The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Aids deaths and the pharmaceutical industry

    Aids deaths and the pharmaceutical industry

    Several years ago, I began to learn about what I would come to regard as one of the great crimes in human history, whereby millions of people in Africa and elsewhere were cynically allowed to die of AIDS, while western governments and pharmaceutical companies blocked access to available low-cost medication. The outrage I felt as I discovered the details of this story was exceeded only by a deep sense of betrayal mixed with shame for not having known more about it in the first place.

    Today, I find those feelings mirrored in audiences who see my film, Fire in the Blood, which, incredibly, is the first comprehensive account of this horrendous atrocity and how it was eventually halted. As anyone who knows anything about pharmaceuticals will tell you, the name of the game is monopoly. In the case of medicine, monopolies emanate from patents. Typically a patent lasts for 20 years, but drug companies are expert at getting them extended. As long as the monopoly is in place, the company selling the drug can essentially charge whatever they want for it. Pricing is unrelated either to the cost of production (normally a few pennies per pill) or how much was spent in development, but a simple calculation of how to maximise revenue. Though most western countries do have price controls, these typically only keep price levels consistent with other comparable countries, so restraints are minimal.

    Why does society accept this? The narrative the industry has been immensely successful in selling is that it spends vast sums of money on research and development, that this R&D is very high risk, and that monopolies and high prices are a “necessary evil” needed to finance innovation of new medicines. These arguments do not hold up under scrutiny. 84% of worldwide funding for drug discovery research comes from government and public sources, against just 12% from pharma companies, which on average spend 19 times more on marketing than they do on basic research (paywalled link). When we screened our film at the Sundance festival last month, audiences were dismayed to learn how much of their tax money goes to discover medicines which are then sold back to them at monopoly prices nearly half of all Americans surveyed say they have trouble affording.

    In developing countries, where people typically pay for medicines out of pocket, the situation is far worse. Pharmaceutical company representatives have told me that in (relatively prosperous) South Africa, they price their products for the top 5% of the market, while in India their customer base might be just the top 1.5%. The rest of the population is of no interest. At the same time, drug companies are working tooth-and-nail to cut off supplies of lower-cost generic drugs originating in countries such as India, Brazil and Thailand, to make sure that they don’t miss out on a single customer who could possibly pay their sky-high prices.

    At the industry’s behest, governments in the US and Europe use a dizzying variety of trade mechanisms, threats of sanctions and so on to curtail supplies of affordable medicine in the global south. The potential impact of these measures in human terms is nothing less than cataclysmic. As Peter Mugyenyi, director of Africa’s largest AIDS treatment centre, says: “We are on standby awaiting another bloodbath.”

    To any suggestion that the prevailing system of monopolies on medicine is hugely inefficient, immoral and unsustainable, industry apologists contend that “it’s tried and tested”, whereas any proposed alternative would represent a massive gamble. This, again, is totally disingenuous. A vital first step is to raise the bar for granting patents: 90% of drug patents have no meaningful clinical advantages for patients, but nonetheless impede access.

    More significantly, for 70 years Canada had a system prohibiting monopolies on medicine, where patent holders received a statutory royalty on sales of generic equivalents. This maintained profit incentives for innovation, while ensuring the public was not held to ransom by monopoly pricing (it did not, however, produce the windfall profits to which the industry is addicted – so US trade negotiators had it killed under Nafta).

    As unthinkable as it may seem, the horror that saw millions of people die unnecessarily of HIV and AIDS while being denied safe and effective generic medicines produced at a fraction of the prices brand-name companies were charging, could be a mere taste of things to come.

     

  • Soccer as political allegory

    Once again, Nigeria’s legendary luck and mysterious provenance have been on grand display in the recently concluded soccer fiesta in South Africa. Against better fancied and indeed better prepared teams, the eagles have prevailed. It is a tad short of the miraculous. The eagles’ victory came against the run of play both outside and inside the field.

    Yet as this column never tires of asserting, Nigeria is a profound tribute to the subversive genius of the colonial imaginary; a prospective candidate for greatness and the salutary ironies of adversity. When it gets its act together, Nigeria is like its own football team at the summit of its genius. It is pure poetry in motion.

    But no nation has ever lived on football. Otherwise, Brazil would be the greatest nation on earth. If soccer is the new opium of the people, it is a poor tranquiliser indeed. The pains and the torments often return to the afflicted in greater measure. The crises and contradictions resume with greater intensity. The morphine of soccer glories is not always available even under the counter. To forget his woes, an alcoholic has to be permanently drunk, which is impossible. A person who dreams of great riches without hard work has a pact with punitive poverty.

    Now that that the euphoria has died down and the protocol of pundits has vanished, it is time to face once again the ugly realities of our existence. Now that the denizens of public parks and their celebratory fireworks have retreated to their dens, it is time to put the eagles’ victory in proper perspective and within an analytic framework. There are surely lessons to be learnt and it is important to get to the root of the matter before the wrong conclusions are drawn.

    This is not to take anything away from Dr Goodluck Jonathan. An unlucky president also deserves his lucky break. We must be generous even to our political adversaries. Jonathan has every right to milk the eagles’ triumph to its maximum possibility. Napoleon rated good luck above sheer proficiency when it came to assessing his generals. A man may have uncommon abilities, but the gods may conspire against his being catapulted to human greatness.

    If Jonathan’s minders had the presence of mind and are not too consumed by fatuous carping and bitching, they ought to have persuaded their principal to take a picture with the victorious eagles wearing their jerseys. That is what those who have an eye to history and posterity do. There is an iconic picture of General Yakubu Gowon in Eagles’ jerseys as he welcomed the victorious Eagles team of 1973. Shortly after that, the eagles were handed a 5-1 shellacking by the no-nonsense Zambians.

    Still, this last one was sweet and sublime victory. Snooper shared in all the hoopla and euphoria. It was great and good to be a Nigerian once again. In the global circuits, only those who travel frequently can describe how national misfortune can determine the fortune of the national. At Boston Airport last Monday, an American Custom official cheerily and heartily waved snooper on, congratulating him on the victory of the eagles. Have a good country and you will travel. It is a profound irony that Nigeria’s greatest soccer moments in the last 30 years have come either in time of unwholesome military dictatorships or under-performing civilian governments.

    In the end, nothing must take away the sterling performance of the eagles’ boys and the sublime coaching skills of Stephen Okechukwu Keshi. Nobody gave the boys a chance. Official support was niggardly. There were dark and ominous hints that Keshi himself has been penciled for dismissal after the game. The seamy racket involving the recruitment of foreign coaches was about to unfurl again.

    But Keshi triumphed against all odds and adversities. Having conjured something out of nothing, his achievement is nothing short of the miraculous. It is an interesting irony that having travelled around a bit, it is at home that Keshi would finally find his moments and materials. There is often an ineluctable logic to human destiny.

    Stephen Keshi has shown us what is possible when grit, persistence and determination combine with natural talents and home-made resources. In a sense, this ought to be the story of Nigeria itself, but why it is not so is a question the Nigerian people and their political elite would have to answer before the court of history. Keshi has shown the character and aplomb, the cheeky brilliance and the ability to cock a snook at adversity which have made Nigerians to be unique specimens around the globe.

