The Nation Newspaper

Category: Oyinkan Medubi

  • Not just another castigation of Caesar …

    It is to be taken that the people voted for the person of their choice. Like Pilate, I dare to proclaim that I find no harm in that. What I find galling is for an elected governor to promise to give people rice and chicken and there is jubilation

    Watching the trends of politics in this country is an exercise in futility: it leaves you with dizziness, and an incurable sense of loss, deprivation and self-depreciation. You go away wondering whether you really belong to the same group of homo sapiens as politicians. The reason is simple. Since 1999 when we got into this Horror Boat of Politics, we have stood by and watched politicians call each other names; yet, we have been the ones bathed in their spittle. We have seen politicians display power drunkenness worse than that which alcohol and drug can induce; yet, we have been the ones set on fire. We have also stood by and watched politicians move all our monies to all kinds of banks abroad (and not even on our behalf); so, we are the ones holding our stomachs in hunger. After all is said and done, and the many volumes of spittle, power displays and trillions of dollars, where exactly are we standing in 2014?

    I’ll tell you where we are not. The ordinary Nigerian is still not standing on a railway platform to board a train of comfort to any part of the country; or underground train to reach his part of the city; or an air-conditioned bus to take him to his doorstep. Right now, chaos still reigns as he is huddled onto and into uncomfortable motorcycles, taxis and tiny intercity buses while the politicians ferry each other around in jets, swilling champagne. And they don’t even call me.

    The ordinary Nigerian cannot get back home at any time in the day from the labours of his hands and flip his switch to flood his humble hut with electricity. He is still left to the mercies of noisy, carbon monoxide-emitting generators, candles and lanterns while politicians power their own private homes with public transformers.

    The ordinary Nigerian cannot be soothingly assured by friendly doctors and nurses (who are supposed to have all needed equipment but don’t) that everything necessary will be done for him should he fall sick. Currently, he is consigned to the hands of quacks and donations from passing motorists to finance his cancer treatment while politicians jet around the world in search of cures for headaches and sneezes.

    Worse indeed, the ordinary Nigerian is right now standing mystified and wondering how he will prosecute the war of hunger left at his doorpost by successive governmental inefficiency. Should he continue to watch politicians gorge themselves to stupid stupor in the hope that someday, crumbs will fall under the table? Or should he beg, steal or borrow to keep body and soul together? Or should he just adopt Fayose’s stomach infrastructure style?

    Listening to Fayose’s inaugural speech actually made my mouth water. The new governor not only acknowledged the existence of his stomach infrastructure programme but promised to intensify it. There will be, he promised, a special assistant in charge of stomach infrastructure. He also promised that he would continue to join the people in their corn eating habits and in their agbo-jedi drinking habits. Then, to crown it all, there will be rice and chicken at Christmas. Wonderful, I thought; there goes a rough and tumble fellow. Indeed, there, by the grace of God, goes a fitting response to the World food Day programme, which is being celebrated somewhere hereabouts, before or after today, don’t know which now.

    Here we are, thinking that in this twenty-first century, Nigerians as a people can actually be thought to have grown up a little, and should be treated as adults. We thought that the advancement of Ekiti in producing and possessing perhaps the highest concentration of knowing ones would be an advantage. And there was his excellent self, the governor, proclaiming to the hearing of the whole world that indeed, the exalted Ekiti electorate are still in their young infancy and so will be treated as such!

    Does it strike His Excellency as an anomaly that while the rest of the world is acquiring magnetic trains to ferry its citizens around, Nigerians are ferried around on thin-tyred motorcycles? Does it matter that in most parts of the world, people can help themselves to good food and so do not need to be given cups of rice and chicken at Christmas by politicians? Does it matter that it is the absence of governance that makes people to be grateful for cups of rice and chicken at Christmas? Does anything even matter anymore when a governor can promise at his inauguration to give us rice and stew at Christmas? Does the whole scenario not indicate that we have reached the end of the road, the end of our collective wisdom, the end of our grey matter?

    It is the more frightening when one considers the jubilation that greeted these pronouncements. It called to mind the mindless revelry that the Romans derived from watching lions and gladiators slug it out in the Roman arena of yore. Were those Romans to wake up today and view themselves in retrospect, they would agree that they were a little barbaric, not just because the people allowed the scenes to take place, but because they allowed themselves to enjoy them so. That basic, elemental level appears to still be driving the people of Ekiti.

    Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not an advocate for any Nigerian political party. At the moment, the difference between PDP, APC, APGA and any other is really no more than what separates six from half a dozen. It is to be taken that the people voted for the person of their choice. Like Pilate, I dare to proclaim that I find no harm in that. What I find galling is for an elected governor to promise to give the people rice and chicken and there is jubilation and rejoicing! I just hate that I’m not in Ekiti right now!

    Seriously, though, the situation is a sad comment on the impoverishing programmes of this present crop of politicians and, horror of horrors, our responses to them! Those responses portray our thought processes as a nation. I have, however, not come to castigate our Caesars, neither have I come to praise them. I have come to wake them up from their soporific slumber lest they snore us all into the grave.

    Take Ekiti as an example. It is a very poor state yet very rich in educated personnel, I have heard. I also know that the state does not have industries even though it has a long history of farming. Now, all we need is for someone to come and mix the educated personnel with the products that come from farming, and voila, what will you get? Industries, employment, exports, hello…?! An industrial revolution is possible in Ekiti and other states as well.

    A priest once gave someone a horse and he admonished that it should not be beaten since it will respond to a gentle ‘Girrup’. The new owner tried many ‘Girrups’ but the horse would not budge. So he went back to the priest and that one took a stick and walloped the horse, whereupon the thing flew. Aghast, the new owner said ‘but you said I was not to beat it!’ ‘Yes,’ said the priest, ‘but first, you have to get his attention.’ The new governor in Ekiti has got the people’s attention; let him now quickly take advantage of it and revolutionise the economy of the state. He would do well to remember that appetites are quickly satiated when the menu is too repetitive. Trust me, I know. Fayemi also had his share of jubilation and rejection. The same cane awaits.

  • Not yet ‘Happy Birthday’ to Nigeria!

    For how long can we as parents bear a child’s perpetual misconduct without exasperatingly crying out, ‘when will you learn?’

    I received the following missives, among other responses, on the last but one piece done on this column. As usual, I have done some editing to make them readable without interfering with the senses contained in them.

    Nigerian soldiers that are not enough to deploy to Sambisa are now being used as politicians’ guards, mostly PDPs’. Come to Port Harcourt, you will see them in their tens/twenties in the houses of Senator George Sekibo, Evans Bipi and the rest of them. They are there idle just to intimidate opposition and ordinary civilians in the area… they have properties even where they are not sleeping. Instead of having general security for all the citizenry we are having selective security for a few that are living on our collective wealth. Living opulent lifestyle, giving orders to soldiers like houseboys… That is why the soldiers are also angry with what the politicians under this administration are gaining without doing the right thing. Thomas, Port Harcourt. 2347034545566.

    …I am in total support of your postscript… In Ibibio dialect, (it) says, “Owo oto odiok” meaning “someone must have done something provoking to stir another person’s anger”. I agree with you, the said sentenced soldiers must have been ill treated before they reacted that way. The army must be merciful. Thanks… Keep up the fight. 2348172101241.

