characteristic thing is that anyone writing about mediocrity sooner or later discovers that the phenomenon is full of ambiguous, complex and contradictory aspects that one ignores at one’s peril. At one end of a very wide spectrum, mediocrity can be fairly innocuous, perhaps even benign. But at another end of the spectrum, mediocrity, especially when it becomes aligned with corruption and social inequality on a monumental scale, is life-destroying and nation-wrecking. In other words, mediocrity as a social phenomenon tends to be systemic and structural; its effects and ramifications extend well beyond individuals, either as the target of the charge of mediocrity or as the complainant, the denouncer. For this reason, anyone who writes on the subject need not be coy, sanctimonious or self-righteous since neither accuser nor accused escapes from the effects of the phenomenon. But these are all rather abstract observations. It is time, perhaps, to start us off on the discussion by citing a few well-known or notorious expressions of mediocrity in our country at the present time.

    There is no other name beside mediocrity or more appropriately, super-mediocrity, for the performance of Nigerian secondary school pupils in the school-leaving public examinations whose results serve as the gateway to admission to our tertiary institutions. As far as I am aware, in recent times, the best passing rate has been no higher than 35%. In one particular year about half a decade ago, the passing rate was actually 1.8% – which of course meant that 98.2% failed the exams! I have checked and can report that in no other country in the world have high school students performed consistently as poorly as our secondary school leavers. As a somewhat related phenomenon, there are the loud complaints, the wild charges that we often hear, especially from potential employers, that instruction in our tertiary educational institutions have become so mediocre that the vast majority of our university graduates are unemployable. Connected to this is the fact that while African universities rank lowly among the universities of the world, Nigerian universities rank poorly among African universities. This in effect means that we perhaps have the most under-performing tertiary education system in one of the most under-performing regions of the world!

    Moving away from our educational institutions, what of the legendary scale of the mediocrity of contractors who win contracts to construct and maintain our roads, schools, hospitals, clinics, stadiums, parks, offices and public low-cost housing projects? Is it not the case most times when many of us travel on the roads and highways between towns and villages in all parts of the country, we are haunted by thoughts of how many thousands of lives are lost due to the abysmally shoddy work of our “contractocracy”? And what of the politicians and public officers that award the contracts? Many of them have neither the training nor the inclination to maintain quality control over the work of the contractors. There is no escaping or ignoring what this means and this is the deadly union of mediocrity, power, and corruption. In governance, in the public life of any nation on the planet, there are few things more fatal to the public good than this unholy alliance. We shall have more to say on this point later in the discussion.

    With regard to the topic of our reflections in this piece, we are in a completely different domain in the world of Nollywood video films. As everyone knows, the great majority of these video films are so mediocre, so lacking in even minimal standards of cinematographic quality that it is hard to believe that the screenwriters, producers and directors that produce and market them have any professional expertise in filmmaking. But in this particular instance and in a very peculiar kind of incarnation, the mediocrity that we confront does not kill, at least not in the manner in which very poorly built and maintained roads and highways claim hundreds and thousands of lives. Indeed, a very plausible case could be made for the possibility that most of the consumers of Nollywood video films are not looking for excellence or merit in filmmaking; they are not looking for anything of elevated artistic or intellectual quality; all they are looking for are products that do not tax their minds and their brains, products that serve to offer some relief, some escapism from the great insecurities and soul-deadening tensions of life in our crisis-torn society in the age of Obasanjo, the PDP and the other ruling class parties that either refuse to or are incapable of politically, morally and ideologically distancing themselves from the ruling party. Is mediocrity in Nollywood films thus completely benign? That’s hardly the case, as I hope to demonstrate before the end of this two-part series. For now, let us bring the discussion this week to a conclusion by drawing attention to things that unite all forms and expressions of mediocrity in present-day Nigeria whether they are of the “benign” kind or the destructive, virulent variety.

    It kills me to acknowledge it, and even more so to state it, but we must have the courage to admit that before our very eyes and in the course of less than three generations, mediocrity has become as common to the native soil of Nigeria as the river Niger itself. Here’s another way of saying the same thing: In our country at the present time, mediocrity does not come in small doses, in humble accoutrements; rather, it comes decked out in super-scale proportions, as if it didn’t do so, it would not be properly Nigerian. 98.2% failure rate among high school students taking their final public exams! The most poorly made films on the planet, and made too with total unselfconsciousness! The worst records on the planet in oil spillage and environmental pollution by the oil conglomerates doing business in our country and so far at least, they have gotten away with it and the heavens have not fallen on their uncontrite heads. A completely captive consumer population to whom the poorest services in GSM and internet access in the world are routinely rendered and nothing happens, nothing at all by way of restitution. The list goes on and on and on.

    Why has super-mediocrity taken its most assured and protected habitation on the planet in our country? This will be our starting point in next week’s concluding piece in the series as we argue that there is nothing irreducibly Nigerian in super-mediocrity and that what we confront in the phenomenon is the great and intimate connection that has developed over the course of the last two decades between mediocrity, corruption and social inequality between a tiny minority and the rest of the population in all the regions, geopolitical zones and ethnic communities of the country.

  • The poverty of politics

    This morning, snooper makes a global case for the reaffirmation of politics as a noble profession, perhaps the purest and most selfless calling that humanity has come up with since man first socialised on the plains of Africa. But this is going to be a tall order. Everywhere you turn in the world, politics has suffered a gross devaluation of contents and form.

    It is however when we consider the fact that the current global crisis in all its economic and spiritual complications is fundamentally a political crisis, or a crisis of politics, that we begin to get a sense of how dire things might be. For the first time in about six hundred years, we have a pope resigning as a fall out of poor leadership in the Vatican

    How then did the world get to this sorry pass when old certainties have given way to new uncertainties?. In traditional and advanced societies, the formula for recruiting leadership material and the mechanism for controlling access to the upper echelons of political leadership were as sure as they were surefooted. Catch them young, and get the best and the brightest into the best schools. Every other thing would fall into place.

    If this formula worked in the past, it does not seem to be working very well at the moment. In the western world, particularly its Anglo-American sector, the best institutions have become too narrow, too elitist and too corporatist in their world view to address the issues of inequity and the fundamental disparity of income thrown up ironically by the great material strides these societies have taken.

