The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Ondo State under the radar (1)

    Ondo State under the radar (1)

    The battle for the soul of Nigeria is on in deadly earnest. Let no mistake be made about it. The much advocated sovereign national conference, a veritable dialogue of the swamp dwelling ‘tribes’ of a much abused stunted nation is in full swing. No, as Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, subtly insinuated in his characteristically perspicacious keynote address at the last South-South Regional Summit in Asaba, Delta State, it may be time to forgo the rather romantic idea of a grand, once for all dialogue to resolve all national contradictions. There is unlikely to be any such thing. In reality, a nation is a sustained enterprise in perpetual dialogue. The national discourse that shapes the terms and texture of communal co-existence within a given territorial jurisdiction takes place daily in the media, academia, think-tanks, social clubs, religious communions, market places, beer parlours, board rooms, party caucuses and sundry other locations. At times, the exchange is verbal, peaceful and conciliatory. At times it degenerates into fisticuffs, belligerent militancy or even booming bombs exploding in the name of God! If, in the final analysis, the beleaguered nation is to survive as a going concern, some amicable compromises must be reached among contending forces or else the state must overwhelm the challengers of its authority through the monopoly of superior legitimate force.

    Edo State provided the last critical theatre of conflict in the ongoing titanic struggle to either sustain Nigeria in her present highly incendiary and alarmingly precarious condition or fundamentally transform her in the direction of greater stability, cohesion and prosperity. The last governorship election in the state was another phase in the ongoing informal national conference. The Edo polls were a veritable referendum on the state of the nation. In the aftermath of his emphatic victory in the contest, the comrade governor, Adams Oshiomhole, was surprisingly effusive in showering fulsome praise on President Goodluck Jonathan for allowing the polls to be free and fair. I think the encomiums were totally misplaced. Jonathan did Oshiomhole no favours in that election. The latter won clean and square, on the basis of his track record and wily political instincts.

    Let Oshiomhole be under no illusions. Jonathan and his tendency within the PDP needed to ‘capture’ Edo State badly. Only the politically blind and the perceptually bland cannot discern Jonathan’s obvious ambition to contest for a second term in 2015. Jonathan and his strategic ‘fixers’ of unlamented political memory thus badly needed Edo State in the PDP bag as a major pro-Jonathan South-South statement. It was not for nothing that Jonathan visited Edo twice to campaign for the PDP candidate. It was not for fun that troops were deployed in the state for the election. But neither appeal to primordial sentiments nor scare tactics could work any electoral magic for the PDP. Oshiomhole’s victory dealt a resounding blow to the PDP mainstream philosophy of elite cake sharing. It was an emphatic statement by the people that the current situation in Nigeria is unacceptable.

    Like the Edo governorship polls, next month’s election in Ondo will have implications far beyond the confines of the Sunshine state. Once again, that election will be a referendum on the Nigerian condition. As they make the voting decision, the electorate in Ondo State must ask themselves: Are we better off today than we were in 1999? Can Nigeria and by implication our state survive and prosper as currently led without vision or dynamism? Will the outcome of the election be an endorsement for continuity or for change in Nigeria? The stark truth is that a vote for Governor Segun Mimiko’s Labour Party (LP) will be a declaration of confidence and support for the current underdevelopment-generating status quo in Nigeria. Dr. Mimiko is in many ways an interesting, even charismatic, politician. But his political philosophy, if any such thing exists, has been exceedingly eclectic and syncretic as to lack any discernible concrete content. In this political dispensation, Mimiko has at various times been at home in the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and now the Labour Party.

    The LP is today only a shell for an assortment of strange bedfellows to contest for power. The party is ideologically vacuous and programmatically famished. It is difficult to know the LP’s vision and action plan for the structural and functional efficiency of the Nigerian state at a time when contending power blocs are embroiled in a bitter struggle to refashion the country in their desired images. Yet, the actualization of the potentials and well being of the component states of Nigeria will depend fundamentally on a workable and clear strategy to transform the character of power at the centre and the structure of the relationship between the centre and the states. How can a party without any such serious strategic vision be entrusted with the destiny of a state like Ondo at this critical juncture of the country’s evolution? The ever blunt former President Olusegun Obasanjo once said, during a visit to Ondo State, that even though Mimiko is in the LP, the Governor’s spirit remains in the PDP. Mimiko’s silence on this claim was deafening implying consent. Any supposedly progressive politician who is amenable to helping the PDP consolidate its hold on power after 14 years of plunging the nation into abysmal depths of misery is a clear obstacle to progress at a time when the primacy of change has never been more urgent in a country tottering on the edge of state failure.

