The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • The Vatican’s only prisoner

    The Vatican’s only prisoner

    The Pope’s former butler is being treated “leniently and justly” according to Vatican authorities, and may even benefit from a papal pardon before the end of his prison term, if he shows repentance and apologises to Pope Benedict and all the other people who work for the Holy See for the scandal he caused.

    But for the moment he has exchanged his modest “grace and favour” three-bedroom apartment just inside the walls of the Vatican for a sparsely furnished detention room inside the headquarters of the Pope’s private police force, the Vatican Gendarmerie.

    Not only has he been sacked, but he now risks losing his home as well, situated almost next door to his former workplace, the Papal apartments on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace.

    Vatican City has a railway station – with only one train a week bringing in bonded duty-free goods, a Post Office, a radio station, a pharmacy, a supermarket, a fire brigade, a five-star hotel, and one of the world’s most visited museums, but it has no prison – and no dungeons.

    It’s only crime problem is normally to catch and prosecute the pesky thieves and pickpockets who frequently relieve pilgrims and tourists of their wallets and handbags during crowded church ceremonies inside Saint Peter’s Basilica or while walking through the Vatican museums.

    They are normally handed over to Italian police for processing and trial if necessary. Law and order inside the tiny territory is in the hands of the 130-strong Vatican Gendarmerie staffed almost entirely by ex-members of the Italian Carabinieri and State police. In charge is Inspector-General Domenico Giani, who formerly worked for the Italian Secret Services.

    While the 120 members of the Pope’s Swiss Guard carry out ceremonial and guard duties inside the mini-state, the blue-uniformed police are responsible for traffic and border control, and criminal investigations.

    The gendarmes’ barracks are on the Vatican’s eastern edge, north of St Peter’s The Vatican police came under criticism from Paolo Gabriele during his trial. He accused them of putting him in a cramped detention cell inside police headquarters where he was held for 15 days with the light switched on day and night and with scarcely room to raise his arms.

    The Gendarmerie explained that this was done to prevent Gabriele from harming himself, and that he himself had asked for the light to be left on at night and was given a sleeping mask.

    After losing most of his territories in 1870 with the founding of the new strongly anti-clerical united kingdom of Italy, Pope Pius IX declared himself “Prisoner of the Vatican”. It took almost another 60 years before Popes were again able to venture outside the walls of their stronghold, as a result of the creation under Mussolini of the Vatican City micro-state within the city of Rome.

    The butler has now been given a larger detention cell. He will be allowed regular visits by his family – he has three children – and will receive spiritual counselling from a priest. He will also be allowed to attend Sunday mass under police escort.

    The tortures inflicted on victims of the Holy Inquisition for heresy from the Middle Ages onwards are legendary. Visitors to Rome can still see some of the dungeons into which prisoners of the Church used to be thrown.

    The dungeons of the Castel Sant’Angelo, a papal fortress just near the Vatican, inspired the 18th Century Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi to create his famous series of imaginary etchings of Roman prisons – I Carceri.

    But the Vatican Gendarmes insist that the conditions under which Gabriele will be held fully respect the Geneva Convention on torture and “conform to the detention standards applicable to other countries in analogous circumstances”.

    Gabriele, a Vatican citizen, has already spent five months since his arrest last May in detention or under house arrest, so in theory he has another 13 months to serve.

    His case has caused huge embarrassment to the Vatican authorities and to Pope Benedict in person. They fear he might spill further secrets if he were to serve his term in an Italian prison, which under present treaty arrangements between the Holy See and Italy, he should do.

    Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul ll in 1981 was tried and sentenced by an Italian court after his capture in Saint Peter’s Square, over which jurisdiction is shared between the Italy and the Vatican. He spent 19 years in an Italian jail before being deported to Turkey.

    Courtesy: BBC

  • Ondo election: A post-mortem

    Ondo election: A post-mortem

    Chief Olu Falae, Afenifere big wigs, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Mr Yinka Odumakin and key members of the Awolowo family have joyfully and spontaneously congratulated Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State on his victory in last week’s governorship election. There is of course nothing wrong with that, for these eminent Yoruba sons and daughters are entitled to support anyone they like and, whether the victory in question is tainted or not, congratulate whomsoever they wish. I support their right to do whatever the law vouchsafes to every citizen. However, they also added, both before the election and after, that Mimiko’s victory would trigger the rejigging of Southwest politics to the extent of precipitating the extinction of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), a progressive political party now dominant in the region. But they offer no replacement. They also added that ACN’s progressive identity was spurious, and that even if the party had any progressive credential, it was definitely not the only party where progressive politicians could be found.

    I leave the ACN to the task of defending and protecting its reputation. Instead, I will take a brief look at the October 20 poll, the question of Southwest politics said to be in need of rejigging, and the various hoaxes that swaddled the poll. I am not persuaded that the ACN has reacted to the unexpected setback it suffered in the poll with the grace and good humour it is capable of. In fact, if its leaders had patiently examined the facts of the election and the import of the results, they would have discovered there was absolutely no reason to be in a foul mood. They would even discover that the claims by both Mimiko and his eager dupes are exaggerated and wishful. However, I really suspect that Mimiko is far too clever to be duped by the fawning of the Afenifere bigwigs. He can read between the lines in his poll victory, and he knows that many of those who rallied behind him were fired up and united by their common and zealous dislike for the ACN as a party, what they say is its presumptuous claims of ideological purity and superiority, and what Bakare in one of his recent sermons described as the offensive aggressiveness and disagreeable imperiousness of the ACN leadership.

    If the ACN crowd closely studied the statistics of the poll, they would come out to congratulate Mimiko and damn him with faint praise. They would have absolutely no reason to be gloomy, let alone churlish. They would forswear court action, with all the wastefulness it entails and all the distractions; for in the end, it may not serve any useful purpose. They would see the election merely as a setback and an opportunity to address many of their party’s weaknesses and contradictory internal dynamics. They would ask themselves probing questions about the wisdom or otherwise of their party’s methods of selecting or electing standard-bearers, and would do a post-mortem of their standard-bearer himself, Rotimi Akeredolu, and the kind of campaign they ran and the issues they addressed on the stump, whether those issues were appropriate or inappropriate. Surely, the party cannot claim not to have learnt anything from the Ondo setback.

    A study of the poll statistics shows quite clearly that the claims of a Mimiko victory triggering change in Ondo politics, not to talk of Southwest politics, is dishonest, far-fetched and simplistic. It is of course well known that Mimiko scored 41.65 percent of the total votes cast in the election, while his two leading opponents in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ACN collectively scored 47.94 percent. In other words, more people voted for Mimiko’s opponents than voted for him. If this is not statistically important, then it is pointless studying quantitative methods. It also meant that more Ondo people either disagreed with the credentials presented by their governor or disapproved of the way he ran the state.

    If the ACN crowd had been more studious and good-humoured, they would more crucially have recognised that out of a voting population of 1,638,950, only 38.11 percent voted in the governorship poll. This is hugely significant if the aim is to find out what Ondo people really want; whether, for instance, they disapprove of Southwest integration or approve of it. It is anybody’s guess whether the non-voters were entirely absent from the state on the day of the election, were intimidated by the militarisation of the poll, would have voted for either ACN or PDP if their standard-bearers had been different, or were simply not motivated and charmed enough by the candidates on offer or the issues at stake.

    Probably the most damning of the statistical inferences from the Ondo poll is the fact that out of a voting population of about 1.64 million only about 15.88 percent voted for Mimiko. This shocking fact constrains analysts to use the word landslide guardedly and less recklessly than they have done. More importantly, it becomes even more irrational to build on this very modest base of Mimiko supporters to postulate tectonic shifts in Ondo politics, let alone volcanic eruptions in Southwest politics, as Bakare and Odumakin have wishfully conjectured. If the Mimiko supporters and well-wishers are not discomfited by statistics, should they not be sensibly disquieted by the lack of strong credentials of their presumed champion, a man so vacant of the ideals, vision and character that have hallmarked leadership ascendancy in Yorubaland for centuries? Surely, the region cannot have been so impoverished by time and circumstances and even economic hardship that a group of people projecting their private animosities would seize upon a man so barren of endowments, except of wiles and shiftiness, and make him the inner core around whom to rejig the region’s ideology and worldview.

    The ACN must consider itself quite fortunate at this point in time to have contested the Ondo election and suffered the humiliation of coming third behind the winning Labour Party (LP) and the PDP. It won’t be contesting any major election until 2015 when the country will be in an uproar over feverish permutations between ideologies, power blocs and vested and entrenched interests. But it will fight to retain its hold on both Ekiti State (October 2014) and Osun State (November 2014), and enemies will be plenty. The ACN has not found it easy to maintain party discipline in Edo State, but it will have the experience and outcomes of the 2015 general election to guide its behaviour towards the state and its leaders. In view of its tenuous political and ideological hold on some of the states under its control, particularly Edo and Oyo States, the party will be fully challenged to enunciate dynamic, integrated, structural and productive political processes in those two states, and indeed all states under its control, if it is not again to face the kind of apathy and hostile propaganda that humiliated it in Ondo.