    In other words, what we are saying is that the eagles’ soccer triumph is a political allegory for Nigeria. It points at , and at the same time, points away from the political quagmire of the present and what can be achieved once the correct lesson has been drawn. It shows what can happen to a nation once ethnicity, quota system and federal character are shunned in the recruitment of national leadership. Keshi has proved to us that once these viruses are taken on headlong, the nation can come up with its true First Eleven on the field of soccer.

    But soccer has never rescued a nation or its political class from internal contradictions or a crisis of development and eventual damnation. Snooper once asked a famous American professor friend why he thinks that the US lags behind Brazil in soccer, despite its immense riches and resources. My friend looked sternly at me as if snooper had lost his mind.

    “Well, we can’t allow our boys roaming the beaches in the morning and practicing soccer when they should be in school. In America, any youth who plays soccer in the morning will end up with the police in the afternoon.” Then he added the devastating clincher. “For every Pele and Maradona so produced, there are at least a hundred miscreants. These are social pellets and time-bombs.”

    When a soccer-besotted snooper thus lamented the fact that in the event, America would never be a great footballing nation, the professor snapped. “Well better a great country than a great footballing nation. In any case, all your great and exceptional footballers will end up in the west to entertain us. Many of them will never go back and you will never hear of their children as footballers, but as successful professionals in other fields.”

    Still, it will be a poorer world without great soccer stars and great footballing nations. The tantalising and intriguing question must now be posed. Will Brazil trade off something through the great and sterling efforts of its recent leaders in lifting more and more people out of the poverty loop and in clearing the slums and the beaches of their gifted urchins?

    All pointers are in that direction. In recent years and as Brazil gained greater economic prosperity, political justice and racial equality, its soccer fortunes also appear to have dipped. The endless production of soccer prodigies has not quite halted but the factory line appears to be stalling and spluttering. In recent years, Brazil appears to be no longer at the cutting edge of soccer artistry.

    Its last truly great team were the 1982 World cup soccer wizards including the recently departed Socrates, Falcao, Junior and Eder, he of the dipping outrageously long shots. It managed to win the World Cup in 1994 after a tedious and uninspired performance. The bulk of that team would later succumb to an inspired Nigerian team which came from behind to beat them at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

    We have now come up with a troubling social and historical conundrum. Brazil and Nigeria present us with allegorical parables. Could it be that the more underdeveloped a nation is, the more overdeveloped its football is? Germany and to a lesser extent, Holland, Italy, Spain, France and Britain are obvious exceptions. But it could also be that the great irrational alchemy which produces the truly outstanding soccer maestros such as Pele, Tastao, Garincha, Revelino, Eusebio, Puskacs and Maradona could only thrive on poverty, biblical misery and great social inequity.

    No son of a truly rich person has ever become a great footballer, or legendary boxer for that matter. A madman is a grand spectacle as long as he is not your sibling. For many Africans and Latinos, soccer is the surest escape route from the poverty loop. But in this case individual salvation does not lead to collective salvation.

    The choice is stark for developing countries like Nigeria. They may have to choose between soccer glory and accelerated development. Without economic development, the powerhouse of soccer is nothing but the football of the real powerhouses of the world. They will almost be kicked to death until they escape the prison house of soccer glory. It is a tragic paradox but such is the stuff of human history.

  • A rendezvous with Rauf

    A rendezvous with Rauf

    In the end, all politics is local. While we are still talking about accelerated economic development for the greatest benefit of the greatest number, it is meet to report on the latest efforts in the regional integration department. For the past one week, snooper has been trampling and traversing some major intellectual and economic powerhouses of American global supremacy with Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the energetic and indefatigable governor of Osun State, Nigeria.

    Snooper often relishes the role of intellectual mugger and bouncer all rolled into one, and it has been a memorable cultural and cerebral feast. From Harvard in Cambridge, Boston, through the Carnegie Mellon empire in Pittsburgh to Howard University in Washington, snooper was there, sparring and not sparing and with the fury of an ageing boxer threatened by terminal retirement.

    The aim of the visit is two-fold. First, to avail potential investors, particularly well-heeled Nigerians in the Diaspora, of the bold and visionary developmental strides undertaken by the Osun state government. Secondly, to test the main intellectual planks of the regional developmental paradigm against the critical interrogation of an academic audience that does not take kindly to flabby-minded drooling and empty posturing.

    It was going to be very hard to convince an audience steeped in western hegemony that there is no single monolithic route to modernisation and economic development. Western modernity is just one version of the multiple narratives through which human development can be framed. There was nothing preordained or inevitable about it. The advanced society does not wear a single coluration or complexion. Aregbesola spoke convincingly to these issues without being fazed or overwhelmed by the distinguished audience. Only the massively self-assured could go to a Harvard teeming with monetary school cold warriors to defend the importance of Keynesian economics and massive state intervention

    Perhaps snooper should drop an ironic mea culpa for all those who equate regional integration with a secessionist ploy. Aregbesola was once accused of being the political arrowhead of this separatist agenda with snooper duly fingered as its intellectual godfather by the same columnist. This usually perceptive chap ought to know much better, but that is a matter for another day. If one is going to be intimidated by an animal with horns, it is not going to be a snail.

    Next week, snooper would bring the full report of the trip. It was not just an intellectual tour de force, it was also socially engaging. Among many others including the Walter Carrington couple, snooper was treated to a rousing meal of pounded yam in the home of his childhood friend, Jacob Kehinde Olupona, Professor of African Traditional Religion at the Harvard School of Divinity only to be ambushed the very next day by Tayo Akinwande, a.k.a Tata, a software prodigy and Professor of Electrical Engineering at M.I.T, who could barely contain his excitement on hooking up with snooper after so many decades.

    There he was, now impressively beefed up and exuding the aura of absent-minded brilliance, hollering snooper’s undergraduate nom de guerre with great relish. Snooper had been their adored leader and campus generalissimo in the department of sophomoric delinquency. Forty years later, the table turned as the leader became the led and yours sincerely barely managed to survive Tata’s onslaught at a downtown Boston bar. Sweet revenge came when our man spent about 20 minutes frantically searching for his phone. It was in his pocket all along. Oh la la, as they say.

  • Okupe on Southwest marginalisation (2)

    Okupe on Southwest marginalisation (2)

    Dr Doyin Okupe, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, lit a fire under the buttocks of squirming Yoruba leaders about 10 days ago when he blamed them for engendering the marginalisation of their region. It was a beguiling view that upset this column last week. On the surface, he was right to blame the Yoruba for authoring their own woes, but a thorough examination would show the foundation of his argument to be absolutely weak. Let me quote him again: “The issue of marginalisation of the Southwest was a political misadventure and political accident brought about by the Yoruba themselves. If you would recollect, the Yoruba were supposed to produce the Speaker of the House of Representatives, which is the number four position in Nigeria. Due to political mishandling of the leadership of the Yoruba and also the sabotage of the Yoruba people by Yoruba leadership elsewhere, I am talking of the ACN now, the Yoruba leadership in the ACN conspired against the Yoruba people and allowed that position to be taken away. That was the beginning of the marginalisation. You see, when people sit down to share what is not enough and you don’t have anybody to speak for you, there is a problem.”