    In Edo State, Oshiomhole carefully and deftly balanced his membership of the ACN with the sensitivities and imperatives of South-South regionalism where all the other states are PDP. In Ondo State, Mimiko assumes a most curious position. The governor is not ideologically or philosophically opposed to an overbearing, visionless, unproductive and exploitative centre that has been systematically ‘under-developing’ every part of the country. Indeed, his body language suggests that if he gets a second term, he may be a willing tool in any PDP attempt to try to re-impose its vanquished ‘mainstream’ hegemony on the South-West. At the same time, Mimiko is at best lukewarm and at worst completely indifferent to the imperative of South-West developmental integration. Yet, the South-West in particular is well placed to demonstrate to the entire country how integrated developmental regionalism can be a powerful vehicle for stimulating path-breaking national development. The region already has Lagos as a huge resource – a global Megacity of immense cultural diversity, commercial dynamism, innovative creativity, emergent first class infrastructure and entrepreneurial energy.

    How then can Lagos as a Megacity serve as the centre of gravity for the transformation of the South-West into what development experts envision as a ‘Mega-region’? As Richard Florida, Tim Gulden and Charlotta Mellander explain the concept, “Mega regions are more than just a bigger version of a city or a metropolitan region. As a city is composed of separate neighbourhoods, and as a metropolitan region is made up of a central city and its suburbs, a mega region is a polycentric agglomeration of cities and their lower-density hinterlands. It represents the new, natural economic unit that emerges as metropolitan regions not only grow upward and become denser but grow outward and into one another.” Can Ondo State afford to be left out of a process that promises the unleashing of such tremendous developmental energy and transformation of the South-West into a magnet for international capital and labour flows for greater global economic competitiveness? Can the rest of the South-West allow Ondo to pursue a collectively ruinous path of autarchic isolation? Do the projects on ground in Ondo State relative to its substantial receipts as the only oil producing state in the South-West justify the triumphal chest beating that has characterized the Mimiko re-election campaign? We will, God willing, examine these issues next week.

  • Tackling  political  and economic adversity

    In William Shakespeare’s ‘As  You Like It‘, the exiled

    Duke Senior famously said –  ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous,  bears yet a precious jewel on its head.‘ Global adversity  therefore, and reactions to it in the political and economic lives of some nations  and the lessons   there from,   for the rest of us    in   the    global community, form the basis of my analyses today. I start in France where the Socialist regime that has just been elected is fulfilling its campaign promise of taxing the rich to cut France’s  huge budget  deficit and some business men are fleeing France to do business in other parts of Europe. We  move next to the US  where the  president, Barak Obama had to remind his opponent in November’s presidential elections that a president must be father of all and not just a few. We  look  at  a part  of the world – Latin America- where  the  global financial crisis  has had no adverse effect  at a nation called  Chile, which has managed growth  positively  in a largely mono product economy like Nigeria. We  examine all   these three   situations and  events  meticulously  to  see how the issues they throw up affect the way nations manage both their economic and political systems as well as their regional and global environment at large.

    Let  us go back to France  where the Socialist government of President Francois Hollande  is poised this month to tax any rich person 75%  of earnings in excess of 1m euros  which is $ 1.3 m. Since this was not a secret agenda but a campaign issue, French businessmen bolting from France into safer tax havens in other European capitals know what they are  doing since they know it will be suicidal for the new government not to fulfill its electoral and campaign promise for which it was elected. Such businessmen must be commended for their commercial pragmatism as he who runs today  can still fight tomorrow. Indeed this may be a right operational strategy for such people as the new tax regime will be for only two years and will be in force for that long to wipe out France’s budget deficit and return it to 3% of GDP  as required by EU standards. Which to me is a new way of fighting budgets ,most different from the IMF and World Bank  budget deficit solutions of retrenchments, austerity and layoffs leading to social discontentment in such environments. I  could not but wonder at the  French Socialist government’ s ingenuity and boldness  in taking this step and not creating social  resentment and upheaval led by the rich who are so massively taxed and seem to have taken it in their stride. A  radio program I listened to later convinced me that it is French history and political culture that is responsible for the rich accepting such high tax as a fait accompli by a government that won an election on such a campaign  promise.