    In Africa and the Third World, the authentic political elite, the best products of the best institutions. are muscled out by emergent social forces whose reality cannot be ignored. It is a classic case of double jeopardy. You see disaster approaching but you are powerless to do anything about it. As the rot assumes a world-historic dimension, you can only curse your star in impotent fury.

    So it is, then, that everywhere you turn politics as the conduct of human affairs for ameliorative and regenerative purpose has suffered a grim demystification. There is a frantic disavowal of politics and politicians. The mass of humanity holds them in bitter contempt. They are a sick joke, not worthy of any respect or reverence.

    But if politics is a sick and cruel joke, a theatre of clowns and buffoons, why not elect the real thing? All over the world, the people seem to be wising up to this momentous revelation. In Brazil, they have sent up a professional clown to the National Assembly. In the recently concluded Italian election which led to a hung parliament, the party with the biggest gain—twenty five percent of the votes cast—is led by a former comic striptease.

    It doesn’t get more hideously comic than that. Earlier, Indonesia had elected as president a former actor and dancer with predictably tragic result. Emperor Caligula would be smiling in his grave. The great Roman ruler was known to have sent his horse to the Roman Senate in a moment of wild hilarity. The horse-senator did not disappoint.

    If gold can rust, what will iron do? The situation is even more comically tragic in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Nigeria, where governance has dissolved into a horrendous mockery; a permanent theatre of the Absurd with each new day bringing even more outlandish revelations of official shenanigans. How did we get to this sorry pass?

    The tragedy of modern Nigeria is the tragedy of a bankrupt political class which is not politically, intellectually and ideologically equipped to understand and appreciate the grave dimensions of the crisis facing Nigeria and its implication for Africa and the Black person.

    Beginning from the crackdown at King’s College in the forties, it is obvious that the colonial masters were not interested in nurturing an authentic leadership cadre or indigenous political class that would take the Nigeria of their subversive imagination to the next level of self-actualisation. It was clear that they were more interested in a compliant and collaborating indigenous class that would best serve and protect their interest. This is only natural, but it is a short-sighted policy.

    In order to be driven to the next level beyond its conception in the colonial imaginary, Nigeria needed an indigenous political class that is both adversarial and complementary to the colonial world view: complementary in the sense that it cannot lightly wish away the “national” reality on the ground, but adversarial in the sense that it would have to create the nation anew by striking out boldly even against the interest of the colonial masters.

    Given the contemporary poverty of politics and the inability of our ruling elite to understand and situate the multi-dimensional nature of the developmental crisis facing the nation, it is always a thing of joy to sit down with a politician who seems to appreciate the grave nature of the crisis facing the nation.

    It is in the nature of politics to agree to disagree, and whatever his morbid adversaries may put out on the internet, Rauf Aregbesola is not your run of the mill politician. The governor of the state of Osun is a troubling oxymoron: a thinking politician. With his boundless enthusiasm and incredible reserve and reservoir of energy, Aregbesola can wear you out with facts, figures and statistics. His mastery of details and developmental arcana is a tad short of the extraordinary.

    As this column never tires of asserting, the ACN is not a perfect party. It also suffers from the post-traumatic stress disorder of prolonged and protracted military rule. But one good thing Aregbesola and his ACN governor colleagues have done for Nigerian politics is to establish clear benchmarks and templates by which their performance could measured and evaluated by the public and the electorate alike. By so doing, they have brought back ideology into the front burner of political discourse.

    This profound ideologising of politics is both salutary and beneficial. It puts pressure on the other parties, particularly the PDP, to come up with their own ideological parameters. By so doing, it sharpens, clarifies and crystallises the choice for prospective voters. In the history of Nigerian post-independence politics, it is only the progressive parties and their leftwing fellow travellers who have made such templates available to the people. The ruling parties have always believed that ideologies do not matter, which is indeed a bankrupt conservative ideology meant to preserve the status quo.

    In politics, Aregbesola has been helped by his antecedents. His youthful flirtations with communism and his role as a field commander of the foot soldiers during the struggle against the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections have burnt into him certain deep ideals which power his politics.

    From communism, he has taken a deep compassion for the poor and needy, a passion for social justice, and from the June 12 struggle a deep commitment to political justice and unflinching loyalty to living and fallen comrades in arms. When Aregbesola speaks of his foot soldiers who fell during the struggle to reclaim his electoral mandate and of his friend and benefactor, Hassan Olajokun, who was killed in broad daylight on the Ife-Ibadan road, you could see tears welling up in his eyes.

    For a week and a few days, snooper was with Aregbesola on a whirlwind tour of America, testing the canons of his developmental project against adversarial and complementary framework, From Boston through Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh to Howard in Washington, we were there.

    It is often suggested that the fundamental failure of the Black person stems from his chronic lack of capacity to valorise capital. Even if you redistribute the resources of the world equally, in a few years time, the Black person will be penniless once again, cadging and cajoling on the streets. Is there a fundamental deformity of character in the Black person?

    Snooper does not think so, even though the zillions stolen from the public coffers in the last 30 years are enough to transform Nigeria into a modern paradise. Instead, the money goes into vainglorious personal projects and the most obscene of conspicuous consumption. Like a big cunning cat, the west waits to part the fool from his loot, and it has done so relentlessly and remorselessly. If you see a man being pursued by the Egungun masquerade, you will be a fool not to help yourself to his food.

    The problem, it seems, lies in our inability to come up with a matching ethos for modern capitalism. It has been suggested that modern Christianity has certain values which tend to reinforce the very ethos of modern capitalism. Among these are strict monogamy, the deferment of enjoyment and the suppression of wild, irrational yearnings. Even most of our so- called spiritual fathers have not been able to avoid this jollification of the flesh. The throbbing tropics have a way of reclaiming their own.

    The Calvinist ethos with its emphasis on thrift, hardihood and self-abnegation underwrites modern capitalism and its values. To the best of our knowledge, and with all humility, there is no matching indigenous African philosophy, except threadbare expostulations which underwrite indolence and freewheeling prodigality. In African countries which have recorded a measure of success in modern capitalism, particularly Ghana and Botswana, we see a national elite given to thrift and self-restraint.

    In the end, it all boils down to the question of leadership and of a viable political class. The political class as currently constituted can only lead Nigeria along the path of perdition and destruction. Something urgent will have to be done to reclaim this country and its long-suffering people from the suffocating grips of monstrous predators. Without an overarching federal development, stung out of its laggard and thieving dementia by developments elsewhere in the country, even regional integration may ultimately prove a forlorn dream.

