The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • NBA’s ‘rogues and vultures’

    NBA’s ‘rogues and vultures’

    NIGERIANS want anyone who is chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to be combative, aggressive, urgent and unrelenting. This is why they took to Nuhu Ribadu, a former chairman of the commission, and are indulging Ibrahim Magu, the current chairman, despite his many foibles and lack of policy and ideational robustness. Mallam Ribadu is a lawyer and seemed, regardless of his customary impatience, to put on flimsy acts that were a reluctant sop to the rule of law. Mr Magu is so angry with everything that he is not aware he exudes messianic airs, not to talk of alarmingly seeming to have even outgrown the constitution of the republic. A few days ago, he angrily reacted to calls for the separation of the EFCC’s investigative and prosecutorial powers, describing the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) as ‘populated by rogues and vultures’. It mattered little to him that it was the new president of the association who made the suggestion, not even the NBA.

    Abubakar Mahmoud was on August 26 in Port Harcourt inaugurated as president of the NBA. In his inaugural speech, he called for the EFCC to be, as it were, unbundled to enable it focus more appropriately on the onerous job of investigating financial crimes and other acts of corruption. As Mr Magu sneeringly said, Mr Mahmoud was not the first to make that call. Here is what the NBA president said that inexplicably goaded the anti-graft czar into a fit: “The Nigerian Bar Association commits itself to the fight against corruption in Nigeria. We will put our knowledge, our skills and all resources to combat corruption and reclaim the dignity of Nigerians and of our country. We recognize however that the fight against corruption can only be achieved if we do so within the framework of the rule of law and by strong institutions. The critical institutions involved must be repositioned and reequipped and retooled to confront the problem of corruption on a consistent sustainable basis.”

    He goes on to suggest: “As a start, we commend the efforts of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for the work it is doing and for its modest achievements. However, going forward the NBA must demand the reform of the institution itself. We need to define its mandate more narrowly and more clearly. In my view its broad operations as an investigative and prosecutorial agency should be reviewed. I recommend strongly that the EFCC be limited to investigation. The decision to prosecute and the conduct of the prosecution must be by an independent highly resourced prosecution agency. In addition, the EFCC and the prosecution agency must be secured from political interference in their activities. There is absolutely no reason for it to report operationally or otherwise to the Presidency.”

    Miffed by Mr Mahmoud’s suggestion, which apparently the EFCC boss sees as unbearable effrontery, Mr Magu left the substance of the NBA president’s argument and launched into what he believed motivated the call for the unbundling of the EFCC. Said the EFCC chairman in a statement signed by the commission’s spokesman: “The commission views with concern the call by the NBA president that the EFCC be stripped of its prosecutorial powers. According to him (NBA president), ‘we need to define its mandate more narrowly and more clearly… I strongly recommend that the EFCC be limited to investigation… while prosecution should be handled by an independent resource prosecution agency’. The commission’s discomfort over this seeming innocuous proposition stems from the fact that Mahmoud was silent on the reason for his position…More importantly, the commission cannot comprehend how the redefinition of EFCC’s mandate in narrow terms, ultimately whittling it down, fits into the clamour by Nigerians and the vision of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration for a vibrant and courageous anti-corruption agency.”

    Not yet done fishing for motives instead of responding adequately to the NBA president’s argument, the EFCC continues: “Instead, Mahmoud’s suggestion appears perfectly in sync with a cleverly disguised campaign by powerful forces that are uncomfortable with the reinvigorated anti-graft campaign of the EFCC and are hell-bent on emasculating the agency by stripping it of powers to prosecute with the tame excuse that an agency that investigates cannot also prosecute. The question Nigerians must ask the Mahmoud-led NBA is what is wrong with EFCC prosecution? Mahmoud is in a position to answer this question. He was the federal attorney-general’s counsel in the trial of ex-Delta State governor, James Ibori, at the Federal High Court, Asaba, a case which EFCC lost in questionable circumstances. But the same ingredients from that case were used to fetch Ibori a 13-year jail term in London. Mahmoud is also the commission’s counsel in the appeal against the infamous perpetual injunction from arrest and prosecution by former Rivers State Governor, Peter Odili, which is still pending before the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, many years after it was filed.”

