The Nation Newspaper

Category: Segun Ayobolu

  • Reflections on Sam Omatseye’s ‘information in an Age of Flux’

    Reflections on Sam Omatseye’s ‘information in an Age of Flux’

    Not only demonstrating his versatility and depth as a trained historian, Sam Omatseye’s recent lecture at the Trinity University, Yaba’ Lagos, titled ‘Information in an Age of Flux’, also vividly illustrated the writer’s rich immersion in the literatures of the world, his philosophical cast of mind, his virtuosity as a technocrat of words and his vast media experience over the last three and a half decades as reporter, editor, columnist, university lecturer in Canada and the US and currently Editorial Board Chairman of this newspaper.

    Deploying humour, wit and dialectical reasoning to maximum effect, the Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Arts exhaustively examines the evolution and transformation of information across time and space within historical, sociological, philosophical and scientific contexts. His lecture is thus essentially cross-disciplinary in range and thrust.

    It is understandable and inevitable that Omatseye situates his discourse on the unfolding saga of information in the human experience within the framework of time. It is within the context of time that man lives, works, worships, thinks, invents, entertains, engages in politics, fight wars and dies. Information has become one of the most critical factors in the evolution of man with its influence and impact, both for good and evil, acquiring ever greater significance with the unceasing flow of time.

    As the writer evocatively expounds in his opening sentences, “Time and information intersect like twins. We even need information to know time and time to secure information. Hence, the historian is the most important tool to the social scientist. The historian is the custodian of time. If the social scientist needs the historian, memory is the armour of all humans. History is official memory. But our other memory is in our minds and hearts. And time is the only commodity you cannot get back”.

    Omatseye waxes poetic as he continues: “Time creates the age. Time changes language, changes leaders, recalibrates culture, overthrows regimes, refines the barbaric into a debonair, makes a monster of a prince or transforms an angel into a Mephistopheles. Time passes like stealth, and it is like death. You cannot resurrect time. You can only imitate or mimic it”. He brings a historian’s microscope to dissect the evolution of societies and cultures from prehistoric times to the present. In his encyclopedic treatise, we are given glimpses into the civilization of the Greeks, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the dark ages in Europe, the invention of printing, the acceleration of scientific progress and phenomenal leaps in technological growth particularly information and communication technology and the attendant ever increasing cultural complexity of society.

    Read Also: Cholera cases rise to 289 cases with 17 deaths in Niger

    The lecturer utilizes the analytic lenses of the sociologist, Alvin Toffler, to dilate on tidal waves of revolutionary change in our contemporary world. In his words, “All of this fall into what Alvin Toffler in his famous book, The Third Wave, called the Second Wave of history. For him the first wave began with the neolithic age, the hunter-gatherer or what some may call the stone age. His categorization may be arbitrary and the content of each category peremptory, but it shows how the mercurial spirit of humanity has spun many a narrative so much so that it takes a lot of work to simplify”.

    The lecturer’s thoughts in this regard remind us of the path breaking work of Karl Marx who had earlier delineated progressive stages in the evolution of human society spanning the communal mode of production, slavery, feudalism and the emergence of industrial capitalism in the 18th century. Karl Marx sought to demonstrate that capitalism was not an eternally primordial and preexisting form of the organization of society which was in the natural order of things and thus unchanging. Each stage of societal development, Marx averred, depended on a given level of development of productive forces (technology) and further progress in the advancement of the latter would compel changes in the superstructure leading to higher levels in the mode of organization of society. He thus predicted the ultimate transcendence of capitalism when its extant form of social organization became an impediment to the further development of productive forces at the substructural level, and the inevitable emergence of the communist mode of production.

    Ironically, while communism arguably facilitated the rapid scientific and technological progress of previously backward, feudal societies such as the defunct Soviet Union, China and Cuba, within relatively short spans of time, after a point they could not cope with the rate of capitalism’s unceasing transformation of the productive forces of science and technology. China and Russia have thus reverted to market forms of capitalist organization of their economies while retaining essentially authoritarian political systems.

    However, the essential import of Marx’s evolutionary analysis of society was succinctly captured by the political scientist, Ellen Meiskins Wood, in her book, ‘The Origin of Capitalism’, when she argues that “The naturalization of capitalism, which denies its specificity and the long and painful historical processes that brought it into being, limits our understanding of the past. At the same time, it restricts our hopes and expectations for the future, for if capitalism is the natural culmination of history, then surmounting it is unimaginable…Thinking about future alternatives to capitalism requires us to think about alternative conceptions to its past”.

    Alvin Toffler, however, in his work graphically captures relentless changes in technology that drive unceasing, revolutionary socio-cultural transformation even within the capitalist mode of production. Omatseye paints vivid portraits of these changes in his inimitable style. According to him, “Each age claims that prophecy as referring to their own. When the Wright Brothers gave us the aircraft, they said that was the age of prophecy. And that was before the age of the supersonic jets, the email, the WhatsApp, the Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, the drone, et al. People are going to and fro, not through bouffant clouds in an aircraft. Humans these days are spirits. They can be in a village near Ogbomosho and be in Frankfurt in one minute and Oslo the next and Sydney, Australia and Denver, Colorado simultaneously. You can do a job interview via zoom with a CEO in America, looking at each other while wearing a tie and jacket whereas you are naked from the waist down. Both of you, in American and Nigeria. Yet, you were properly dressed for the interview”.

    The lecturer surgically dissects the implications for contemporary society of the revolutionary developments in information technology particularly the emergence of social media and the seeming anarchy of citizen journalism with scant respect for professional rules and regulations. Thus, we see the traditional media having to ceaselessly innovate and reinvent itself to compete effectively and remain afloat. Omatseye also adverts his mind to the immoral and cynical manipulation of information resulting in the prevalence of fake news which is widely perceived as constituting an existential threat to human existence.

    The advances in human knowledge as well as scientific and technological growth captured so magisterially by Omatseye has also, in my view, been accompanied by a growing humanistic disposition to life. According to the theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer, “Humanism is the placing of Man at the center of all things and making him the measure of all things”. Thus, he deplores the shift “away from a world view that was at least vaguely Christian in people’s memory (even if they were not individually Christian) toward something completely different – toward a world view based upon the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its present form by impersonal chance”.

    Implicit in the widespread disbelief in the existence of a transcendental being who created reality and dictated moral laws to guide and restrain human behavior has resulted in what Schaeffer describes as “The abolition of truth and morality”. Situational ethics prevail. There are no absolute standards of right and wrong. Everything has become relative. Politicians are free to lie barefacedly destroying the fabric of trust that is critical to democracy if the end justifies the means. Man’s scientific and technological feats are no longer seen as functions of his being made in the image of his creator who gave him a mandate to conquer and exercise dominion over the earth and equipped him with the innate capacity to achieve this. Within this essentially amoral context, ongoing scientific and technological attainments become dangerous weapons in the hands of a largely flawed humanity.

    Thus, Omatseye’s tentativeness is understandable when he submits that “It is probably going to get worse with the new technology known as artificial intelligence, or AI. It is the ultimate mimic technology, as explained in Henry Kissinger’s book, The Age of AI. Anything or anyone can become dispensable. Someone else can present this lecture, if it were done remotely, and pretend to be me, the same face, the same voice. And receive the same applause, the same disapproval. How false that kind of world promises to be? The future is cheery and dreadful. The media is a reflection of the new reality. New reality will be virtual reality. As newspapers are threatened, so is a new world, brave and fragile”.

  • Nigeria: What man has joined together? (2)

    Nigeria: What man has joined together? (2)

    Inspired and informed by the federalist ethos which such Indian leaders as Jawarhalal Nehru had espoused as the best political arrangement for their complex, culturally plural society, Chief Obafemi Awolowo emerged as the most thorough, rigorous, compelling, and unrelenting advocate of a thoroughgoing federal constitution as the most appropriate constitutional framework for a multiethnic, multicultural and multi-religious Nigeria. “One of the pronouncements of the Indian leaders that struck the right chord in me was the one relating to the provincial boundaries along linguistic lines, in the reframing of the country’s constitution. If this was done, it would mean that apart from the Indian Parliament, each linguistic group would have its own legislature and government to deal with matters of peculiar interest to the group and within the competence of a provincial government” Awo had submitted in his autobiography in 1960.

    Earlier, in 1947, he had contended in his ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’ that “Under a true federal constitution, each group, however small, is entitled to the same treatment as any other group, however large”. Awolowo referred essentially to ethno-linguistic groups. They constituted the indispensable and irreducible building blocks of his conceptualization of federalism in Nigeria. For him, the linguistic factor is the most critical distinguishing variable between groups and should be a key element in Nigeria’s federal design.

    There are those who, 64 years after independence, still hold to this perception and one variant of this school of thought argues for a reversion to a six-regional structure, a slightly modified form of the four regions that characterized the First Republic. These are perceived as more ‘natural’ components of the Nigerian polity than the current ‘arbitrary’ and ‘artificial’ states and local governments.

    Those who advance this logic would appear to underestimate the extent to which a good number of the current states and local governments have developed a common political consciousness and sense of cohesion making it unlikely for them to agree to a reversion to a no less centralizing regionalism. Let us take the energy, passion, and resources that went into the struggle for the creation of Ekiti State for instance. Will the people of the state be willing to surrender their hard-won autonomy to renewed political suzerainty from Ibadan? It is unlikely and the situation is no less different across Nigeria.