    This is why developments in Osun and all the ACN states should concentrate the mind of those interested in the future of Nigeria. The aim of government should be the greatest good of the greatest number. Developmental politics which tries to optimise resources for optimal capacity building and the greatest benefit of the downtrodden should be on the front burner.

    Aregbesola is right to emphasise youth empowerment and the maximisation of human capacity. Osun is known for its prodigious production of human resources. But there are complexities and contradictions on the way. You cannot step into the same river twice. Almost everybody sent abroad by the government of Chief Obafemi Awolowo came back to contribute their quota to the development of the region. If Nigeria remains a post-colonial hell, there is no chance that these youths will return.

    On a personal note, snooper is saddened and depressed by an interesting development. Everywhere that we visited in America, from Boston to Pittsburgh and to Washington , there was at least one person who originated from the ancestral town. From Howard University where the legendary Professor Sunday Adeniran Adeboye conducts mathematical inquiry in addition to occasional internet firefights, to Boston where Segun Adeyemi is Bridge Engineer to Washington where snooper chanced upon the daughters of the late Dr Edward Arowolo, the World Bank supremo who died at the age of forty two and Professor Rufus Adegboye.

    These Nigerians were products of an earlier sterling education. They still retain a sentimental attachment to the home country. But they are not coming back soon, if ever. Nigeria is a nursery bed for valuable plants to be transported to the west. What will be the epitaph for a country that has squandered its money and most valuable children so badly?

  • The joy of the birds, bees and flowers (1)

    The joy of the birds, bees and flowers (1)

    Women say Nigerian men are unemotional, uncaring, blind, brusque, brutish, and unromantic; while men say women are nagging, noisy, infuriating, illogical, irrational and weepy.

    This week, reader, we will turn our minds to a higher and more edifying subject: the politics of a woman’s indisposition. What, for instance, can we impute to be the exact value of a woman’s headache? True, many things are usually scampering around a woman’s brain. Perhaps that explains why, whenever I have been rummaging around in my handbag for a very important item, I have come across little note-reminders of things to do about and on the house: ‘paint other half of kitchen wall’, ‘restore order in the garden’, ‘bring in last week’s laundry’, ‘please paint other half of kitchen wall’, ‘resume aerobics class’, ‘cut meat with knife, not nail file’, ‘must definitely paint other half of kitchen wall this year’… The other half of the kitchen wall is still not painted, the garden still looks pretty much as if Adam has had to vacate it in a hurry again, the laundry still spends days waiting for the midnight sun, aerobic classes go on without me… But can that account for all the well-timed headaches women have?

    Let’s see now. A renowned fictional character lists the things that women are said to be: nagging, noisy, agitated, infuriating, illogical, irrational, weepy, wanting to be sent flowers, and forever straightening their hairs instead of the contents of their heads! But I ask you: is it such a bad thing to be sent flowers rather than bills? And do women really nag? The way I see it, women tend to be repetitive, but I think it is mostly because men tend not to hear them, mainly I think, because women tend to be repetitive and so on; but that’s not enough to cause a headache.

    The average woman doesn’t really know what she is about or wants until sometime in her middle ages. That’s when she discovers she has teeth to laugh with. She also discovers sex; or is supposed to. It’s not as if it’s not been there all along. After all, there are the children to show that something must have happened. But what exactly, she will be hard put to explain. Quite often, she has been so pre-occupied with sundry affairs such as indulging her anxieties over children, work and husband that she does not notice the years slide down the hill, pulling her relentlessly along until she is close to collapsing at its foot in a heap! Then she panics and grabs for a bit of self assertion: she ‘invents’ the headache. Ah Ha!! There’s the reason for them infernal things.

    Someone once asked me a very confidential question. Saith he: very often, when I want to be alone with my wife in the evening, she says she has a headache; is she telling the truth? Or is she using headache as an excuse just to avoid me? Frankly speaking, the question threw me, for I never imagined that my own headaches could be invested with such political values that would someday be the subject of some kind of parliamentary inquiry. I get headaches from many things: our African sun; my full sink; my empty purse; PU deadlines that bear down on me like meteorites every week… just name it. I guess no one will ever know the exact value of a woman’s headache. A friend once told me that she had bedtime anxieties. Whenever night-time approached, she would start by moaning about a ‘terrible’ headache, then graduate to lying down ‘for a while’, then ask the children to buy her some Panadol tablets, then ask that all lights in the room where she lay be turned off, and finally the children should not let her hear any noises. After all that, no one would have the heart to ask her for anything.

    Perhaps, these convenient headaches could be due to the fact that most women think that Nigerian men just don’t know the meaning of the word ‘romantic’ and so do not think the trip worth the while. They say Nigerian men are unemotional, uncaring, blind, brusque, brutish, unromantic, dishonest, difficult to please, violent and don’t know how to treat a lady. For one thing, most men think the most romantic moment is when they hand over the month’s housekeeping allowance. For another, they are more likely to wonder what’s got into the woman if she decides to send the children to stay with her sister, leaving just the two of them in the house ‘for a romantic evening’. ‘Are you mad?! You sent my children to stay with that sister of yours who doesn’t know how to cook? What do you want my children to eat this night, bread? If you don’t go and fetch them back this instant, this ground will be higher than you!’ Now, I ask you!

    Perhaps again, these headaches do occur because women are never off duty, unlike the men who have this superb ability to distance themselves from the problems of the home. Sometimes, when the lights are turned down low, and the mood is catholically pure for that romantic joust, the woman is more apt to exclaim: ‘oh look, it’s this part of the ceiling that’s leaking again! I had been wondering where the water was coming from. Wait; let me get a bowl to collect it.’ And off she goes. Or, she might exclaim instead, ‘Ha, Baba Wale, I forgot to tell you that while you were out yesterday, we found a snake in the compound but it escaped into the garage. If you can help us look for it later…’

    Furthermore, many women probably do not obtain the maximum benefit from any romantic venture because of the fact that our culture does not really permit any pampering for women. Rather than be sent flowers for instance, a woman is lucky if she is allowed to ask one question: how many children should she produce in this union? And rather than be dined and wined and wrapped in the gentle hues of candle lights turned down low, she may be given the chance to ask a second question: what sex? For, the wrong one can send her out of the house. Things may not be this bad in some cases, but to African women in general, the joy of the birds, the bees and the flowers is much overrated.