    …I love reading your pieces, not because of the truth they contain but because your writings are readable. If your writings put a few things aside and devote their flows towards reality instead of assumptions and perceptions, you will be the fine writer that you are. Please ma, consider just this one theory: do you change the goalpost in the middle of the game? The other issue is, why was the military able to effectively rout the delta insurgents swiftly and yet could not the boko haram despite the fact that both operated guerilla warfare tactics with the same military arsenal? Some things just don’t add up here. Kedi. 2348027795840.

    Your piece of work in ‘The Nation’ is interesting. Come to think of it, the legislature is to be blamed for not reviewing the Military act to conform with the present dispensation of Democratic settings… Danladi, Enugu. 2348078092205

    Honestly, it is great to have friends like you. Here you are, busy chewing the curd but proving in the end you have been listening to me all the while, and here I am thinking I have been mumbling to myself like a cow on holidays. However, I want to disagree with all those who have agreed with me; kindly go and have your own ideas. I also want to inform the gentleman who is a little miffed with my writing style: I am very proud of my writing sins; they make me stand out from the rest of you saints. Now, where will I be without my assumptions and presumptions and perceptions and all the umptions, eh, where?

    Seriously though, we are clearly living in dangerous times, are we not? Just look at us all, begging the army to have mercy on the condemned soldiers because we don’t understand a thing, and look at the Chief of Defence Staff proclaiming for all to hear that next time, trials and execution of erring soldiers will take place in the bush! Now, that’s scary! In other words, the man was complaining about the overly much civilian opposition to the death sentence the military tribunal passed on the twelve erring soldiers. Now, what did he expect?

    Here are ‘bloody civilians’ who normally squirm at the sight of blood (irony, eh?), being forced to watch as some unrepentant, disgruntled group persists in turning Nigerian streets to rivers of innocent blood. Then we hear the army wants to execute soldiers for misconduct! And there is his strong, holy self expecting us to be quiet about it and not to panic as if he were saying, hey people, don’t worry; we just want to shoot a few soldiers dead for being such cowards in the face of boko haram attacks, that’s all. I ask you!

    We maintain on this column (and you are permitted to agree with me today), that the army opened this door of unprofessional conduct. There is a saying that you teach best when you live your teaching. The army’s code of existence is vastly different from that of the civilians’. That is why soldiers (paid from public funds) should not be used for political games; that includes being made to guard politicians (who live on public funds) or other rich people. Sir, that amounts to double jeopardy for the public.

    In Nigeria, it is common to believe that leadership does not involve sacrifices. As a matter of fact, the common perception is that leadership involves enjoyment. This is what makes everyone believe that whatever subvention is sent to his/her office can only be called a subvention after his/her own personal needs have been deducted from it. Unfortunately, everyone’s psyche has come to be tuned towards that, including both the military and civilian units. Those soldiers would not have been in the logjam they are in now if people had duly carried out their responsibilities at their duty posts.

    This is why I believe that everyone who greeted this country happy 54th birthday has merely wasted his or her breath. For how long can we as parents or adults bear a child’s perpetual misconduct without exasperatingly crying out, ‘when will you learn?’ Sadly, we said it before, and others have also said it, Nigeria has not learnt anything at fifty-four; and it seems to have also forgotten very little of its ancestors’ errors. Nay, it has perfected them, because everything that can be wrong is wrong in this country.

    Very well, I say, in order to qualify for my own greeting, I believe there are three basic lessons this country needs to learn. First and foremost, it must learn that the world is really too small for bigotry. Everyone in Nigeria, born and unborn, is entitled to live a happy life in this country. The duty of her leaders is therefore not just to make themselves, their race, tribe, or religion comfortable but to make all comfortable. In many states now, I hear that governors distribute infrastructures to only their favoured tribes, races or religions. So, electricity goes only to the villages they like; roads are tarred only if the beneficiaries are of their tribe or religion… oh please!

    It also needs to learn that the comfort of the least person is the safety of all. Believe me, anyone who targets only his/her group to receive the services coming from his position has no idea what need is. The person who may one day meet his/her need in an emergency may actually be his/her perceived ‘enemy’. Just ask those at the war front. I recall telling you about the soldier who left off shooting at the enemy for one brief moment just to free a groaning enemy soldier trapped on a barbed wire. Pain does not know politics or religion.

    Lastly, we need to realize that we have no country until we learn that every position is a link in the chain of life and that the strength of the country lies in the strength of that office. Our collective failure has been the refusal to acknowledge this fact. Failing to teach a student well is preparing his failure as a manager. He will serve customers badly, and those will also serve others badly in their own places of work… the chain is endless. A child once greeted a man heartily until he learnt the man was a doctor. Remembering all the injections he endured before, he said he was withdrawing his hand and his greeting. My birthday greetings stay with me until this country learns.

  • The Teachers’ Reckoning

    Once, I attended a wedding where the chairman of the reception was the bride’s primary school teacher

    What time has come again this year, dear reader, when we take time off the disturbing business of Nigerian politics, which is even now beating the drums of ethnic wars, religious wars and other incredibly asinine wars, and foray into something more cheering. It is time once again to don our skirts and sneakers, brush our pompoms and shekere, take our stand by the edge of the playing field and get ready to shake it for that special group of people we celebrate come every October: the teacher. Today is teachers’ day. Huh! Come on, shake that shekere for all teachers!

    What? I can’t hear you. What have they done to deserve it? Now wait a minute here, will you?! I’ll give you many reasons why they deserve it. Just last week, I found myself passing through a Nigerian city where I was shown a house under construction belonging to a senator or a House of representative member – don’t know which. I was told that the house had been under construction for the past one year, with workers working in and on it day and night. Along the way, I also saw many other houses whose architectural designs and constructions defied any particular explanation other than the fancy that says ‘so much money; so little sense’. I just thought: how many teachers can afford that kind of self-indulgence?

    I have always considered that you can always know a politician’s house from every other. One: the typical politician’s house is often big and very obscene. They have things called wind breakers, visitor breakers and all kinds of breakers. Two: they are often impractical. Good thing we do have something called second value here. Many of the houses built now cannot be resold so easily should the need arise. Unfortunately, I’m sure we know those who have conked off as soon as they finished their elaborate edifices. Anyway, when I wondered where all the money could be coming from, I was told that the constituency allowances of our elected politicians meant for community development efforts are often used to develop personal monuments. Again I ask, how many teachers in this country have even those wind breakers to shield their heads?

    At a later forum the same week, I heard a very disturbing story. An elected politician had visited a school where he found that the classrooms were windowless, sandy (because the flooring had scraped off), and bare of any furniture. Worse, the school pupils were in tattered uniforms. He then set off to do something about it: he installed windows, renovated the rooms and furnished them to his satisfaction. He then kitted the pupils properly in new uniforms.

    As the story goes, he returned to a resumed house to face the consequences of his action. He was roundly upbraided by his colleagues for showing them up. Oh yes, said his colleagues, they had heard about his Good Samaritan job. Who sent him? What was he trying to do: make them look bad in the eyes of the public? Didn’t he know that the meaning of that constituency allowance? Constituency allowance, they patiently explained to him only because he was a first offender, is for you and your family. Come next time, they let him know, they would not be so easy on him. Now you know why classrooms are dreary here.