    In any case, even in Awolowo’s federalist theory, the linguistic factor as a cementing element in intra-group cohesion may be exaggerated. After all, as Awolowo himself rightly noted in his autobiography, “The Yorubas were a highly progressive but badly disunited group. They paid lip service to a spiritual union and affinity in a common ancestor- Oduduwa. But in all their long history they had waged wars against one another”. That was indeed why he spearheaded the formation of the socio-cultural group, Egbe Omo Oduduwa, to promote unity and harmony among the ever-querulous Yoruba. And in postcolonial Nigeria, the Yoruba political elite has remained as fractious as ever despite the common ethno-cultural and linguistic inheritance that supposedly unites them.

    Eminent political scientist, Professor Eghosa Osaghae understandably pays attention to this issue at some length in his 2019 inaugural lecture at the University of Ibadan from which this column derives its title. In his words, “The basis of all this, which is not generally known, is that many of the ethnic groups and political categories that exist today, the names they bear as well as the territories they claim, the languages they speak and the loyalties now directed at them, took roots and were constructed within the states that emerged from the colonial process and are therefore as new, if not as artificial, as the states to which they belong.”

    From the ongoing generalization from the African experience, Osaghae zeroes in on Nigeria and synthesizes the views of diverse scholars in the debate. He writes: “In Nigeria, according to Ekeh, “What existed before Nigeria were amorphous polities”. Indeed, Thomas Hodgkin, debunked Biobaku’s claim to the existence of an organic Yoruba group by asserting that “Everyone recognizes that the notion of ‘being a Nigerian’ is a new kind of conception. But it would seem that the notion of ‘being a Yoruba is not very much older”. The same could be said for ‘being’ Edo, Igbo, Tiv, and so on”. To buttress the point, Osaghae notes that “In fact, the colonial administrators dismissed the claims of consolidated ethnic groups and insisted “on the right, for example, of the people of Egbaland (not the Yoruba)…of any of the great Emirates of the North (not the Hausa-Fulani)…to maintain that each one of them is, in a very real sense…a nation”.

    If the component ethno-cultural building blocks of Nigeria are not necessarily eternally preexisting ‘natural’ entities, then the presumed ‘artificiality’ of the macro polity should be no insurmountable obstacle to the never-ending process of working towards building an ever increasingly more cohesive, stable, and viable Nigeria. When Osaghae evokes the image of Nigeria as a complex entity which ‘man has joined together’, what immediately comes to mind is the common scriptural admonition on the marital union that ‘what God has joined together, let no man put asunder’. Without a definitive and generally acknowledged divine imprimatur on the Nigerian project, is it therefore inevitably doomed to failure as a man- made contrivance?

    This is not necessarily so but it is up to Nigerians, particularly the political elite, to undertake the necessary hard work and sacrifices to make Nigeria a success and this is largely in their own self-interest. In this regard, he stresses the inevitably and imperative of federalism which “provides a most rational man-made method of binding people together”. Unfortunately, Osaghae argues, Nigerian federalism and state have largely “floundered because for the elite, politics whose high point is state capture, takes precedence over compelling social and economic considerations that are capable of expanding the common good and reinforcing the basis of union, as is the case in many other federal systems”.

    Continuous efforts to strengthen democracy and deepen federalism in Nigeria are necessary conditions for consolidating and solidifying ‘what man has joined together’ and ensuring the transcendence of current difficulties and the emergence of a Nigerian nation-state framework within which flourishing communities can thrive. The recent decision of the Supreme Court which granted financial autonomy to local government councils and compelled the existence and functioning only of democratically elected councils at the grassroots is viewed in some quarters as an attempt to strengthen the federal process and in others as designed to enhance the power of the centre at the expense of states.

    Read Also: From frying pan to fire: Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria relive horrific experience (2)

    What cannot be denied is that the incapacity of local governments to function as vehicles of grassroots development due partly to financial asphyxiation by states is a key factor in Nigeria’s protracted economic crisis and underdevelopment. Many state governments are understandably pushing back against the Supreme Court decision and insisting on their rights under a federal constitution to conduct elections into local government councils; elections which they have turned into farcical exercises with parties in power in various states winning all local government offices contested for.

    It is ostensibly in pursuit of adherence to federal principles that 16 state governments with Kogi State at the vanguard have approached the Supreme Court to declare the statutes setting up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) a nullity and to make it illegal for federal anti-graft agencies to probe the finances of state governments. While this makes sense in the light of federal theory, can we blind ourselves to the horrendous corruption at all levels of government and the obvious incapacity of both the legislature and the judiciary to tame the scourge at the state level?

    Is the industrial-scale corruption plaguing the country not a major contributory factor to the prevalent economic crisis, current existential hardships, and the heightened fragility of the Nigerian state? In the face of weak or non-existence of preemptive and strong oversight and preventive institutions at sub-national levels, must the powers of federal institutions trying to combat financial crimes at all levels be circumscribed in the name of adherence to federal principles?

    It is apposite in this regard to quote Professor Osaghae at some length in conclusion: “No matter how attractive federal principles may be, federalism is not adopted because people want constitutional purity. Rather, it is because the principles are deemed to be capable of solving immediate and possibly long term problems. According to Shridath Ramphal, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, “The practical necessities of a miscellany of national circumstances, not the symmetry of academic reasoning have given federalism its content and form…Federalism does not require that countries must mould their institutions to immutable principles or forms of organization. It promises instead that federal constitutions may be designed to meet the particular needs of the communities establishing them”.

    • Concluded
  • Nigeria: What man has joined together? (1)

    Nigeria: What man has joined together? (1)

    Because of the long years, he has put into public service, first as Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) and now as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) since 2015, it is so easy to forget that Professor Mahmood Yakubu’s first calling is as an academic and that he is a first-class historian by specialization. The INEC Chairman returned to his forte this week when he was one of the speakers at an international conference organized by Arewa House, the reputable northern think tank, in collaboration with the Faculty of Law, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, on the 110th anniversary of the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914.

    According to this newspaper’s reportage of the event, “Eminent Professor of history, Mahmood Yakubu, has said Nigeria will not disintegrate, despite its challenges. Yakubu told those who regarded the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates in 1914 as an artificial contraption that would eventually snap to bury the thought. He said it is not a miracle that Nigeria has remained indivisible 110 years after its amalgamation but by the determination of the diverse people to manage their heterogeneity. Yakubu dismissed calls for divisions among Nigeria’s diverse ethnic nationalities, saying the country has maintained deep-rooted historical ties that have existed among various communities long before the amalgamation”.

    As Yakubu pointedly put it further, “I have made peace with the fact that I am Nigerian. If some people think Nigeria is artificial, they should know that nations are created in different ways and are consolidated over time. Tell me one nation that was put together by consensus. The fact that we are here for over a century is a plus for Nigeria”. Contrary to Professor Yakubu’s postulation, there are many who would contend that there is indeed something of the miraculous in Nigeria’s continued survival and cohesion, no matter how fragile her unity, for over a century plus years after the amalgamation.

    For example, the country outlived a three-year fratricidal civil war(1967-1970) that cost over two million lives. Most remarkably, a prominent member of the Igbo ethnic group that had sought secession, Dr Alex Ekwueme, had risen to become Vice President of Nigeria a little more than a decade after the end of the war in 1970. But for the military intervention that terminated the Second Republic in 1983, the unfolding dynamics of the democratic process could very well have seen Ekwueme succeeding President Shehu Shagari in 1987 on the platform of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN). But that is in the realm of conjecture.

    Read Also: Yul Edochie assures Nigerian citizens, says things will change positively

    Again, the country survived the protracted struggle against the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election won by the late Chief MKO Abiola and the perpetuation of military dictatorship; a struggle that often pushed the polity to the edges of implosion. Out of the tortured womb of that crisis, has rather emerged the current democratic dispensation that has remained unbroken for over two and a half decades. Indeed, so intense has the ever-deepening economic crisis particularly of the last two decades been that it is a sheer wonder that the depth of the existential trauma has not fractured Nigeria’s febrile and complex fault lines beyond repair. The country’s repeated amazing capacity to rescue victory from the jaws of defeat and disintegration and pull back from the brink of seemingly inevitable disaster has led many to believe that there is some sort of divine purpose and design to the evolution, creation, and sustenance of Nigeria as an entity.

    There are indeed those who would read into Professor Yakubu’s logic the often peddled but now largely discarded mantra that ‘Nigeria’s unity is indivisible and non-negotiable’. That was a phraseology that derived from the civil war and its coercive ‘Go On With One Nigeria’ motivation as well as the dictatorial psychology of military domination. I however believe that this is not the spirit in which Yakubu made his submission. According to the news report on his contribution at the conference, “The INEC Chairman noted that the people’s relationships and interactions predated British colonization and the amalgamation of what is now called Nigeria. According to him, these historical ties have only grown stronger and will continue to do so”.

    For him, the continued cohesion of Nigeria after a century and ten years of amalgamation is a desirable aspiration to be continuously and consensually nurtured and worked for, not a non-negotiable idea to be rammed down the throats of the component parts of the country. This is why both democracy and federalism must be continually deepened and strengthened as the indispensable imperatives for a united Nigeria predicated on voluntary association and not ultimately unsustainable compulsion. By all indices, the political, economic, cultural, geo-strategic, and psychological benefits and advantages of a united, democratic, and federal Nigeria far outweigh the uncertain outcomes and unpredictable consequences of a disintegrated polity.

    Some of those who oppose the continuity of Nigeria and contend that there is absolutely nothing ‘non-negotiable’ about any polity point to such collapsed federations as the defunct USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, or Sudan among others. But why should we make failed state-building experiments and not successful ones are our models of reference? Why not learn appropriate lessons from the factors responsible for the collapse of failed states so as not to experience the same avoidable sad fates in our own efforts at nation-building?