    One  of the business men affected who said he will not flee France because of the 75% tax gave his reason and it is that , that I find most fascinating   and educative as  a Nigerian. He  said  French business men would get by in the two years of the high taxes for a number  of reasons. France, he said, has good infrastructure, high levels of education and productivity  and the energy prices and affordability are reasonable enough for businesses  to survive the two year period of the high taxes. That to me is wonderful and I wish I could say the same for my country Nigeria. Another businessman  though was not so optimistic saying that the taxes targeted rich young entrepreneurs  and some   will  bolt abroad  and never return to France which is a sort of brain drain or  flight  from  which no nation can  recover. But it  is the reason that the French  rich have become used to bridging inequalities that I find most fascinating  as it reminded me about the French revolution of 1789  when the rich were murdered en masse and  a unique murder equipment was made for the operation called the guillotine. Really I suppose that memory more than anything else made the rich resigned to their fate on the 75%  tax as the historical alternative or its dark memory  in France’s revolutionary history is not a fate to be contemplated or wished on French businessmen of today. Yet,  it was from the same French Revolution that brutalized and murdered the rich and mighty in France that the cry  of liberty, equality, and freedom rose to make democracy the ascendant ideology of our time. Really, sweet indeed  and in  very bloody terms,  are  the ‘uses of adversity‘ for the rich and poor in France.

    Next  is the US where  I have decided to start with Barak Obama’s rather patronizing response to his opponent’s testy gaffes  on US politics  and diplomacy. Mitt  Romney  at  rich men fund raisers of the Republican party – at  $50000 per head-reportedly told his audience that Americans who rely on government hand outs like health care, who rely on government for food and   housing-about 47%  of them – will rather vote for Obama and will never vote for him in the November US presidential elections. He  called such people – victims. In another video he said  the Palestinians are not at all interested in peace with Israel judging from their utterances and actions. The two incidents center on US domestic politics and Middle East or world politics  and Mitt Romney has not been politic on either.

    In the victims categorization he displayed a billionaire’s arrogance   and contempt for lesser opportuned human beings  not to talk of the poor. He could count himself lucky he was not born and living in France during the French revolution. Yet  even in the US he  seemed to have committed political hara kiri since he assumed that if the 47% victims don’t vote for him the remaining 53% would; which is very faulty arithmetic as his  disrespectful statement   will diminish that phantom  53%  faster than he can ever contemplate. Romney  has ridiculed adversity in  American politics and would rue the day he made those two statements come November 6. The  bitter sweet thing about his utterances  though is that he has firmly put the mark of the unbending rich on a Republican party that is trying to portray itself as having the common touch  and has created an electoral liability and burden for the party in its run off to the presidential elections.

    On the Palestinians   not wanting peace he needs to be educated not to say such things since the US is the major peace broker in the Israeli –Palestinian debacle -which is a major threat to world peace given its  global religious and socio political ramifications. He  should be asked to look at events in the China Sea where Japan, a US ally, is at dispute with China, a foremost US trade partner,  over the sale of some Islands to Japan and note that the US cannot be seen to be taking sides as he did when he condemned the Palestinians and seem to be favoring Israel as striving for peace in the Middle East.

    In  effect then, these   two examples  of socio  political values and political cultures in both the  US  and France  provide   lessons from which Nigeria can draw lessons,  analogies and inspiration. Our attempt at making power constant and available even as the performing power minister is rusticated;  as well as the publication of  the names  of those who received fuel  subsidy without delivery of anything are  similar at least to Greece’s ‘name and shame‘ tactics of making the rich pay tax and contain Greece’s budget  deficit – just as the French taxed their rich astronomically  to   achieve the same effect. The  recent debate  on the introduction of the 5000 naira bill is  a democratic exercise but it needs to take place in a constitutional milieu  and not just because the CBN has the approval of the presidency to do it and this is where the example of Chile comes in handy for the rule of law.