    I am told that Nigeria has become so advanced that the rather advanced enjoyments we normally associate with the more technologically advanced western world, have been brought right to our doorstep. Previously, they said, politicians and other government functionaries used to be taken abroad and introduced to behaviours that signified change in levels. Now, there is no need to go that far. When a politician is elected, I am told, there are bars in nearly every Nigerian state capital where he can be taken to be introduced to the good life. There, he is waited on by all kinds of topless bar maids, in terms of clothing that is. You got it: if it’s in my city, it’s likely to be in yours too; and they are mostly patronized by politicians.

    Now, this is the point. Our schools are suffering because our politicians are too busy acquiring and upping their tastes in buildings, acquisitions and good living to pay attention to state matters. I don’t know about you but I think one of the most tedious jobs in existence is looking after a roomful of two or so year-olds. When I had two-year-olds in my charge, I found myself perpetually holding a cane, my brows met permanently in the middle, and my teeth were bared all the time as I snarled ‘leave that alone,’ ‘get away from there’ from sun up till sun down. It was the classical tale of horror.

    Yet, for this great job, many teachers hardly get paid enough. Even the little they are supposed to get hardly come to them. So, many teachers had to find other ways out to the detriment of their jobs. As I speak, there are states and local governments in this country that still owe their teachers many months in salary arrears. Yet, the politicians that man the posts of every school in Nigeria, right from and right through the governor, senator, representative, assembly man, councilor, etc, are taken care of or take care of themselves in extraordinary ways, even to the good stuff.

    As a tribute to all teachers in this country, I want to tell this story of encouragement. Once, I attended a wedding where the chairman of the reception was the bride’s primary school teacher. The choice, I was told, had been the lovely bride’s. It had been that bride’s way of acknowledging all that the teacher had imparted in her life. The teacher probably earned no more than a pittance, and had no way of knowing that he would not even be forgotten by his charges as soon as they left him to go to secondary school. Yet he did his work well. To his surprise that day, he had not only been invited to the wedding (to show he was not forgotten), he was made the chairman of the reception (to show he was appreciated).

    True, there are teachers who do not do their work well, and they are many. To these we say that there will be a day of reckoning. The teacher’s reward may be in heaven or earth, wherever; but the teacher’s reckoning is always here on earth I assure you. A judge once asked his teacher to sit in his courtroom and write five hundred lines for coming late to her hearing. It was in retaliation. There are some who do their work rather indifferently because they are ill-remunerated; if the children want, let them understand. To such we plead a change of heart. Every effort has its own reward. Believe me, days of chairmanship do come; but our day of reward should meet us worthy of the accolade. There are also teachers who, in spite of their circumstances, still strive to ensure that while their pupils are grasping the teachers’ skirts and their neighbours’ catapults, they also grasp some knowledge. To these we say carry on.

    Today, we pay tribute to teachers the world over for the job they do. If we can pay politicians so much for mixing up and frothing the very air we breathe and turning it to noxious fumes, I think we need to do a rethink on how we remunerate our teachers. Many of them have anxieties about their tomorrow because they cannot feed well or even send their children to school. This is the time to assure them that the country cares. For now, let’s just bring out the shekere and shake it to the deserving ones.

  • Hey, death sentence for attempted murder? Come now…!

    Life is too short to go seeking some heavy redress for attempted things. Nearly, they say, does not kill a bird; no one goes home to cook a bird he nearly killed. The army must be merciful

    Formerly, first of all, if anyone made any attempt on my life, I would certainly want the state to take action! I would not even want the state to ask questions or legalise the issue. I would ask and plead that the person be incinerated just to convince him that my life is not worth the trouble of getting his hands dirty. I know; by the time he finds out, he will be slightly dead. However, when I read of the sentence passed last week by a Nigerian military tribunal on the twelve soldiers who mutinied in the north eastern part of the country and all the events that led up to it, I sort of had a rethink. Hold on a bit, I’ll tell you my rethink later.

    Secondly, I gathered from many knowing ones that military codes are a little less forgiving than civilian ones. According to the military books, the code of discipline endorsed by all recruits demands that any and every act of rebellion will be regarded as a threatening force of corruption which will be countered by the more superior force of cleansing. In other words, the books will be hurled at the individual, without giving any quarter. Have you ever had a book thrown at you, literally? No joke, I assure you. It is no less painful metaphorically. I understand the army does this to ensure that everyone within the file and rank has enough discipline not to make him turn his gun on his neighbor for sneezing at him from behind.

    Moreover, I have been a major supporter of the Nigerian army. I have written before that I have great faith in it even though there are times I cannot make head or tail of its actions. For example, I believe the army could have routed the ragtag army of the boko haram in its early days but for the fact that something went horribly wrong: it became an avenue for a few up there to milk the country. So, by this default, we still have boko haram with us today, and by some other default action or inaction, some soldiers are even now fighting for their lives in more ways than one.

    These facts, nevertheless, have not stopped the outpouring of outrage against that death sentence since it was given, and for good reason too. Many people are in consternation, given that the war against the boko haram has not been won and yet here we are playing around with soldiers on the drawing board: place some in the war front, some to guard some frolicking politicians, some to face the firing squad… All hands needed in that war, which appears to be shifting grounds and tactics daily, have not quite been gathered together. To now put to death some able bodied fighters for snapping at their commanding officer with their gun is, to put it a little humanely, not quite the thing to do.

    True, it is disobedience. It is mutiny. In any language, disobedience and mutiny should not be tolerated. I hate it when my dog disobeys me. However, there are many things the army needs to take into consideration, for the sake of fairness, and commute that death sentence into something less grave-like. As the saying goes, come now, and let us reason together on this…

    To begin with, we must remember that it is only in Nigeria that everything is different. For instance, Nigeria is at a real war right now, yet Nigerian soldiers are used to guard politicians who are not in any more danger than the rest of the citizens, except maybe by their insouciant pilfering! Under what circumstances should any sane military authority authorize that? Frankly speaking, it is the most spectacular and bewildering fact I have ever heard regarding the armed forces. So, I want to tender that the military authorities opened the door of other worldliness, inordinate gains and personal profits by renting soldiers to guard politicians; the soldiers are only now marching through that door.

    It is only natural that soldiers guarding politicians would have been introduced to a lifestyle that is most antithetical to the Spartan requirements of military life. Once this kind of room has been given in the armed forces, it is only natural that other kinds of ‘rooms’ would follow. Whichever soldier, including those at the war front, has not been so favoured would want compensation wherever he finds himself. To thus be denied such compensation is to court righteous anger.

    In this instance, that righteous anger frothed even more by the information that many of the allowances of the soldiers were not being made readily available to them. In short, they suspected that some ones were playing around with those allowances while they were away defending the sanctity of the nation. I mean, fair is only fair in any language. The universal law is that a labourer is worthy of his hire, even more so if he happens to be a soldier defending his country. But there’s worse.

    Reader, let us both imagine ourselves on ground at the time of occurrence of the event. Here were soldiers, we are told, who would prepare to go to battle with the few gears the country allowed them and their battle plans as well. But what would they find? Their ancient kits highly insufficient compared to the enemies’ ultra-sophisticated and modern kits (betrayed by the country) and their plans already known to the enemy who would be waiting for them in an ambush (betrayed by their leaders). I ask you, how many betrayals can a man take in one circumstance?