    There are those who still refer to Chief Awolowo’s famous description of Nigeria as ‘an artificial entity’ made up of diverse ethnic nationalities and thus not a nation in the true sense of the word to argue the case for the non-sustainability of Nigeria’s unity. The Sardauna, Sir Ahmadu Bello is also said to have observed, obviously at a moment of ill-tempered politics, that ‘the mistake of 1914’ had come to light following certain constitutional disagreements between the North and the South. But such statements cannot be justifiable bases for arguing for the viability or otherwise of the Nigerian state.

    As far back as 1973, for instance, the eminent political scientist, Professor Billy Dudley, had interrogated the accuracy of the claim of Nigeria’s artificiality. In his words, “In some respects, the boundaries of most of the African states are arbitrary; few of these states have a ‘common bond’ holding their people together, at least in the sense required either by Lord Hailey or Chief Awolowo. Nevertheless, it is only partially true and certainly not sufficient to warrant the charge of their being ‘artificial’. Dudley argued that in the precolonial era, there had been the creation of linkages among the various peoples that make up the area to be known as Nigeria through communication nets, trade, and the transmission of ideas before the imposition of imperial rule “thus making the notion of ‘Nigeria’ as a creation of the British so extremely misleading”.

    In his inaugural lecture evocatively titled ‘What Man has Joined Together’, delivered at the University of Ibadan in 2019, renowned political scientist and Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Professor Eghosa Osaghae, avers that Awolowo was right in arguing that Nigeria was not a nation in the sense that the Scots and Welsh, for instance, were in terms of a common culture, language and sense of belonging. However, according to him, “But that could not have been because Nigeria is a mere geographical expression. No state or nation is a natural construct. All states and nations are literally geographical expressions, but expressions given form, content, and character by the process of nation building”. In any case, are the Yoruba, Edo, Tiv, Igbo, Hausa-Fulani, and other components of Nigeria necessarily less artificial than Nigeria? Osaghae explores these and other issues relevant to our ongoing quest for a viable Nigerian entity 64 years after independence from colonial rule.

  • Nigeria at 64: What future for democracy?

    Nigeria at 64: What future for democracy?

    For the past several years, even before the commencement of this democratic dispensation in 1999, several military regimes and civilian administrations have been forced to organize what has been described as ‘low key’ celebrations to commemorate the country’s independence anniversary on October 1, 1960. It has not been different with the President Bola Tinubu administration which marked Nigeria’s 64th anniversary with a modest ceremony confined to the precincts of the Aso Rock Presidential Villa. All the states in the federation followed suit. The reason for the low profile independence anniversaries by successive administrations is the protracted economic crisis that has failed to respond to various policy medications with the vast majority of Nigerians sinking ever deeper into poverty despite their country being immensely endowed with natural, mineral and talented Human Resources.

    Taking the bulls by the horns and announcing far-reaching economic reform policies with respect to removal of fuel scarcity and merger of corruption enhancing parallel exchange rate markets, measures that preceding administrations had identified as necessary but couldn’t summon the courage to implement, the Tinubu administration is faced with fierce tempests of socioeconomic hardships being borne by Nigerians hoping that the pains will be essentially short term if it harnesses the courage to stay the course and ensure continuity in policy consistency and steadfastness.

    In one of his submissions in his book, ‘The Strategy and Tactics of the Peoples Republic of Nigeria’, Nigeria’s preeminent developmental and transformational leader, Premier of the Western Region in the First Republic, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, declared emphatically that man is the ‘Alpha and Omega’ of the universe; the generator of all productive activities and who should be the object of all meaningful development initiatives. In a way, Nigeria’s prolonged embrace of underdevelopment is a function of our failure to take this profound insight of the sage into account in the various developmental exertions of successive governments- authoritarian and democratic.

    The depth of our developmental failings is a measure of the extent to which we have neglected the maximal development of the potentials of each individual to enable their optimal contributions to the process of national transformation. Although he penned his treatise over five decades ago, Awolowo presciently recognized the gross danger that educational disparity between the North and the South posed to national stability and harmony. In his words, “It is now generally accepted that if we want to keep Nigeria United, and harmoniously so, the yawning gap in education between the north and south must be closed with the least possible delay, and immediate steps must be taken to this end”.

    This has become more imperative than ever before. Although the South has its fair share of violence and destabilizing dysfunctions, these pale into relative insignificance compared to the wave of banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, and religious extremism overwhelming the North; the region worst hit by the phenomena of multitudes of out-of-school children and pervasive poverty. So much for the lack of vision, ineptness, and venality of the region’s political elite, vices from which its Southern counterpart is not exempt even if it is implicated to a relatively lower degree.

    Read Also: Davido is Nigeria’s most endorsed artist – Soso Soberekon

    There are those who contend that the fundamental roots of Nigeria’s post-independence predicament are essentially economic. From this perspective, the challenges of mass poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, hunger, inadequate shelter, prevalence of disease, and large-scale unemployment among others throw up barely controllable pressures that destabilize the polity and engender social disharmony.

    The essence of the state as Plato noted is to enable those within its jurisdiction to meet their daily basic needs through superintending an efficient system of division of Labour. The social contract theorists, premised the obligation of citizens to obey the state on the latter’s capacity to fulfill its part of the social contract, especially the protection of lives and property, that undergirds the establishment of the polity. For the best part of the last 64 years, the Nigerian State cannot be said to have delivered to the citizenry the contractual obligations that is critical to the relationship between the government and the people particularly in a democratic polity.

    Patriotism cannot exist in the abstract with a people demonstrating fierce loyalty and fidelity to a geopolitical entity simply because they dwell therein. Rather, the state can have the moral authority to call on its people to ask not what their country can do for them but what they can do for their country, as President JFK Kennedy demanded at his inauguration in America in 1961, only if it has succeeded to a significant extent in fulfilling its responsibilities to the led.

    Yet there are still others who aver that at the core of Nigeria’s persistent post-colonial crisis is politics, deficient leadership, and a flawed constitution. If no meaningful attempt is made to address this superstructure of governance, hardly any breakthrough can be made in terms of economic recovery and sustainable development according to this school of thought. But then, as the Marxian perspective correctly contends, the political and constitutional superstructure rests on the economic substructure that has a determining influence on the former.

    When they visited President Tinubu at the Presidential Villa recently, The Patriots, a group of eminent Nigerians led by respected diplomat and statesman, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, called on the President to urgently work towards drawing up a new constitution for the country. As far as they were concerned, the socioeconomic and political dilemmas confronting the country today stem essentially from the flawed 1999 Constitution which they claimed was a military imposition and not a product of ‘We the people’ as it reportedly falsely advertises itself. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of a new constitution and everything shall be added unto you”, The Patriots confidently insinuated. Of course, President Tinubu’s response was that he would carefully consider his eminent visitors’ proposition but that the priority of his administration was to see its ongoing economic reforms to a logical and positive conclusion. Is constitutional change an indispensable condition for effectively addressing extant socioeconomic and political challenges? I don’t think so.

    For one, as has been previously pointed out in this space, it is not entirely accurate that the extant 1999 Constitution is an imposition of the military. Rather, the General Abdussalam Abubakar regime itself had committed itself to a short transition to a civil rule programme and could thus not afford the luxury of embarking on the exercise of drawing up a new constitution for the country. Thus, it bypassed both the 1989 and 1995 Constitutions, products of the discredited Babangida and Abacha regimes, and opted for the 1979 Constitution which constitutes the core of the 1999 Constitution.

    Although drawn up under the aegis of the Murtala Mohammed/ Olusegun Obasanjo military regime, the 1979 Constitution was the product of 49 of the country’s brightest and best lawyers, social scientists, academics and other experts who constituted the Constitution Drafting Committee and its proposals ratified by an elected Constituent Assembly with the then existing local government councils serving as electoral constituencies in which members emerged in non-party based polls. More importantly, the various ills identified under the presidential constitution of 1979 in the Second Republic as well as in this Fourth Republic from 1999 were also evident in the parliamentary constitution of the First Republic and these defects informed the jettisoning of the parliamentary constitution for the presidential constitution which we now operate.

    It is thus obvious that the problems, challenges and failings we have witnessed in post-independence Nigeria cannot be blamed on deficiencies inherent to either the parliamentary or presidential constitutions. Rather, the political culture of massive corruption in public office, ostentatious lifestyles of public officers, unbridled competition for political power with the attendant brazen rigging of elections, rabid ethno-regional sectionalism as well as political intolerance among others led to the collapse of both the First and Second Republics under two different types of constitutions. The problem is then fundamentally one of an immoral and perverse political culture which will contaminate any type of constitution even if enacted by angels.

    The belief that a constitution will be effective and ensure democracy and good governance if a majority of the people participate in its formulation is misplaced and excessively idealistic. In the first place, what percentage of any given population have the requisite knowledge and understand the nuances of constitution making well enough to contribute meaningfully to the process. It is my view that constitution making is intrinsically an elite-driven process. It is essentially the domain of a minority intellectual elite. In the making of the American constitution, for instance, the knowledge and expertise of the writers of ‘The Federalist Papers’ enabled them to have a preponderant influence on the ultimate outcome of the process.

    Can the extant 1999 Constitution, for instance, be blamed for the benumbing corruption and criminal profligacy of so many of our public office holders in the different arms and at all levels of government? Can the Constitution be the cause of the desperation witnessed during elections with parties and candidates eager to compromise electoral and security agencies or buy votes thus weaponizing poverty? Surely, the answers to these posers cannot be in the affirmative. Rather than rush to enact a new constitution or brusquely terminate the Fourth Republic after two and a half decades of unbroken democratic governance, we must continue to painstakingly strengthen our institutions- electoral, anti-corruption, and security agencies to attain continuously increasing autonomy, efficiency, transparency, effectiveness, and credibility.