    It is likely the ACN may be unnerved by the Ondo setback. It may, for instance, therefore choose to react to the situation by remaining glued to its long-standing political paradigms. It should resist that temptation. The Ondo problem calls for a change of tactics, a change of party structure, a change of general paradigm, especially in terms of how the party views the electorate and the ideas and peculiarities of the individual states in which it seeks to win seats and offices. It should also resist the temptation to doubt its overall vision for the Southwest, particularly integration, which has unfortunately been wrapped in deceptive and hostile propaganda by opposing parties and spiteful individuals. Integration is the way to go, and the party must understand that Ondo people are unlikely to oppose it, as the poll statistics show. Indeed, given the mood of the Southwest, the times call for the intensification of social, political and economic integration in the culturally coterminous states under ACN’s control. The party waited for Ondo State to join its ranks, but hostile and corrupted propaganda insinuating internal colonialism made it impossible. Now is not the time for zeal to flag; now is the time to proceed diligently and enthusiastically.

    After the Ondo debacle, the ACN may believe the Labour Party (LP) had given it a bloody nose, and may begin to fear that the subversive wish of Falae, Bakare, Odumakin and other sundry antagonists concerning the overthrow of the party in the region stands a chance of being fulfilled. Nonsense. That wish can only be realised if the ACN digs itself into a worse labyrinth than it is already in. First, the party must recognise that defeat is nothing but an invitation to re-examine one’s message and methods: it is not a death knell; it is a propellant for change and adaptation. After all, Winston Churchill, with approval rating of 83 percent, incredibly and unprecedentedly lost the general election of 1945 immediately after World War II, which he heroically led Britain to fight. Charles de Gaulle of France was also forced to resign in 1946 in spite of his inimitably heroic actions and leadership of his country during WWII. He was not to become leader again until 12 years later, and was even heard once to despondently remark that the ineffective government that replaced him governed France well in spite of their lack of vision.

    Second, the ACN must also very importantly continue to believe in itself and its progressive credentials and vision. The party’s antagonists argue that you do not need to be in the ACN to embrace integration, and that the region does not have to be ruled by one party to implement integration. These ingenious arguments mask subterranean disdain for regional integration and resentment for ACN leadership. If they cared about integration, they would have realised that Mimiko had all the opportunities in the early part of his governorship to champion the idea, or if a natural laggard, to embrace the idea and wholeheartedly commit himself to its principles. He openly and mockingly did neither. Instead, with the help of other malevolent regional leaders, he concocted the propaganda that regional integration was a ploy at expansionism and domination. Sadly, the propaganda stuck, and a rattled and nervous ACN could find neither the wit nor the logic, nor yet the conviction, to answer that undistinguished regional malfeasance.

    Third, the ACN must understand that it is characteristic of the Southwest to be polarised, often along indistinguishable lines. Apart from the region being overrated in terms of political consciousness, it is also inappropriately described as savvy and futuristic. The Yoruba are an average and quarrelsome people occasionally blessed with visionary and iron-fisted leaders who are often impatient with the disunity and disorientation of the tribe. If they were not average, they would have seen what Awolowo saw in the early 1950s and voted for his party in the 1951 elections. Instead, he had to cobble together a disingenuous political victory reeking of tribalism, an action that continues to haunt his image till today. And as Mr Ayo Opadokun reminded us a few weeks ago in his reminiscences, Awo faced implacable regional foes so strong that they hamstrung regional progress and hobbled his legacy. Those foes were unappeasable in the 1960s, could not be mollified in the 1970s, and it was only in the 1980s, after being tired of opposing the great man to no useful purpose, that they finally sought peace in 1987. But by then it was too late.

    It is one of the paradoxes of history that today, and for reasons that cannot be uttered, supposedly knowledgeable and seemingly progressive Southwest leaders, including members of the Awolowo family, have set themselves in array against the dominant ethos of the region and blunted the region’s effort at achieving national advancement. Afonja was the first notable harbinger of this tendency. It is not certain that the region, in spite of its many talents, can overcome its idiosyncratic love for internal schisms and self-destruction. But if the ACN can patiently study the issues at stake and encourage itself in the region’s future goals, it may be able to rise above the recurring cataclysms that have shaped Yoruba history, subverted their destiny and dissipated the energies and resourcefulness of their children. If the ACN does not rise up to that task; another party will. But that other party will not be led or inspired by Falae, Bakare, current Afenifere leaders, or Odumakin. For if those who genuinely want the region to achieve greatness fail, it is hard to see those ossified in the hateful and divisive politics of the region’s inglorious past succeed.

  • These irritants called ‘Okada’ riders

    These irritants called ‘Okada’ riders

    They should comply with the law or return to the village

    I have strong reservations about certain aspects of the Lagos State Traffic Law, no doubt. But the aspect having to do with the regulation of the activities of ‘Okada’ riders in the state, I wholeheartedly support. As a matter of fact, the regulation should have come a long time ago, considering the nuisance that many of the ‘Okada’ riders have constituted themselves into. Even if I had any doubts before about the necessity for that aspect of the law, those doubts have evaporated with the activities of the ‘Okada’ riders in the past week or so, when enforcement of the law against them began. The ‘Okada’ riders have demonstrated their true colour within the period by vandalising about 42 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) buses in the state. This is a thing they do daily to private motorists who have issues with them on the roads. Unfortunately, they are almost always wrong, but they insist they are right obviously because many of them do not even know what constitutes right or wrong on the road. Many of them are stark illiterates when the issue has to do with the Highway Code.

    For sure, most of them never rode motorcycle all their lives; they learnt it for a few days in Lagos and soon begin to carry passengers. The results are there for all to see. Anyone who has seen accidents involving ‘Okada’ riders would not even think twice before asking that their activities be banned completely. Anyone who has been to the National Orthopaedic Hospital in Igbobi, Lagos, and seen the wards dedicated to victims of ‘Okada’ accidents would understand what one is talking about. There are many people whose dreams have been shattered simply because they had the misfortune of riding on ‘Okada’. And, instead of banning them outright, the Lagos State Government merely came up with a law that bars them from plying some 475 of the about 9,000 roads in the state. This, to me, is the height of magnanimity. It also shows the sensitivity of the state government to the plight of Lagosians who still, of necessity, must patronise the ‘Okada’ riders. It is also a way of showing consideration for the riders themselves to still be able to do something to keep body and soul together.

    But when last did you see any ‘Okada’ rider obey traffic rule in Lagos? Nine out of 10 of them would ignore traffic lights. They carry more passengers than the motorcycles are designed to carry. When they break car side mirrors or dent other vehicles, they run away; and where they stop, it is for the purpose of fomenting trouble. They not only argue with the owner of the vehicle whose mirror they have broken or whose vehicle they have dented, they exhibit an uncommon esprit de corps, with every ‘Okada’ rider passing the route stopping to side with their colleague, irrespective of whether their colleague is right or wrong.

    Lawlessness apart, quite a number of armed robberies have been committed by ’Okada’ riders or by people on ‘Okada’. Hear the state commissioner of police, Mr. Umar Abubakar Manko: “Motorcyclists have done so much damage in Lagos State. I am the Commissioner of Police and I am telling you from the point of knowledge that most of the armed robberies that we recorded were carried out by these motorcyclists. People go to the banks to collect money, they will hang around banks, they will hang around people’s’ houses, take their belongings, collect their money, even in traffic hold-ups”. So, what are we talking about?

    The annoying thing is that most of the people involved in the’ business’ left their own states for Lagos when their state governments proscribed, outright, the activities of ‘Okada’ for the same reasons that the Lagos State Government has now merely regulated them. They did not vandalise their state government property back home; indeed, they did not even lift any serious finger beyond some feeble protests that soon fizzled out. I know of a governor in the south-south who merely ‘decreed’ ‘Okada’ out of existence in his state with effect from January 1, last year. He did not afford the ‘Okada’ riders the luxury of any long notice that the Lagos State Government gave those in Lagos to turn a new leaf before the coming into existence of the new law; or even the period of grace after the law came into force.

    This matter is particularly infuriating because after their state governments sent them packing, they joined the next available Lagos-bound bus for the sole purpose of coming to ride commercial motorcycle in the state. And, in spite of the fact that they are not doing it right, they want the state government to leave them alone to behave as they like, sending many more people to untimely graves even as they render many others invalid for life. Where in the civilised world is that done? It is difficult to blame them though; they had committed most of these atrocities over the decades unchallenged that they have now come to see them as the norm.