    Of course, every political observer is sensible enough to know that Okupe was wrong to have located the genesis of Yoruba marginalisation in the controversial election of Hon Aminu Tambuwal as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Marginalisation of the Southwest, which appears orchestrated under President Goodluck Jonathan, quite clearly predated the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) support for Tambuwal or the repudiation of Hon Mulikat Akande-Adeola. Okupe’s conclusion also glossed over the political complexities that convulsed the House of Representatives’ leadership election in 2011, and unthinkingly simplified the intrigues and motivations integral to the appointment and placement of public and security officials in Nigeria. Even if Hon Mulikat had been elected Speaker, and assuming that by some deft machinations she held on to that post for as long as Tambuwal has, few would be convinced she could blunt the factors that have led to the marginalisation of the Yoruba, which factors the Yoruba themselves apparently misunderstand and mishandle.

    Okupe is not the first to polemicise the Yoruba marginalisation claim, even though his observation, on the surface, appears irreproachable. The YUF and the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), both of which broadly speaking represent two contradistinctively ideological pressure groups in the Southwest, have also made similar observations. That the Southwest is deeply marginalised is, therefore, not in doubt. What is in dispute is the cause of the problem. Okupe’s arguments foundered badly when he placed the blame on the ACN’s repudiation of Hon Mulikat. The YUF took a different point of departure in identifying the factors responsible for the problem. Both by the speeches of some their leaders and the communique issued at the end of their Thursday meeting, YUF suggested that lack of unity was responsible for the region’s marginalisation. Perhaps this partly accounts for why the group has Unity embedded in its name.

    But YUF also insinuated that in view of the political realignments going on in the country, Southwest politicians needed to avoid deceit in acquiescing to mergers. We can only guess what YUF meant when it talked of unity. For reasons quite unrelated to the objectives of cooperation, the Forum is generally unenthusiastic about Southwest regional integration, which would have been a solid basis for the kind of unity they envision, assuming they truly think unity is a driving force in checkmating marginalisation. And since it is only the ACN from the Southwest that is in the process of merging with other parties, the warning issued by YUF could only have been meant for that party. However, both by its warning against merger and its lack of enthusiasm for integration, the YUF unwittingly lends credence to the existence of political and, maybe, too, ideological divisions in the region, which divisions it perhaps unknowingly exacerbates, if not endorses. YUF may in fact see Yoruba unity as one in which leading Yoruba political and business elites queue behind the Forum or at least pay allegiance to Ikenne, the home of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

    But as I have argued in this place many times, that kind of unity is nothing but a chimera. It was never existent even in Awolowo’s time, and it may never happen. Moreover, it is doubtful whether it is desirable. Stripped to the bones, it is hard to see how lack of unity could have fostered marginalisation if other factors were not at play, or if the national political leadership had not been deliberately manipulative, mischievous, insensitive and even incompetent. If the presidency knew its onions, and had taken to heart lessons about how conflicts predispose countries to disintegration, it would have been proactive in promoting power balance, fair play and justice among ethnic and regional groupings in the country. Must Abuja be told what grave consequences often follow deliberately orchestrated power asymmetry, especially when power is skewed for purely parochial reasons or as a punitive exercise to undermine troublesome and exuberant opposition?

    Let me state it once again that there will never be unity in the Southwest whether demographically, ideologically, religiously or politically in the sense being advanced by YUF. It is enough that the Yoruba are culturally united, and as a result, and to a large extent, are generally progressive. But their progressivism does not even rise to the level of ideology, and need not, for they are a people at bottom fractious, disputatious, and made up in many disturbing parts of pockets of unprincipled and subversive individuals and entities. They are the only people capable of producing a winner in Chief MKO Abiola, and creating the counteracting forces of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s enviousness and Chief Ernest Shonekan’s betrayal. They are the only people capable of producing the insightful and gifted Awolowo, and nurturing the equally gifted but contumacious Chief Ladoke Akintola. Indeed, as the living Awolowos will recall, the opposition to their patriarch was so insidious at a point that it seemed the whole Yoruba political and judicial elite united against him. I fear that YUF is tilting at windmills. They speak of unity and warn of treacherous mergers; but they had attempted to prop up Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State as the counterforce to the prevailing political leadership in the Southwest, in spite of his formless political and developmental visions, general lack of fidelity to noble ideas and principles, and lack of foresight.

    If the marginalisation of the Yoruba is to be understood, it is certainly not in terms of unity or the lack of it of the people, and not in terms of their ideologies and political affiliations. There is no part of the country that is united, whether Southeast, South-South, or even the seemingly monolithic North. Yes, the Yoruba are to a large extent responsible for the marginalisation of their region, but it is not in the sense Okupe argued, nor in the sense proposed by YUF, nor yet in the sense analysed by most commentators. After all, if we must talk of political unity, it is only Ondo State that is out of the ACN column in the Southwest. Surely no one expects that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) must merge with the ACN in the region for unity to exist or for the region to escape marginalisation.

    The single most important factor in the marginalisation of the Southwest is probably the image of itself projected by the region. That image, though a little complex, is actually unflattering. Many observers have suggested, with good reason, that if Abiola had hailed from the North, and the head of state at the time of the 1993 elections had been an army general from the Southwest instead of Gen Ibrahim Babangida, not only would it have been difficult to annul the presidential election of that year, it would have been even more difficult to appoint an interim replacement. This logic may be simplistic and far-fetched, but it was easy to undermine Awolowo in 1963, easy to replace Abiola in 1993, and even easier to recruit those who connived at their replacements and colluded with the national leadership of the day to thwart their political victories.

    Pursuant to this observation, I think the Southwest projects the image of an irresolute and long-suffering people in the face of external oppression and machinations. Just as they produce brilliant non-conformists and political juggernauts, they also produce enterprising reactionaries and subversive heavyweights. Babangida had on many occasions insinuated that the annulment of the 1993 presidential election was at the instance of highly placed personalities, some of them from the Southwest. He also added that we would be shocked if we knew the identities of the conspirators. Before then, as if troubled by his conscience, Obasanjo had said the heavens would not fall as a result of the 1993 poll cancellation. And for effect, he added that Abiola was not the messiah we longed for. Conspiracy and treachery are not the exclusive preserve of the Yoruba. But they have managed to turn both into an art. This was why it was not difficult to find Southwest judges to put Awolowo away and stymie his political ambitions. This was also why Obasanjo actively endorsed the infamy of 1993. And this is why Nigerian leaders always find ready accomplices among the Yoruba to subvert the aspirations and principles that have ennobled the Southwest for many generations.