    Now, there are rumours that the said GOC who was at the centre of the debacle has been retired, transferred or dismissed, we don’t know which and it hardly matters. There are two things to note here. One is that it means he, the target of the attempted murder, did not die, was not injured and is hale. I am not a lawyer but I do believe there is no law in the world that sentences a man to death for attempted murder. Besides, there is no sign the murder would not have taken place if they had meant to do that. In other words, it is probable that they never meant to commit murder. Now, who on earth dares refuse me my law degree?

    The second important thing is that the authorities took a step which signals an acknowledgement and an admission of a few things but it is not up to me to tell you what those are. In my book, two plus two nearly always makes four, so find your own four. So, let’s face it, the nerves of these young people were raw, what with unpaid allowances, betrayal at all fronts and the corpses of their colleagues being returned to them daily with some discourteous ‘With love from the boko haram’ notes! In their place, what would you do; what would you do?

    I am hoping, as many Nigerians are, that the army authorities would look at the extenuating circumstances surrounding the mutiny of the soldiers and commute the death sentence into something less scary. It would appear to me that someone was, or some ones were, testing the faith of these soldiers.

    That brings me to my rethink. Life is too short to go seeking some heavy redress for attempted things. Nearly, they say, does not kill a bird; no one goes home to cook a bird he nearly killed. By the same token, no one should be killed for something he nearly did. As Portia said in The Merchant of Venice, the army must be merciful.

  • Lessons from the Scotland vote

    Successive governments have had to keep a vice-like grip on the people’s throats lest they unwittingly let fall or vomit what is in their minds; so referendums are not allowed, and sovereign national conferences are not allowed

    Sometime ago, I carelessly walked into an argument over the then on-going national conference. To counter the vociferous opinion that that confab was the real thing, I made it out, at the shrillest point of my voice, that the conference would not achieve much, if anything. For one thing, I said, it was not sovereign; for another, everything about it looked too controlled, so the thorniest parts of our national existence would not be so easily resolved. Then, there was too much close monitoring that did not allow too much good old plain speaking which the state of our national affairs desired and demanded. Most importantly, it was a duplication of the jobs of the national assembly members. Neither party was ready to acquiesce to the other; so the parties settled on not leaving an inch to the other in anything. From thence, I watched as people got into passions nationally over some of the topics and concluded that these people were merely taking their lungs out of the cupboard for some good ol’ airing and exercise. Nothing would be agreed on, like my argument.

    My negativism notwithstanding, I still felt some kind of let-down when the conference reports seemed to have been tossed to the serving ministers to go and study for possible implementation. I just thought, come now, these things deserve a little more respect than that. I mean, they deserve to be hoisted, mounted and made to sit on some national shelves so that we can all gaze at them for a while. During their sit-ins, they will of course gather some dust and become venerable. They can even grow to become tomes. After a while, we can beat the dust off and give the tomes over to another panel to examine and then… Who knows?  But to give those consecrated things to serving ministers straight off …?

    Come now, you and I know that most, if not all, the serving ministers are politicians or wards of politicians representing and even serving different interests. Most importantly, they are loyal to their pockets and their boss, the president. No problem in that, but that’s where the problem is. We all know that the president, like the ones before him, is not inclined to rocking the Nigerian boat. I think it has something to do with the size of that boat. Any boat that can take one hundred and sixty million people or so is a serious boat that should not be rocked lightly. Seriously, though, in matters like this, when the boat will be rocked, it will, particularly when the wind gets violently wild, and it is best not to wait for that time.

    That is what Scotland did, or is it Britain now? It perceived that the winds were turning the seas rather frothy in Scotland and interpreted the movements to be some disquiet growing in the land. Rather than appoint people to go and sit in some place and decide in their own wisdom (or lack of it thereof) on some of the grievances, it simply initiated some steps that culminated in the vote for independence last week. Britain asked the people of Scotland to decide once and for all whether they wanted to stop being part of the union with Britain, Wales, etc. Not too surprisingly, the people voted no to independence.

    We have so many things to learn from that exercise. First and foremost, it is time that Nigerians learnt to stop being afraid of the results when the masses are asked to speak their mind. There has been a morbid fear in the land from the colonial governorship periods right down through the military and democratic eras that if Nigerians are left to speak their minds, the sky would fall or the world would end. Therefore, successive governments have had to keep a vice-like grip on the people’s throats lest they unwittingly let fall or vomit what is in their minds. Referendums are not allowed. Sovereign national conferences are not allowed. In that hostile environment, how can truth be allowed to surface?

    When you read through comments on national news in cyberspace, you’ll find the truth about the country: that people are not at all comfortable with the way things are; that there are people still debating whether the country should break up or simply adopt regionalism, etc. These are signs of disquiet that the confab did not settle and which the country is appearing to sweep under the carpet. Instead of addressing such things, the leaders have taken to frothing and lathering up the embers of religion to divide the nation till you don’t know whether Nigerians are worshipping God or worshipping religion.

    So, Nigeria has found itself waddling along on a series of lies, untruths and falsities in all spheres, cooking up census figures, national statistics, national data, scuttling projects and figures aimed at national development, etc. We quite forget though that no group of people can be controlled forever. Somewhere along the curve, something always gives: Hitler heaved, Stalin heaved, Lenin heaved, Myanmar is heaving … Ever heard of that aphorism, No condition is permanent? Well, it’s true.

    We need to learn to respect when conditions demand changes. Not all changes need to be violent but one thing is sure: chance and fate will not be subject to the plowman’s vice. Nigeria’s present structure has been felt by many to be problematic and nearly not controllable. Reason dictates that part of the problem may arise from how the country is constituted and the over-centralisation of the nation’s affairs. Yet there is some reluctance to face either problem.

    The leaders should consider that Nigerians are already used to absorbing each other’s poisons – just look at the merry-go-round of stereotypes – so they would probably be reluctant to part with each other should a referendum be conducted. Let them hope that will count for something. Nevertheless, the privilege to choose must be open, simple and unambiguous. It will not do to continue to force people to stay glued together unhappily until they break out in violence. The Scotland vote went without violence; so can our own affairs.

    State affairs need to be simplified to allow everyone’s participation. Just look at the simplicity of the referendum for an independent Scotland: Yes or No. That simplicity not only allowed most of those concerned to participate, it allowed the results to be unambiguously clear to everyone. In Nigeria, people are deliberately kept out of national affairs by state refusal to educate them or make them at the least literate in even their indigenous languages. Now, can anyone tell me how many indigenous newspapers are published in Nigeria? Very few; papers that is, not people. That means more than eighty per cent of Nigeria’s illiterate community, which is more than half of the country, do not know what is going on, cannot contribute to what is going on, and do not understand the complexities of what is going on in the country. To make any meaningful progress, we need to simplify things for these people and for everyone’s sake.

    Even more importantly, the simplicity of that exercise should teach us too that voting can be made simple, is not a do-or-die affair, and is not supposed to choke the very existence out of Nigerians. Voting should be a matter of yes, we want this person or no, we abhor this person for this position. That not only gives respect to the electorate, it also respects the heart of the democratic process. More importantly, it makes clearer the reason for electing anyone at all: to take decisions on the behalf of the community.