    Of course I am neither deaf nor dumb to the dire economic downturn that has led some of the people into riding commercial motorcycles. But the impression should not be given that the state government owes all Nigerians jobs and that those who cannot find things to do in their own states can just come to Lagos and expect that they must do ‘Okada’ business the way they like. Lagos is not getting any special funding from the Federal Government to warrant that kind of expectation from it. Lagos, like other states of the federation relies on monthly allocation from the Federal Government and internally generated revenue. Many other states have access to the same sources of funds. Unfortunately, there is so much mismanagement and fraud all around, thus making it impossible for them to manage their resources well. If those who are protesting that Lagos is not allowing them to do “Okada’ business on their own terms have gathered themselves to stage similar protests, demanding good governance in their respective states, there would not have been any need for the influx of people to Lagos, overstretching the facilities in the process.

    All these explain why I am shocked about the hoopla on this matter. Lagos State has come up with a traffic law that it feels is in the interest of its citizens; if any ‘Okada’ rider feels the law is too stringent to be obeyed, let him return home to demand that his state government should let him operate ‘Okada’ business unregulated. When the south-south governor in question threw ‘Okada’ riders out of his state, many of them were seen conveying their motorcycles to the nearby state from where majority of them came. Much as the country’s constitution guarantees freedom to live and work anywhere in Nigeria by any Nigerian, it does not take the prerogative of making laws for the good governance of the state from the respective state governments. People who intend to do ‘Okada’ business in Lagos must be ready to abide by the law or return to their respective villages. The state government should not fold its arms and allow its citizens being wasted on the streets simply because some people want to eke a living. The Federal Government and state governments have to provide conducive environment for people to be gainfully employed. Lagos alone cannot bear that burden.

  • The rise and rise of River Nigeria

    (Okon solves a national mystery)

    Will the floods do for Nigeria what human adversities and man-made follies have so far failed to achieve? As biblical floods threaten to overwhelm this bewitchingly beautiful landscape, there are reports of strange rivers and their turbulent tributaries all flowing in one determined direction. River Niger is swollen and pregnant with inabortable possibilities. Could this be the watery endgame as foretold by the Holy Book? So, where is Noah’s Ark? Even the presidential country home is now a mighty pond bristling with toads and tadpoles.

    Amidst the utter confusion and epic helplessness, and as displaced humanity pile up in the remaining earthly redoubts of the nation, there are reports of the sighting of many strange creatures washed up from the watery depths. A clearly disturbed fellow, most probably a failed fisherman but claiming to be a refugee of some repute, suddenly showed up at snooper’s door.

    “And who are you?” snooper demanded.

    “I be dem chairman of dem FEDECOM?” the crazy man shot back.

    “Sir, and what is FEDECOM?” snooper railed in suppressed fury.

    “Na dem Federation of Displaced Compatriots”, the man brayed with an insane smirk on his face. Before snooper could ask another question, the man opened his Pandora Box. “I don catch two snakes, one crocodile, three baby hippos, one mami wata and one shark for River Orubebe”, he screamed. Snooper began to have a sinking feeling. If the crazy fellow were to unleash his arsenal on the house!…

    “And where is River Orubebe?”, snooper asked rather belatedly as a result of the initial shock.

    Na dem former Niger Delta area. Na dem big ship I take reach Lagos from Okpanam. If God wan answer dem prayer make him scissor us from Nigeria no be dis way at all at all. Dis water solution no be solution”, the man moaned in evident distress. At this point, snooper was convinced that he had a mad man as guest.

    “Okon, give him transport money and send him away:, snooper ordered as he firmly shut the door against the crazy man.

    “Which kind useless transport money be dat one? I tell you say wata don kaput kontri and you dey talk transport.” The man screamed. In what seemed like an eternity later, Okon slammed in wearing a comic frown.

    “Oga, I tell am say River Yamutu dey approach and him come pick race”, the crazy boy sneered.

    “Okon!!!” snooper exclaimed.

    “Oga, dis flood thing no be joke oo. Na di tingi dem dey call Wata Warfare. Na Hitler dey hit Nigeria “, Okon sniggered with mad relish.

    “And what is water warfare?” snooper asked fearfully.

    “Ah na dem Cameroon people wan use wata finis dem Nigeria. Dem get dem German engineer for dem Cameroon mountain. You no say dem German still dey dem Cameroon. So each time we dey make useless noise about dem Bakassi, dem German engineer go release dem water and dem rain. He good make we forget about dem Bakassi or dem Cameroon go turn dem kontri to dem obonge river. Dem get naija for blokos”, Okon explained with scientific finality.

    At this point, a fiery killer rain suddenly erupted sending everybody scampering for safety.

  • Before another peril from the Northeast

    There are more reasons for citizens from other parts of Nigeria to be more frustrated than Kirfi and other members of NEFUD

    About two weeks ago, something untoward happened in the Northeast region. Alhaji Bello Kirfi, a retired permanent secretary and now a leading member of the newly formed North East Forum for Unity and Development (NEFUD), called for secession of the North from the rest of Nigeria. He was immediately called to order by General Theo Danjuma who also called for adjournment of the NEFUD meeting. All has been relatively quiet from the North East ever since. But it is a big risk for the rest of Nigeria to sleep with both eyes closed over the call by Kirfi for secession at a meeting of several citizens who had occupied high positions in various spheres of the life of the nation.

    Apart from Balarabe Musa’s quick warning against any call from the North for secession: “I appeal to the masses in the North to ignore the call because it is against their fundamental rights,” members of NEFUD, like the media, have been silent on the demand by Kirfi for secession since the abrupt end of NEFUD’s meeting. And the entire nation appears to have forgotten or overlooked Kirfi’s frustration with the way things are in his region of the country.

    Undoubtedly, the quick erasure of Kirfi’s call from media radar is not without some benefit. It is capable of lessening tension in the country and fright on the part of ordinary citizens who prefer a multiethnic Nigerian federation. But it is important to note that the refusal of Kirfi to apologise for such an outlandish demand may be symptomatic of problems in the polity that only Kirfi is able to apprehend or which he has apprehended on behalf of citizens from the North who are not ready yet to show their faces. It is one thing to view Kirfi as a desperate person who only chooses to use alarmism to draw attention to his frustration with the current state of the country. It is another thing for interpretative reporters or political observers to dismiss this call as an outcome of frustration, without examining the security implications of Kirfi’s call.

    There are more reasons for citizens from other parts of Nigeria to be more frustrated than Kirfi and other members of NEFUD. There is no section of the country that is developed. There is no part of the country that is properly secured. Millions of Nigerians believe that the North East is a source of national instability, underdevelopment, and citizens’ fright. For example, new graduates from different parts of the nation are not safe to complete their NYSC obligations in the North East, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the laboratory for its violence. Religious centres, particularly churches are afraid to open their doors in the North East and in other parts of the country. Citizens in the southern states conduct their life in fear, because of the wanton violence of Boko Haram in various parts of the country.

    Furthermore, the average Nigerian, wherever he or she may be, feels unprotected by the nation’s security forces. Many of them believe that the architecture of the nation’s security is defective and partly responsible for the festering of the Boko Haram menace. Several Nigerians who feel frustrated with overwhelming corruption, and lack of security and development in the country, despite it immense wealth from oil and gas, have chosen not to call for secession as the best response to the raging malaise. They have on the contrary called for a constitutional conference that is to produce a truly federal constitution that will enable regions (including the North East) to manage their affairs in accordance with the dominant values in each region. In the process, such people have asked for fiscal federalism and regional or state autonomy that allow for creation of state or local police to protect citizens from avoidable loss of life and limb to predatory groups like Boko Haram.

    Alhaji Kirfi may have over stated his case or over indulged his feelings about the situation of the country at present. But he is also likely to be unearthing the political unconscious of several Nigerians that believe that the country needs to embark on a journey of change or what President Jonathan once described as Transformation. It is unfortunate that Kirfi has said something that is capable of scaring Nigerians, particularly those that were around during the civil war. But it is dangerous to ignore Kirfi’s call as irrational in the context of the way the country is or has been for decades. When a country appears not to be working, it is not irrational to call for change that can improve the state of affairs. When such calls are ignored or dismissed by those benefiting from the dysfunctional situation, calls such Kirfi’s cannot be ruled out. They just need to be addressed with honesty, even by those who gain from the failure of the state, if only to prevent a worse form of dysfunction that can erode their gains.