    The capacity and independence of the legislature and judiciary at all levels must continue to be enhanced. Political education and enlightenment of the people by the major political parties as well as the National Orientation Agency (NOA) must be intensified. It is difficult to credibly dispute the fact, for instance, that, compared to the early elections of 2003 and 2007, recent elections in this dispensation have been far more credible even though mischievous election outcome deniers have also grown more vociferous. Nurturing and consolidating a mature democracy cannot be the equivalent of preparing instant coffee. It takes time, patience, resilience, and hard work, especially on the part of genuine change agents.

    The tempestuous and impatient young majors that torpedoed the First Republic in January 1966 due to the perceived flaws of the politicians set in process a spate of coups and counter coups with soldiers falsely posing as political Messiahs when they had not the slightest clue to solving the country’s multifarious problems. Nearly three decades of military dictatorship severely hobbled and undermined Nigeria’s political and democratic development. This is unlike India which, though no less complex culturally and socially than Nigeria and buffeted by serious political crises at various times, has never experienced a military coup thus enabling that country’s democracy to grow apace steadily and systematically.

    The problems of political and other forms of development will not respond to blind rage or wild emotionalism. Rather, a critical core of the citizenry must emerge with the capacity for cold, incisive reasoning as well as the skills and acumen to organize and mobilize citizens for change through legitimate democratic structures and processes.

  • The people are the answer (2)

    The people are the answer (2)

    As we noted in the first part of this piece last week, our title is an adaptation of a presidential address to the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA) in 1984 by noted political scientist, Professor Okwudiba Nnoli, titled ‘The masses are the answer.’ As he put it succinctly in his speech, “The truth is that Nigeria cannot be pulled out of its seemingly irreversible slide into economic disaster and unfathomable national humiliation without the active participation of the masses in the politics of their country”. It is not enough for technocrats and specialists to devise sophisticated policies to tackle prevalent economic problems. No less critical and imperative is the vast majority of the people buying into and fervently supporting an incumbent government’s reformist and developmental agenda if any.

    All too often, the multitude of the people are indifferent to and many times outrightly hostile to otherwise well-intentioned policies that are in the nation’s interest due largely to insufficient understanding. It must not be assumed that policy issues are too difficult or complex for the ordinary Nigerian to comprehend. Rather, It is the responsibility of those in government to make the majority of the people aware of our national goals and purposes as well as their indispensable role in achieving these objectives. This is particularly so as an unserious and visionless post-independence elite has over the years ignored its historic mission of providing mass education to lift the majority of the people out of illiteracy and ignorance and imbue them with political education and consciousness.

    The grave challenges confronting Nigeria today – poverty, disease, ignorance, hunger, mass unemployment, pervasive insecurity-among others cannot be overcome without mobilizing the totality of the people across partisan, ethnic, regional, religious and other sectional divides to be enthusiastic participants in the nation-building project. It is unrealistic and unhelpful to view our problems from a partisan prism solely. Before last week’s Edo State governorship election in which the APC candidate triumphed, some analysts had projected that the ruling party at the centre would be punished in the election for the hardships that the President Bola Tinubu administration’s policies had inflicted on millions of Nigerians. They were proven grossly mistaken.

    First, those who reasoned this way ignored the often-cited cliche that all politics is essentially local. Again, the hardships of today are largely a function of the omissions, acts of commission, venality and misbegotten policies of successive post-independence administrations not excluding the sixteen years of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) being in power at the centre between 1999 and 2015, a period during which humongous revenues from petroleum were not utilized more astutely to create a self-sustaining and regenerating economy. Furthermore, more people are now holding sub-national levels of government no less responsible for their economic plight than the centre given the humongous resources available to the former, especially with the near tripling of their allocations from the Federation Account since the removal of the fuel subsidy.

    Yet, the Edo election again amply confirmed the thesis that the majority of Nigerians are effectively delinked and alienated from the political process. Ever since the incremental and systematic introduction of technology into the conduct of various levels of our political process as from 2011, turnout of people to participate in the political process has continuously dwindled. Opportunities for fraudulent loading of electoral registers, multiple voting, fraudulent thumb printing of ballot papers and stuffing of ballot boxes have receded. Allegations of widespread vote buying by the major political parties in the Edo election demonstrated once again the deficiency of our political parties as vehicles of mass mobilization.

    Unable to galvanize people around clear-cut ideologies or philosophical principles, they have resorted to luring voters to the polling units with money and even then with negligible efficacy. For all the parties, their constitutionally stipulated organs are hardly functional. Party chapters at ward and local government levels – the most critical- are largely dormant and inactive. The political parties as organizations are thus marginal utilitarian assets to the governments they produce as they neither add value to public policy nor serve as an effective link between the government and the people.

    Read Also: Tinubu appoints seven new executive directors for NTA

    The parties formed by Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the first and second republics, the Action Group (AG) and Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), respectively, are still the best examples in post-colonial Nigeria of organizational discipline, effectiveness and vibrancy. The parties had trained Organizing Secretaries that ensured they were active at the grassroots and in touch with the people. This is no doubt why the governments elected on the platform of these parties were also at the forefront in terms of the implementation of progressive welfare policies for the greatest happiness of the greatest number of their citizenry. In the pre-independence era, the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) led the mass mobilization of the Nigerian masses that resulted in independence from colonial servitude.

    Ironically, it was a military regime, General Ibrahim Babangida’s government (1985-1993) that again took the issue of mass mobilization seriously even if it turned out that its political transition programme was actuated by devious ends. Its Mass Mobilization for Social Justice, Self Reliance and Economic Recovery (MAMSER), especially under the headship of Professor Jerry Gana, worked hard to galvanize Nigerians to participate in the regime’s transition programme as well as patronize made in Nigeria goods in pursuit of the self-reliance component of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). There must certainly be some link between MAMSER’s efforts and the success of the June 12, 1993, presidential election unfortunately annulled by the regime that birthed it.

    More than any other administration in post-independence Nigeria and especially since the democratic restoration of 1999, the Tinubu administration has the responsibility to mobilize the people maximally behind its efforts to transcend obstacles that had for decades hindered Nigeria’s progress. Previous administrations had balked at taking the necessary reform initiatives that the Tinubu administration had embarked on. But the resultant hardships for the vast majority are so harsh that the government must ceaselessly engage with the people and make them the bedrock of governance to tide current stormy weather. As this column has had cause to note a number of times in the past, the most critical organ for achieving this objective is the National Orientation Agency (NOA).

    Its role in helping to achieve the economic goals of the administration is no less vital than those of the core economic agencies. If we are to get millions of Nigerians to go back to the country’s abundance of arable land and produce food to combat the current food inflation and hunger, they must be mobilized. Significant sections of the populace must be sensitized and mobilized to consume and patronize local goods while aggressively producing domestic products for export to reduce importation, conserve foreign exchange and strengthen the value of our currency. Not even the battle to enhance the security of lives and property can be won without mobilizing the masses of the people to support and work in close collaboration with the security agencies.

    Again, the Tinubu administration must be as relentless in explaining its programmes to the people and courting their support just as its adversaries are bent on instigating uprisings and even openly advocating military intervention all because they refuse to come to terms with the outcome of an election they lost clearly. Apart from the scores of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Civil Society Groups (CSOs), many of which are elite money-making cartels, one important element of civil society that has not been sufficiently mobilized towards supporting and actively participating in government developmental programmes is the hundreds of thousands of artisanal and trade groups across the country. These associations of vulcanizers, carpenters, mechanics, traders, barbers and scores of others are well organized and meet regularly. They can serve as an effective source of public enlightenment and grassroots galvanization.

    Professor Nnoli may have sounded utopian at the time but there is something to take away from his submission that “In the political sphere the problem with Nigeria has been the total exclusion of the people from the political process. The small and middle- level subsistence farmers, rural-rüral farm migrants, plantation workers, industrial blue-collar workers, salaried workers on GL 01-05 and their equivalents in the private sector, day labourers, unemployed and layabouts, underemployed such as street hawkers, petty artisans including roadside mechanics, motorcycle and bicycle repairers, blacksmiths, welders, masons, carpenters, electricians, nightsoil men, petty traders, tramps including touts at the airports and motor parks, beggars and have been consistently excluded from politics”. As the examples of China, Russia, Cuba, India and other countries that have made a breakthrough to modernity show, ordinary people can be transformed from an inert mass to active developmental agents.

    A government that will successfully mobilize the majority of its people behind its inevitable but painful policies in hard times must, most importantly, enjoy their trust and confidence. Its leadership and members must be seen to be walking their talk and partaking of the sacrifices they urge on the populace. While receiving former presiding officers of the National Assembly at the presidential villa recently, President Tinubu made the noteworthy point that he was not in government for the money of Nigerians but to offer service. That is one of the most significant public pronouncements he has made since assuming office. As he contemplates his reportedly imminent cabinet reshuffle, he must ensure that his appointees at the highest levels of government are as committed to this ethic as he is both in words and deeds. That is an indispensable element for the support and fidelity of the people.

  • The people are the answer

    The people are the answer

    In his rumination on ‘Latest China-Africa Summit’, published in his column in this newspaper this week, eminent historian, diplomat, administrator, author and statesman, Professor Jide Osuntokun, discussed partly the pertinent lessons that Africa and Nigeria in particular can learn from China’s near-miraculous trajectory from the backwaters of humiliating underdevelopment to modernity and economic as well as military global power status in a few relatively short decades. According to Professor Osuntokun, “The phenomenal development of China within a living memory should be what our people should try to emulate. Borrowing money and opening our markets to all kinds of junks was not the Chinese way to development. The way the Chinese mobilized its huge population should be an example which a country like Nigeria can follow rather than importing all kinds of Chinese goods into our country. Instead of wasting our time and the little money we have on constitutional debates and writing and rewriting our constitutions, we should take our ploughs, hoes and cutlasses and go to farms with the aim of not only feeding ourselves but the rest of the world”.