  • Lessons from the Scotland vote

    Successive governments have had to keep a vice-like grip on the people’s throats lest they unwittingly let fall or vomit what is in their minds; so referendums are not allowed, and sovereign national conferences are not allowed

    Sometime ago, I carelessly walked into an argument over the then on-going national conference. To counter the vociferous opinion that that confab was the real thing, I made it out, at the shrillest point of my voice, that the conference would not achieve much, if anything. For one thing, I said, it was not sovereign; for another, everything about it looked too controlled, so the thorniest parts of our national existence would not be so easily resolved. Then, there was too much close monitoring that did not allow too much good old plain speaking which the state of our national affairs desired and demanded. Most importantly, it was a duplication of the jobs of the national assembly members. Neither party was ready to acquiesce to the other; so the parties settled on not leaving an inch to the other in anything. From thence, I watched as people got into passions nationally over some of the topics and concluded that these people were merely taking their lungs out of the cupboard for some good ol’ airing and exercise. Nothing would be agreed on, like my argument.

    My negativism notwithstanding, I still felt some kind of let-down when the conference reports seemed to have been tossed to the serving ministers to go and study for possible implementation. I just thought, come now, these things deserve a little more respect than that. I mean, they deserve to be hoisted, mounted and made to sit on some national shelves so that we can all gaze at them for a while. During their sit-ins, they will of course gather some dust and become venerable. They can even grow to become tomes. After a while, we can beat the dust off and give the tomes over to another panel to examine and then… Who knows?  But to give those consecrated things to serving ministers straight off …?

    Come now, you and I know that most, if not all, the serving ministers are politicians or wards of politicians representing and even serving different interests. Most importantly, they are loyal to their pockets and their boss, the president. No problem in that, but that’s where the problem is. We all know that the president, like the ones before him, is not inclined to rocking the Nigerian boat. I think it has something to do with the size of that boat. Any boat that can take one hundred and sixty million people or so is a serious boat that should not be rocked lightly. Seriously, though, in matters like this, when the boat will be rocked, it will, particularly when the wind gets violently wild, and it is best not to wait for that time.

    That is what Scotland did, or is it Britain now? It perceived that the winds were turning the seas rather frothy in Scotland and interpreted the movements to be some disquiet growing in the land. Rather than appoint people to go and sit in some place and decide in their own wisdom (or lack of it thereof) on some of the grievances, it simply initiated some steps that culminated in the vote for independence last week. Britain asked the people of Scotland to decide once and for all whether they wanted to stop being part of the union with Britain, Wales, etc. Not too surprisingly, the people voted no to independence.

    We have so many things to learn from that exercise. First and foremost, it is time that Nigerians learnt to stop being afraid of the results when the masses are asked to speak their mind. There has been a morbid fear in the land from the colonial governorship periods right down through the military and democratic eras that if Nigerians are left to speak their minds, the sky would fall or the world would end. Therefore, successive governments have had to keep a vice-like grip on the people’s throats lest they unwittingly let fall or vomit what is in their minds. Referendums are not allowed. Sovereign national conferences are not allowed. In that hostile environment, how can truth be allowed to surface?

    When you read through comments on national news in cyberspace, you’ll find the truth about the country: that people are not at all comfortable with the way things are; that there are people still debating whether the country should break up or simply adopt regionalism, etc. These are signs of disquiet that the confab did not settle and which the country is appearing to sweep under the carpet. Instead of addressing such things, the leaders have taken to frothing and lathering up the embers of religion to divide the nation till you don’t know whether Nigerians are worshipping God or worshipping religion.

    So, Nigeria has found itself waddling along on a series of lies, untruths and falsities in all spheres, cooking up census figures, national statistics, national data, scuttling projects and figures aimed at national development, etc. We quite forget though that no group of people can be controlled forever. Somewhere along the curve, something always gives: Hitler heaved, Stalin heaved, Lenin heaved, Myanmar is heaving … Ever heard of that aphorism, No condition is permanent? Well, it’s true.

    We need to learn to respect when conditions demand changes. Not all changes need to be violent but one thing is sure: chance and fate will not be subject to the plowman’s vice. Nigeria’s present structure has been felt by many to be problematic and nearly not controllable. Reason dictates that part of the problem may arise from how the country is constituted and the over-centralisation of the nation’s affairs. Yet there is some reluctance to face either problem.

    The leaders should consider that Nigerians are already used to absorbing each other’s poisons – just look at the merry-go-round of stereotypes – so they would probably be reluctant to part with each other should a referendum be conducted. Let them hope that will count for something. Nevertheless, the privilege to choose must be open, simple and unambiguous. It will not do to continue to force people to stay glued together unhappily until they break out in violence. The Scotland vote went without violence; so can our own affairs.

    State affairs need to be simplified to allow everyone’s participation. Just look at the simplicity of the referendum for an independent Scotland: Yes or No. That simplicity not only allowed most of those concerned to participate, it allowed the results to be unambiguously clear to everyone. In Nigeria, people are deliberately kept out of national affairs by state refusal to educate them or make them at the least literate in even their indigenous languages. Now, can anyone tell me how many indigenous newspapers are published in Nigeria? Very few; papers that is, not people. That means more than eighty per cent of Nigeria’s illiterate community, which is more than half of the country, do not know what is going on, cannot contribute to what is going on, and do not understand the complexities of what is going on in the country. To make any meaningful progress, we need to simplify things for these people and for everyone’s sake.

    Even more importantly, the simplicity of that exercise should teach us too that voting can be made simple, is not a do-or-die affair, and is not supposed to choke the very existence out of Nigerians. Voting should be a matter of yes, we want this person or no, we abhor this person for this position. That not only gives respect to the electorate, it also respects the heart of the democratic process. More importantly, it makes clearer the reason for electing anyone at all: to take decisions on the behalf of the community.

  • Those WAEC Results? Ehn now, Nigeria is only reaping what it sowed! (2)

    Our own Generation W, where you and I are, has been a disgrace to our Generation V parents because we are not teaching our Generation X children those values they taught us which preach hard work, good sense and kindness

    Last week, dear reader, we presented the thesis that the woes we are experiencing in our public educational structures in the country right now can be traced right down to the mostly negative learning experiences of the average Nigerian child in childhood and at the public primary school level. We also agreed that those who are largely in charge of the affairs of our toddlers at this level really do not see themselves as parents to the large mass of pupils looking pityingly up to them for good management of all that concern them, the pupils that is, not the officials. So, in a round-about sort of way, the failure of the primary school level is in turn caused by the failure of the parental gene in us and the public officials charged with looking after the young ‘uns.

    Yes, reader, each of the organs in charge of running public primary level education – UBE, UBEC, SUPEB, electricity and water companies, etc., — are manned by people who also double as parents in their spare time. Like other Nigerians, however, it is presumed that their children mostly do not attend the schools they themselves administer or use their own products. In other words, they send their own children to public schools abroad, at public expense, and starve their charges at home. This is how it comes about that teachers are not paid; required materials are not provided for teachers and pupils to work with, classrooms and school environments are uninspiring, homes are in darkness, and the primary school experience is better forgotten for the child. In other words, these are parents who do what is good for their own children and kick other people’s children into the culvert. The result is that children’s imaginations are not awakened and teachers’ resolves are weakened.