    What is irrational is for a country to dismiss calls for positive and negative change with the same amount of enthusiasm. The nation’s leaders including those from Kirfi’s North East region have always been eager to dismiss calls for people’s constitution, true federalism, state police, etc. Their reasoning has always been that anything that attempts to change any aspect of the present dysfunctional architecture of governance in the country is a code name for secession. Such people have always argued that what is most important is the unity of the country, regardless of the effectiveness of the constitution and structure by which the country is governed.

    To ignore Kirfi’s call and dismiss it as a figment of a frustrated man in a similar way that calls for restoration of functional federalism is to ignore aspects of the country’s contemporary history. Boko Haram started as an expression of frustration. It started as a resistance or rejection of western education. It has now grown into a monster that keeps the government jittery and citizens frightened. It is risky to sweep the frustration of Kirfi under the mat. Most Nigerians do not want to wake up one day and find that people who share the feeling of Kirfi about today’s Nigeria are up in arms to bring their desire for secession to fruition, just as Boko Haramists have been doing in the last few years to advance their cause to put all of Nigeria in the envelope of Sharia.

    The media should not ignore Kirfi. He needs to be interviewed, with the aim of identifying his frustration and how best his fears about Nigeria can be removed. The nation needs to find out if Kirfi is re-echoing the popular adage that those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable?

  • Fastest-growing network is…

    Fastest-growing network is…

    ONCE more, note that the word preceding any parenthesis in this column is wrong while the correct form is bracketed—except otherwise expressly stated or in reference to ‘sic’ or other regular attributions (sources). Exigencies caused last week’s absence of this column. I tender my apologies.

    DAILY SUN of October 24 welcomes us this week with a tripod of jaundiced editorial and advertorial entries:”2015: Gang up against PDP ‘ll fail—Oyinlola” Politics: Gang-up

    “NIMC flags off civic registration in Lagos” ‘Flag off’ is an unknown phrasal verb. Why not just begins/starts/kicks off…?

    “The Manna Prayer Mountain Ministry will hold it’s (its) October Anointing Service….” (Full-page advertisement)

    THE GUARDIAN of October 23 equally nurtured four terrible editorial and advertorial improprieties: “Yobe imposes curfew in (on/upon) Potiskum”

    “He also said that (sic) the National Assembly is (was) to review the roles assigned to….”

    “Govt commissions N648 million Lagos airport terminal” The verbal context of ‘commission’ here is absolutely wrong. (Vide any standard dictionary, please).

    “Celebrate the fastest growing (fastest-growing) network in 9ja” (Full-page advert by Etisalat)

    “ICJ ruling on Bakassi: How Nigeria botched a last minute (last-minute) opportunity” (AIT—TV Station of the Year, October 18, 2012, Morning Belt) A station of this status should not advertise adjectival bliss! It questions public recognition.

    “My senior (elder) brother, Femi….” (Guinness Nigeria PLC serial advertisement on DStv) ‘Senior’ is exclusive to workplace/office/official environments—its usage here embarrassingly contradicts the family context of the advertisement in question).

    Overheard: “I want to barb my hair….” Get it right: I want to have a hair-cut—except if the person meant that he was going to put barbs/thorns on his hair, which is most unlikely!

    “Police launches public information/complaint boxes” Police: always plural, never singular, verb.

    “He said the completion rate of primary education is (was) 64 per cent.…”

    “FG orders new electricity firms to take-off soonest” Phrasal verbs do not admit hyphenation.

    “Police boss assures on security” Who did he assure? There are transitive and intransitive verbs.

    “Let me start by congratulating the readers of this column for (on/upon) their tenacity.”

    “The police seems (seem) not to be in a hurry to tell the public what caused the University of Port Harcourt barbarism.”

    “…friends and relations while the grassroot (grassroots) degenerate.”

    “These people have been declared persona non grata several times, arrested and done bodily harm.” This way: personae non grata (plural). Singular: persona non grata.

    “HIV/AIDS: Family Health International Rounds Up Alive 2012” Living Healthy: it is sickening that a reporter and his sub-editor colleague cannot differentiate between ‘round off’ and ‘round up’!

    “We forget that the way we handle such matters speaks volume (volumes) of the kind of people we….”

    “National integration based on coerciveness resulting to (in).…”

    “This is not to say that ethnic chauvinism or hatred are non-existence (is non-existent) in Yugoslav politics….”

    “Africa is steeped in fetish wickedness, ancestral generational curses, jealous friends, aunts, and unhappy mother-in-laws et cetera.” It could be you: mothers-in-law.

    “Jonathan-bashing has suddenly become a national past-time.” In defence of GEJ: pastime.

    “Doctors strike: A post mortem” This way: Doctors’ strike: A post-mortem.

    “…government should be able to rely on foreign medical expatriates in building a strong healthcare delivery system.” ‘Foreign expatriates’? This is lexical paralysis!

    “…the kind of danger African soldiering has continued to pose to political development and stability in (on) the continent.”

    My error (penultimate Sunday): “…are their (there) cannibals that are not blood thirsty?” Apologies and thanks to the eagle-eyed reader who excitedly caught me in my own game! Such eye-popping and good-intentioned reactions are welcome.

    Another reader also sought to know if media houses still had proofreaders. I believe there are still last gatekeepers in newspaper establishments. Most of the errors in publications today border on ignorance and laziness to read—not carelessness. If you are not optimally exposed to standard books and other printed materials and scholarly circumstances/environments, including new media technologies, you cannot be proficient in the use of the English language. It is not a mechanistic stuff; it requires voracious reading, always. So, the issue goes beyond having proofreaders or not. Just by the way, I started my classical journalism career as a proofreader in the Daily Times of yore—long, long before the viral interjection of the Anosikes!

    Finally, another reader said he read elsewhere that ‘gossiper’ was also right for ‘gossip’. For me, it depends on its contemporaneousness. In the currency of my time, I insist on ‘gossip’ being my preferred (British) entry. ‘Gossiper’ sounds vernacularly archaic and is unknown to my dictionaries/reference materials—particularly grammarly.com! Are there other views on this controversy?

    I profusely thank Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, who needs no introduction on account of his robust antecedents and current assignation, for those appreciative words via SMS a fortnight ago. Columnists cherish such humble interventions, especially when they come from members of the literati and fellow journalistic Field Marshals. A similar boost also came from another colleague in the pen fraternity and new secretary-general of the Public Relations Consultants’ Association of Nigeria, Mr. Muyiwa Akintunde (ex-DTN man), an integrated marketing communications engineer reputed for strategic perception management. More reactions—critical, observatory, contributory or laudatory—are welcome.

    Next week: Baba Bayo Oguntuase’s detailed feedback on multifarious issues raised here from the outset in October 2010. It is a second anniversary compendium you cannot afford to miss because of its scholastic authority and scope!

  • Horror it is, passing horror!!

    Truth is, wherever the state cannot impact the individual’s life, the society will sink, barbarism will resurface and death will be casual

    I am sure that when man first began to walk the earth, the good Lord must have looked at him and sighed, ‘This one is trouble!’ Sure enough, as soon as he was able to take in his surroundings, the first thing man did was to invent a weapon of war. Anyone who dared to struggle with him over food or anything else got a head-bash of his new invention, the almighty cudgel. Oh yes, he took a look at the flourishing garden that was earth with its luscious, yet unspoiled soil and declared, ‘food sure is scarce around here, nothing but trees; it’s everyman for himself’, as he swung his cudgel up and down.

    Then, not content with the cudgel, he went a step further; he added spikes to its head, just to fight better even if the fight was not about anything in particular. How really barbaric! That thing has been giving the entire world a headache since that time; no dear friend, not just the cudgel, it’s the going one step further. Now, it has grown many other heads, all called Weapons of Mass Destruction: toxic gases, bombs, guns, poison, liquor, battery, assault, tongue-pulling, etc., and each a source of horror, passing horror!!!

    The problem is that the horror has gained world-wide fame. Practically everyone is using one of them weapons or the other in private and public discourses. The world’s first brothers in the bible had a private conversation, and a cudgel was called in to settle the matter which left one of them dead. When a country now wants to have a private conversation with another, it may use a bomb, just to get their attention. When a husband wants that private conversation, he has been known to pick up a knife or two against his wife, just to make his point; and many a wife has had to call in the poison of the asp, just to emphasise that they also have rights! (It does not matter that many husbands already consider their wives to be asps anyway). Anyway, the original purpose of life appears to have been lost somewhere between making points, getting attentions and claiming rights. Ha!

    The point is that man has brought this weapon thing to a ridiculous level. Now, all over the world, no one can guess right when his neighbour will not get up any fine morning, not to greet, but to make a point with a weapon. ‘I have complained enough about your tree shedding leaves into my compound; from now on, it is war. Take that!’ My teacher does not like me, gbam! My fellow students make fun of me, gbam! My father has not given me enough allowance, gbam! All over the place, people’s passions are passionately unbridled. Seriously, people, is this what life is all about, learning to unbridle our passion?