    The Chinese,Japanese or Indian transformational miracles are replicable here if we have the right leadership that can harness, mobilize and unleash the energies of the vast but trapped potentials of the Nigerian people to actualize this goal within the shortest possible timeframe.

    Coming to power at perhaps the most critical and difficult period in the socio-economic and political history of Nigeria, the President Bola Tinubu administration, more than any of its predecessors, has the responsibility to mobilize the mass support of the people behind its manifesto tagged the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’. The administration is implementing two far reaching economic reform programmes – removal of fuel subsidy and substantial merger of the hitherto existing parallel foreign exchange markets- that have had unsavory consequences for the majority of Nigerians in terms of escalating inflationary spirals as regards cost of essential items like food, transportation, drugs and electricity among others and the consequent abysmal drop in living standards.

    The hunger experienced by large number of Nigerians has been exacerbated by continued large scale insecurity that has kept millions of farmers off their farms in the agriculturally fertile zones of the country. While a not insignificant number of Nigerians understand that the administration’s reforms are inevitable and that, in any case, all major political parties during the campaign for the last election, promised to remove the fuel subsidy in particular, the degree of current hardships make it easy for rabble-rousing opposition figures and their conspiratorial allies to sow seeds of alienation between the incumbent government and the people. It is therefore critical that the administration demonstrate beyond any scintilla of doubt in its expenditure patterns that it feels the pains of the people and that those in government are making sacrifices just as they are asking the people to.

    It is certainly no exaggeration to submit that the situation in Nigeria today is difficult to distinguish from a polity at war. There have been the sustained pitched battles resulting in a near stalemate between the armed forces and other security agencies on one hand and an assortment of criminal elements including terrorists, religious insurgents, kidnappers and bandits on the other. There is also the low-intensity warfare between the architects and managers of the administration’s economic reform agenda and entrenched vested interes determined to continue to benefit from a continued depreciation of the value of the Naira for instance. One must also mention the ferocious battle waged against thousands of innocent persons by an inclement and hostile weather and climate in many states in the country.

    Writing about his experience in managing the country’s economy during the civil war (1967-1970), the then Minister of Finance and Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, stated that “In any situation similar to the one in which we found ourselves where recurrent revenue trails behind fleet-footed expenditure, the obvious first line of attack is to economize, and maximize available resources. Unless this was in done and done with draconic firmness, it would be futile to raise additional revenue; and any claim to prudent financial management would be sheer reference”. The Tinubu administration and all sub national levels of government must take this admonition to heart.

    Read Also: Ibadan Circular Road: Oyo orders officials to stop marking, demolition of buildings

    For Nigeriia and other African countries experiencing similar conditions of debilitating and humiliating underdevelopment, what is the most critical factor necessary to overcome this obstacle to maximizing human potential m their respective jurisdictions? It certainly cannot be the variety and abundance of natural resources in the bowels of their earth. For,if that were the case, Africa should be one of the most developed areas of our contemporary world. Neither can it be the superfluity of liquid financial assets in their coffers. For, a military leader of Nigeria once declared that the country’s problem was not the availability of money but how to spend it. Yet, the humongous amounts reaped over the years by the country particularly from

    petroleum revenues have been either stolen or mindlessly squandered.

    Chinua Achebe, the great novelist and thinker, wrote nearly five decades ago that the singular most critical problem with Nigeria was a deficit of visionary leadership. Yet, there are those who contend that a follower-ship that does not demand higher ethical value and performance standards from its leaders is no less to blame for our continued tragic romance with backwardness. Even when we have had brilliant and competent leaders, their inability to inspire, motivate and mobilize their followers towards aspiring to and achieving a higher national developmental purpose is critical to understanding the persistence of underdevelopment in our polity.

    The title of this piece is an adaptation from that of an address to the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA) by the renowned political economist, Professor Okwudiba Nnoli in 1984 when he served as its President. It was a period immediately after the collapse of the Second Republic when prices of essential commodities hit the rooftops, the International Financial Institutions were advocating the removal of subsidies on social services including the pump price of fuel, tuition fees in higher institutions as well Medicare costs in the sector and governments at all levels were laying off workers in droves.

    Even as experts of all shades and hues were recommending a potpourri of sophisticated solutions to a national economic crisis that had become intractable and unresponsive to the policy medications of civilian administrations and military regimes alike, Professor Nnoli’s solution was simply and concisely captured in the title of his aforementioned presidential address: ‘The masses are the answer’. But all too often, members of our well educated elite classes look down on the masses and dismiss their political consciousness and awareness as inferior. Thus, the depository of developmental energy innate in them remains dormant, untapped and unexploited and the nation is the worse for it.

    As Nnoli graphically and vividly painted the picture of the plight of the Nigerian masses at the time, “The people are battered and buffetted. They are cheated and defrauded by the Royal Niger Company; killed, pacified and then insulted as primitive and barbaric «natives» by the colonialists; mesmerized and cynically manipulated by the petty bourgeois nationalists; sold to the cabinet system of government, bought back by the military, and resold to the presidential system; used as cannon fodder ,in a fratricidal war for petty bourgeois advantages; whipped with kobokos and assaulted in various dehumanizing ways by law enforcement agents; and fed with unappetizing propaganda meals of Operation Feed the Nation, Green Revo- lution, Ethical Revolution, War on Indiscipline and other illusory concoc- tions. They are socialized into the norms of philistinism and opportunism, bribed into disbelief and cynicism, and thoroughly alienated from their work

    and society. Today, they are an empty shell of themselves. There is no food, no water, no light, no drug, no education, no security. Simply nothing! They live a life of nothingness. And tomorrow? The beat goes on. Cheers for the music”.

    Does Nnoli not sound as if he is speaking of the poorest of the poor in contemporary Nigeria? Yet, the distinguished professor uttered those words four decades before the emergence of the Tinubu administration. The incumbent administration can thus not be blamed for its inherited multidimensional problems that weigh down the country. Yet, the great expectations that ushered it into power places on the Tinubu administration the responsibility of effectively mobilizing the currently inert millions of Nigerians to contribute their quota to the actualization of his Renewed Hope Agenda.

    Surely, the people appreciate the distribution of palliatives in the form of basic but expensive food items to them when these are allowed to reach the target groups of vulnerable Nigerians by a largely cynical and selfish political elite. But more importantly, the people can be mobilized on a large scale to grow food items in abundance not only for domestic consumption but also for export to earn ample foreign exchange. It is inexplicable and inexcusable for a country to possess large swathes of arable land as well as conducive weather to plant a wide variety of crops in diverse zones and yet have a sizable proportion of its able bodied young men and women idle, unemployed or chronically underemployed.

    In a number of states especially in the North, substantial numbers of civilians have signed up as members of joint civilian-military task forces to fight terrorists, bandits and religious insurgents. A good number of these volunteer civilians have perished in the course of service to their fatherland because they are poorly armed and motivated compared to the enemies of the country that they have sacrificed their lives to fight. Surely, the people can be better organized and equipped to be at the forefront of Nigeria’s dire quest for security of lives and property across the length and breadth of the country.

    The great sage, Obafemi Awolowo, averred four decades ago that “The crucial point, which I want our rulers, planners, and official advisers to note is that man is the sole dynamic in nature; and that accordingly, every individual Nigerian constitutes the supreme economic potential which this nation possesses. It is axiomatic that man can create nothing. But, by an intelligent and purposeful application of the exertions of his body and mind, he can exploit natural resources to produce goods and services for immediate consumption and for capital outlay. Therefore, other things being equal, the healthier his body and the more educated his mind, the greater will be his morale and the more efficient and economical he becomes as a producer and consumer”.

    This is why man must be the centerpiece, the be all and end all of President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. As time rolls remorselessly on towards the administration’s second term in office, it must do everything to get the people, not ethnic entrepreneurs or zonal godfathers on its side. This will be a function of its fidelity to its manifesto, the boldness and creativity of its policies and the efficiency of their implementation as well as its transparency, accountability and prudence in resource management. Ideally, the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress(APC) should be the administration’s closest link with the people and the most critical agency for mobilizing the grassroots in its support. But a party with organs that function only perfunctorily and haphazardly making it no more than an election-contesting machine can hardly play this role. But luckily for the ruling party, the major opposition parties do not appear to be any better in this regard.

    •To be concluded

  • Tunde Adeniran and the politics of WS (3)

    Tunde Adeniran and the politics of WS (3)

    After dwelling exhaustively and incisively on the politics of WS as depicted through his literary works, Professor Tunde Adeniran in other sections of the book focuses among others on associations as vehicles for the pursuit of Soyinka’s political goals, politics as a means of public service for the laureate as well as the episodes of crusading activism that routinely characterize his politics. Adeniran interrogates the tension between the characterization of Soyinka’s politics as highly individualistic and exemplifying personal acts of daring heroism and the numerous examples of the writer acting through associations of varying degrees of structural formalism or hierarchical rigidity to achieve set goals.

    Adeniran quotes the author’s late close friend and contemporary , Bola Ige, as averring that “He is an iconoclast…Wole is passionately patriotic but does his things his own way. He would take on a cause that he considered just and pursue it to any extent without caring whether you are with him or not”. He continues, “Yemi Ogunbiyi’s assessment of Wole Soyinka was similar to this, but he went further to assert that Soyinka was incapable of collective actions, illustrating with specific examples and with reference to his work that projects individual heroes or the heroic acts of some individuals”. And for another close friend of Soyinka, the late eminent economist, Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, he classifies the playwright “as an idea rather than an organization man”.