    Parental failure at this most tender level is also pronounced in the way many parents believe that money can bring up children better than them. So, they do all in their power to play heroes and heroines to their children by throwing the stuff (mostly ill-gotten too) at their kids until life teaches them another lesson: that parenting means spending time and love, not money and power. There have been reports of rich parents buying houses for their wards to accommodate them while in their out-of-town schools. There are children on more than two hundred thousand Naira monthly allowance from parents. There are parents also who have rushed to their children’s schools to ‘deal’ with teachers who dared to beat their children.

    I do believe that the best parent in this world may not have a kobo to his name; while the richest man in the world (whoever he is) can be made poor by the incapacitating poverty of his child. Children’s imaginations need to be wakened up very early to grasp concepts, learn facts and generate ideas right from birth, by giving them attention, teaching them to read and reading to them, talking to them, etc. These are best done at home and in the primary school. This is the way to prepare them to develop the nation tomorrow. Impatient parents are not doing these; how then do we expect unpaid primary school teachers to do them?

    Nurturing a child is a team effort involving the entire society. Parents are expected to set values that the entire family will follow: no stealing, work hard and do not take advantage of anyone lesser than you. Parents are not teaching these values today because they themselves steal, do not work and take advantage of the rest of the society. They hope however that the schools will rectify their failures.

    Teachers are supposed to build on what already exists in the child as home values or start afresh: no stealing, work hard and do not take advantage of anyone lesser than you. However, those ones are too busy wrestling with poverty, due to unpaid emoluments, to inculcate those values.

    The society – elders, police, religious bodies – are supposed to build on what the home and school have already imparted: no stealing, work hard and do not take advantage of anyone lesser than you. Unfortunately, though, even those ones are looking the other way now because everyone is stealing, is not working hard, and is taking advantage of everyone else. This is exactly why the world is round.

    This weak foundation is what most children who attend Nigerian public schools carry into secondary school and forward into life. Unfortunately, this success-crazed world we are running is interested only in success stories; it is not interested in going back to fix where mistakes have been made. So, rather than endeavouring to rebuild the entire road of education, we all prefer to fix potholes. We fix examinations. Will that school, principal, parent, teacher, etc., which or who has not assisted a child or a class perpetrate some exam malpractice or the other in common entrance, WAEC or JAMB examinations please stand up for recognition? Let’s see: one, two, three … THREE? Oh dear! A case of ‘all have sinned …’ eh? All these just go to prove the parental failure theory: show me a child, so says an adage, and I will show you what the parents are.

    By the time a child is eighteen, in the western world which we are so assiduously copying, a child is shown how to earn respect from the world by teaching him to earn his pocket money, no matter how rich the parents are. Here, we teach a culture of shortcuts. Our own Generation W, where you and I are, has been a disgrace to our Generation V parents because we are not teaching our Generation X children those values they taught us which preach hard work, good sense and kindness. I predict that the Generation Y children of this Generation X will be worse than them, because of our failures. Don’t let us even go near Generation Z.

    Every generation is supposed to improve on the previous one. In the western world, where Nigerians run to for holidays, sneezing check-ups and other sundry matters such as hiding stolen money, each generation has built on the successes of the previous one while managing to minimize their errors. Around here, each generation appears to be more interested in taking public recklessness to the most abominably higher level than the last. In short, this generation is teaching its young ones how to make things worse and worse than they meet them. The result is this chaotic society we are all complaining about.

    I keep wondering what many parents will tell their children that they have been able to contribute to the world. Let’s see now, I imagine it will go something like this: I was appointed into this X position, and… em, I managed to send you and your brother and your mother overseas to school and live there, you know, so that you would have quality education, not like what we have here. You are really lucky, eh?!

    There is a lot wrong with education today that will need a great deal to cure, but educating parents in how to teach their children is a good start. If parents stop misusing their positions and instead concentrate on teaching children responsibility, we may get somewhere. More money may then be available to spend on the Nigerian classroom and its teachers; children may learn something before leaving primary school. Then parents and school authorities may be less inclined to cheat in examinations, and there will definitely be less tears, hues and cries to reap when results are released. Let us try it; it just may work.

  • Those WAEC results? Ehn now, Nigeria is only reaping what she sowed! (1)

    Our public schools are the most unattractive shells outside and the most dreary goatherd pens you have ever seen inside…where children are let in by day and goats by night

    Fact one: the Nigerian public school system has collapsed. That is not news. Yet, for some strange reason, everyone appeared shocked and angry that more than seventy per cent of the students who sat for the last West African Examinations Council (WAEC) examinations failed to obtain the required five credits. Fact two: there is also failure of governance in Nigeria. Everyone knows that too. Yet, somehow, we the general public, continue to expect the miraculous delivery of dividends to flow from the purifying throne. I keep asking: how on earth do we expect light to come from darkness? k&…If you ask me, na who I go ask?…k&

    Seriously now, many factors have been enumerated as being responsible for the sad state of our educational system in Nigeria today. There is the factor of governmental insincerity, lean funding, parental indifference and illiteracy (no matter how educated they are), teachers’ divided attention, teachers’ lack of motivation, unqualified teachers, infrastructural failures, overcrowded classrooms, poorly constructed classrooms, uninviting learning environments, zero level learning materials … and so on. Wonderful! One thing is sure: with these woeful failures, it is a wonder that there are still schools at all in this country.

    However, we shall not be discussing these factors today; I think much has been said about them already. One factor that I think is often overlooked is the fact that these failures begin from those not addressed at the primary level in public schools. It is the public primary schools that house the highest number of children: more than seventy per cent of them I hear. That is also where we have the higher number of parents who do not understand what education means or how to achieve its goals.

    Sadly, there are children who go to school without breakfast, and lunch is a dreamy distance away. There are children who rise up in the mornings and first hawk one thing or the other for their (sometimes indolent) parents before being allowed to go to school. They must also return to hawking in the evening after school. Don’t ask me; many parents believe that’s the best way to train their children by exposing them to as much of the inclement elements as possible. Like I said, don’t ask me. There are children who are not able to do homework because they are the chief earners in their families; i.e., the family subsists on what the children earn. I call that marching in reverse order. Then, there are children living in such miserable conditions that school work just does not come into the picture at all. In that condition, you can’t literally see beyond your nose. I tell you, there is nothing wrong with our education that we cannot cure by educating our parents.

    On the one hand, many parents are illiterate and do not really understand what is going on in school. Sadly, again, the government has been reluctant to really tackle the issue of mass literacy for reasons best known to it. Perhaps, a literate populace would threaten its covert affairs; perhaps a literate populace would ask too many questions; perhaps a literate populace would call more stridently for an end to corruption; perhaps… One thing is sure, the educational foundation of Nigerian children would be stronger if there was a strong bond of cooperation between parents and teachers. Caring educated parents would have more input in homework, school work, school behavior through PTA, etc. Right now, there is very little. In public primary schools, all the work is being done, and all the decisions are being taken at this crucial foundational level, by teachers who are ill-paid, ill-regarded and ill-motivated. This is why their word is law.