    Generally, culture imparts the idea that women have very few rights, especially in the matter of the birds and the bees. Women believe it and do not act; men believe it and act on it. Unfortunately, education or lack of it, does not really have much to do with this as it happens to ’em all; the illiterate, the halfwit, and the super elite. While women in the first and second categories simply grin and bear it, those in the third have refused to be so helpless. Collectively and all to a woman, they have taken their fate into their hands, gone into a closeted meeting, and have come out with a unified resolve: to have headaches until such a time that their opinions would count. This thus accounts for the lying-ins and the evening-evening Paracetamol!

    Clearly, there is an impasse here that would task even the famed sagacity of our Socrates. Headaches, for one, are difficult to prove or disprove; culture, on the other hand, is difficult to change. So, while the women hold their heads, the men hold their groins. I rather think the women should bring down their hands and demand instead their rights. A Nigerian woman is entitled to maximum romantic considerations; flowers, candle lights and all, or let us all agree that the matter of the birds and the bees is best left to the birds and the bees.

    •A version of this article was first published in 2006 or thereabouts to celebrate women.

  • All Progressives Congress steals Jonathan’s thunder in Maiduguri

    All Progressives Congress steals Jonathan’s thunder in Maiduguri

    It may be too early to begin to speak in superlatives about the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party still in formation but comprising some four political parties determined to challenge the dominance of the PDP. Last Thursday, nine governors and one deputy governor belonging to the four parties in the APC met in Maiduguri, Borno State, the hotbed of Boko Haram fundamentalist violence, for talks on their proposed merger. The meeting, which was third in the series of meetings being held for the special purpose of unification, was successful. The APC probably shifted the venue to Maiduguri because President Goodluck Jonathan was yet to visit the unsettled state. It was a deft political move. In fact, it was a move that stole the thunders of both Jonathan and the PDP.

    The APC governors pressed home their advantage by moving round some parts of the city to soak in the adulation of the wearied but grateful Borno people. They also very significantly donated N200m to succor victims of Boko Haram violence. And with an eye on the main chance, they told the press at the end of their meeting that they came to Maiduguri to show solidarity with the people and to prove that leaders needed to show courage in the face of danger. The message was not lost on Jonathan’s government. Cut to the quick, presidential aides quickly announced that the president had planned to visit the state on March 7, and that the APC leaders merely preempted the president.

    Planning to visit is unfortunately not the same as actually visiting. By meeting in a city wracked by sectarian and socio-economic uprising, APC has indicated it is capable of thinking on its feet. In addition, the party, even before it is registered, is exhibiting the advantages of nurturing another party to shake the PDP out of its complacency. It will no longer be business as usual. Not only is the polity gradually transiting into a two-party system, it is also evident that the race to 2015 has really begun. Many elements favour the APC already, including dominance in critical regions. If the party can overcome its teething problem, get its zoning arrangement right without the constraints that shackle the PDP, and conducts rancor-free primaries to produce credible and popular candidates, it is hard to see them losing the next polls, or winning by a margin that is less than assertive.

    But far beyond whooping for a political party, Nigerians must begin to think less partisan by ensuring that real democracy is enthroned through the availability of credible choices. The way to begin is to defeat the rather incestuous PDP in the coming polls, give a new party with a different set of developmental and socio-political paradigms the opportunity to preside over the country, and let the people have the satisfaction of knowing that waiting in the wings every election year is another beautiful bride in a brilliant, lawful and luxuriant polygamy.

  • Yoruba marginalisation: to what effect? (3)

    Yoruba marginalisation: to what effect? (3)

    The neglect that the Yoruba region is currently experiencing from the Jonathan administration is an intrinsic part of the de-federalisation of Nigeria by military regimes, all in the name of promoting national unity.

    Some readers have asked if enough words have not been spoken or written in the last few weeks about Yoruba marginalization and if it is not time to yield media space to other pressing national issues. Marginalisation is a national issue. It just happens that the focus today is on the Yoruba, but the practice of marginalisation of one ethnic group by another in control of central power has been with the country for long and does not show any promise of abating or disappearing until there is a major structural change in the political and economic organisation of the country.

    Hence, the four-part essay originally planned for this column on Yoruba marginalisation will be completed, despite feelings by some readers that the topic has been treated ad nauseam already. It is important for us to gbo ara wa l’agbo ye (understand each other well) on this issue, particularly as discussions in print or electronic media only start new rounds of communication for citizens in the informal sector, where Nigerians exchange ideas and feelings about the country in which nature or colonialism has put them. Those who are familiar with the informal sector know that nearly as much thinking and talking go on there as do exist in the formal sector.

    Since the issue of Yoruba marginalisation became popular a few weeks ago, several political groups and socio-cultural organisations, as well as highly informed individuals have tried to throw more light on the topic. The topic has begotten deep analysis and in some cases exaggerated conclusions that include blaming the victim. There is nothing in political action or cultural style of the Yoruba that should encourage any national leader or the federal government to marginalise the Yoruba or any other nationality for that matter.

    Plurality of perspective is an abiding aspect of Yoruba civilization. It has been this way since the beginning of Yoruba history. The Yoruba belief in life as a market place of ideas and options (graphically couched in Eyi to wu mi ko wu o ni omo iya meji fi n jeun lototo, difference in taste indicates why siblings eat separately) explains the readiness of the Yoruba to be tolerant of other cultures and to be ready to live with them without attempting to dominate them. Therefore, that the Yoruba are found in all political parties that exist in the country does not indicate disunity.

    It is, therefore, misleading to blame the worldview of the Yoruba for the marginalisation they now experience under the presidency of President Jonathan in particular and have in general experienced since the re-shaping of the Nigerian polity by military dictators. This is not to say that Yoruba individuals, like their counterparts in other cultures around the world, do not have flaws. One of such flaws is manifested by Yoruba men and women in President Jonathan’s party that is seen to have marginalised the Yoruba region. Such Yoruba PDP members have shown no concern about claims that the Jonathan administration has neglected the Yoruba region. But to encourage the Yoruba in whatever form to depart from their belief in plurality of views is to call for cultural suicide on the part of the nationality. Even if all Yoruba citizens were to suddenly alter their worldview and collectively vow to think alike on all issues and join one political party, the marginalisation of the ethnic group is not likely to come to an end.