    Finally, the EFCC statement gave its verdict: One, that, “A Bar populated or directed by people perceived to be rogues and vultures cannot play the role of priests in the temple of justice.” And two, that, “It is too much of a strange coincidence that the suggestion to strip the EFCC of its prosecutorial powers is being floated a few months after the commission, in unprecedented fashion, arraigned some senior lawyers for corruption…Against this background, the campaign appears to be self-serving, intended to create a cabal of untouchables that can be investigated but may never be prosecuted.” It was a clever ploy by the EFCC to appeal to public emotions over the controversy when the commission itself had not addressed the substance of the NBA president’s arguments. Mr Mahmoud has responded again to the EFCC umbrage by debunking some of the planks of the anti-graft agency’s accusations, including his alleged involvement in the ex-governor James Ibori case. Let the NBA and the EFCC and other interested persons slug it out, as indeed they are already doing bad-temperedly on social media and newspaper pages. This column is interested in something else.

    The EFCC has a right to protect and advance the laws that empower its operations. Indeed, they have a right to seek to expand those powers in order to make their operations more efficient. If the public have reservations about those powers or fail to appreciate the need for the operations of the agency to be strengthened, its officers and leaders have the right to go all out to argue their case, find eloquent protagonists and deploy them accordingly. Many times in the past, the EFCC had exploited these options and had presented its case before the public, sometimes successfully, but sometimes unsuccessfully. But it is arrogant and illogical of the EFCC to seek to take away the right of those who think the EFCC is not set up in such a manner as to be efficient, or who, like the NBA president, think the EFCC can be reformed to make it more operationally efficient.

    This column has read Mr Mahmoud’s inaugural speech and can find nothing in it that indicates preconceived or virulent hostility to the EFCC. Perhaps Mr Magu has the gift of psychoanalysing his critics, and can detect traitors to the national cause from 1000km away. Even then, as far as the EFCC’s peevish response to the NBA president’s suggestion goes, it was nothing but a dangerous assignment of motives, a cocktail of messianic propaganda, and a clumsy attempt to take refuge in mass hysteria and executive deification. This is precisely one of the things the NBA appeared to be worried about. Under Mallam Ribadu, and now under Mr Magu, the EFCC has joyfully but unhealthily attached itself to the apron strings of a deified executive. Mallam Ribadu groveled before ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo; Mr Magu stands and works in brazen awe of President Buhari. This is both unhealthy and indefensible.

    It is not clear whether the NBA president’s argument is the best or even the wisest. But the paranoia, blackmail and abuse the EFCC appears to embrace and idolise are also unhelpful and demeaning. The NBA president has triggered a debate about whether to unbundle the EFCC or not. It is a debate that can be engaged in by everyone sensibly, coherently and patriotically. It is disgusting to think the constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression but the EFCC bosses who have outgrown the country’s grundnorm must take away those rights by recklessly assigning and ascribing malicious motives to dissenters. This columnist has, for instance, not made up his mind whether to support the EFCC status quo or to back the option of unbundling. It is important that whichever way he votes must not be twisted and misconstrued by a bunch of intolerant and spiteful public officers who have private contempt for the constitution.

    Undoubtedly, the problems of corruption, insecurity and other evils are rather huge and unsettling, even threatening the peace and stability of the republic. But how the country approaches and tackles these problems will determine what the future will look like. It is often said that black people have no significant sense of the day after tomorrow, with the here and now being more important to them. Nigeria must begin to put the lie to that stereotype by organising its affairs more scientifically, restrainedly and futuristically. A sense of the importance of the here and now must never be allowed to jeopardise a sense of tomorrow and the day after.

    The Buhari presidency has not given his sceptics confidence that he thinks through his responses to the challenges facing the country. It is time he reordered things while still staying faithful and firm to the values he has sought to bring to governance. The EFCC has sometimes acted messianically; the Department of State Service (DSS) has sometimes given the impression the rule of law is an inconvenience; and until recently, the military had to be compelled to fight insurgency in the Northeast with the forceful decorum of a great military. But whether the EFCC, DSS or even the military, none of them has acted consistently with genuine passion and respect for the rule of law. Nor, as it is also obvious, has the presidency itself, especially in the case of the Shiites.