    But the image of group envy, group subversion and fractiousness projected by the Yoruba to the outside world is not a recent phenomenon. It predates colonialism. It manifested in Afonja’s rebellion when he took Ilorin out of the orbit and protection of the Oyo Empire in 1817; and when Ibadan for economic and political reasons attempted to address that historical anomaly, it took fellow Yoruba states working in concert to undermine that effort in the late 19th century. The talent to undermine one another is evergreen in the region. YUF, I think, sees unity in terms of its own goals and ambitions. If Mimiko resists friendship with ACN, it is not because he really fears that the progressive party’s hegemony would be destructive, but because his horizon is limited and is therefore unable to key in to wider regional economic and political aspirations. It should not surprise anyone that the much-ballyhooed Southwest regional integration effort is stalling. The region’s governors are not operating on the same wavelength, do not share the lofty vision of integration equally, do not have the capacity to clearly see the shape of the future, and cast wary glances at one another, fearing to be outdone or to be outshone.

    In all this, the Yoruba, in spite of their principles, progressivism and civilisation unfortunately give the impression of a weak and exploitable people who crave for unity on the surface but are at bottom committed to undermining their own leaders, regional goals and survival. President Goodluck Jonathan simply does not feel threatened by them as he feels threatened by, say, the North. If he attempts to appoint a few more Yoruba into key offices, it will be nothing more than sheer tokenism designed for electoral gains, or a belated attempt to correct his own leadership shortcomings for having presided over such indefensible lopsidedness.

    There are some countries you will think twice before attacking; and there are ethnic groups a leader will think twice before marginalising. The Yoruba do not project that deterrence, that implacable force and power that would make it unattractive for anyone to marginalise them. They are marginalised because their enemies sense their weaknesses, their isolation, their instinctive ethnocide. In their plaintive cry of marginalisation, they cut a pitiable figure of a people burdened by centuries of character flaw, of a people unable to subordinate their individual ambitions beneath their transcendental group objectives, and of a people so terribly buffeted by enemies that in the past few decades they have begun to doubt their own strengths, compromise their own foresightedness, and for the first time actually face a dilemma so cruel that their leaders have to seem to disavow their ‘Yorubanness,’ like Abiola and Obasanjo did, to win a major election.

    Concluded

  • Chime’s hide and seek

    Chime’s hide and seek

    ON  Thursday, Enugu State Governor Sullivan Chime flew back to the country as quietly as he jetted out last September. His return brought relief on the one hand, and profound grief on the other.

    I explain. Chime’s departure was on medical grounds, as everyone later came to know; so his return is good news. In fact, as this piece shaped up, part of the story was that he was eager to pick up from where he left off. I rejoice in the governor’s recovery, knowing that life, even for the rich and privileged, is in the hands of God. But I am deeply troubled by the fact that Chime and his managers failed to use the opportunity of his return to correct the grave mistakes surrounding his departure over four months ago. One reason for this is that neither the governor nor his handlers realised they were in error in the first place.

    Leaving Enugu in the third week of September, the governor divulged little information beyond the fact that he was proceeding on his annual leave and that his deputy would govern the state in his absence. There was no indication of where he was headed. There was no word on how long he would be away. Neither was anything said about his real mission, his health. That was wrong and it brought Enugu people no joy, neither did it do Chime himself any good whether as governor or politician. Such executive silence was in utter disregard and disrespect of the people who voted him into power. Enugu people and the entire country were clueless as to the state of their governor’s well-being, just as they had no idea when he would be back home. Such behaviour of leaders suggests that the people they lead count for little and are not qualified to know their leaders’ health status. This is in spite of the fact that those neglected people provide the money with which the leaders feed and fund their privileges. It smacks of downright disregard.

    Chime’s silence created a vacuum filled only by rumours and speculation, both unhealthy for the people, their governor and their state.

    It was a grave error his administration failed to correct upon his return. The blunder of silence at departure would have been corrected on his return with full disclosure and a heart-felt apology. Such humility would have appeased the people and rallied them behind him with prayers and thanksgiving. Also, such humble dispositions have a way of not just winning the people over but also helping the leader to realise his immortality. For sometimes, leaders fall into error thinking they may possess some superhuman qualities. They imagine they cannot fall ill, but when they do, they think it best not to let lesser mortals know.

    This is erroneous and harmful, for we all have a headache or flu now and then. Our economic strengths may vary, as may also our options of where to seek remedy, but ailment is no respecter of persons or status. The sooner our leaders came to grips with this fact, the less secretive they would be about their state of well-being.

    “I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease… At the moment I feel just fine. I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done…I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you.”

    President Ronald Reagan wrote those words in August 1994 as doctors diagnosed a disease without cure. Goodwill messages flooded his California home. He was aged 83 then, but lived for 10 more years before succumbing to pneumonia. Were Reagan a Nigerian, perhaps only his wife Nancy and one or two other people would have known what ailed one of America’s most memorable commanders-in-chief.

    All over the world, the health status of national leaders is not such top secret, except in old Communist and totalitarian regimes. Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s health challenges are public knowledge. She has spoken of her concussion and blood clot near her brain. Chelsea, her daughter, has not held anything back. Neither has her father, President Bill Clinton who, himself, has well-known health issues of his own.

    On these shores, things are remarkably different but Chime’s health secrets are nothing new. They only conform to an ugly standard set by even more powerful forces.

    On November 23, 2009, then President Umaru Yar’Adua was flown out of the country and did not return until February 24, 2010. In the period, everything that should not happen to a country, happened to Nigeria. Amid concerns over his well-being, there were agitations as to the direction of the country, considering that no handover instructions were left. In fact, Yar’Adua’s aides made such capital of the fact that the ailing president could run the country from anywhere in the world. When his condition was very bad, his minders said it was splendid.

    Late last year, the whole country was enveloped in a cloud of needless controversies surrounding the health and whereabouts of First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan.

    When will our leaders demystify themselves and learn to value the people they lead?

  • As executive robbers go on the rampage

    As executive robbers go on the rampage

    The joke is told of three presidents who went for a meeting of heads of state in Geneva, Switzerland. At the end of the meeting, the three statesmen decided to return to their respective countries in the same plane. As they were about to take off, the pilot announced that each of them should watch out to know when the plane was in his country, so that he could alight.

    The president of France was the first to get to his country. He knew because as he looked out of the window, he saw the Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Versailles Palace, the fascinating lightings and other landmarks that stand Paris out as world’s most beautiful city. He shouted, “Drop me here! Drop me here! I’m in France! Pronto, the plane landed and the French president alighted.

    As the journey continued, the president of America looked through the window and saw the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Hollywood Sign, the Golden Gate Bridge and other landmarks that set America apart as the world’s most developed nation, and he yelled, “This is America. Drop me here! Again, the plane descended, the American president alighted and went his way, leaving the Nigerian president behind.

    The Nigerian president knew that unlike his counterparts in France and America, there were no landmarks of consequence through which he would know when the plane had reached his country’s airspace. As he continued to wonder what to do, it occurred to him that he was leading a country where there were more rogues than honest men. From the plane, he stretched out the hand on which he wore a gold wristwatch and told the pilot to fly at a lower altitude. He had barely done so for 30 minutes when someone snatched his wrist watch with the swiftness of the eagle. “Drop me! We are in Nigeria,”he shouted.