    The neglect that the Yoruba region is currently experiencing from the Jonathan administration is an intrinsic part of the de-federalisation of Nigeria by military regimes, all in the name of promoting national unity. Direct and indirect marginalisation of one ethnic group or the other has been a part of the country’s history since 1966. At the hands of military governments, what used to be three regions (one from the north and two from the south) were changed into 36 states with 19 states from the North and 17 from the South. Over 400 of the local governments in the country were allocated to the North by military regimes under a dispensation that also allocated funds from the federation account to local governments. In effect, the revenue garnered from petroleum at the expense of the ecology of the Niger Delta was mobilized and allocated to northern states much more than to southern states, on the thinking in military circles that even development would create national unity.

    In a way, Jonathan is a victim of the policy of marginalisation and could have developed the complex of someone abused or oppressed by the Nigerian political system. Could his marginalisation of the Yoruba have ensued from a past of deprivation suffered by his people at the hands of other federal governments? But why would he punish the Yoruba for the oppression of the Niger Delta? The legislative strength of the North in the National Assembly makes any attempt to neglect the North dangerous for him politically. The cultural overlap between Jonathan’s region of origin and the Southeast makes it unnecessary to hit at the Igbo region. The only region that becomes to ignore in the re-distribution of national projects is the Yoruba region, with 22% per cent of the population but with just about 8% of the legislative strength at the federal level.

    The policy or practice of marginalisation is only a symptom of a cause that should be familiar to all observers of the country’s cultural politics. Fifty years of the advantages awarded to the North over the two southern regions by military dictators (most of whom are also from the North) had created a culture of deprivation in leaders who may not be psychologically capable of overcoming the negative effect of neglect. As things are, the country will need to have heroic individuals as presidents, if it is to bring domination of ethnic group by another that has the advantage of federal power to an end.

    For long, the ideology of even development created by military dictators and its subtext: the theology of ethnic or regional domination and exploitation have shaped the thinking of military and civilian leaders who now claim to be policemen of mainstream politics. Jonathan is largely a product of primitive geopolitical pressure or ethnic rivalry that pits the North against the South or the Southsouth/Southeast against the Southwest. But the appropriation of the nation’s resources by the federal government and the geopolitical pressure by leaders of large or small ethnic groups with federal executive power on ethnic groups with small legislative strength have to be addressed by patriotic citizens and organisations, if Nigeria is to achieve its potential as Africa’s most populous state.

    To be continued

  • The return of Anenih

    The return of Anenih

    The return of Chief Tony Anenih as PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman is the most potent indication of the torment and crisis of confidence facing the ruling party. It was a terrible act of desperation to exhume the Edo dinosaur. But it is even more shocking to expect that the mothballed dreadnought, this Samson shorn of his hair, can return to service and dazzle like before. His assignment, it seems, is to ensure that Jonathan returns as PDP candidate for the 2015 presidential election. They must be encouraged to make that dream come true. For, given the extraordinary conjunction of political events in the country today, the opposition will find it more rewarding battle Jonathan than any other candidate. I think it is in vain that the president and his party chairman romanticise the exhumation of Anenih and repose abundant hope in his talisman.

     

  • Jonathan and his Maradona politics

    Jonathan and his Maradona politics

    It was former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu, who in an interview granted this paper on the occasion of his 60th birthday, called President Goodluck Jonathan ‘Nigeria’s most dangerous politician.’

    Part of that lethal effect comes from the fact that because he lacks the oratorical skills of a Bill Clinton, for example, people tend to underrate him and write him off as dour and ineffective. His chess-like moves that threw the much-vaunted Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) into disarray last week, show that you dismiss him at your own peril.

    But the greater danger of his brand of politics that embraces all the dodgy philosophies of the Diego Maradona school of thought is that it always ends in tears.

    Maradona is a famous former Argentinean football player who at the height of his powers at the World Cup finals in 1986 scored a vital goal against England using underhand tactics. He then blasphemously attributed the inspiration for his dubious goal to a holy God. He scored, he said, with a little help from “the hand of God!”

    For the Maradonas of this world the end always justifies the means. It doesn’t matter who or what is trampled upon or run over in the process. But the trouble with dribblers is that they soon tie themselves up in knots because they quickly run out of space for manouvre.

    Former President Ibrahim Babangida never called himself Maradona. But the moniker naturally attached itself to the man and never detached itself. And it was all down to his penchant for periodically sabotaging a political transition that he invented.

    This last week President Jonathan showed that he has assimilated the bare essences of Maradonic politics by demobilising and balkanising the NGF with the creation of the so-called Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors Forum (PDP-GF).

    But while the President and his men might count what happened in Aso Villa last week as some tremendous achievement, I am less than impressed. I have long held the view that the power and unity of the NGF is grossly exaggerated.

    A few weeks ago, prominent Ijaw leader, former Minister of Information, and Jonathan’s chief cheerleader, Chief Edwin Clark, was fulminating against the NGF – accusing the body of all sorts of crimes. In reaction to his comments I had written in my column of January 27, 2013 as follows:

    “Today, Clark would like us to believe that the NGF is this new-fangled monstrosity that is a clear and present danger to our democracy. Closer examination will, however, show that the behemoth has a soft underbelly. They can be a powerful bloc when they agree, but they are as powerless as a congregation of strange bedfellows when their interests diverge along regional, ethnic or monetary lines.”

    The Aso Rock drama therefore goes beyond a clash of egos between a prickly president who wouldn’t brook a contrary word being said about him, and a governor who in the eyes of the powers-that-be was beginning to spill out of his britches. It is, in reality, the foreplay for the coming 2015 battles.

    All these chess moves are evidence of an incumbent president who has decided to run and is putting structures in place to support such a bid. This sort of aggression is usually deployed for something greater than assuaging a bruised ego.

    After Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu, blew the whistle on the one-term pact supposedly signed between Jonathan and PDP governors in 2011, the president’s spokesmen would not give a yes or no answer – but rather settled for hot air. The president will not be distracted and will only speak on such matters from next year, they said huffily.