    In fact, if critics had not consistently belaboured the Buhari presidency in those giddy early days of his government, when he was riding roughshod over the judiciary and the rule of law, Nigeria would have become like the Philippines of President Rodrigo Duterte whose maniacal approach to fighting societal ills, not to talk of his bizarre and indulgent view of rape and his own prurient, dark instincts, has led to the extrajudicial killing of thousands of Filipino, some of them innocent, and the unwholesome desecration of the media, justice system, military and police establishments. This often happens when emotions, rather than rationality, rule, and when aggressive people of inferior minds, as the Philippines shows, preside over their betters. It is time public agencies began to operate strictly along constitutional lines. There is no alternative. If they will not, the public must eschew emotionalism to put pressure on them to observe the rule of law.

    This column had, a few weeks ago, asked for Mr Magu to be confirmed by the Senate, but with a caveat that he must be restrained from his impetuous habit of sniveling at the constitution. Given his intemperate reaction to the NBA president’s argument over EFCC powers, it is now all the more important that the anti-graft czar must be grilled closely by the Senate before he is given the green light. He must hope for his own sake and career that skipping over the vetting hurdles is not beyond his intellectual agility, and that his now famous passion for work can find some redemptive value in a system that excuses undisciplined evasion of rules. The discomfiting irony, however, is that the legislature itself is not a model of financial and moral rectitude; yet it must screen and vet others. Nor, unhappily, are the executive and the judiciary above suspicion. The herculean task before Nigerians is that they need to recognise that salvaging their country must never be surrendered to tin-pot messiahs, closet religious fanatics many of whom populate government houses, and intolerant and abusive careerists in ministries and agencies. It is a collective job requiring vigilance, introspection and deep and suave application of intellect.

  • Kerry’s visit: culture or security?

    Kerry’s visit: culture or security?

    What would have been the role of CAN and other Christian groups in a meeting in which the theme of Kerry’s public speech was about peace, stability, and religious tolerance? 

    One consensus among anthropologists and sociologists is that culture infuses everything that humans do, regardless of what part of the planet they reside. In other words, everyone carries some cultural assumptions in whatever he/she does all the time. Even people with multiple cultures, especially those raised in multiple cultural settings,feel compelled select assumptions that resonate with each of the cultures he/she has to negotiate from time to time and from context to context. From this perspective, it should not be surprising that many Nigerian groups, in particular the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) read some aspects of Nigerian culture(s) into the recent visit of John Kerry, the American Secretary of State to Abuja and Sokoto. Soon after the narrative initiated by CAN broke, it understandably went viral on the internet and grew in perception and misperception from one citizen journalist to the other.

    Had Kerry listened to the multitude of African studies experts in his country before leaving home, he would have some idea of the complexity of the culture of visiting and greeting in Nigera. He would have been told that visiting and greeting are close to a vocation. Politicians of all stripes stream in and out of the homes of presidents, governors, and newly appointed political officers to greet such people. Even former presidents find excuses for not visiting incumbent president or governor of their states as much as they should. Wives and husbands living in the house take pages of newspapers or television time to greet each other for all sorts of reason and even non-human entities such as corporations send their top men and women to visit and greet people in important positions. Individuals and groups that had complained about Kerry’s failure to greet them are members of this African country’s culture of visiting and greeting.

    The main grouse of critics of Kerry’s visit is that he visited Sokoto to see the Sultan who doubles as the supreme monarch of Sokoto and leader of Nigerian Muslim community. Angrily, the Forum for United Nigerians Against Divisive Elements (FUNADE) asked if Kerry was invited by the Sultan and accused Kerry of stoking the ember of de-secularisation of Nigerian polity and Islamisation of the society. Some of Kerry’s critics asked him to convince them about his sectarian neutrality, particularly why he had failed to discuss the matter of killing of Christians by Muslims and of farmers by Fulani herdsmen while also telling him to stop interfering in Nigeria’s internal affairs.