    Unbridled passion has dispatched many a fine set of people to the great beyond, using them … them … things. Just recently, a group of people was said to have descended on some polytechnic hostels in Mubi and killed forty-six students by shooting them, just like that, and for no reason that logic can explain! Worse, the report says that the group even went with some pre-written names which they called out! So, one by one, each student was called out ‘to come and die’. Imagine that! As if that were not enough, an entire community somewhere in the environs of Port Harcourt so completely unbridled its passion that it consented to and took part in dispatching four people to death in a horrendous fashion, using cudgels and all. This is the one that no one appears to have been able to make any sense of, as it was not only filmed, it was even posted on Youtube! How barbaric can we get, for nowhere in the world are even thieves killed so dispassionately!

    In the better parts of the world, even robbers and murderers have been known to receive greater consideration. Just think, you might get a fully-furnished room, sorry, cell as a prisoner, with free electricity, water and other amenities, free government-sponsored meals (I hear you can even choose from a menu), free training to acquire a skill (such as how to speak better), a job if you are very good (and no one dares tax your returns), a battery of lawyers or activists to defend your right to life should you be condemned to death … It is, in short, the good life for many and almost makes you want to go be a prisoner there. It sure beats life in many Nigerian cities, and it certainly beats life in many Nigerian prisons.

    But these were said not to be thieves, they were said not to be anything but students. So, how they came about such a horrendous fate beggars all belief and makes nonsense of our nationhood. When we have citizens settling small squabbles (such as a students’ election in one case and a financial debt in the other!) with the death sentence in any form, the senses must reel and the sensibilities must swoon. Here indeed is the nadir of this country’s moral turpitude.

    We must, however, look beyond these incidents to hone home some points. The first thing to note is that Nigerians are getting too dangerously desensitised to death and the things of death. Come, how many stories of death through sickness, rituals, murders, accidents, domestic violence, religious violence, playful punching, etc., does an average person hear in a day? Someone was said to have been annoyed by another person who persisted in heckling him. So he gave the heckler a punch, just to shut him up; but instead of shutting up, the fellow just slumped and died. There appears to be little state intervention in many of the deadly and death-causing things flying around here.

    Then, there is the fact that Nigerian leaders do not show any value for Nigerian lives. This is true. Listen; are there not many stories of Nigerian governments failing to take action to rescue their own citizens from other countries while others have long since brought their own citizens home? Then, there are just too many cases of extra-judicial killings, police stray bullets, assassinations, ritual murders, etc. A country that cannot even resolve the killing of its own justice minister is bound to have problems. People will lose faith, lose fear and resort to self-help.

    Worse still, Nigerians have long since tired of the cheating and brutalisation coming from government officials who should be looking after their interests at the local, state and national levels. They know that LG officials only go to work to share money, state officials have no interest in assisting the people and national ministries’ officials are also only interested in their own lot rather. None of them is interested in fashioning out any impactful national policy.

    So, when there appears not to be any government intervention in their lives, people soon become hopeless and will find an outlet where they can: cynicism and self-help. After all, there is no greater help than self-help. The only problem is that self-help has no ability to draw its lines within the bounds of reason and sanity. Nigerians help themselves in matters of electricity, roads, water, and justice, never mind who is hurt or not hurt. Yes, thank you for asking, I still breathe in fumes from my neighbours’ generator sets while I’m sleeping. Truth is, wherever the state cannot impact the individual’s life, the society will sink, barbarism will resurface and death will be casual. Nigeria has thus had the singular honour of moving from barbarism to barbarism without the usual interval of civilisation. We need to bring it back from the brink and regain the purpose of life.

  • Okada riders’ suicide mission in Lagos

    There was but little difference in the ways taxis and commercial buses operated in Lagos in the 1980s. Like their commercial bus counterparts, taxi operators drove from one bus stop to another picking and dropping off passengers. This mode of operation prevailed until some residents decided to live up to the city’s tag of showmanship. They suddenly decided that they would no longer share taxi seats with other passengers.

    That was how the idea of ‘taxi drop’ was born. By this, an individual who boards a taxi does not expect the driver to pick any other passenger until he or she has alighted. Such an individual must be prepared to pay highly for the service. He or she could pay as much as 10 times the fare he would have paid if he were to share the seats with other passengers.

    For obvious reasons, it was an idea taxi drivers also relished. With a ‘drop’ passenger, the taxi driver is saved the stress of moving from bus stop to bus stop in search of passengers. It also means he would make more money carrying fewer passengers and thus reduce the pressure on his cab. In fewer hours, taxi drivers began to make more money than they did in the ‘pre-drop’ era.

    However, less fortunate commuters who did not have the wherewithal to carry drops found themselves at the receiving end. Because they could no longer enjoy the luxury of a taxi, they had to settle for danfo or molue buses. Happily for this category of commuters, commercial motorcycles appeared on the scene as they bemoaned their fate. The motorcycle, popularly called okada, became a faster and more comfortable option.

    Before long, there was an avalanche of okada on Lagos streets. It soon became a more popular mode of transportation than buses and taxis. But its use was restricted to neighbourhood streets. But as time went by, okada riders in the city became more and more daring as their rank swelled with the nation’s army of unemployed youths. Even stark illiterates found in it an opportunity to earn a living because they needed no certificate or formal training to engage in the business.

    As competition in the business became keener, okada riders began to explore new routes until they started plying the city’s highways they had previously dreaded because of the danger of being knocked down in the deluge of vehicles on such roads. Thus, Agege Motor Road, Ikorodu Road and Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway and other highways in the city came under the patronage of okada riders.

    They rode with suicidal brashness, overtaking vehicles on the highways in the most reckless manner and generally exposing their lives and those of their passengers and other road users to serious danger. They had no regard for the traffic control mechanisms put in place by the state government and ignored the highway codes and traffic rules that seek to put accidents in check. They even disregarded government’s directive to ride their motorcycle with crash helmets.

    The dangers posed by the new line of business would later be compounded with the security threats it constituted. Its swift nature soon made it a potent tool for smuggling, armed robbery, assassination and other social vices.

    Realising these threats, the government decided that the time had come to restrict the activities of okada riders to neighbourhood streets where they operated originally. It made it an offence to ply about 500 of the close to 5,000 roads and streets around the city. But protests have since greeted the new law. The protests, which started on a peaceful note, assumed a violent dimension early in the week as some okada riders in the city went on the rampage, destroying many of the BRT (Bus Rapid Transport) buses with which the state government has considerably eased transportation problems in the city.

    To be sure, the attacks on government-owned buses were intended as reprisals against the seizure and destruction of many motorcycles whose owners were caught violating the new traffic rules. Of course, one could argue that the manner in which the Lagos State Government has destroyed many of the confiscated motorcycles bordered on heartlessness. What, one would ask, does the state government stand to gain from destroying the motorcycles when their owners could be asked to retrieve them with sums that are huge enough to make them not to contemplate plying the highways again.

    In the alternative, the confiscated motorcycles could be auctioned if they are not claimed by their owners after a specified number of days. Millions of farmers in the rural areas are in need of motorcycles to move their crops to the market. If they have no way of coming to Lagos to buy, their children or relations in the city can buy and send to the village.

    Yet, the attacks on buses that had eased the pains of commuters in the state were ill-informed. With the attacks, the okada riders have inadvertently pitted themselves against the remaining members of the public. From the underdogs, they have become the aggressors. To win a battle of this nature, they need a lot of public sympathy. Unfortunately, whatever public sympathy they had enjoyed would appear to have been squandered with the senseless attacks on public buses. Now their case is not anything better than that of a man slated for incineration robbing his body with oil.

    From the perspective of public interest, the decision of the state government to crush some motorcycles that had been confiscated from errant okada riders stands more justifiable than the defiant heartlessness with which okada riders went about vandalising public property. While the government’s action can simply be defended as an exercise carried out in public interest, the latter would only be viewed from the prism of selfishness on the part of the okada riders.

    Many, who before now had condemned government’s onslaught against okada riders as a wicked attempt to rob them of their only source of income after failing to provide jobs for teeming youths in the state would now readily endorse an outright ban on okada business. From the image of a brute it had borne since it started destroying seized motorcycles, the state government is now perceived as overwhelmingly generous to allow continued operation of okada business even in the city’s neighbourhoods. Even the argument that the state government could inadvertently be encouraging okada riders dispossessed of their motorcycles to go into such crimes as armed robbery and assassination has been reduced to the debate on the older creature between the hen and the egg. The voices of those who say okada business is a booster and not an inhibitor of these vices now appear to be louder.