    But we don’t need any other confirmation. His actions speak louder than words. His party chairman, Bamanga Tukur, has even come out to affirm the right of the president to run again. But here they all miss the point.

    In 2011 and as it is now, the real issue was not whether Jonathan as a Nigerian had the right to run. What we are confronted with is the reality that in politics in countries with a multiplicity of ethnic groups, things are not always resolved only by legalities. Sometimes factors like balance, fairness and spread come into play.

    In 1999, every Nigerian had a right to run for president. But the major parties that year decided that given the injustice suffered by the late Chief M. K. O. Abiola whose victory at the June 12, 1993 presidential polls was arbitrarily annulled by the military, that the South-West be compensated with the position in the interest of national reconciliation.

    That year, the PDP’s Olusegun Obasanjo ran against the All Peoples Party (APP)-Alliance for Democracy (AD) candidate, Olu Falae. Both men were Yoruba.

    Jonathan is free to run as the Tukur and the courts have said. But the question he will have to answer sooner than later is whether he gave his word to stand down after one term. It doesn’t matter whether he signed a physical document. Did he give his word of honour?

    I recall that after this deal was reached, and the northern governors left the group of Atiku Abubakar, Adamu Ciroma and Ibrahim Babangida and Aliyu Mohammed Gusau in the lurch, many of them became pariahs in their own states. They were perceived as treacherous individuals who deserved to be stoned for selling out the interest of their region.

    They stuck out their necks in the belief that a gentleman will keep his word. I suspect that someone like Atiku who was especially embittered by Jonathan’s decision to run in 2011 returned to PDP in the expectation that the president will not contest again. Surely, he must be wiser now.

    If there was a deep reservoir of resentment against Jonathan back then, it will be difficult to plumb the depths of regional ill-feeling were he to renounce his pact to serve for just one term.

    The tragedy for the president and country is that he talks up a storm about transforming Nigeria, yet his politics threatens to sink the nation deeper into the mire of division. Instead of offering the ‘breath of fresh air’ he promised during his 2011 campaign, all he’s doing is serving up the regurgitated banalities of previous leaders.

    What is so novel about locking governors up and showing them a video of Amaechi attacking him over the Bayelsa-Rivers oil wells dispute. The late General Sani Abacha patented the Aso Rock film show tour – trucking in everyone from traditional leaders to market women to watch bungling, bumbling generals planning to topple a master coup-plotter.

    In a country aspiring to build a democracy should we be coercing people using the tactics of military dictators, or engaging in a contest of ideas – no matter how contentious?

    What is so unique about changing the goal posts in mid-game? Babangida wrote the manual on that. As for renouncing agreements sealed with a handshake, Jonathan must have torn several pages out of the handbook of a couple of predecessors.

    Unfortunately, this base politics devoid of honour cannot take Nigeria far. If people occupying or aspiring to the high office of president can blithely disavow commitments they made to others – just because they didn’t sign a written document – why should we believe anything they tell us when they come seeking our votes again? Nigeria certainly deserves better.

  • Fayemi: Of values and the building of a successor generation in Nigeria

    Fayemi: Of values and the building of a successor generation in Nigeria

    True leadership is something quite distinct from holding an office or a position.

    I recently wrote here about the historian’s episodic or epochal interpretation/explanation of historical events. The history of this column falls squarely into that paradigm. It began largely as a counterpoise to Obasanjo’s cynical, indeed, absolutely contemptuous treatment of, not just anything Ekiti, but of Ekiti people themselves  sparing  no contempt  and denigrating to his heart’s content, the very  icons we hold in awe and  great respect in that part of the country. Nor did he stop there. He believed it was his divine right to inflict on us just about anybody as governor and would  not stop until he had,  in spite of an inchoate impeachment of the sitting governor, whimsically gifted us his kinsman, the genial General Olurin, as sole Administrator in a totally needless and, induced, emergency administration.

    That was a period when I thought nothing of his massive powers but wrote here on this page, literally every Sunday, detailing our ordeal under his creeping misrule. Then came the equally intolerable phase when, courtesy his military jackboots, a peoples’ victory was aborted at the collation centre.  That  period started on a day when, though Ekiti people were already on the streets dancing and celebrating Kayode Fayemi’s victory in the 2007 gubernatorial elections, INEC, acting on orders from above,  miraculously divined  a PDP victory out of nowhere. Thus began  a long  period of thoroughly acerbic  dirges  detailing, and recording  for posterity, all the shenanigans  the   candidate, and ipso facto,  Ekiti was made to go through  going from one tribunal to another until  God, in His infinite mercy  ensured that truth trumped  falsity and the cocktails of judicial lies  and aberrations  were  summarily  incinerated. Indeed at a point, the columnist advised the President, and Obasanjo’s protege, the late Yar ‘Adua, to order for coffins if they insisted on inflicting their whim and caprice on hapless Ekiti people as we were prepared to fight to the last man. That epoch has been fittingly chronicled in THE LONG WALK, a  book by  aides of governor Fayemi  in which  I am  privileged  not only  to have  a decent mention but which I assisted  in editing.

    Since October 16, 2010 therefore, it has become my bounden duty on this  page,  to the chagrin of not a few, to project the  unprecedented milestones  of the Kayode  Fayemi administration ,  at least, one of which – the social security payments to  the elderly – is  clearly unprecedented  in this country.

    These preliminary remarks became necessary because some are bound to rave and rant  at merely seeing the title of this article since to them, bringing the good works of a public servant to the public space tantamounts to sycophancy. For such knaves, I have neither apologies nor explanations  except to say that this column, in  unalterably promoting the good of Ekiti and  the Southwest  in  particular, and Nigeria at large, predates Dr  Fayemi’s involvement   in partisan  politics  even  though he had  much  earlier came into  the Nigerian consciousness via the Radio Kudirat which he operated  with others at great personal risk. And those making the charge obviously do not know how much Kayode Fayemi detests obsequiousness. ‘Nough said.