    Aren’t all the demands being made on Kerry recurrent features of the country’s political culture?  For example, CAN complained that Kerry by visiting only the Sultan in a country evenly divided between Christians and Muslims came to endorse the Sultan’s view of the Nigerian State as a multi-religious state in contradistinction to the nation’s Constitution on the secularity of the Nigerian State. The distinction being made by CAN between secularity of the Nigerian state and the multi-religiosity of the Nigerian society cannot be faulted easily. But what worried CAN and FUNADE is what seems to be Kerry’s acceptance (demonstrated in his visit to the leader of the Islamic community in Nigeria) of the Sultan’s view of Nigeria as something akin to a theocratic state of the Islamic variant.

    Given the political, especially diplomatic culture of most Western countries, Kerry must have consulted his country’s cultural officers and former ambassadors about the nuances of Nigeria’s culture(s) before coming, but even after such consultation, it must have been clear to Kerry’s team that an essentially security-related trip to Nigeria should not require worrying about who to visit or whisper to about security problems facing the country from Boko Haram terrorism. There should be nothing wrong in Kerry’s visit to justify his castigation, more so if his visit, as indicated in his objectives for coming to Nigeria, pertains to discussing with relevant ‘stakeholders’ the following: counterterrorism efforts, the Nigerian economy, fight against corruption, and human rights issues. Should Kerry’s talking points have been principally about military and economic intelligence, the American Secretary of State should have been given the benefit of the doubt to take as much caution as he needed in choosing who to talk to or with on any of the issues on his plate.

    Intelligence, especially since the end of the Cold War, has been what International Relations experts call the most potent soft power in a fast-globalising ethos of the 21st century. Intelligence cooperation is something that is acceptable in relations with other countries, especially friendly ones like the United States and Nigeria. Intelligence is not only about early warning to friendly nations about threats to their cherished values, it is also a major event-shaping mechanism. This view of intelligence was well captured by Gerald Templer when he defined intelligence as “ not an end in itself but an essential aid to policy-making and military planning and should ideally provide timely warning of events which we would wish to anticipate as intelligence background for policy decisions.” Almost incontrovertibly, in our current post-Westphalian context of sovereignty, intelligence is no longer solely about security of rulers and states in territorial terms but also of shoring up sovereignty through protection of human beings and their human rights. What if Kerry had come with intelligence relevant to how to fight Boko Haram and corruption more successfully than we have done so far, would it be wise to expect Kerry to turn a highly coded message that should have been whispered to just a few ears into an auditorium or stadium announcement?

    Furthermore, the insistence of Kerry not to address the media after the meeting with President Buhari and the non-inclusion of journalists in the room in which the American top diplomat exchanged ideas with the president provide decipherable codes about the need for confidentiality that should not be divulged to the public until the message had been properly apprehended by Kerry’s hosts, receivers of the message he brought from President Obama. Isn’t it conceivable that Kerry’s visit to the Sultan and northern governors must have included sharing properly fire-walled information with the head of the Islamic community and 16 Muslim governors about Boko Haram, given the fact that Boko Haram is largely confined to the North East, one-third of the North and also of the Nigerian Islamic community? What would have been the role of CAN and other Christian groups in a meeting in which the theme of Kerry’s public speech was about peace, stability, and religious tolerance? (emphasis added). Should it not have been obvious to Kerry and Obama that Nigeria’s Christendom is noticeably sensitive to religious plurality and also tolerant about other religions, particularly Islam by co-existing in a country that is a member of Organisation of Islamic community (OIC)?

    The caustic response by CAN to Kerry’s visit to the Sultan, the leader of the nation’s Islamic community, does not reflect the confidence characteristic of Nigerian Christendom since the evolution of Nigeria as a nation-state and certainly not of the tolerance of other faiths in the country.If anything, criticisms of Kerry’s by spokespersons for CAN could have been read as insecurity or paranoia that usually arises from inferiority complex. To many Christians that are not in political leadership of CAN and other Christian groups, it is obvious that the Sultan of Sokoto is much more of a ‘stakeholder’ than CAN leaders or any of the other Obas, Obongs, and Obis in the South of the country on matters sensitive to fighting Boko Haram, a terrorist group affiliated with some form of Islam.

    The need to know is undoubtedly an indispensable aspect of democracy, but most times, it is the need to understand that is important to leaders when they need to share intelligence across national borders. As Boko Haram’s terrorism has proved, religion of any kind is at risk if there is no peace. Critics of Kerry’s visit should have just wished him a safe trip back home for coming to discuss issues that are germane to Nigeria’s security and economic survival with the President and other ‘stakeholders’ in establishment and sustenance of peace in a country that has been hobbled by Boko Haram’s radical Islamism, extremism, and terrorism.