    I wasted no time in dismissing the joke as impracticable, mischievous and patently unpatriotic the first time I heard it. But following recent developments, I have had cause to ponder over it and realised that impracticable and mischievous as it may sound, it no doubt underscores our penchant for stealing, particularly where public funds are involved. How else could one explain the daily emergence of various categories of thieves on the national scene in recent times? While we only had to contend with pickpockets, highway robbers and muffled cases of malfeasance in the past, the nation now groans under the weight of subsidy thieves, pension thieves, pipeline thieves and the latest in the range—bonus thieves.

    Most at the receiving end are pensioners who had spent their useful years serving their fatherland, but now die on queues as they wait endlessly for pensions that never come. Almost on a daily basis, the news media are awash with stories of aged men and women who live purely on charity because the money set apart for their pension and gratuity in the nation’s budget ends up in the private pockets of government officials whose duty it is to disburse it. Thus, in a show of sheer madness, it is now a habit among pension officials to appropriate the sums to themselves in billions their children and children’s children cannot exhaust in their lifetime, even if all they do is spend money.

    Under the nose of Dr. Sani Teidi Shuaibu as the Director of Pension Administration in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the sum of N4.56 billion meant for pensioners vanished into thin air. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) later declared in April last year that N1.5 billion of the sum had been traced into Shuaibu’s private account. This was after the commission had confiscated houses and filling stations whose value ran into billions of naira from the Kogi State-born civil servant. The list included a house at No 24, Ahmadu Musa Crescent, Jabi, Abuja; Brefina Hotel at Plot 1106 (Beside MTN) warehouse, adjacent to Vines Hotel, Durumi, Abuja; a house at No 1, Shuaibu Close, opposite Governor’s House, Idah, Kogi State; Riba-Ile Petroleum Ltd; an MRS filling station at Ajaka, Kogi State (registered as Riba-Ile Oil Ltd; another MRS filling station at Idah, registered as Hammo Oil, Nigeria; an NNPC mega station, Idah Junction, Ayingba, registered as Hammo Oil, Nig. Ltd; an MRS filling station at Ganaja, Lokoja, Kogi State, registered as A.Y Ted Oil Ltd; a mansion at Idah, opposite Federal Polytechnic; SunTrust Properties Company Ltd; a house at Plot B59, Dawaki Extension Layout, Bwari Area Council, Abuja; an estate of about 10 bungalows on Dantata Street, Nyanyan, FCT, Abuja.

    Of course, many other suspected thieves have since been arrested, including John Yusuf, a former assistant director in the Police Pension Office whose case has generated protests from the Nigerian Bar Association, the Nigeria Labour Congress, opposition political parties and other civil society groups after the courts gave him a slap on the wrist, asking him to pay a fine of N750,000 for embezzling N23 billion police pension funds. There is also the current case of the runaway boss of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) boss, Abdulrasheed Maina, who the Senate had asked to account for mismanaged pension funds amounting to about N469 billion

    Last year, the entire landscape was shaken by revelations of trillions of naira paid out by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to various businessmen as subsidy for fuel they never imported into the country. No fewer than 25 chief executives of companies are currently facing prosecution over alleged theft of subsidy money. A fallout of the development was the sum of $620,000 Hon. Farouk Lawan, the chair of the House Ad-Hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy Probe, allegedly demanded from the Chairman of Zenon Oil, Mr. Femi Otedola, with a promise to expunge the name of the latter’s company from the list of companies involved in the subsidy racket. Lawan has since been prosecuted by the Federal Government.

    During the week, Nigerians woke up to the shocking news that the N1.3 billion bonus money approved by President Goodluck Jonathan for the Super Eagles campaign at the just-concluded African Cup of Nations was shared by top officials of the National Sports Commission and the sports committees of the two chambers of the National Assembly. The development, according to the National Pilot, was the key reason the Nigeria Football Federation had not been able to pay members of the Super Eagles the $30,000 promised each of them as bonus for winning the final match against the Stallions of Burkina Faso to win the Nations Cup trophy for the third time.

    The foregoing are evidence of how desperately important it has become for the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan to step up the war against corruption before we wake up one morning and discover that the strong room of the Central Bank is missing. The laws against theft of public funds must be strengthened as well as the agencies responsible for fighting corruption in the land.

  • Democracy, taxation and austerity

    Democracy, taxation and austerity

    Given the rate at which euro zone nations have been beset by street riots over austerity measures there is no doubt that very soon the concept and practice of global democracy will be synonymous with unrests and riot. Let us distinguish the euro zone riots in Greece , Spain and Portugal from the ones against despots and tyrants in the Arab world that started in Tunisia and spread to Egypt and Libya and which at first successfully achieved the objective of removing the dictators but also created fresh problems of governance, security and stability in the process.

    Again let me stress that both the euro zone austerity riots and the Arab street protests stem from how economic resources have been allocated and managed in the two environments. In the euro zone, the location of the world’s oldest democracies the maintenance of the welfare state has taken its toll on the resources of the environment and that has created the problem of higher taxation and decreasing welfare benefits leading to redundancies and massive job losses with workers unions taking to the streets with strikes to protest economic measures by governments to make ends meet. In the euro zone the welfare state has spread itself thin on resources and must rethink its economic solution approach or die a slow and withering death.

    In the Arab world and most of the so called third world, the strategy of state survival is to wrest the resources of the state from a few hands that have cornered it and start a welfare state or a semblance of it and that is if those with the huge stolen resources allow such a change at all. It is a tall order but that should be the direction of political change after decades of thievery and debauchery

    In effect then, we may be talking of two sides of the same coin if we say soaring welfare begets austerity and despotism begets poverty but that each must be experienced before lasting growth can be achieved to sustain prosperity. That however is so much theory as events have shown in recent times both in the euro zone, the Middle East and Africa, that poor management of resources create tension that overheat the socio economic fabric of society and that is taxing direly the concept and practice of democracy globally.

    In Italy former PM Silvio Berlusconi has made a move against the general EU trend of governments solving debt and economic crisis through austerity measures and increased or new taxes. Berlusconi has written letters to voters in key areas of ltaly that he would refund the property taxes they have paid so far in the name of economic reforms if he is elected in tomorrow’s elections in Italy. His opponents and critics have denounced his letters on taxation as a bribe and have asked for him to be prosecuted. Knowing Berlusconi’s highly controversial political antecedents and given the big luggage he already carries in terms of litigations in his past spell as PM of Italy, the prospect of his being deterred by litigation is nil. It is however the possibility of voters reacting positively to the attractive tax offer that fascinates me and leads me to examine the nature of political leadership in a democracy in the face of dwindling economic resources and the peculiarities of each political system. Aside from Berlusconi we will take on the elections in Kenya where one of the front runners is Uhuru Kenyatta who is facing charges for genocide in the Hague and the consequences of that for Kenya’s elections.

    Back to Berlusconi again, it is apparent that God is not finished with him yet, as Jesse Jackson once said of himself, as far as Italian politics is concerned. This is because here was a man written off for many vices and cases he faces involving sex with harlots and under aged girls when he left office last year. But now the polls show he is bouncing back and he even though his party may not win he may get enough votes to be a key kingmaker in ensuing political marriages that make governance a tedious exercise in Italy.