    I  listened to a BBC Hard talk program involving  a Chilean Minister on Development and I was impressed by the level of economic management and respect for the rule of law in Chile . Chile according to the Minister has long realized that high debts, high deficits, nervous markets and high interest rates are the symptoms of economic malfunctioning and financial mismanagement and Chile has grown  economically on its major product, copper,   while trying to avoid these pitfalls stringently. Chile is the largest  global exporter of copper and China is the biggest importer and the two are doing brisk and mutually beneficial business but the Chinese economy has slowed down and the Minister admitted this too will affect Chile’s growth which is one of the highest in the world at 6%  just like that of India. Chile, the Minister said will decelerate but in a planned way that will not affect jobs but  still attract foreign investment while accelerating diversification to reduce its dependence on copper. When challenged that certain important projects  like power and hydro electric plants approved by the Chilean governments have met obstacles in terms of operations from court rulings on environmental breaches the Minister replied that the government respects the judiciary which he said is quite independent in Chile. Which means that Chiles prosperity has not gone into the head of its leaders in such a way as to make a mockery of the rule of law. Which makes one to conclude easily  that in Chile’s case -sweet are the uses of prosperity-when it is not allowed to be high jacked by adversity in the midst of plenty;   just  as the fuel subsidy beneficiaries did recently with Nigeria’s oil revenue- right before our eyes.