    On the other hand, there are also parents who are so rich that they use their wealth and position against the nation’s systems. A good many adults in this country are in some position of authority or the other as school or college teachers, administrators, corporate managers, traders or entrepreneurs, heads of religious bodies, housewives, househusbands, etc. Firstly though, if you are an adult and you are not yet a parent, wait for it, it will come; all bad things eventually come. Secondly, if you are a parent and your category is not covered by this list, don’t be annoyed; just find a bench and squeeze yourself in somewhere. Thanks.

    As I was saying, one of the requirements for holding authority is that you must mentor someone else: your children, your wards, your subordinates, your village urchins, your village groups, your spouse(s), your countrymen and women… These are your responsibilities, one and all. Unfortunately, practically everyone has ditched these responsibilities in favour of self-aggrandising schemes. Problem, though, is that work that is left undone has a way of … remaining undone. Nowhere does this show as readily as children that are not taught.

    Let’s take the home. I don’t care how important or unimportant you are, you must admit that you have sometimes been embarrassed by your child as a result of one lesson or the other you failed to impart. (I knew it; you are a liar). Many times, it eventually shows up anyway. In the news recently, there were reports of a child murdering his father over a stick of cigarette. Another child murdered and hacked his father to little pieces for easier disposal purposes. Yet another child murdered his mother for over-pampering him and not bringing him up properly. Yet another child was taught by his father how to rape a defenseless toddler. Just recently, another child drove his mother, in a drunken fit, to her death … Should I go on? Naaaay….! These ones were not so lucky.

    Some of us have been luckier. Remember that joke about a child who told the landlord that his father told him to tell the landlord that he is not in? I have one better. The child told the landlord: My father is really in the room but he told me not to tell you! Lucky father, at least he wasn’t killed; the child has just not learnt to lie decently.

    Most Nigerian children today are not standing on strong foundations because of their primary school education. Just drive by the public schools nearest to you, and if you are minded to do so, please, take a peek inside them. It’s all right for you to say that your children do not attend these schools since you are rich enough to ferry them across town each day to some expensive private school, or even across the seas to some expensive public school abroad. That will not do; the products of these public schools you are refusing to look at today will still rub shoulders with your expensively educated children in the world either as their work rivals, house-helps, or, God forbid, armed robbers, murderers, or 419ers – pick whichever one you like. For now, there is just this one world, and we all have to share it.

    Our public schools are the most unattractive shells outside and the most dreary goatherd pens you have ever seen inside. Oh yes, in many cities and villages, they do share the rooms: children are let in by day and goats are let in by night. I also understand that what goes on inside them by way of teaching is not different from the morning or night sessions either. Bottom line is, no learning takes place morning or night. Yet, there are people in charge of these schools, and they are often called teachers, headmasters and mistresses, school inspectors and education ministry authorities, heads of department of education in local governments, school boards’ chairmen, etc. And yep, they are parents too; and that is our tragedy.

  • When silence is not the best answer

    The country’s authorities did not grasp the weight of the Boko Haram problem in spite of warnings from the press and others, until it came to this. And that is the surprise, when you consider that people have been tried for treason in this country just for writing newspaper articles

    One of the things women do best is worry; it’s almost first nature with them. Women worry that they are losing their beauty, never mind that they normally first spend ages worrying that they didn’t even have any. They worry that they are losing the battle of the bulge, never mind that they first spend ages worrying they are never the right weight. Then they worry that their husbands are losing interest in them, even though they have sometimes (perhaps rightly) concluded that the said husbands never had as much interest in them as they had in men’s cars, and the women’s culinary abilities. Then they worry that their children will not turn out right. If those ones turn out to be medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc., what is the good of all that? What is the use if children don’t have money in today’s world? Gosh, how on earth are they going to convince those arrantly knavish children to marry money? Worry is Our Way; the women’s way.

    Men worry too, but they have a different kind of concern. They worry if the car will start in the morning, and whether the mechanic will cheat them again should that happen. They worry that they will not be able to provide enough to meet the needs of the house. They worry that they may never get to the position that will put them in direct access to government coffers. Sadly, I have no such words of comfort for the men as I have for the women.

    Sometimes, though, I tend to feel that the song that goes ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ is a good song, as far as songs go, but it falls very short of the mark, as far as effectiveness goes. It gives the impression that happiness is in a room and you can go pick at it as you like, rather than something you have to work at. You can’t just fold your hands behind the back of your head, cross your legs and rest your pretty back on a bench, then expect happiness to come strolling in to meet you. Let’s look at this logic. 1) Happiness, I believe, is about beating the odds. 2) Worry happens when the odds are difficult to beat. 3) The odds are difficult to beat when we fold our hands too much. Pure, isn’t it?

    Sometime last week, the news came that the seemingly intractable boko haram group might have set up, first a caliphate, then a Sharia state, in the north eastern part of the country. From where most of us are standing, that is news to cause the women to put on their worrying caps as the country appears to be stretched out, relaxed on a bench, hands behind its head, while a fire is raging in its backyard.

    Three things strike one here. We will not go into all the rhetoric of this act being a direct confrontation against the state and all its instruments of office. We will also not go into the debate of the uselessness of the action, given that the region is already practicing, unhindered, the system of religion supported by the act. We will also not get involved in the attempt to argue that the act is an open and direct declaration of greater antagonism. We will not go into all these because the earth is too round for that.

    The first thing that strikes one here is that politicians and other elites in the north appear to have failed to foresee where the problem created by covert or overt omission would lead the region and the rest of the country. Worse, the central powers, i.e., the federal government and the armed services under its thumb, also failed to foresee this damage potential. So, our worry stems from the fact that the country’s authorities do not appear to have grasped the weight of the boko haram problem in spite of warnings from the press and others, until it came to this. And that is the surprise, when you consider that people have been tried for treason in this country just for writing newspaper articles.

    Secondly, all the combined forces appear to have fiddled, watched and sat thinking while men and women were being massacred, burned, terrorized, dispossessed, and made homeless by these troublers in our midst. Rather than apply sufficient energy to burn the problem to cinders at its onset, the country diddled and did practically little enough; but that little was enough to allow the problem to grow. Right on our watch, little girls were abducted by the boko haram and have not been seen till now. I don’t believe we have understood completely the ramifications of this failure.

    Let me explain. This country maintains a security unit made up of all kinds of sub-units: police, navy, air force, soldiery, and other less understood ones. Since these units are maintained on public funds, it means that the public has a right, nay, expectation to demand protection against robbers, raiders, and other big bad wolves. That public includes all our young girls, young boys and defenseless adults. Naturally, when young girls are abducted, they expect the country’s defense units to come to their rescue, no matter how far away they have been taken. They expect that their parents will come to their rescue, no matter how poor they are. Children have faith. The failure of both parents and government to do this has meant that the country has failed in its duty and has let the girls down in their belief in the protection offered by adults and their systems. In short, we all, collectively, have failed to honour the faith of those girls in parents and country.