    In addition while Berlusconi may have lost his charisma because of his many flirtations and dilettante he has his club AC Milan to always lure and dazzle Italians soccer loving and passionate to his side. However, this last week luck was on his side as his club AC Milan did the unbelievable by beating defending champions Barcelona in Milan by two goals to nothing. Who knows the impact of football on politics sufficiently to dismiss the possibility of voters voting for Berlusconi again to make the good times of soccer victories come back to Italy under a Berlusconi regime? Surely no one can be certain.

    But if you add the tax offer to an unforgettable AC Milan victory over Barcelona in an election week you can fathom why Italians against all odds may develop sudden amnesia for the many vices of their most controversial former PM and still offer him another chance to lead or mislead them again in the peculiar democracy that Italy has become nowadays.

    Similarly you want to wonder why Kenyans will be asking a man who is on trial at the Hague to lead them as Uhuru Kenyatta is and is still contesting for Kenya’s presidency. A Kenyan woman interviewed on satellite TV was adamant that Uhuru is her choice because the father, Jomo Kenyatta led Kenya well and the economic situation was very good then as there was free education. But then the UK envoy in Kenya was insistent that he may not be able to shake hands with Uhuru Kenyatta if he wins as that is the policy of Britain over those standing trial at the Hague as Uhuru is. Yet both Britain and Kenya are democracies. But if Uhuru wins, will Kenya not have problems with the international community?

    Surely no one but Kenyans can decide this and one must wait awhile to cross that bridge. But I think Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana won elections in 1951 in Ghana while in British colonial jail, and Uhuru at least, is still on trial and has not been jailed yet so there is still some similar legal antecedent to muse over in case Uhuru wins the presidential elections in Kenya

    It is apparent that taxation becomes a huge political problem in hard times in any political system. Here in Nigeria, and as we now know also in Greece, given the Largade List and the name and shame campaign to make rich people, consultants and lawyers to pay taxes in Greece, most rich people go to great extent to dodge taxes. Yet taxes are vital for the supply and maintenance of essential infrastructure like transportation , housing , and security.

    A peculiarity of the Nigerian situation is that tax collection and gathering is done so massively and in a very modern way but the infrastructure on the ground are so old and obsolete that one wonders what the taxes are used for after all.

    In addition Nigerians are so used to constant power failure and would be wondering why people in Bulgaria will be rioting as they did this week because of high austerity taxes and high electricity bills which are a way of life in Nigeria. Yet Nigeria too is a democracy. It is however a unique one that has produced long suffering citizens who never want to rock the boat or bell the cat as long as each person or family is able to make a subsistence level of living literally from hand to mouth, leaving the way for the rich tax dodgers to have a field day and dominate both the political and economic environment maximally. Yet Nigeria is a democracy too but a very calm one where people don’t demonstrate because of high taxes or perpetual power failures or in b-uilt, reinforced, austerity measures from time immemorial.

     

  • The arm-twisting option

    The arm-twisting option

    We are an exciting country to behold.

    Things that other nations do seamlessly without rancour, we do with odium. We strive in making our country the butt of other countries with rash decisions by key functionaries who should be our shinning lights.

    Nigeria was in the spotlight for the wrong reasons again on Monday. The coach allegedly refused to board the aircraft over unpaid allowances. He prepared the team, helped in processing the travel documents, boarded the vehicle to the airport but refused to board the plane.

    As far as the coach was concerned, he had embarrassed his employer (don’t remind us of what happened in South Africa). This coach, like others, has contracts struck with his employer, but has chosen to take the law into his own hands, not minding the national shame his action would cost us when reported in the media. Would you really blame him when blackmail is what works now? It is another strategy of getting your employers to live up to their responsibilities.

    Shouldn’t such a coach be replaced and his salaries sorted out rather than appeal to him after the disgrace? Did you say what is sauce for the goose IS also sauce for the gander? What a pity.

    Like what happened in South Africa, this coach didn’t consider it expedient to report his predicament to his employer’s supervisory body. He chose the gangster method to embarrass his employer, forgetting that he was leading a squad to represent Nigeria and that anything surrounding the team is big news. When will this nonsense stop?

    With this latest ambush style of getting your employer’s listening ear as a bargaining tool, one wonders how far this strategy will go. That it worked, albeit scandalously, for one coach, does not guarantee a sustained success for others.

    Nothing prevented the coach from crying out when things were not going his way, but, sadly, he opted to toe the line of blackmail. He may have forgotten that Nigerians are still too busy savouring the Super Eagles’ victory to empathise with him.

    Again, our country has become one that never ceases to amaze. Gradually, we are becoming notorious for doing things on the reverse gear. We prefer to pass exams first before coming back to study.

    Else, government ought to understand that going for international competitions where our national prestige and honour are involved and an arena where our anthem would be sung and our green-white-green flag hoisted, no cost is too great to pay to wrench another international PR for a country only remembered as a country of scammers.  Therefore, the cash to prosecute such national duties should be provided in good time. We will continue to witness this show-of-shame, unless the government understands that other countries run sports budget over four years, with cash released in one tranche, not in batches.

    We were told before the Africa Cup of Nations that N1.2 billion had been approved for the NFF, with N750 million to be paid in the second tranche. One is, therefore, shocked that there are still issues with salaries for the coaches in the other national teams, given the way we have splashed cash on the victorious Super Eagles.

    In fact, this writer thought the Sports Minister was blowing his trumpet when he revealed in his early days in the ministry that he took the file to the President for approval. And to imagine that the minister resumed work barely two months to the Olympic Games shows why these problems still stick out like a sore thumb.

    The two coaches have gone scot free. The NFF men are at the receiving end. But the question remains, who are the NFF chieftains representing? Or is someone playing a script to discredit them to score a point? Is it not true that the NFF received the 2013 AFCON cash 48 hours to the opening game? Did we not know that the competition would hold one year ago? Has anyone asked how others do it?

    We know the mileage we have received with the Super Eagles’ deserved feat in South Africa. I concluded last week’s column by saying that nothing would change in the way we run sports because such disjointed arrangements fetched us the trophy? Is anyone surprised at this latest development? I digress.

    Last week’s column, “Now some home truths”, lived up to its billing. It was controversial. It was bound to ruffle feathers. It was not the song of praise. It was a missive to a friend, urging him to always reflect before taking drastic actions.

    It is now in the past though and I don’t intend to tender any apologies. Rather, I will continue with an appraisal of what happened in South Africa.

    Last week’s column was not meant to discredit Stephen Keshi’s achievements. It was just a reminder of the need for us to be civil in handling issues.

    We are still haunted by the misdeeds of previous boards and feel that nothing good can come out of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). What many didn’t understand before that Africa Cup of Nations held in South Africa was that Sports Minister Bolaji Abdullahi had evolved a synergy between the NFF and the National Sports Commission (NSC).

    Hitherto, these two bodies (NFF and NSC) had worked at cross purposes. Their feud was carried into the Super Eagles squad and things fell apart. Their impasse polarised the media also, with lies served to Nigerians as truth. But, Abdullahi got everyone to see the essence of unity of purpose with national interest as the watchword.