  • Technology, politics  and  global security

    Technology, politics  and  global security

    The  killing of the US  Ambassador in Benghazi, Libya this week over the  alleged blasphemy on Islam in the film – Desert Warriors – said to be about life 2000 years ago, bring to the fore the good, the bad and ugly side of the internet as a fast and speedy generator of information and ideas. The presence of objectionable scenes on the Holy Prophet and Islam sparked off murderous protests in the Middle East with protesters looking for Americans to kill  maim or skin alive. In Cairo the situation was similar to that in Benghazi . Just as  in Senaa the Yemeni  capital where protesters besieged the US embassy and tried to enter it.
    The US has reacted in a tough way and has sent war ships to the area but it has to respect and use diplomacy first and has asked that the governments of Egypt and Libya cooperate with it in securing the lives  and property of diplomatic staff. Libya on its own has apologized to the US  government for the killing of the US  ambassador and four other Americans in the embassy. In  a tribute to the fallen ambassador who reportedly died of suffocation  the wife of the US president said it was particularly painful because the Ambassador was one of those who saved Benghazi during the uprising against the Muammar Gaddafi regime. Which shows clearly that the use of information in the internet  age can be particularly dangerous especially with  the speed with which bad or good news spreads without giving time  for clarifications, authentication or verification.
    Today,  we discuss the dangerous use and misuse of information generally  especially with regard to the younger generation and the use of information technology in securing our environment  as well as its potential for doing just the opposite. We  do this without  any pretences whatever and acknowledge that Nigeria is in the same boat as any of the North African or Middle East nations- involved in street revolutions – but are now biting the finger that fed them in staging successful revolutions against dictatorship – which is information technology and the internet featuring social networks like facebook and twitter.
    This is because the Boko Haram strategy of attacks  in Nigeria have been to use  home made bombs and we have been shown armories of the sect and the implements used in making bombs from knowledge and skills acquired from the internet to bomb churches  and other targets in Nigeria. Yet, the internet was created to germinate and spread information and knowledge in a form of democratization that breaks the monopoly or hoarding of information and brings data and hitherto protected information within reach of the masses  in terms of spontaineous availability and accessibility. Given the horror and  the speed of the killing of the US ambassador and the rising profile of Boko Haram bombings in Nigeria, one is tempted to ask if there has not been a mistake somewhere on the expected use of information on an unfettered internet and totally free social networks and  on – line information sharing systems.
    Again, we stress that   the essence of information is in its sharing and usage to promote causes and events. As events this week show this can be a double edged sword. This  is because just as a phone call or information on facebook can lead a suya seller to make bumper sales by moving his wares to a different location based on information  received, the same telephone can tell a bomber the location to detonate his bomb for maximum effect.
    In Tahrir Square  in Egypt, the demonstrators that gathered to oust Housni Mubarak were aided by IT gadgets which were seized and were to be tendrered as evidence against them by Mubaraks agents and they would have been sentenced by the Egyptian authorities still pro Mubarak then. But the US government intervened and the IT gadgets were released and some of the trials stopped. Now Egypt   has an elected President who was elected by a revolution that rode on the back of mass mobilisation  through IT but the US embassy was under siege this week in Cairo  and American lives were  on the line because of information from the internet on a blasphemy on Islam  in a film.
    The same can be said of Libya and Yemen where the same people the US supported against their oppressors  turned their anger  on the same US. Which really shows in violently pragmatic ways that it is not only in diplomacy that we say that there are no permanent friends but permanent interests. In social networking too whilst the essence of sharing information is to galvanise interest in causes and events there are no permanent friends in the subsequent flow and direction of information. That is the bitter truth the death of the US Ambassador has revealed in Benghazi, Libya this week.
    This throws up again the issue of Wiki Leaks and its founder now holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London whilst the British government struggles not to break international law – especially the sanctity and sovereignty of  resident embassies, in seeking to arrest and send him to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. I  have never been an admirer of the Wiki Leak founder because I think he violated privacy and security bounds and laws in revealing information on governments and  diplomacy online just because a frustrated and wayward US soldier was willing to get paid for such information. Yet the Wiki Leak founder was made a Man of the Year by a leading Nigerian newspaper sometime ago – which I found repugnant. Just as I feel bad that some people have revealed information in Nigeria  on leading SSS officials on line thus  blowing their cover  and jeorpadising their security.
    This to me is like  giving jailed convicts unfettered access to the judges that jailed them. The result is predictable – sheer murder and mayhem fuelled by a mad  urge for retaliation and vengeance  against public officials who have just done their legitimate functions and duties. Which certainly is most unfair.
    This brings to mind again the optimism of the CEO of Facebook  Sheryl Sandberg at  the beginning of this year in an article in the publication – The World In 2012  – from The Economist stable. In  the article titled –Sharing the Power of 2012 – the Facebook boss, a lady noted that after the earthquake in New Zealand in 2011 which destroyed property worth over $10bn in Christchurch  – social media connected people to the resources they needed to begin rebuilding their lives.  On Egypt she wrote that   in 2011   the Egyptian  people confronted a government that was not listening to them and used social technologies to amplify their voices.
    Technology she said  gives  ‘a name and a face – a true identity – to those who were previously invisible and it turns up the volume  on voices that may have otherwise been too soft to hear’. She ended gleefully that in 2012 greater  sharing of information around the world is inevitable and that deeper and richer caring will be profound. Definitely the Facebook boss never thought of the sort of Information backlash that turned technologies that created freedom into weapons of destruction  this week in the Middle East. Which also brings to mind bitter memories of the beautiful daughter  – of a Nigerian general -who made friends on the internet who lured her to her death in Lagos from Abuja on the fraudulent pretext of being business experts.
    In essence then  and quite ominously the Americans must prepare for events like the murder in Benghazi this week and the reason is not far fetched. Technology – spawned democracies are prone to religious backlashes simply because they are not immune to religious sentiments  and the Middle East  is a hotbed of religion and Islam is the major religion.
    In addition whilst the nations  and citizens of the Middle East may thank the US for aiding the advent of  democracy they hate the Americans with the same vigor with which they hated the dictators that the US has helped them to  depose. Indeed   in deposing  the dictators the masses of the Middle East have not forgotten that it was US foreign policy that kept the deposed tyrants in power for so long  in the first instance. So  they reason that if the US can abandon its friends so easily it is better not to be too cosy with a nation  that really has no permanent friends  in their region but only  permanent interests this time woven around technology. More importantly, technology and its usefulness and power capabilities aside, there is no way the people of the Middle East can be true friends of the US as long as the support for the state of Israel remains the corner stone of the US Middle East Foreign Policy . That really is the true import of the deadly  information backlash that claimed the ambassador’s life in Benghazi, Libya this week.
  • Light from Lagos