    Thirdly, four months after the abduction, there does not appear to be any move to reclaim the country’s good name. Worse, the boko haram people have even upped their game. Now, they are moving to set up a government for themselves while the country watches. Yet, in all of these, the country is maintaining some studied silence which is not very comprehensible. Right now, some move, any move, would be better than this silence, this stillness, in the face of this severe provocation. I don’t know about you, but I feel very mortified by all these because I was one person, and I have stated this more than once, who really believed in the ability and ableness of the Nigerian armed forces. I have relatives who served on them and I know their worth. That is the basis of my faith.

    Whatever may be the handicap of the army and the government in putting out this already growing wild fire, I think they need to step over it now and step up. Corruption in the army, as we have been hearing, is no excuse. Insufficiency of manpower, as we have also been sniffing, is no excuse. If it were so, the government would not have been able to afford to send thousands and thousands of soldiers to go and monitor election sites in one state only. So, no, we don’t buy insufficiency of soldiers as an excuse.

    It’s been predicted that Nigeria may disintegrate by 2015, even though the president and others have expressed their convictions to the contrary. Keeping silent while a group sets up its own flag in a part of the country is helping that forecast become a self-fulfilled prophesy. We do not have to tow this highway of self-destruction; we just need to borrow a leaf from the ‘Our Way’ of women: worry produces the peaceable fruits of self-preservation.

  • Time to stop playing this roulette game with our national affairs

    Rather, we proudly hold up, as models, individuals who are building extraordinarily shaped houses, buying the latest cars fresh from overseas ovens, and renewing girlfriends and boyfriends at the drop of European hats, and all at government’s expense

    I have kind friends. They not only vet what I write just to make sure no one would have cause to wake them up in the night on my behalf but also warn me when my grammar appears to be going in the wrong direction, such as underfoot. For example, these kind friends have, over time, warned me over several things. Once, they warned me that my grammar appeared to be slithering towards the overly critical. I bowed politely to them, Japanese style, and reduced the venom in my ink. After all, I thought, no need to antagonise anyone. Another time, they said I tended to make my jokes overshadow my points. Now, that got my hackles up. What are people trying to reduce me to without those jokes: Obj.? Never!

    However, watching events surrounding the Ebola Virus spread in Nigeria over the last few weeks has truly wiped the joke off my face this week. Against all our prayers, the virus has taken its toll on all our hearts, not to talk of all our lives and sanities. The other day, I saw a picture of an Okada rider who thought he had the Ebola remedy all wrapped up. Yep, he wrapped himself and his fare sitting behind him in one giant, transparent, airproof, cellophane bag! I thought: can anyone be more foolish?!

    The tugs on our hearts are getting more and more painful though. Not content with taking some of the selfless health workers who attended to the Sawyer man, the virus has heartlessly snatched yet another victim, Dr. Stella Adadevoh, the senior doctor who attended to him. Death never plays fair. More importantly, my worry is this: how on earth could we not have foreseen this? How on earth could we not have prevented it?

    These people died for many reasons, quite apart from being exposed to the virus. They died because this country has absolutely no first line of help when it comes to disaster management. This is careless. Look at the facts. Nigeria has the highest paid legislature and executive in the world. With the federal and state might combined, the country parades the highest number of executive and legislative members in the world, what with commissioners and special advisers literally strutting around in their hundreds. Yet, this country has no first line of crisis management. What the heck, you’ll say! Imagine Ebola breaking out in West Africa, and America has to be depended on for help with a drug they don’t even need in their own land.

    Seriously, the word out there is that Nigeria is the greatest nation in Africa, full of promises and all. It not only has enough material resources to dwarf all other minor nations, its human resources resound world-wide. There is no nation on earth, no endeavour on earth, no learning and research space on earth, where you do not have Nigerians at the forefront. Someone once said that if we get to the moon and there is no Nigerian living there, then it must be a new moon! Actually, that pun was not intended. Anyhow, here is this lolling giant, snoring wide awake in the sun, and losing its citizens on account of its ungainly carelessness. What can we put all this down to?

    Well, there is the important fact that the world recognizes this country for a few things only: corruption, corruption, and, oh yes, corruption. As we all know, this almighty beast that we all seem to worship has prevented us from finding our ways clearly towards progress and development. Once upon a time, I seem to remember in this country, the Nigerian army hospital used to run neck to neck on research with other research units so that no disease dared to enter the country without their combined permission. Not anymore. Now, the army hospital is not only so quiet and tame it is practically unheard anymore. The teaching hospitals, research institutes, universities and even self-inspired individuals interested in taking diseases in hand and finding solutions to them have shouted themselves hoarse in vain on demands for attention and necessary funding to do research. Now, they talk in whispers on the subject.

    When it comes to funding anything, most of all research, the government has the major, major responsibility in this country, while some will devolve to corporations. Unfortunately, no one is dispensing this responsibility responsibly. Rather than direct units to work as they should all over the country, national officials are more preoccupied with enriching themselves hoping to be far away from the country any day disaster strikes. Unfortunately again, like many of us mere mortals, our foolish plans are not always fool-proof.

    Sadly, this country has never earned more money than it does now; yet, there is so little to show for it. Rather, we proudly hold up as models individuals who are building extraordinarily shaped houses, buying the latest cars fresh from overseas ovens, and renewing girlfriends and boyfriends at the drop of European hats, and all at government’s expense. WORSE, WHENEVER SUCH INDIVIDUALS BREEZE ACROSS YOUR PATH, YOUR CLOSEST RELATIVES CRY SHAME WITH YOU. YOU THINK THEY ARE WITH YOU? OH NO, THEY ARE ONLY CRYING SHAME THAT THERE, BUT FOR THE GRACE OF YOUR INDECENT SCRUPLES, GOES YOU. IN OTHER WORDS, WHY CAN YOU NOT BE LIKE THE SA TO THE SA TO THE SA OF THE GOVERNOR WHO HAS BUILT GOD-KNOWS HOW MANY HOUSES? If only, just if only, a fraction of these sums devoted to purchasing private comfort could be diverted to pursuing the public good, perhaps that might significantly reduce the sum of all our fears. Again, no pun intended; these things just happen.

    So, decades in and out, the story of the giant of Africa has remained unchanged – one of philandering lasciviousness at the official level. And when some ballast of misfortune hits us, tails tucked in, the giant goes bowl in hand to the international coffers and research cupboards. Evidently, I think now is the time to begin to change this story.

    First, I think we need to convince our officials to begin to put the country’s money where its mouth is. Obviously, its mouth is where its needs are. As of now, these needs are roving between Boko Haram and Ebola virus outbreak; but clearly, its money does not appear to be going to either. With our common voice, we need to plead with our officials to occasionally interrupt their duties of stowing away pounds for their present and pennies for our future enjoyments and just think of our heretofore. We need to convince them, with our collective will, to develop even the most minimal plan for the development of this country. No, no, it’s not the kind that we already have on paper called wishful thinking. I think it also goes by the name of Vision 2020 which no one appears to take seriously, least of all by its custodians. We need one that is realistic and really serious.

    Secondly, it is very important now to set up a good chain of research that will coordinate the works of all the relevant units in this country. It is also important to fund them adequately. Dr. Stella Adadevoh and others might not have died had there been something for them to use as a sign of our own puny efforts before superior (if that) wisdom would arrive. As it was, we had nothing, and from all indications we still do not have much, yet the thing continues to spread. I think it is time to stop playing this roulette game with our national affairs; it is not working, and it is not helping us.