    In  interrogating the above topic at the Ist  Inter-Disciplinary Public Lecture  of the Post-Graduate School Of the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti,  on Monday, February 26, 2013, Dr  Fayemi   started  off  by posing  the following questions  after he had  drawn attention to the oft-quoted cliche that The Trouble with  Nigeria is  a failure of leadership: ‘If, after thirty years, we are still citing bad leadership as the root of all or most of our problems, why should  we not now, be interrogating the cultural and institutional forces, both subliminal and overt, which conspire to ensure that our society constantly throws up bad leaders?’ He went further: ‘If Nigeria is to stand a chance of national rebirth shouldn’t we, of necessity, ensure that the old brigade described by Prof. Wole Soyinka as the ‘wasted generation’ and which –  has to act as nursing mother to the emerging generation – does not contaminate them with the same tendencies and thus prime them to failure?’

     These were essentially the challenges he set out to answer and because of the seminal nature of his suggestions I believe the lecture deserves to be taken far outside the limiting purview of a leaned journal.  However, since it is beyond my ken to reduce a lecture of that depth and fecundity to a half page, I have decided to restrict myself to his views on leadership. For starters, it is his view, that it is  time we soberly reflect and take those affirmative actions that will be geared towards ensuring a successor generation which will effectively redefine the ‘Nigerian dream’ in which the younger generation was fast losing faith.

    In discussing leadership failure in Nigeria, Dr Fayemi identified the following three key elements: Corruption and the decline of moral values; the conceptual debasement of leadership itself; and the inability and unwillingness of leaders to reproduce themselves’

    Corruption, he says, has remained alive and kicking  in our society simply  because of the creeping monetization of values and the growing inability to perceive and articulate one’s life goals in non-material terms. Young Nigerians, he says, have been socialized in such a way that they have no conception of non-material achievement, resulting instead in a culture that serenades only the wealthy and esteems the “big man”, but never the studious with our institutions eagerly assisting in suffocating the spark of idealism which would have facilitated our nation’s renewal.. Leadership, which he contends, is neither an office nor a title but a function, is consequently debased in our country since the pomp and pageantry, the long motorcades, the sirens, the circus-like atmospherics surrounding political leadership have become the only signs and symbols of power.

    He went further to assert that the inability or unwillingness of leaders to reproduce themselves in far better molds, which has worsened our circumstances as a nation, is signposted by our dominant cultural and institutional models which are defined by the exercise of raw power, projecting a paradigm that is based on fear and exploitation. This he considers largely a legacy of military authoritarianism with leadership cast in the image of jack-booted soldiers wielding whips, guns and swagger-sticks.

    In concluding this short piece, and to understand the lecturer’s thought process and his well-merited place as an intellectual in politics, it is apposite that we quote him, at some length, and  directly, on what he sees as the ‘deus ex machina’ to Nigeria’s myriad problems. Says Dr Fayemi, ‘we need to rescue the concept of leadership itself from the cheapening it has undergone.  True leadership is something quite distinct from holding an office or a position. We will enhance the quality of leadership on our shores if we dissociate it from the acquisition of titles and positions. True leadership is influence. It is driven by core convictions, values and ideas. In a profound sense, leadership is living out one’s values and ideas. It is the sheer power of personal example that projects influence. For the next generation of leaders, it is essential that we recognize that one does not need a political office or title to become an exemplar of higher values. We also need to redefine elitism. Traditionally, the term ‘elite’ referred to those who are enlightened. Over the course of the past decades, the monetization of our values has yielded an association of elitism with wealth. We perceive elites to be those who are simply wealthy. The first generation nationalists such as Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Hezekiah Davies, Aminu Kano and Adegoke Adelabu among others were men of thought as well as men of action. They wrote books, pamphlets and articles. They popularised their ideas aggressively. They thought deeply about their society and disseminated their musings.

     ‘For instance, while campaigning for the presidency in 1979, Awolowo said, “Look at the books which I have written, the lectures which I have given, and the many speeches and statements which I have made. You will find that there is no problem confronting or about to confront Nigeria to which I have not given thought and for which I have not proffered intelligent and reasoned solutions.” It was no idle boast. Awolowo was the most prolific of the founding fathers. It seems almost absurd to us today for a politician to advertise his intellect as one of his qualifications for high office’

    If Nigerian leaders and the led, especially its youth will read in full, not just this article, but Dr Fayemi’s offering on : Reflections on Values and the Building of A Successor Generation in Nigeria’, whether on the internet,  in hard copy or in learned journals, we just may have made that first step in facilitating and ensuring our country’s renewal and survival as a worthy member of the comity of nations.

  • Re : Champions Africa needs

    •I commend you on what you rightly observed about our mentality as a nation. I cannot agree less with you but as it may, sports if properly and well organized is a tool to national development. Sports, if well organized in any environment, is like an octopus with many branches that can reach every part of human endeavour. You can find sports in health, science, economy, law, sociology, psychology, nutrition etc. Even the unskilled labourer will have their share. If well organized, the poor will benefit more. Sports attracts poor people than the rich, Joseph Olutoyinbo, Minna, 07031517060

    •I really can’t thank you enough for your article ‘Champions Africa Needs’. How I wish we have more writers as honest and fearless as you are. Stay blessed, Britto, 08066938700

    •I agree that global sports supremacy is no path to meaningful national development. The question is, how many mouths does soccer feed in Nigeria?, Amos Ejinmoye, Kaduna, 08039727512

    •I think your article yesterday deserves commendation. Keep writing on that. Thanks, 07037158336

    •‘Champions Africa Needs’ is quite thoughtful. How I wish you would apply the same objectivity when it comes to the appraisal of ACN, kuteyi R.R, Ondo, 08062549133

    •Dear Segun, I am on your train on your piece: ‘Champions Africa Needs’. I saw beyond the charade, A.T. Mozie, Nsukka, 08033912409

    •Segun, thanks for yesterday’s piece. Do you know I was wondering if I am the odd one in this unnecessary hoopla about winning AFCON. Somebody even told me the transformation agenda of Jonathan is working. Personally, I see this madness as a distraction and the mediocrity of our rulers, 08083525724

    •Hello Segun, I just read your ‘Champions Africa Needs’. Thanks. I totally agree with you. The truth is that both the African leaders and the led are so illiterate though some may be just lettered. Do you see the attention they pay to issues that should not be our priority? Do you see how our unemployed youths focus on European league as if it in any way benefits them? Can an illiterate who does not even know or agree he is an illiterate be saved from his own ignorance? The Prophet Mohammed (Peace be unto him), taught that “The rescue of the ignorant is his question”. In our case the leadership and the led just follow without questioning “How does this benefit us”? No! if others are in it, we should be in it too. This is the attitude; an attitude of illiteracy. Therefore, we are going deeper in ignorance and our rescue is increasingly seeming a mirage than a thing ever to be attained, ShafihiKasimu-Ozeto, Abuja, 08091130804