    Adeniran deftly summarizes and synthesizes these perspectives and it is difficult to disagree with his submission that “The greater percentage of Soyinka’s work certainly puts some emphasis on heroes and heroic acts but he has also shown persistent interest in organization, in the establishment of actualizing some political ideas. We do not wish to confirm or contest the validity of the view that his works reflect his personal choice, but an examination of the use to which Soyinka has put associations is vital to a fuller understanding of his own politics”.

    As Adeniran had noted in his reflections on Soyinka’s early years, the playwright’s political consciousness was partly nurtured and shaped by his close observation as a child of the Egba

    women organize and mobilize for rebellion against perceived injustices of the colonial and traditional authorities. The importance of efficient and effective organization in the attainment of set political goals could thus not have been lost on WS as he evolved both in chronological age and politically.

    It is pertinent to note in this regard that as a young undergraduate at the then University College, Ibadan, Soyinka inspired the formation of the Pirates Confraternity as an unorthodox association of students to fight against the stifling conventionalism, hypocrisy and colonial mentality prevalent on the campus at the time. The Pirates noted for their patriotic outlook, nationalist inclination, discipline and high ethical standards have survived the decades with their foundational values largely intact even when the idea of student confraternities has been substantially abused and perverted through the formation of what have been described as secret cults across institutions without the moral and philosophical motivations that undergirded the associational aspirations and value orientations of the pirates.

    Read Also: The sixth week of the 1xBet Cup Nigeria 2024: all the quarterfinalists are known!

    Despite some of his political interventions that seem reflective of daring acts of individual heroism such as his ‘invasion’ of the premises of the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation and replacing at gun point a recorded broadcast of his own for that of the much despised SLA Akintola administration which had mindlessly rigged the Western Regional elections, WS was certainly not acting as a sole Rambo Superman. Rather, in that and other acts of audacious resistance to the creeping fascism that had led to widespread anarchy in the West, in which Soyinka was a leading actor, he was always supported by a close knit circle of associates and collaborators who shared his political values and enjoyed his absolute trust.

    In organizing to resist and thwart the unhidden determination of Akintola’s unpopular Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) to rig the 1965 Western Regional elections irrespective of the will of the people, Adeniran writes that “Returning from the Commonwealth Arts Festival in Dakar to meet this situation, Soyinka who by then had changed base from the University of Ife to the University of Lagos, put an ad hoc group together to counter the plan or resist the dangerous imposition. He moved temporarily to Ibadan which was the main theatre of action and linked up with all categories of operatives (the police, telephone operators in different locations etc) which could facilitate the effectiveness of his group that comprised of individuals who distrusted politicians and their contrivances, and abhorred the NNDP in particular for all it stood for”.

    Adeniran cites some of the associational groups with which Soyinka was involved at various times to achieve specific political goals to include the ‘Third Force’ conceived to oppose the two belligerent sides during the Nigerian civil war and come up with an alternative plan to avert war and unite the nation; the Organization for Solidarity, Home and Abroad (OSHA), to demonstrate against the visit of then Head of State, to Great Britain in June 1973; the African Democratic League (ADL) established to promote political values or the Socialist Action Black Africa (SABA) created and nurtured in the early seventies to promote the political interests of Africa and the continent’s wellbeing.

    It is difficult to pigeonhole Soyinka in terms of the character and color of his politics which is why those who seek to taint him pejoratively as politically partisan are too often well off the mark and their efforts hardly credible. Soyinka’s politics is more pragmatic than ideologically doctrinaire. Though fully supportive of the 1964 national workers strike, for example, Adeniran writes that he was exasperated by leading Labour leaders “who maintained that bourgeois Nigeria had not attained the level of economic transformation that would make a take-over by the proletariat inevitable”. Soyinka’s response to those who argued this way was that “…You are text-bound…You ignore the special conditions of our post-colonial society; this is one revolution that will skip the bourgeois phase, and the moment is now, while the post-colonial order is not firmly entrenched, the power structure feeble, and mass discontent at its highest since independence”.

    Soyinka has been one of the most trenchant and acerbic critics of military rule in post-colonial Nigeria. Yet, he was known to be a close confidante of the former military governor of the Western Region after the January, 1966 coup, Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, who was known to have progressive and enlightened inclinations. Again, he agreed to serve as the founding Chairman of the Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC) under the General Ibrahim Babangida regime and utilized the opportunity to establish the corp as one of the most efficient, effective, disciplined, and productive public sector organizations in Nigeria. He threw all his energies and talents into his passion for drastically reducing the horrendous scale of deaths on our highways even though he voluntarily opted not to collect any salaries or allowances.

    Yet, once Babangida annulled the results of the June 12, 1993, presidential elections described as the freest and fairest in the country’s history and won by Chief MKO Abiola, thus effectively torpedoing the transition to democracy, Soyinka became one of the most vehement and uncompromising critics of the annulment and also of continued military dictatorship. From exile into which he had to flee from the hounding goons of General Sani Abacha, Soyinka deployed his immense intellect, moral integrity, and global goodwill at the forefront of the struggle to dislodge military rule and help restore democratic governance in Nigeria.

    Even though he was an ardent admirer of the great sage and unparalleled developmental and transformational leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Soyinka never joined any of the parties formed by the latter. Rather, in the Second Republic, for instance, he along with his compatriot and contemporary, Chinua Achebe, opted to join Mallam Aminu Kano’s Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) which had the most radical manifesto of the five registered political parties of the period. As we continue to celebrate WS’s epochal life at 90, Professor Tunde Adeniran’s reflections on his politics and the associated themes of power, justice, liberty, human rights, and dignity as well as social equity and the rule of law that characterize Soyinka’s thought, will surely offer rewarding and emancipatory reading.

  • Ogbomosho, Warri and Africa’s triple spiritual heritage

    Ogbomosho, Warri and Africa’s triple spiritual heritage

    It was the late great Ugandan political scientist, Professor Ali Mazrui, who dilated extensively on what he described as Africa’s triple spiritual heritage attendant on historical encounters that made the continent home to the three religious traditions of Islam, Christianity, and the diversity of African traditional religions. In Nigeria, Yoruba land is widely acknowledged as that part of the country where adherents of the three spiritual faiths enjoy harmonious and peaceful coexistence even within the same families. Yet, despite the impressive religious liberalism and tolerance obtained in the Southwest, there are still instances of tensions and complications among these three religious heritages that are critical to the analysis and evolution of society.

    The received religions of Christianity and Islam, which are by no means monolithic faiths but each encompassing contending sects and tendencies, have evidently edged the traditional religious practices to the background being essentially proselytizing and evangelizing spiritualisms contrary to the largely non-expansionist and lethargic disposition of the indigenous religions.

    Yet, substantial numbers of Nigerians and Africans still subscribe directly or indirectly to one form of traditional religious practice or the other. Diverse forms of occultist practices are rife in African societies. There are those who, often surreptitiously, practice assorted forms of syncretism that combine aspects of different religious observances. They are simultaneously at home in the church, with Islamic mystics, and can be found consulting Ifa priests and occult practitioners at odd hours. The resurgence of traditional religions in the Southwest is manifest in the recent decision of governments in the zone to formalize the celebration of ‘Isese Day’ which is a public holiday dedicated to the veneration of the various deities that make up the pantheon of Orisa worship.

    One interesting aspect of the cohabitation of the triple spiritual heritages in the Southwest is the growing number of traditional rulers who are ardent Muslim or Christian adherents. In several cases, the faith and religious practices of such traditional rulers who embrace one or the other of the received religions conflict with the ritualistic, primordial indigenous spiritual traditions that constitute the foundation of the ancient thrones. The most recent example of this kind of situation is the emergence of the new Soun of Ogbomosho, one of the key prestigious thrones in Yoruba land, Oba Ghandi Afolabi Olaoye, Orumogege 111.

    The new Soun had been a senior pastor at the RCCG before his call to the throne and installation on September 8, 2023. He was said to have accepted to vacate his pastoral calling to assume the role of monarch of the ancient community after immense pressure from those who had faith in the tremendous modernizing potentials his experience and talents portend for Ogbomosho. No less critical in the monarch’s decision to commence his new life trajectory was the go-ahead he received from his spiritual mentor, the revered General Overseer of the RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adeboye.

    Read Also: COAS harps on interagency communication, collaboration to decimate Nigeria’s adversaries

    Daddy GO reportedly admonished the Oba that his Royal calling was his God-ordained purpose on earth which he could not rightly seek to evade. Those who support this perspective believe that the ascension of a ‘born again’ Pentecostal Christian, a pastor of a major denomination like the RCCG for that matter, would be instrumental in containing and mitigating the influence of what Christianity perceives as the ‘heathen’ beliefs and practices associated with traditional African religion.

    It is noteworthy that several traditional rulers from the Southwest routinely attend the Holy Ghost services of the RCCG with their presence well publicized. These royal fathers also habitually grace the annual ‘Shiloh’ spiritual gathering of the Winners Chapel at Canaan land in Ota, Ogun State. But can those of these monarchs who claim to be genuinely ‘born again’ condone age-long traditional fetish practices in their domain, even if they do not directly participate in such, and still retain the integrity and sanctity of their newly proclaimed faith in Christ as Lord and Saviour?