  • Behind the glitter…

    Behind the glitter…

    A glance behind the glitter usually reveals something more than a colourful paradise. It invalidates the deceptions of fame. It is akin to what Saul Bellow likened to picking up a dangerous wire fatal to ordinary folk or rattlesnakes handled by hillbillies in a state of religious exaltation, in his novel, Humboldt’s Gift. Many who grasped these super-charged wires and serpents have been found to incandesce in acclaim for a little while and then they wink out  which leads to a more profound suspicion of celebrity and acclaim, writes OLATUNJI OLOLADE, Assistant Editor…

    Everybody knew Joe Layode. Then everybody hated Joe Layode, and loved him, just as his characters demanded. Either as the ambitious upstart alongside American movie greats, Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in the 1951 epic, The African Queen; or Teacher Garuba, the enfant terrible character in rested family soap, The Village Headmaster, Layode captured the subtleties of fiction effortlessly and quite impressively, thus making his simplest interpretations memorable. Like pieces of a shared life, an intimacy between him and whoever cares to remember and appreciate. No eulogy would perhaps depict the essence of the actor whose latter interpretations coincidentally mirrored his shattered end. Perhaps he dreamt a better fate; that, no one would ever know. Critics and movie enthusiasts can only admire what was seen of him and imagine what might have been of the foremost actor whose existence and demise still implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

    Layode, for all his artistry and renown, died wretched at 87. Following a protracted ailment that left him virtually blind and sapped of strength, Layode cut a sorry picture of lack and unappreciated talent often eliciting sympathetic gasps from visitors and neighbours in his Iba Housing Estate neighbourhood. Layode was practically living from hand to mouth as he could barely raise enough money to feed and maintain himself. At his death, he was almost denied a decent burial as he was initially buried in a shallow grave, because there wasn’t enough money to buy him a decent resting place.

    Late Dejumo Lewis, one of his colleagues on The Village Headmaster set, was furious over what he termed shabby treatment of Layode’s body at the supposed venue for the lying in state. Layode’s body was allegedly rejected by the National Theatre. It was also reportedly taken to the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) office at the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) but it was also rejected. Eventually, his casket was returned to the ambulance and taken to the Atan Cemetery, Yaba, where he was buried. But for his daughter, Sade Aladejuwon; veteran artistes, Eddie Ugboma, Elsie Olusola, the Late Dejumo Lewis and National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) Lagos chapter, the seasoned actor might have suffered a raw deal, even in death.

    And then there was Ahmed Oduola. Popularly known as Dento, Oduola died a few days ago at 66, after suffering a debilitating stroke and tuberculosis. The ailment which left him emaciated inflicted upon him partial paralysis; at some point he was also bedridden and unable to talk. The late actor and his family could not raise the sum of N250, 000 reportedly needed to get him proper medical treatment, thus they had to seek financial assistance from the public.

    Expectedly, well-meaning Nigerians responded to calls for assistance for the late actor. He eventually passed away even though his condition was said to be improving steadily.

    Oduola hailed from Olusunle compound in the Idi-Arere area of Ibadan in Oyo State. Although he brought smiles and laughter to many homes, courtesy his trademark comic character, Dento, he departed the world in a very sad state, dying impoverished in his father’s house despite his long years of service and devotion to Nigerian television and film acting. Oduola began his acting career performing with Lere Paimo’s Eda Onileola Theatre Group, where he acted the role of Aderinto – from where his popular sobriquet, Dento evolved. However, due to lack of fulfillment and stark impoverishment by his chosen profession, Oduola quit acting in his later years to survive by his other skill: tailoring. Unfortunately, he died just before he could chance on survival. He left behind, six wives and eight children, although none of the wives was living with him at the time of his death.

    Although, he passed away before Oduola, the case of James Akwari Iroha a.k.a Gringory, actor and creator of the rested Nigerian Television Authority (N.T.A) family sitcom, The New Masquerade fame, also incites pity and disillusionment in the Nigerian entertainment industry.

    Iroha gave 40 years of his life to acting. But at 70, he died with very little to show for years of dedication to the field. Although newspaper reports alleged that he lived and died in penury, his family members have since mounted vehement protests denouncing the reports as untrue and unfair to a man who contributed so much to Nigeria’s entertainment industry.

    More saddening, however, was the fact that Iroha battled an affliction of the deadly glaucoma his eyes, for which he had undergone several operations both at home and abroad with no success. He later developed high blood pressure and other undisclosed ailments in the course of treating the ailment.

    The 1966 graduate of University of Ibadan spent four days in the hospital in his final battle with an ailment he had been battling for about a decade. No doubt, the fate of Nigeria’s pioneer artistes oftentimes provokes feelings of disillusionment in both the government and the arts industry. A careful perusal of Late Iroha’s disclosure about the state in which they were forced to work emphasizes the desolation that characterizes the world of Nigerian actors, particularly the pioneer generation.

    According to the late actor, “Government, ab initio, was projecting us and said we ought to have been paying them. According to them, that they gave us a medium to express ourselves was good enough; so they were even asking us to pay. They were paying us N250 per episode of The New Masquerade. Some of us got N2; others received N10 only, and even at that we kept praying and hoping that we would appear the next week. So unlike now, we were not paid any professional fees.

    “A time came when I thought the government discovered that they had skeletons in their cupboard. They thought, perhaps, we were going places and at the end of the day we may end up destroying them, exposing them too much in The New Masquerade.

    “That’s why they supported our being yanked off the air. That was how we were rested. I’m sure Nigerians still want the programme, even till tomorrow. If we start it again, it would still be as wholesome and entertaining as it was in the beginning. Even in Nollywood, we have seen all sorts of video productions, but we have not seen anything better than The New Masquerade.”

    Despite inspiring reports about the rising fortunes of the Nigerian film industry – according to CNN and industry statistics, the industry is the second highest revenue earner in Nigeria today with a revenue figure of N9 billion – the lives of many Nigerian actors and actresses contrast negatively with any such phenomenon.

    Reality unarguably dispels claims to riches and stardom perpetuated by many Nigerian actors according to numerous stakeholders. “Most of them earn far little than they claim to earn. If any actor or actress tells you that he or she earns as much as N1.7 million or N2 million per flick, that person is a liar,” claimed a costumier and make-up artist who simply identified herself as Preye.

    Corroborating her, Afolabi Odunjo, a movie producer and editor, disclosed: “Many of them (artistes), in abject desperation to measure up to the hype and expectations of affluence that comes with their fame, influence the media to misinform the public by spreading tales of their mind-blowing salaries and wealth,” he claimed.

    The Nation findings revealed that while artistes in hot demand earn between N500,000 and N300,000, seasoned actors earn a paltry N200,000 or thereabouts for appearances in traditional epics and between N100, 000 and N150, 000 for appearances in contemporary-themed movies.

    Surprisingly, many notable actors earn between N50, 000 and N100, 000 for movie appearances. That is why many of them seek appearances in as much movies as possible – the idea is to improve their net-income per month. If an artiste features in four movies at N80, 000 per flick, there is the likelihood that he or she would earn as much as N320, 000 in a month. However, despite the likelihood of recording such earnings, not a few artistes groan over inability to receive their fees in full, even after fulfilling their part of the contractual obligation.

    Many artistes have been known to storm movie locations to demand their outstanding fees from movie makers. And then many more artistes are forced to barter their appearances in movies for fellow artistes’ appearances in their own movies. This practice is sustained by an unwritten rule of engagement that makes an artiste beholden and morally bound to reciprocate gestures of free appearances in his or her flick by fellow artistes. This professional barter system is blamed for the stark impoverishment of numerous artistes and their inability to measure up to expectations of fame and affluence that they enjoy by their numerous appearances in various movies.

    The deceptions and grand delusions of artistes laying indefensible claims to wealth and breathtaking fees is as prevalent in a particular movie sector. Many artistes in that film industry like their other counterparts, derive satisfaction in faking reality. In fact, the delusion is even more prevalent in the sector as not a few artistes have been known to plummet to obscurity in the wake of their crass showiness and desperate claims to affluence.

    Many actors, according to movie pundits, have plunged to infamy in their desperate bids to keep up appearances and sustain a larger-than-life reputation. “That is why many of them resort to even more desperate measures like serving as drug mules for crime syndicates. That is why certain artistes who dominated the news in the past have dissolved into obscurity despite their numerous appearances in movies today,” according to movie critic and photo-journalist, Olajumoke Ayinde.

    Stories of artistes behaving badly have become almost a sub-field of journalism. However, decorum was preserved by presenting these as having genuine “human interest,” a euphemism for voyeuristic appeal. Till date, many artistes desperately seek to scandalise themselves in a frantic bid to accommodate the demands of fame.