    Abdullahi didn’t take sides, like some of his predecessors. He made feuding parties to sit down and resolve their differences. Where there was no truce, he intervened and put his foot down that agreements reached were actualised.

    Whatever happened in South Africa was a product of Abdullahi’s masterful handling of the bitterness among those who should work together to achieve greatness for this country.

    We went to this year’s edition as an indivisible unit and it didn’t come as a shock to Abdullahi that we clinched the trophy. It is not any coincidence that the Super Eagles have not lost any competitive game since the amiable journalist became the Sports Minister.

    The Eagles squad that lost the AFCON final at the National Stadium in Lagos in the year 2000 was our best. Yet, we lost because the intrigues existing between the NSC and the NFF had consumed the then soccer chairman Kodjo Williams, even before the competition began.

    That devious act took its toll on the Eagles’ fortune as many felt that the NSC men were unfair to the principled ex-chairman. Whilst some people prayed for the Eagles then, others plotted their fall and celebrated. Such has been the lot of our Eagles, culminating in the sobriquet Super Chickens.

    Other years beginning with the Burkina Faso 2002 edition were fraught with plots and sub-plots, so much so that the technical crew comprising Shauibu Amodu, Keshi and Joseph Erico were stopped from guiding the team through the 2002 World Cup, co-hosted by Japan and South Korea, having led the team’s qualification for the competition. What happened to Keshi as he narrated was a piece of cake compared to what Amodu saw in 2002 and 2010. Of course, Keshi was in Ouagadougou and knows what transpired there. It is easy for cynics to say must this act continue unabated? The flipside is, has the government come out to say that cash was released to the NFF men and they refused to spend it?

    The 2004, 2008 and 2010 editions weren’t any better in terms of the intrigues. They grew to high proportions, culminating in the controversial Presidential Task Force that convinced President Goodluck Jonathan to withdraw us from all football competitions after the South Africa 2010 World Cup debacle.

    The Super Eagles’ squad that broke the 19-year-old jinx has been the least formidable in terms of the quality of our talents and experience. What most people have ascribed to be indiscipline among the players arose from the devious methods that some of the feuding administrators used in settling scores with the opposition. Without Abdullahi’s intervention, the Eagles would have crumbled before the cocky Ivoiriens.

    Abdullahi had taken a retreat to Nigeria after we qualified. Yet his position on Keshi’s savvy and indeed that of Nigerian coaches was that they could do the job. It is for this reason that he rejected the appointment of a Belgian as the country’s technical director.

    This writer cannot judge the coach’s technical inputs in the team. Having tutored the Eagles through the preparatory stages and seen them through the matches, I salute him for bringing smiles on our faces. He richly deserves all the accolades. But he must act maturely in the future when faced with similar circumstances. Congratulations Big Boss; it is being quite a while coming.

  • Centennial delusions

    Centennial delusions

    It is the classic tale of two countries. There is the Nigeria whose purported birthday, Lord Frederick Lugard’s grandchildren in Abuja will be celebrating with billions of Naira throughout next year. That Nigeria for them will be a hundred years old next year. They date their Nigeria’s birth to the arbitrary amalgamation of the Northern and Southern parts of the country by the forces of British imperialism on January 1, 1914. For them, it is a historical event we must celebrate with pride. In their words “The centenary celebration will present an opportunity for us to count our blessings as a nation, celebrate our dexterity and resilience as a people, and resolve to launch into the century with renewed determination, hope and expectations.” And they list so many blessings for us to count – thanks to Lord Lugard: Nigeria is the largest black nation and the 7th most populous country in the world. The country has a huge domestic market, human resources and awesome capacity for transformation. Nigeria has over 100 million active cell phone lines and the largest internet traffic in Africa. She has over 24 million pupils in primary schools, over 6 million in secondary and over one million in tertiary institutions. Nigeria has over 100 million literate people. The list goes on and on and the Abuja centenarians enthuse that “the story of Nigeria is one of admirable and remarkable progress. Nigeria’s 100th birthday provides a wonderful opportunity for all Nigerians to proudly celebrate in the nation’s story of freedom, achievements and aspirations.”

    But the deceptive statistics above do not tell the story of the real Nigeria; the hapless and helpless country inhabited by the teeming number of poverty-stricken Nigerians who are non-admirers of the British colonial bandit and mindless imperialist, Lord Lugard. The Abuja centenarians are obviously exiles existing far from the real Nigeria. It is a richly endowed country whose people are mired in humiliating poverty. It is a cursed land of horrendous corruption. It is a cesspit of crime. It is a paradise of banditry. It is a den of kidnappers. It is a kingdom of armed robbers. Hunger stalks the land. Millions of its youth wallow in joblessness. It is a hell hole of suicide bombers. Its education system at all levels is in shambles. 20 million of her children are out of school. The health sector has virtually collapsed and her wealthy elite routinely seek medical succour abroad. Even the current First Lady was reportedly recently resurrected from a 7-day death experience in a German hospital. It is a Nigeria that is so blessed yet so plagued. Blessed with arable land, it is a major importer of food. We can go on and on. A serious and purposeful government would not waste billions of scarce resources on a vain and absolutely unproductive celebration of Nigeria’s subjugation by colonial imperialism. Given our natural and human resource endowment, there is no excuse for the pathetic state of contemporary Nigeria 100 years after her purported creation. This is a real source of shame. It is really amazing how the mind of the Jonathan presidency works. This centenary celebration brain wave should never have been approved by any focussed and thinking leadership.

    The organisers of the centenary jamboree claim that the celebrations “offer us a unique opportunity to affirm the obvious truth that Nigeria is not a historical accident, rather the product of a long and mature consideration.” This is pure fiction. Any notion of Nigerian unity was far from the mind of Lord Lugard in undertaking the amalgamation. In a rigorous study, Professor Eme Ekekwe avers that: “There was really no serious attempt made politically or administratively to unify the country. Lugard’s attempt in 1914 at ‘amalgamation’ was really not aimed at this at all…What Lugard was really seeking in 1914 was some device that would enable him to shift around for purposes of balancing his books any financial surpluses available from any of the virtually separate territories. The individuality of the territories was maintained.” The whole idea of the amalgamation was simply for British administrative and fiscal convenience. This is why the British continued their divide and rule policy long after the amalgamation to prevent a united indigenous front against colonial rule. The North and South were deliberately kept severely apart and effectively compartmentalised long after the amalgamation. What is really heroic about our history and worth celebrating is the capacity of the Nigerian nationalists to overcome the ‘divide and rule’ antics of the British and forge a common front to fight for the country’s independence – a feat achieved in 1960. We should as much as possible distance the unity and dignified existence of Nigeria from the self-seeking antics of a colonial pirate like Lugard.