    Light from Lagos

    An acquaintance put through a distress call to me very early in the morning about three weeks ago. It happened that officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) had impounded two trucks waiting to discharge raw materials into the premises of his company at a location in Lagos. The time of the operation was about 1.30 am. Surely, the vehicles could not have constituted an obstacle on anybody’s path at that lonely hour my friend agonized. I immediately called the Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa, a trained scientist, passionate progressive activist and one of the brightest minds it has been my privilege to know. To my utter surprise, Opeifa said there was absolutely nothing he could do about the matter. He was cocksure if an infraction had not been committed, the vehicles would not be impounded. The Transport Commissioner advised that I call the Managing Director of LASTMA, Engineer Babatunde Edu to have a clear idea of what actually happened. I was in a quandary since I hardly knew the LASTMA MD. Would such an obviously busy man respond to the call of an unknown member of the public? I tried my luck and called Engineer Edu’s number repeatedly without success. I was about giving up in despair after about half an hour when my phone suddenly rang. It was a surprisingly polite – Engineer Edu on the line. “I see you’ve been calling my line,” he said, “Sorry I have been attending to an emergency. Is there anything I can do for you”? I introduced myself and explained my friend’s plight pleading for his consideration and kind intervention.
    Again, I was in for another surprise. The LASTMA MD said he could not arbitrarily overrule his men who were actually on ground on the matter. He however promised to investigate and get back to me. Within an hour, Engineer Edu was back on the line: “I have established that it was not a case of broken down vehicles,” he said, “The vehicles were waiting on the highway for two other trucks to exit the premises before gaining entry to offload their own cargo. Even then, they still committed an offence by parking on the highway. The company should have planned its operations more efficiently by calling on the vehicles only when its premises was free for them to enter without causing any obstruction on the highway. But since it is not a case of broken down vehicles or deliberate obstruction, we will release the vehicles once they bring in a letter of request for our own records,” he said. Of course, I understood Engineer Edu’s point perfectly. After all, only a few years ago, Nigeria had lost one of her best television journalists, Mr. Lekan Asimi of Channels Television, when his car had rammed into a stationary vehicle right in the middle of the road late at night under the bridge at Maryland on his way home from work.
    Now, a number of things struck me about my experience with the Lagos State transport authorities on this occasion. Firstly, is the fact that even as most of us are enjoying our sleep at around 1.30 am, some traffic officials are alert at their duty posts and working hard to ensure road safety. Of course, this is not limited to the traffic sector. In a similar vein, men and vehicles of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) are ubiquitous across Lagos striving to secure lives and property day and night. Also, many of us who wake up to see our communities and highways free of refuse every morning have only the faintest idea what a yeoman’s job staff of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) in conjunction with the private sector operators in waste management do all night to keep this mega city of at least 16 million residents reasonably clean. Secondly, despite our personal relationship, it struck me that the Transport Commissioner did not arbitrarily utilise the powers of his office to order that the vehicles be released by fiat. Thirdly, the MD of LASTMA defended the integrity of his men and only ordered the release of the vehicles after thorough investigation and following due process. Fourthly, the central preoccupation of the LASTMA MD was not revenue generation through payment of the statutory fines but the operational efficiency of the offending firm to guarantee traffic safety and sanity. Of course, none of this is to say that LASTMA, like any other human organisation, does not have its own fair share of bad eggs and functional lapses.
    On further reflection, I reasoned that the commitment to the sanctity of impersonal rules and self restraint by both the Transport Commissioner and LASTMA MD was itself a reflection of the leadership values exhibited by Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) from the top. We have here a classic example of what the great inspirational writer, John Maxwell, calls ‘Leadership as Influence’. The true leader is like a city on a hill. His innate values cannot be hidden. It is not the words of the leader that counts. Rather, his spontaneous day-to-day actions reveal who the leader truly is. Only recently, Governor Fashola apprehended two military officers driving illegally on the dedicated Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lane. What gave the Governor the audacity to take such a bold step? Simple. The power of moral example. The force of influence. As Governor, Fashola sits through the traffic himself rather than jump at the least opportunity on the BRT lane to hasten his movement. Even more, he has never once used the siren since his assumption of office. His argument for this is so simple yet so profound that it is baffling why most other public office holders in the country continue to abuse the siren as a misplaced status symbol.
    The blaring siren, Fashola argues, is actually an indication of abnormality and a disruption of routine and order. The ambulance rushing an accident victim to hospital. The police van speeding to the scene of a crime. The fire truck trying to beat traffic to salvage a burning building. Are we then, Fashola asks, marooned in a permanent state of abnormality as a society that sirens have become a fixed feature of our collective mental furniture? Are our public office holders permanent hostages of a disorienting siege mentality that they cannot move without sirens?
    So much has been written about Fashola’s remarkable success in the areas of environmental renewal and radical modernisation of infrastructure. Yet, I believe that his most enduring legacy will, in the final analysis, not be the concrete projects of bricks and mortar he leaves behind. Rather, it will be his consistent and deliberate efforts to inculcate in the citizenry those critical values without which a modern civilization cannot be sustained. Yes, the artefacts of physical technology are important. But more critical are the habits, attitudes, dispositions and values that constitute the soft or cultural technology that provides the supportive frame work for material civilisation. A smooth, well paved, wide, modern road is a marvel to behold. But misused by drunken, distracted, lawless drivers or even pedestrians indifferent to traffic rules, it becomes a death trap – a veritable curse.
    In a modern mega city like Lagos, the absence of strict traffic laws impartially enforced could easily mean loss of limb or life for multitudes. This no doubt informed what some perceive as the seeming draconian sanctions against traffic infractions in the newly enacted Lagos State Traffic Law. Interestingly, two of the groups most affected by the law – okada riders and the National Union of Road Transport Workers – have openly expressed support for the law. These groups intuitively grasp the great political scientist, Professor Harold Laski’s words of wisdom expressed over eight decades ago: “Liberty, therefore, is a positive thing…I shall not feel that my liberty is endangered when I am refused permission to commit murder. My creative impulses do not suffer frustration when I am bidden to drive on a given side of the road…Historic experience has evolved for us rules of convenience which promote right living. To compel obedience to them is not to make a man unfree.”  Without law and order justly enforced, a people perish. Once again, Lagos shows the light for others to find the way.
  • Eagles: Too big to fly