    The mission to illuminate and expose the “real self” behind the screen or stage façade, meanwhile, galvanised journalists. One of the effects of the ever-more intrusive media’s reportage of the private lives of the famous was in promoting the notion that success, happiness and self-fulfillment had little to do with material goods or social status – a comforting thought for people to embrace in a society increasingly characterised by stark inequalities of wealth and power.

    Poverty and the Nigerian artiste

    Some artistes simply choose to remain poor or live within their modest means rather than soil their name and reputation that they have painstakingly built over the years. Think Joe Layode and other pioneers in the field. In fact, the poverty of the Nigerian artiste is an undeniable phenomenon; with numbers increasing dramatically among Nigeria’s surviving generation of pioneer artistes. Those who are not impoverished keep a virtually modest lifestyle. Scared of ending up by their financially disadvantaged predecessors, many contemporary artistes resort to keeping second jobs, particularly those who are too principled to grovel before politicians and criminal masterminds or resort to crime.

    In economic terms, this suggests an oversupply of artists, but unlike other sectors of the economy, artistes hardly quit. That they seemingly “cannot do otherwise”, leads to the notion that the economy of the arts is exceptional. In the sector, the usual mechanisms of supply and demand suffer a dysfunction, according Prince Emeka Nnaji, a lecturer in Film Studies and self-acclaimed movie entrepreneur.

    The problem

    It has become a source of major concern that Nigeria’s artistic heritage is under pressure because most artistes and entertainers end up destitute after they have spent considerable time of their lives entertaining their people. Consequently, many talented artistes are quitting the industry after years of unfulfilled service to practise other vocations as illustrated by the case of Oduola who quit acting to practise tailoring at some point.

    This is thus leading to the extinction of African Artistic heritage. Because of the lack suffered by the passing generation of pioneers, many contemporary artistes are today motivated by the commercial gains derivable from the expression of their talents rather than the love it. Moguls and self-styled godfathers of the entertainment industry who have the power and money to make things happen are beginning to influence the message of the African movie or social documentary. And producers, writers, and directors to mention a few are finding themselves in situations where they sacrifice or substitute the true substance of African cultural heritage with commercial and oftentimes, Western-themed messages aimed at appealing to vanities and making quick money. The common excuse for this new age money driven motivation of some African artistes is that they have to make a living and acquire riches in order not to end up destitute after the fame departs and they are left at the mercy of feeble old age and posterity.

    Unappreciated old glories

    Joe Layode, Hubert Ogunde, Eddie Ugboma, veteran movie maker and one of the first African international actors/directors, among many others helped to put Nigeria and Africa on the world map of artistic reckoning. However, many of these artistic gurus are yet to be appropriately appreciated and institutionalised in the annals of the country’s artistic greats, according to Oliver Mbamara, a United States-based actor/producer and lawyer.

    “Worse still, it is very disheartening to note that such great talents like the famous Claude Eke a.k.a. Cief Jegede Shokoya of The New Masquerade fame did not get any befitting assistance from the people and government of the country when they retired or began their descent from the hill of popularity…Entertainers like these invested all their time and life into entertaining their people. They did not have time for a second job. They did not get any endorsements or have enough money to set up major business ventures. Their names were praised but hardly paid for. No brand name companies that brought returns for using their names in businesses like designer shoes, clothing, cologne, etc. Actually, most of these artistes were barely paid their salaries, yet they continued to be in the entertainment world due to their love of it, and when the salaries ended, they found nothing to live upon,” he lamented

    Lust for the American dream

    “It is no secret that most contemporary Nigerian artistes would die to play the role of a minor or extra in a Hollywood flick. The situation has currently degenerated to the extent star actors and actresses in Nigeria oftentimes reveal, albeit shamelessly, their dreams of acting alongside prominent Hollywood actors. But how would this translate to better fortunes for the Nigerian film industry and better fate for the Nigerian artiste?” wondered Theophilus Onimise, a video store owner and movie enthusiast.

    However, Oyindamola Oluyinka, an actress, disagreed with him. According to Oluyinka, acting alongside prominent Hollywood actors will give Nigerian artistes better exposure and favourably position local talents to a greater world audience.

    Indeed, the United States of America (USA) remains the dream country mostly because many individuals eventually get to realise their aspirations in the American environment but this is mostly with the help of the socio-cultural and economic structure of the society, which strongly rest on the theories, and practices of capitalism. Successful artistes of Nigerian parenthood currently making waves in US and the United Kingdom include Sophie Okonedo of the Hotel Rwanda fame, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje a.k.a Mr. Eko of the Oz and Lost, H.B.O series fame, Caroline Chikezie of the Supernatural fame, Tunde Adebimpe, Chiwetel Ejiofor of the Amistad, American Gangster and Dirty Pretty Things fame.

    Beyond talk…

    “We may write as many essays and deliver as many papers, but one sure way to go beyond theory,” according to Mbamara, “is for the heads of African government to appoint ministers and commissioners from established and experienced artistes who have the love of the arts and the interest of the culture at heart”.

    Many more pundits have made a case for direct grants to artistes. According to them, such grants must be made truly available to the actual stakeholders in the nation’s film industry – unlike the mythical $200 million largesse President Goodluck Jonathan claimed to have given to the local film industry. According to many artistes, they are yet to receive or benefit from any such money.

    Direct grants or subsidies to artistes are expected to make it possible for an artiste, at a particular point in his or her career, to devote every available time to the production of excellent art work. It is expected to remove the necessity to maintain a day job and assist an artiste in acquiring a critical resource or asset that has longer term returns such as a marketable artistic output, knowledge and skills, marketing and promotion, staff, representation, a piece of equipment, a studio, state of the art gadgets, among many other things. And often direct grants, particularly if competitive or associated with awards, send a signal to other gatekeepers, that is, funders, donors, producers, and the press that a particular artiste is worthy of time and support and may result in more resources and attention flowing to that artiste.

    It may be worth noting, however, that this ‘signalling’ effect can contribute to the ‘winner-takes-all’ phenomenon that sometimes exists in the arts and entertainment sector and thereby make it even more difficult for new entrants to emerge and find resources.

    Notwithstanding its likely gains and demerits, government grants and direct subsidies to artistes simply constitute a measure among many others required to salvage the local film industry and fashion a better fate and work atmosphere for Nigeria’s league of extraordinary artistes. The government and stakeholders need to go back to the drawing board to devise viable and sustainable means to resolve the problems of the local film industry and institutionalise a culture of appreciation of Nigeria’s old glories, stated Idris Shomide, a film critic and script writer.

    Until then, Nigeria will continue to rue the disappearance of its league of extraordinary artistes. That has to be saddening. It is. Even at the verge of obscurity and feeble old age, seasoned artistes like Layode and Iroha still managed to skim that dazzling trope of individuality and excellence that is the soul of acting. Whether as minor and major characters, these Nigerian ambassadors of art told the story fluently, sharing different degrees of intimacies with their fans and critics, with numerous beginnings and ends; a sense of birth and death, while their heartfelt interpretations cheat their fast-dwindling fans of a sigh and charm them to a tear.

  • An anatomy of the Ondo gubernatorial polls

    An anatomy of the Ondo gubernatorial polls

    These are indeed most interesting times to be alive in Nigeria. There is a grim battle on for the very soul of the country. Things are clearly falling apart. Bombs boom in the North. Armed robbers and kidnappers are universally on rampage. Corruption is endemic. Education has virtually collapsed. The health sector is comatose. Wealthy Nigerians routinely travel abroad to die. It has become the most fashionable way to transit to eternity. Unemployment wastes millions of young lives. Public infrastructure is in a calamitous state. The Nigerian state totters on the verge of collapse. Can things continue this way?

    The PDP, the ruling party at the centre since 1999, says yes. It is the party of continuity. The ACN, the leading opposition party, is at the vanguard of the advocacy for fundamental structural change. Each election is a veritable battle in an ongoing war for either continuity or change in Nigeria. Battles are bitterly fought, won or lost but the war continues – ferociously. The ACN won a marvelous victory in the July 14 Edo State governorship election, a victory that fired it up to fight earnestly for a repeat performance in Ondo State on October 21. But the forces of continuity staged a come back and won a tactical victory. That is the beauty of democracy – the suspense, the unpredictability. For the avoidance of doubt, the Labour Party (LP) in Ondo State shares ideological and philosophical affinity with the PDP. Any difference between the local Ondo PDP and the LP is due to ego and personal rivalry, not a fundamental divergence of principles. That is why the presidency was so obviously relieved at the victory of Governor Olusegun Mimiko and was quick to congratulate him even as the local PDP is still licking its wounds. A repeat of the Edo scenario would have sent disturbing signals towards the very crucial 2015 elections.