    Let no mistake be made about it. There is a vast qualitative difference of no mean significance between pre and post-independence Nigeria. This centenary celebration fantasy seeks to fraudulently mask this difference. Even after the amalgamation of 1914, Nigeria remained a colonial dependency. She had no sovereign will of her own. The people were British subjects, not Nigerian citizens. Nigeria existed as a Lugardian territorial contraption that housed ‘second class’ citizens subject to the will, whims and caprices of the colonizing power. The Union Jack flew over Nigeria’s, British owned territory rather than the Green-White-Green flag that today symbolises our autonomous nationhood. Nigeria had no legal existence in international law before 1960. The British monarch was Nigeria’s effective Head of State. It was a condition of national servitude and indignity. Our genuine, self-respecting nationhood began when we attained independence, not when we groaned under imperial jack boots. The Abuja centenarians clearly fail to appreciate the devastating and destructive impact of colonial subjugation on the psyche, confidence and self –esteem of the peoples of pre-colonial Nigeria. The amalgamation was the culmination of the military subjugation, cultural alienation, psychological disorientation and humiliation as well as economic emasculation of the well- structured and organized communities that preceded the colonial conquest. In the words of Professor Claude Ake, “The colonizers convinced themselves and tried to convince us that our level of civilization was sub-human. They abolished our history, assaulted our institutions and denigrated our culture. Supported by economic and political coercion, the assault on our humanity has inculcated a deep sense of inferiority which we still wear like an albatross”. This is a critical factor in the persistence and deepening of underdevelopment in Nigeria and Africa.

    Nigeria’s great nationalists – Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, ObafemiAwolowo, Anthony Enahoro, Aminu Kano, Adegoke Adelabu, Ahmadu Bello, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Michael Imoudu etc – refused to live under such dehumanising, humiliating conditions. The youths of the Zikist movement, Nigerian students, the market women of Aba and Abeokuta, the railway workers, the Iva Valley Mine workers in Enugu, were all part of a mass movement that said no to Lord Lugard’s Nigeria. Their exertions brought that inglorious colonial era to an end and ushered in independence in 1960. On October 1, 1960, the Union Jack was lowered and the Green-White-Green flag was unfurled to signify the commencement of Nigeria’s existence as an independent, self-determining nation. Yes, the amalgamation is an undeniable and important historical event. If its centenary is to be commemorated at all, an academic conference to assess its importance and implications for Nigeria’s history will do; not a year- long jamboree that will gulp billions when millions of Nigeria are trapped in avoidable poverty. This whole scheme looks like another self-enrichment scam for the benefit of Nigeria’s greedy power elite. That the jamboree will be funded by the private sector is beside the point. In a poverty-ridden country like Nigeria, neither the public nor the private sector must be encouraged to engage in frivolous and wasteful expenditure of this nature. President Jonathan should halt this madness today. We are celebrating nothing but centennial delusions.

  • Memo to the ‘resurrected’ First Lady(1)

    Memo to the ‘resurrected’ First Lady(1)

    Madam, I greet you in the splendour of your majesty.First, a clarification—I am not one of those ‘bad belle’

    people who wished you dead when you were enjoying a well-deserved rest in Wiesbaden, Germany, last year. I am not one of those lackeys who would rather tell you what you crave to hear either. Under the current administration, Nigeria’s multi-billion Naira sycophancy industry has blossomed in a phenomenal pattern. But I am not one of those ‘lucky few’ who gravitate around your corridors of power. Instead, like every other nosy journalist, my interest then was where you, Nigeria’s First Lady were; and what you could be up to. The implications of your action and inaction were of professional concern to me. In pursuit of the truth, I had pressed one or two buttons at the right quarters and thus the story published in this paper on how the surgeons battled to save the precious life of our First Lady—the one and only wife of our Otuoke-born President. For daring to mention the surgeon’s scalpel, some of “today’s men” hovering round your husband were quick in issuing a rejoinder, calling us names. They said we were peddling rumours; that you only relocated to Germany to have a nap as favour-seekers had made the palatial ambience of Aso Rock too stuffy for comfort. They hushed us into silence, vowing that you were never suffering from any life-threatening ailment. They urged us to wait with bated breath as we would soon witness your triumphant entry into Nigeria.

    And did you disappoint when you finally waltzed into the country on October 17, 2012? No, you did not. Indeed, your return was a carnival of sorts. No small measures where you are concerned, we all know. The crowd of sympathisers were neatly arranged; buses were provided and they besieged the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, bearing different colourful placards proclaiming your invincibility. Of course, the Presidential Villa was powerfully filled with ministers and top aides falling all over themselves as usual, just to make sure that they were captured by the television cameras. That, I assumed, was more important than a handshake with the First Lady. They blushed. They grinned. They offered peripheral gestures.

    They danced too. I watched as you sucked it all in. You waved as you came out of the presidential jet. It was your moment to hit back at those who shamefully lied that you had fallen ill and had been immediately air-lifted to Germany for a life-saving treatment. “Ko jo rara!” You mimicked in Yoruba. It was time to hit back at your ‘enemies dem’ and rub their noses on the bare floor. When you spoke, you minced no words in calling them bare-faced liars and nitwits. You were the woman of the moment; the newsmaker and you lapped it all. You cast the first stone right at the doorsteps of your detractors.

    You fired from all cylinders, saying: “At the same time, I will use this opportunity to tell those few ones that are saying that anybody that goes to Villa or Aso Rock will die. At the same time, I read in the media where they said I was in the hospital. God almighty knows I have never been to that hospital. I don’t even know the hospital they mentioned. I have to explain what God has done for me. I do not have terminal illness, either did I do any cosmetic surgery, talk more or less of tummy tuck. My husband loves me as I am and I am pleased with how God created me. I cannot add anything.”

    Madam, that memory is still fresh. In our usual fashion, your admirers must have been elated to be part of history—making the train of revellers that welcomed the wife of the President who went on a six- week unofficial rest abroad! You must have remembered how you ran into the embrace of your dear husband. Oh, it was a sight to behold as ‘Oga’ held you close, sans the probing eyes of other well-wishers and the paparazzi. We shared in that joy, knowing what that great reunion meant for the nation—the Mother of the Nation—a Permanent Secretary in Bayelsa State—is back!

    The news of the denial of surgery of any kind spread like wildfire and the media became the butt of derisive joke. Quite a number of people believed you. Why shouldn’t they? You were looking radiant, refreshed and relaxed. Okay, maybe you were a bit edgy on arrival but there were no signs of weakness for the few moments you interfaced with the throng of sympathisers. You made your points, cleared your conscience, went into another prolonged rest in Aso Rock, made some cameo appearances and then quietly took off to Germany for a routine medical check-up some weeks back.

    In all honesty, we thought the final curtain had fallen on that matter. We were prepared to lick our wounds. It was your word against ours, anyway. It was some kind of relief that your trip did not add to the over $500m allegedly spent on medical tourism yearly by the money guzzlers in government. In fact, that six-week nap abroad must have given you the opportunity to interact with foreign investors – not just the usual officialese when Nigerian VIPs go abroad to burn truckloads of dollars. That was the economic angle that your detractors failed to see. Now, they know better. No wonder, you promised, on your return, to “work with women of Nigeria, children and the less privileged.” No surgery, No ill health. No tummy tuck. No hospital treatment. Just a trip to observe rest!

    Sadly, that was the first leg of the tale as told by you in October, 2012! Little did we know that it was a moonlight story wreathed in white lies. And, if you ask me, I will say it is a sad commentary on what leadership is all about. Some said truth was callously slaughtered and integrity thrown out of the window.