    •Baba Sege, kudos on your illuminations today – ‘champions Africa Needs’. God bless you, LanreLugboso, 08054741162

    •My friend, give credit to whom it is due. If they had failed, same you would have lambasted Eagles, Keshi, NFF and Jonathan. Wise up, 08035768323

    •What has football got to do with Nigeria’s do-or-die politics? We have won an elusive trophy and it’s worth celebrating. All the countries that participated went there to win. Drogbaappreciated the fighting spirit of the young footballers so the issue of luck does not arise. If you have nothing good to write about this great achievement, please hold your peace, 08067177318

    •Segun, I want to say you made my day today for your in depth and down to earth piece – ‘Champions Africa Needs’. That is the golden fact. For Allah’s sake, what the hell is the practical impact of winning a football competition to the lives of majority of poverty-stricken Nigerians? As you rightly observed, luck on our side did the miracle. However, my kudos to Keshi for shaming his detractors, 08069310296

    •I agree with your article in totality. Thanks so much for that. Pius, 08068469668

    •If it is not an achievement of the Jonathan administration, is it an achievement of your father’s administration?, 07064958094

    •Thanks Segun for your illuminations – Champions Africa needs, Nestor, 08037433992

    •Mr Ayobolu, having just read your piece: ‘Champions Africa Needs’, I just wanted to thank and congratulate you on a great piece. With Best wishes, Anna Zalik, (a Canadian currently in Nigeria), 08098240803

    •Well said bro. Enough of mediocrity. Thanks for the paradigm shift; Africa’s crying need is excellence. Shallom!, Ariel, Lagos, 08168652214

  • Re : Centennial Delusions

    •Jonathan’s presidency is to say the least colourless, colonialist and fascist in all its ramifications. Under this nebulous and banal regime, the nation is celebrating her subjugation, subservience and political servitude to unabashed foreign rule. PDP once again is bereft of reason and cultural history dragging the nation inexorably to intellectual sterility and political mayhem. Where are the nation’s historians? Lugard’s bid to unify the nation was purely economic, a political masterstroke to deploy local resources to administer the vast territory for the greed of British overlords. It’s time we halt PDP and Jonathan’s vicious cycle of heinous rule started by Lugard’s ignoble indirect rule of 1914. We should resist this modern day slavery, AyodeleFagboun, Akure, 08169482226

    •“Centennial delusions should have been better captioned as ‘Centennial façade’, 08138971607

    •I’ve just finished reading your article in The Nation newspaper edition of 20/02/13. I must commend your literary and grammatical dexterity, Begi Solomon, Makurdi, 08061134115

    •Sir, you just hit the nail on the head about these Abuja-based centenary celebration inventors with your write up. Keep it up. I am a victim – a graduate of engineering with no job, 08033754008

    •You Yorubas hatred of Jonathan and his family has turned to obsession. Don’t forget that he is cleaning the mess a Yoruba man left behind. You can blame PDP all you want, Nigerians are not stupid, 08166802603

    •‘Çentennial delusions” is a joyful celebration of the beginning of Nigerian slavery and servitude to the British government. It’s quite unfortunate that our government will prioritise the mark of slavery over the mark of freedom. What a nation, what a leadership, AlhajiAdeyCorsim, Oshodi, Lagos, 07057631041

    •Dear Segun, your piece titled ‘Centennial Delusions’ touched me the most in The Nation’s Saturday paper for its relevance. What Federal Government madness to think of celebrating such and in such a manner, DasheMaximo, Jos, 07080471643

    •Mr SegunAyobolu! When will you believe in something good out of the lot? Be open-minded had been my advice on your write up. The President made it clear abinitio that the celebration and commemoration would be low-key. What else do you need? Is 2014 from 1914 not real as 100 years? Did the three regions not emerge from Lugardism? Did 1960 independence not come from Lugardism? What of many products past and present from the three regions? The Nobel Laureate from which Nigeria? Compare today’s infrastructure with 1914 at least in quantity, LanreOseni, 08023023745

    •You did well in your write up. You are in my prayers, Onuchukwu J, 07032686005

    •Hi Sege, the Centennial celebration, I am sure, is another ‘project’ off the stable of the ever prowling political vultures in Abuja with connections in high places. The government knows there is nothing to celebrate. They are, as usual, just looking for something to divert our attention from their crass ineptitude. There’s a bright side to this anyway. Since they said its going to be private-sector driven, let’s allow their friends who pocketed billions of Naira of fuel subsidy money put part of same into good use for once, Olu, 08033013597

    •Segun, your piece on the centenary celebration abridge the same conclusion of your principals and I feel it is high time you guys in The Nation portray intellectual discourse in your opinions rather than projecting that same Lai Mohammed political sycophancy on anything can never be good unless it is coming from his cronies. Segun, between 1914 and 1964, you lost so much time to appreciate why we must continue to celebrate Nigeria in the appropriate context not in this bandwagon style of condemnation. Nice piece but you can do better, 08057716603

    •Hi Segun, I agree with your summation about the stupidity of celebrating Lugard when an academic conference would have been enough. But unfortunately, the blackmail that the celebration is “private sector financed” would make them ignore your position. What a big shame and a self-destructing rush to what you aptly describe as “avoidable poverty”, 08037988252

    •Thank you for your work on centenary delusions. You know Ayim is just a balloon that is just there as a painted Sepulchre. There is nothing to celebrate. We are just deceiving ourselves, Chuks, 08035410176

    •Only a bastard celebrates his mother’s concubine. The white colonizers represent our mother’s concubine and if we celebrate the day our mother gave birth to the child born out of rape from the white conquerors shows how shallow the brain of those taking refuge in the inner chamber of Aso Rock. GEJ and his team are bereft of ideas and that is why they will spend Nigeria’s hard earned money on inanities. Even if all our roads have been painted black, all hospitals in world class status, the aged and unemployed collecting monies from government, will that make them lose their senses and commit abomination? Is it not contradictory if we celebrate the day we were free from bondage and at the same time celebrate the day we got into bondage? Those who conceived this idea need psychiatric attention, 08098117071.