    Eagles: Too big to fly

    Travelling with the Super Eagles can be fun. They excite one with the delusion that they are doing Nigerians a big favour. They think they are super beings and consider others as leaches, who must quickly be blown out like catarrh in the nostrils. Their swagger irritates largely because they hardly can fill the immigration forms unguided.
    Little wonder, the fans don’t flock around them. Elsewhere, the convergence of stars attracts lovers of the game to them. Soccer freaks cherish such moments, taking pictures, getting autographs and, possibly having some souvenirs. Not so for the Super Eagles; they treat their fans like the plague.
    Going to Liberia on Friday morning threw up the best opportunity for the players to change their ways towards others. Not so for these bunch, like the folks before them.
    You will expect that such early morning movement will elicit greetings from the young men when they see elders. No way! Instead, they block their ear-drums, pretending to be listening to music, Yet will acknowledge greetings from one another. In fact, we had a good laugh watching them, their ear phones on, chatting. It is evident that this is the Eagles subtle way of shunning people.
    As we boarded the chartered IRS aircraft, the players, officials, high ranking government functionaries, including Senators, House of Representatives and NFF Board members were instructed to lead the way. Others boarded after them. But it was inside the aircraft that this distasteful scenario happened.
    An elderly member of the Nigeria Football Supporters Club was shocked at the way a top Eagles star refused to allow him sit beside him.
    Having boarded the aircraft earlier, the star sat at the aisle, spreading his legs majestically. Not even the friendly tap from this elderly supporter could sway the chap. As the elderly one walked towards the inner row, he muttered inaudible words. My heart sank. Another supporter walked towards another Eagles star who sat alone, asking to sit beside him; he refused. I couldn’t stomach this because the airline officials had done a head count and knew the number of vacant seats. I beckoned on one of the airline officials who intervened. Guess what? The irritant chose to sit with another mate, who sat alone in one of the two- seaters. Unwittingly, the aircraft had been fouled by bad blood. Soon, the aircraft was in the skies, flying its two hours 45 minutes course.
    With 18 aeronautical miles to the Roberts International Airport in Liberia, the pilot informed us of a final descent, urging us to look towards the left to admire the Atlantic Ocean and its amazing waves.
    Then the spectacle for those who have been there would be a smile. In three minutes, the aircraft roared as if it was taking a plunge into the ocean, a big sigh sprang out from the hitherto snoring aircraft of over 93people. Soon, the aircraft found its length on the runway, spending much of 12 minutes flying low on the Atlantic.
    Then the panic. AIT’s Wale spoke the mind of many panic-stricken passengers when he said in Yoruba: “Se airplane fe we ninu odo n i(Does the aircraft want to swim?) Then smiles and backslapping as the pilot put the aircraft on the runway to roll to a gradual halt on its tyres.
    It was drizzling. There was some turbulence before the final descent. (We were forewarned by the pilot).
    Having walked through immigration, I went straight to the elderly supporter to plead with him. Once I raised the issue, his face got winked, but my friend broke into a reluctant smile as I teased him with his favourite song. Before then, he had said in Yoruba: Ade, ori nkan timori. Boy yen o nisorire. (Ade, did you see what I saw? That boy won’t do well), he sighed heavily.
    The elderly supporter later withdrew the curse. When the game began, the irritant was one of the culprits who ruined our victory dance. As he fumbled, my mind went to the