    Let no mistake be made about it. The Pentecostal variety of Christianity is absolutist and ‘totalizing’ in its claims on the believer. Jesus Christ was uncompromising in his unparalleled declaration that “I am the truth, the way and the life and no one can come to the Father except through me”. No mortal ‘Kabiyesi’, which translates to he who cannot be questioned can coexist in Pentecostal Christianity with the supreme Kabiyesi, the creator and immortal monarch of the universe.

    Those I have discussed the monarchical politics of Ogbomosho with in the context of emergent spiritual developments around the throne affirm that Oba Ghandi Olaoye enjoys the unalloyed support and loyalty of the vast majority of his people. The only crisis faced by the throne is the conflict between the Pastor/Oba and the Chief Imam of Ogbomosho, Yunus Ayilara, which has resulted in a legal suit seeking the removal of the Muslim cleric as Chief Imam of the community. Rather, the monarch has appointed Ayilara as Chief Imam of the palace which implies that there is a vacancy for the post of Chief Imam of Ogbomosho.

    Declaring his support for Yunus Ayilara, another monarch, the Olugbon of Orile-Ogbon, Oba Francis Alao, submitted that traditional rulers lack the powers to sack religious leaders. The often extremist Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) described the Soun’s moves regarding the issue of Chief Imam of the town as a “subterfuge to weaken Islam, a strategy to enslave Muslims and a chicanery to exploit Muslim population of Ogbomosho.”There is no indication that the majority of Muslims in Ogbomosho support MURIC’s incendiary rhetoric.

    Yet, I am intrigued by Oba Ghandi Afolabi Olaoye’s understanding of the implications of Africa’s triple heritage for inter-religious relationships,  particularly the traditional institutions in Yorubaland. Speaking on the occasion of the installation of the new Chief Imam of the palace, the Soun was reported as emphasizing the importance of religious harmony stressing that the throne of Soun of Ogbomosho was rooted in traditional religion. In his words, as reported in this newspaper, “The throne is that of the traditionalists. Soun Ogunlola who founded the throne was a pure traditionalist; he worshipped Ogun deity. We Christians and Muslims are just intruding so to say; it originally belonged to the traditional religion worshippers so we should encourage religious harmony. It neither belongs to either of us Christians nor Muslims, they are only lending us the throne.”

    But with this profound insight, why would the Soun jettison a pastoral career to save souls for Christ that had spanned over 32 years to embrace a far less significant calling to be the monarch of his town; an institution that he admits rests on pre-Christian traditional worship? This is no less bothersome than those men of God such as Pastor Tunde Bakare or Reverend Chris Okotie who at various times have expended humongous financial resources, energy and valuable time in comically quixotic bids to become President of Nigeria.

    In my view, the divine call to be a fisher of men and a shepherd of human souls is far superior and of infinitely greater significance than any secular calling no matter how prestigious or highly placed. The divine and spiritual calling has eternal and not just temporal consequences and implications for man and society. Yes, the importance of politics cannot be underestimated. But eminent statesmen and women across the world in both advanced and underdeveloped countries are so obviously seeking in futility for solutions to the protracted problems endangering the future of humanity. We have all too many examples of intellectual giants who are pathetic moral pygmies and help compound rather than proffer workable solutions to the challenges of contemporary man.

    Citizens of the most scientifically and technologically advanced countries in the world confront dilemmas of purpose, significance, and meaning that generate social crises and destructive moral perversions on an industrial scale. I may be biased by my own spiritual inclinations but I believe that as the world, like the ill-fated titanic, hurtles at full steam towards disaster, the message and mission of Jesus Christ remain the most pertinent, relevant, and efficacious in resolving the human dilemma. Those entrusted with propagating this message must never underestimate or compromise the incomparable significance of the assignment.

    It is instructive that the first courtesy visit by the new Soun outside his domain, was to the Olu of Warri, Ogiame Atuwatse 111. Although not a pastor, the Olu is an ardent Christian who sees no conflict between his faith and his traditional role. His immediate predecessor, Ogiame Atuwatse 11, a staunch member of the Foursquare Gospel Church had, pursuant to his Christian faith, in 2018 issued a declaration that “Henceforth I submit and present the title ‘Ogiame’ to God the creator, who made the sea and rules over all. Therefore, no Olu or person may bear the title or worship that now belongs to God. I nullify all tokens of libation poured on the land and the seas or sprinkled into the air in Iwerre land. In conformity with the new covenant through the blood of Jesus, I release the Royal bloodline, the chiefs of the Iwere Kingdom, the Iwere people, and land, waters and atmosphere of Iwere Kingdom from all ties to other spiritual covenants and agreements” . This was copiously commented on by Segun Adeniyi in his column of 7 March, 2018.

    Of course, the immediate past Olu faced a near revolt from the majority of his tradition-bound people and the matter had to be resolved diplomatically to allow the people continue to adhere to their age-long traditional religious practices. The current Olu suffers from no such spiritual conflicts or contradictions. Thus, he told his guest, the Soun, that the traditional thrones and Christendom can coexist harmoniously playing complementary roles of promoting communal development.

    Indeed, in an interview on another occasion, the Olu, Tsola Emiko, says he was instructed by the Holy Spirit to stand before the oracle during his coronation. According to the monarch, “For instance, when it came to standing before the oracle, a lot of people felt that because I am a Christian I would not do it. However, I prayed about it and the Holy Spirit made it very clear to me not to be afraid. I was told to go and stand before it and I stood. I believe that the spiritual world can be accessed by anyone of any faith. If one shies away from the spiritual world because one is afraid or because one is not aware of how it operates, one will lose out on a lot of good things that God himself has destined for one”. Can the canons of Pentecostal Christianity coexist harmoniously with perceived fetish practices of traditional religion at the core of Royal institutions? That is one of the dilemmas of Africa’s triple spiritual heritage.

  • Tunde adeniran and the politics of ws (2)

    Tunde adeniran and the politics of ws (2)

    Although a political science scholar with specialization in international relations and strategic studies, Professor Tunde Adeniran’s deep immersion in the literary works of Wole Soyinka as illustrated vividly and lushly in this book, ‘The Politics of Wole Soyinka’ and in the arts as a whole across space and time is astonishing and impressive. In some ways this book reminds me of the intellectual memoir of Professor Tunji Olaopa, a political scientist, public administration scholar and practitioner and one of Nigeria’s leading experts in public sector reforms, who is yet deeply versed in philosophy and the humanities.

    Indeed, I remember a discussion Professor Olaopa and I had many years ago during our postgraduate studies at the University of Ibadan when he said he would love to pursue his doctoral research based on the works of Soyinka. It was my view at the time that it would be a near cross-disciplinary impossibility given the structure of academia in the country. But Olaopa was thinking well ahead of the times . We now live in a world in which the strict disciplinary boundaries between spheres of scholastic specialization has virtually disappeared and we now have pervasive interpenetration of subject areas and research enterprises.

    I must confess that in my studies and readings as a student of political science, Professor Wole Soyinka’s works particularly his political/personal memoirs – ‘The Man Died’, ‘Ibadan, the Penkelemesi Years’, ‘Ake: Years of childhood’ and ‘You must set forth at Dawn’ – have had as much influence on my mental consciousness as my teachers in political science at the University of Ibadan have. Soyinka’s works in content and style cut across and have bearings on diverse areas of knowledge including literature, the arts and humanities, philosophy, politics, sociology and religion. Professor Adeniran’s work while concentrating primarily on the politics of the Nobel laureate is also an exciting and arresting introduction to the multifaceted complexities of the mystifying persona of one of the most dynamic and versatile intellectuals of our time.

    There are two aspects of the politics of WS that come to the fore in Adeniran’s book. First, there is the phenomenon of politics as a universal aspect of human endeavor as depicted in the creative works of the writer in the diverse genres of drama, poetry or fictional prose. Whether he is writing of the conflict between tradition and encroaching modernity in transitional societies or the comical duplicities of fake and hypocritical religious figures in the Trials of brother Jero or indeed depicting and denouncing the villainous atrocities, inhuman brutalities and venal proclivities of dictatorships in contemporary Africa, politics looms large in the imaginative universe of WS. Second, is WS’s obvious fascination with and relentless personal forays into politics at diverse times in his ongoing epochal odyssey through life. What are the contrasts and/or contradictions between Soyinka’s portrayal of the sordidness of politics in his literary oeuvre and his own political ideals, personal examples and actual praxis?

    In chapters 5, 6 and 7, of this book, Adeniran explores the writer’s politics through the plays, poetry and novels of Wole Soyinka. Exploring and analyzing a good number of the about 15 published plays of Wole Soyinka at the time he was writing, Adeniran teases out the author’s attitudes and inclinations towards politics in these dramatic offerings of the playwright. Of the plays, Adeniran writes, “One is struck by the regularity of some features, especially the fascination with myth, the constant commentary on religion and the poetic tone and structure of his dramaturgy. Of the fifteen plays available to the public either through publication or performance, it is the vibrancy of most of them, the inevitable attempt to explore the inner recesses of man and the satirical portrayal of human values as they come under his appraisal and (or) condemnation that readily project themselves. Beneath these and the gusto and humour in the plays, however, are the political elements of rebellion and change, or the need for them in societies that are largely traditional, retrogressive and intimidating”.

    Of signal import to me in this chapter was Adeniran’s analysis of Soyinka’s play, ‘A Dance of the Forests’, which was one of the official commemorative performances to herald Nigeria’s independence in 1960. For some inexplicable reason, I had not had the opportunity to read the play as it is not included in the collections of Soyinka’s plays that I have and neither is it available even in some of the best bookshops. However, Adeniran’s exhaustive narrative and discourse on the play is helpful and further whets the appetite for a desire to read or watch the actual play.