    I give full marks to the Governor Olusegun Mimiko administration’s information machinery, led by the experienced and versatile Kayode Akinmade. Through deft dissemination of information, they most effectively marketed the perceived achievements of the Mimiko Administration. The opposition disagreed vigorously, contending that the governor’s first term performance was dismal. Given the substantial resources available to Ondo as an oil producing state and Dr. Mimiko’s own rich political and managerial experience, I am inclined to believe his administration ought to have performed better. I was personally in Akure, Ondo, Ore and Ikare, among others and strongly believe that the Sunshine state is in need of radical redemption.

    Governor Olusegun Mimiko has a second chance. He must immediately commence the radical and aggressive modernization of the state’s infrastructure. The administration must re-think the whole concept of mega schools. Ondo State has a population of 3,440,000. In Lagos, Alimosho Local Government alone has a population of 2,047,028. Yet, Lagos had to abandon the concept of millennium mega schools after building four of such massive structures. These structures are difficult and expensive to maintain. Maintaining discipline among such a large concentration of children is a challenge. It also makes proper psychological bonding among the students virtually impossible. The money can be better spent rehabilitating dilapidated classrooms across the state and building more compact, functional and cost-effective schools.

    In the health sector, the idea of the Child and Maternal Care Centre in Akure is good but this is grossly insufficient. General Hospitals must be built in local governments and health centers at ward level. The Mimiko administration may quite naturally feel that its first term performance has received the electorate’s stamp of approval with the outcome of this election. But if it does not significantly improve on its performance, Governor Mimiko’s candidate will face an even fiercer and more vigorous challenge in 2016. It is pertinent for the administration to note in this regard that it scored a minority of votes cast in the October 20 election (41.6%) as against 57% of the votes recorded by the opposition. This narrow escape should spur it to hit the ground running in its second term.

    One good thing about the Ondo gubernatorial polls just like the preceding one in Edo is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to take the electorate for granted. The debates among the candidates were vigorous. The campaigns were intensive. In particular, the ACN campaigned strenuously throughout the length and breadth of the state. Some contend that the passion and determination with which the ACN national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, led and invigorated his party’s campaign is indicative of a personal expansionist hegemonic agenda. The respected columnist of The Punch newspaper, Professor Niyi Akinoso, even insinuated that Tinubu has his eyes on controlling the oil resources of Ondo State. This is scandalous and reckless blackmail not supported by the slightest scintilla of evidence.

    As far back as the 80s, Tinubu was a key financier and leading strategist of the Dapo Sarumi-led PRIMROSE group of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) that shook the foundation of Lagos politics in the aborted third republic. At the historic National Convention of the SDP at the Jos Township Stadium in 1993, the then Senator Tinubu hardly had any sleep for three nights as he vigorously lobbied delegates to help ensure Chief Abiola’s narrow victory over the mercurial Babagana Kingibe in the keen contest for the SDP presidential ticket. Thereafter, he was a key figure in Abiola’s nationwide campaign. Tinubu was one of the key financiers and frontline activists of the NADECO prodemocracy struggle that led to the exit of the military and the current democratic dispensation that the likes of Niyi Akinoso is no doubt enjoying. In any case, if Tinubu had taken the electorate for granted or held the people in contempt, he would certainly not lead his party’s campaign in Ondo so vigorously.

    Akinoso indicts Tinubu for not heeding requests that the ACN should not field any candidate against Mimiko. But is this not a democracy? Is democracy not about competitive elections? Could Tinubu overrule the Ondo State ACN if they decided to challenge the incumbent? This is sheer bumkum. What the Akinosos of this world do not realize is that if Tinubu put in so much zeal and energy into the campaign at 60, it is because of his demonstrated passionate commitment over the last two decades to any cause he believes in. The way he campaigned in Ondo was the same way he campaigned for his party across the country in the 2011 elections. Tinubu had become financially secure for life as Treasurer of Mobil Oil. He could have easily chosen a private life unconcerned with the fate of Nigeria. Yes, he has his own weaknesses but he deserves commendation not blackmail for choosing the path of service and sacrifice.

    According to INEC, the ACN candidate, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), came third in the election. Yet the party really ought to be happy with its performance. Its precursor, the Action Congress (AC) scored just 33,510 votes in the 2007 election as against 128,669 votes recorded by the PDP and 198,269 votes scored by Dr. Mimiko to win the election. Following the reclamation of his mandate by Dr. Mimiko, the ACN, due to a reported agreement assumed that the governor would cross over to the party. The ACN thus left its structure to grow moribund. When it discovered almost too late that Mimiko had no plans to leave the LP, the ACN clearly found itself in a dilemma.

    This was probably why in the run up to the governorship election, the party encouraged the emergence of a multitude of aspirants believing that their campaigns would revive and galvanize the party at the grassroots towards the election. This later became a problem as the emergence of a candidate brewed an inevitable crisis that tasked the ingenuity of the party leadership.

    In the choice of a candidate, the ACN leadership was obviously swayed by Akeredolu’s towering professional and human rights antecedents. They probably saw him in the mould of Governor Babatunde Fashola – his fellow SAN. For them, integrity, character and competence superseded geo-ethnic and other primordial calculations. Is that not too idealistic a stance given the realities of Nigerian politics? Mimiko is a wily and shrewd political tactician. Akeredolu plays politics as if he is in a law court. For instance, I am told that on election day, the ACN candidate was informed that a political party was paying each voter N3000 to defeat and embarrass him in his own polling unit. It was suggested that he should also make necessary financial provision to checkmate this move. What was Akeredolu’s reaction? He most solemnly and gravely announced that such conduct contravened the Electoral Act and he would not indulge in it. Haba! Just imagine!! In Nigerian politics!!!

    By placing premium in its campaigns on Mimiko’s alleged failure to join its ranks as initially agreed, the ACN leadership created the impression that was why it was so vehemently against his re-election rather than non performance. This then helped reinforce the LP’s contention that all the talk of regional integration was nothing but Tinubu’s attempt to ‘colonize’ Ondo State just as he had purportedly done in other ACN states. A more effective propagation of the accomplishments of the ACN states would have helped contain this brilliant but misleading propaganda. In any case, if anybody wanted to colonize Ondo, Akeredolu would most certainly not have been the candidate. Like Tinubu himself, Akeredolu is a veritable study in stubbornness and fierce independence of mind.

    What the Ondo State governorship election has shown is that the ACN states must go beyond rhetoric and immediately begin to practically demonstrate the benefits of economic integration through concrete joint developmental projects. They must not assume that the populace will automatically buy into the idea of regional economic integration, which has become imperative not just in the South- West but in all geographically contiguous zones of Nigeria. Yes, all states in a region must not necessarily belong to the same party for integration to be achieved. But the perceived lukewarm disposition of Mimiko to the idea was probably one reason why the ACN mounted such a fierce challenge against his re-election.

    On its part, the Ondo State chapter of the PDP wanted to have its cake and eat it. The party probably reckoned that the ACN and LP would battle each other to a standstill making it possible for it to steal the show and spring a surprise. It did not envisage that the presidency would rather throw its full weight behind an incumbent Mimiko as the best bet to checkmate a rampaging ACN. What was the motive behind the unprecedented militarization of Ondo State by the presidency during the October 20 election? Why was there so much violence in many parts of the state despite the heavy presence of soldiers and policemen?

    The Ondo governorship election effectively marked the commencement of the battle for President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term bid. Even as the Ondo State PDP is still questioning the credibility of the election, the national PDP and the presidency rushed to congratulate Mimiko. In the same vein, without waiting for his party’s position on the election, Governor Adams Oshiomhole endorsed the election and congratulated Mimiko. One wonders how the comrade governor would have felt if his party had rushed to congratulate Professor Oserheimen Osunbor in 2007, even as he battled to retrieve his mandate in court. What roles will Governors Oshiomhole and Mimiko play in the strategic calculations of President Jonathan’s second term Think Tank? Time will tell.

    Can a viable legal challenge be launched against the outcome of the Ondo State governorship election? Absolutely yes. For instance, some of the incredibly high votes recorded in many polling units are unlikely to stand close legal scrutiny. The votes purportedly cast in many polling units are statistically unattainable within the legal time frame permitted for voting unless votes were being cast every second! But should aggrieved parties go to court? I do not think so. Rather, let the parties play their opposition role effectively so that the battle for 2016 can commence immediately. Even then, I congratulate Governor Mimiko on his victory. He should enjoy his electoral triumph for as long as it stands legally. Above all, he should re-dedicate himself in selfless service to the people. That ultimately is what politics is about.