    As Adeniran writes, “Unlike in ‘The Swamp Dwellers’ and ‘The Lion and the Jewel’, the political content of ‘A Dance of the Forests’ is neither subtle nor illusory. The political history and development of the time, the late fifties and the decades to follow, are mirrored to the society through “the gathering of the tribes festival”. Soyinka was still in London at the time many African states were granted independence. He witnessed the rush to return home, the native land, by the so-called nationalists who were anxious to head homewards and grab the positions that would be vacated by the colonialists. His misgiving about such a rush without deliberate plans or well articulated programmes regarding what to do with the powers that would devolve to them or to be assumed must have motivated him in writing ‘A Dance of the Forests’.

    Read Also: Alex Okoroji exchanges marital vows on 40th birthday

    It is indeed astonishing that the myth-suffused, complicated and anti-status quo play was chosen as one of the landmark events for the country’s independence. No less striking is the playwright’s foresight, his keen political sensitivity and insights into the challenges, structural , cultural and behavioral, ahead of the then newly independent states of Africa. Similarly, Adeniran meticulously analyzes such Soyinka poetry collections as ‘A Shuttle in the Crypt’, ‘Idanre and other Poems’ and ‘Mandela’s Earth and other Poems’ to draw out the political stimulations for and import of the poems.

    He categorizes Soyinka’s poems into four parts, those based on the poet’s personal experience, those predicated on the experiences of other individuals, poems informed by events in Nigeria and ‘universal poems echoing the human condition’. He surmises that “Soyinka’s mind captures the universe with relative ease as he uses poetry to promote genuine popular causes and project a truly democratic spirit. While his poems are generally not of the same mood, the political ones among them are tied by a tissue of relevance, and the messages are in the tradition of poetry aimed at the good of the polis and based on some universalistic political vision that also recognizes self and communal identities. The poetry comes out as a product of conscious thought, in the Platonic tradition, and as some stimulant to confront, mediate, expose, assail or overcome some historical experience“.

    •To be concluded

  • Petroleum and Nigeria’s underdevelopment conundrum

    Petroleum and Nigeria’s underdevelopment conundrum

    Once again, we are back to where we have all too often found ourselves in our developmental trajectory nearly six and half decades after the attainment of flag independence. I refer to the return of fuel scarcity, the resultant long queue of vehicles at fuel stations in towns and cities across the country with dire consequences for economic productivity, the inexplicable hide-and-seek game by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on the root cause of the problem before its belated admittance of its humongous indebtedness to oil marketers and, again, another round of increase in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) signaling further negative implications for inflationary spirals. I have lost count of the number of times that the pump price of fuel has been raised since my youth as successive administrations purport to remove a seemingly never-ending subsidy attendant on the continuous exportation of crude oil with which the country is abundantly blessed and the importation of refined petroleum at humongous cost.

    In the run up to the last presidential election, the major presidential candidates all pledged to remove the subsidy which one of them, Peter Obi, claimed he would do on day one if elected, describing the scheme as an elaborate scam. Yet, with President Bola Tinubu taking the decision on his inauguration on May 29, last year, to remove the subsidy, an unpopular policy option his predecessor had kicked down the line, his defeated opponents in the last election – Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi- have opted to play politics with the issue grandstanding that they could have pursued a different path. In truth, the country had hardly any room for maneuver. A sinister and cynical cabal had seized on the inexcusable non-functioning of local refineries for decades to turn the importation of refined petroleum into an expansive criminal self-enrichment enterprise.

    The option of the government continuing to bridge the gap between the combined associated costs of fuel importation and the relatively affordable price it was sold to consumers was unsustainable. The government had had to resort to incurring humongous debts in foreign loans to fund its operations with sizable amounts of dwindling total revenues dedicated to debt servicing.

    But at the time President Tinubu announced the ‘final’ removal of the subsidy, the new administration was not totally in the picture as regards the sharp decline in volume of crude oil production due to industrial scale oil theft, the large amounts of crude oil that had been sold upfront in the futures market with the revenue collected and expended in advance and, of course, the deceptive illusion of expectations that the Port Harcourt refinery would be functional by April 2024 as repeatedly confidently affirmed by chief executives of the NNPCL. The new target date of the Port Harcourt refinery commencing local refining and sale of fuel was set for August and yet we are now in September and there is no indication of the pledge being redeemed anytime soon. Remarkably, the NNPCL celebrated its achieving what it considered to be an appreciable level of profitability in the last financial year only for its huge indebtedness to oil marketers responsible for the current acute scarcity of fuel across the country to be made public. Is this not a contradiction in terms – high profitability co-existing with humongous indebtedness?

    Read Also: ‘Govt investment in public transportation solution to petroleum crisis’

    Only the mischievous and crassly partisan would blame the a little over one year in office Tinubu administration for the complications, challenges, and mostly self-inflicted woes of the petroleum industry and the associated sufferings inflicted on the Nigerian people as exemplified, for example, by the fresh fuel price increases. Yet, the administration must take it as a cardinal responsibility to undertake a surgical organizational procedure on the NNPCL to sanitize and reposition the company to offer productive service to the Nigerian people. The NNPCL should not be immune from the kind of forensic audit conducted on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in the aftermath of Godwin Emefiele’s reign of impunity for which he is currently facing the due process of law.

    Despite the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the purported transition of the oil behemoth into a private company, its operations and processes are widely believed to be as opaque as ever. Some experts contend, for instance, that the cost of producing a barrel of crude oil in Nigeria is the highest in the world. The controversial but knowledgeable Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has publicly averred that the efforts of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, and the CBN governor, Mr Olayemi Cardoso, cannot bear optimum fruit without a more transparent operation of the NNPCL and a more accurate data on the country’s crude oil sales and attendant revenues.

    The quagmire in which our petroleum industry finds itself today was quite avoidable had the country’s leaders at various times listened to and worked more closely with Nigeria’s conscientious and patriotic progressive intellectuals. For instance, as far back as 12th February, 1971, the late Dr Bala Usman had, in a paper titled ‘Petroleum in the Economy of Nigeria’ had undertaken an incisive analysis of the problems and prospects of an industry so critical to the country’s development. As he put it then, “All the proposals and plans for post-war Nigeria are based on certain assumptions about our oil. From the government which, according to its Commissioner of Finance, expects a revenue of several hundred million, to the foreign businessmen licking their lips and assuring us of our rosy economic future, to the ordinary man and woman – oil has become a basis for optimism about the future. This widespread awareness of our wealth in oil is combined with gross ignorance about the operations of the petroleum industry and its international context.”

    It is the unfortunate truth that ignorance about the operations of the country’s petroleum industry including the actual amount of crude oil extracted from the bowels of our earth and sold as exports by the oil multinationals has persisted for the most part of our post-independence history. In his submission over five decades ago, Bala Usman had pointed out not only the impunity of the international oil companies in their mode of operation in the country but even the reckless flaring of gas which he had identified as a major problem even then. In his words, “Put against the great potentialities of the oil industry as a generator of both industrial and agricultural growth in the whole of our country, what we have gained so far from the industry is paltry. The government in the seven years 1958 to 1966 received a sum of £68.7 million, cash, since that time this sum might now total up £150 million. A few Nigerians (actually about 5,000) have got jobs, mostly semi-skilled and unskilled. A few contractors have made a fortune. But the price of petroleum products from petrol and kerosene to fertilizer, drugs and nylon have gone up. The crude oil is sucked out of our sub-soil, piped straight to the tankers and taken straight to Britain and Western Europe to feed their expanding refineries and petrochemical works and fuel their industries”.

    Of course, there is a lot that has changed in the petroleum industry terrain since Bala Usman penned those words. It has generated much higher revenues for the economy over the years but the developmental impact of this has been mitigated by astronomical corruption. The Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas Company (NLNG) has emerged as a viable, profitably and relatively efficiently run company indicating better utilization of the country’s gas resources and with many suggesting this as a model for the NNPCL to follow. To some extent, the current travails of the petroleum industry are also partly a function of the perhaps inevitable politicization of what ought to be essentially purely technical economic public policy issues. On the decision to construct the Kaduna refinery, for instance, Cliff Edogun, in his study, ‘The structure of state capitalism in the Nigerian petroleum industry’, noted that “The issue was whether another expensive refinery situated hundreds of kilometers from crude source was necessary, especially when the mode of withdrawal was to depend on pipelines that are vulnerable and subject to sabotage. The technocrats were arguing for cost-saving but the bureaucrats concluded that it would be politically expedient to site a refinery in Kaduna to justify federal character”.

    The roll out of locally refined petrol this week by Dangote Industries Limited is good news from an embattled sector but the much sought-after relief that this is expected to provide consumers may not be immediately forthcoming due to continued inefficiencies and opacity in the industry as well as complications associated with the interplay of market forces. Beyond this, how much of the monumental Dangote Refinery is reflective of local knowledge and domestic mastery of the industry’s technology thus stimulating confidence in Nigeria’s enhanced capacity to autonomously optimize its potentials for the country’s future transformation?

    Even as we daily suffer from our incapacity to refine crude oil locally, we read and see daily in the media how security agencies ceaselessly destroy hundreds of illegal refineries operated by enterprising locals to refine the commodity admittedly in a rudimentary and crude manner. But can’t they be empowered with the requisite skills to refine the crude more professionally and thus add their output to our legal stock of local capacity? I recall once again the words of the late Professor Pius Okigbo at the First Obafemi Awolowo Foundation Dialogue in 1993 that during the civil war, the Biafran scientific community, among other feats, “succeeded in building out of entirely locally fabricated materials a giant petroleum refining facility and thereby made the technology so diffuse and more universally understood and applied than anywhere else in the world”. Surely this should not be unattainable rocket science to us in today’s Nigeria.