  • Now that Nigeria is officially in recession

    Now that Nigeria is officially in recession

    Incidentally, many of those who collaborated with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to bring the economy on its belly have also been out parroting solutions as if  Nigerians do not know where they are coming from

    This past week, the Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in its Second Quarter Report, said the Nigerian economy contracted by 2.06 per cent to record its lowest growth rate in decades and that it shrank by 0.36 per cent in the first quarter of 2016 to its lowest point in 25 years. Unemployment, it further said, increased to a record high of 13.3.  The U.S is currently at about 4.9, down from between 9.6 -10 percent during President Obama’s first year in office in ‘09. But first, let me salute the Comrade Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, who, on Channel’s television, Friday, 2 September, 2016 did much more than all the information agencies of the President Buhari administration have ever done, to bring to the public space, the challenges confronting the government and how it has been trying to resolve them and bring succour to a traumatised citizenry. The ‘Mammy Water’ slayer, a name he got by reclaiming water-logged and totally impassable roads in Benin-City-,  also passionately demonstrated that he understands the very essence of governance when, in answers to the panelists’ questions, he showed how he has done his best in meeting the yearnings of the people. How, for instance, he has turned former governor Igbinedion’s ‘swimming  pool’ township roads to six lanes in some areas of the state capital, and how water now flows in the Ekpoma area of the state where it was once believed you could never have productive boreholes and people had to depend on rain water, stored over time.

    May your tribe increase, Comrade Governor.

    There had been no shortage of suggestions to the president by all manner of experts as to how to exit recession since the Bureau of Statistics made its report public. Incidentally, many of those who collaborated with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to bring the economy on its belly have also been out parroting solutions as if Nigerians do not know where they are coming from. As I read many of the suggestions which are mostly from economists and allied professions, I am reminded of another trained economist, a Mr Fasua, who, on two different appearances on the Gbenga Aruleba –may the good Lord comfort the family on the loss of their darling daughter, 13-year-old RereOluwa – moderated programme – FOCUS NIGERIA – made the point that resolving Nigeria’s current economic problems are far beyond Economics. And may I say, I completely agree with him. In so doing and while perfectly aware that we are neither in a military administration nor President Muhammadu Buhari a military dictator, a particular step would have to be taken which might be considered draconian. It is a low hanging matter which, once confronted, with the support of thoroughly affronted and bemused Nigerians, some of who now pawn their little children for foodstuff, would rid Nigeria of some horrible acts of corruption which are literally ravenously eating up the country itself. The result would be massive savings which will facilitate our ability to exit recession. I would conclude the article with that lo hanging fruit but in the meantime, here are some suggestions from J.J. Jegede as ways to exit recession:

    1. Accelerate the prosecution of alleged looters in order to release the stolen funds back into the economy. Funds already collected are, unfortunately, currently idle and so not having any multiplier effect on the economy.
    2. With NASS support, declare an economic emergency.
    3. Encourage very aggressive local food production through grants, loans etc
    4. Strengthen internal controls to block leakages.
    5. Place embargo on salary increases.
    6. Explore new sources of revenue generation.
    7. Implement the Oransaye Committee recommendations.
    8. Mandate local governments to collect levies and taxes in accordance with Approved Levies and Taxes Act. Bring informal sector into the tax net.
    9. Rigorously increase security to encourage investors.
    10. Reduce cost of governance.
    11. Improve power supply

     What I call the low hanging fruit is nothing other than the National Assembly with their huge illegal allowances. In case our legislators cannot, by themselves make the offer, I think the time has come for Nigerians to call on the National Assembly to prorogue itself for, at least the next one year. The Yoruba would say: Ore bo le gba mi, fi mi sile bi o se ba mi, meaning, if you can’t help me, leave me as you met me. This 8th assembly – the two chambers – has been totally unhelpful to Nigerians. Aside the multiple ways in which they financially undermine the country, their salaries and illegal allowances are far beyond what Nigeria should be called upon to pay in a recession. If they cannot by themselves offer to give up a minimum of 50 percent of their earnings according to Hon Jibrin, then it is time for either President Buhari or Nigerians, by themselves, to call their bluff. I give below, a sampler of Hon Jibrin’s disclosures. Conerning what the House calls ‘running cost’, Jibrin wrote: “Most of these members use it to acquire properties, cars and live a life of luxury they never had before coming to the House. Though there exist systems for retirement but a simple investigation by a primary school pupil will reveal the massive fraud therein. From computation of various sub heads of allowances of the House, the 10 Principal Officers received the following amounts:

    1. Speaker Yakubu Dogara has been in the House from 2007 to date. He has received about 1.5billion naira
    2. Deputy Speaker Yusuf Lasun has been in the house from 2011 to date. He has received about 800million naira
    3. House Leader Femi Gbajabiamila has been in the House from 2003 to date. He has received about 1.2billion naira
    4. Deputy House Leader Buba has been in the House from 2007 to date. He received about 1.2billion naira.
    5. Whip Alhassan Doguwa has been in the House from 2003 to date. He has received about 1.2 billion naira
    6. Deputy Whip Pally Iriase has been in the house from 2011 to date. He has received 700 million naira.
    7. Minority Leader Leo Ogor has been in the House from 2007 to date. He has received 1.2 billion naira
    8. Deputy Minority Leader Barde has been in the House from 2011 to date. He has received 700 million naira
    9. Minority Whip Chuma has been in the House from 2007 to date. He had received 800 million naira
    10. And finally, Deputy Minority Whip Binta has been in the House from 2011 to date. She has received 700 million naira”

     I ask Nigerians: Can we afford these luxuries even without a recession?

    President Buhari, Nigerians are waiting for your clarion call.

  • Zuckerberg was here

    Zuckerberg was here

    One cannot but make a ‘stop-over’ on the visit of the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and co-founder of social networking website Facebook, billionaire Mark Zuckerberg to Nigeria and Kenya. The man landed in Lagos on Tuesday without fanfare. For once, I agree that “empty barrels make the most noise”. He went about without any visible security details.

    For a barely 32-year-old worth about $54billion, this is instructive. Everything about Zuckerberg – his mannerism, his dressing, his all – speaks to his uncommon simplicity and candour.

    I do not know what the man ate in Nigeria. We were however told he spoke glowingly about some of our favourite dishes. But the world was shown pictures of him eating a local dish, Ugali, a popular Kenyan food, at Mama Oliech’s eatery in Yaya, in that country. “We ate at MAMA Oliech Restaurant— a local place everyone recommended. One of my favourite parts of travelling to a new country is trying the food. I enjoyed ugali and a whole fried tilapia for the first time and loved them both!” Guess what? Oyinbo man ate the ‘swallow’ (okele in Yoruba) food with his fingers! Here, you see some Nigerians eating our local dishes with fork and knife, including even those who do not know how to hold the cutlery!

    But I wonder whether our usual hospitality (man no be wood); was extended to the august visitor. Here, we believe that a child that is diligent at his duty should also be entitled to little indulgences. Zuckerberg is one such child. Therefore, his visit to our land of unlimited hospitality cannot be complete until he has been ‘served’ adun ma de’ke (a ‘delicacy’ which is literally not eaten). Zuckerberg should know that in Nigeria, we have more than jollof rice, pounded yam, shrimps, snail and goat meat that he praised to high heavens, to offer.

    He should know that it is not only African dishes that are sweet; Africa also has a lot to showcase of our feminine heritage. Sir Shina Peters said it all: “African women get knowledge, African women sensible; they are beautiful o”.  We do not need any forensic audit to know whether our visitor was well taken care of in this regard; all we need as confirmation is to see if the young philanthropist is eager to visit us again; then we would know that a lot of ‘magic’ had happened at (orita meta) (the T-junction); or is it under the apple tree!

    Put more succintly, we would know whether or not much water had indeed passed under the bridge! Off record!

  • Zuckerberg’s visit: My takeaway

    In many ways, the visit to the country by Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is very instructive. There are many lessons to learn and steps that should be taken if the euphoria of the visit is not to becloud our sense of reasoning.

    The first time I heard of Co- creation Hub ( CcHUB) in Lagos, which was Zuckerberg’s first point of call on arrival in the country was a few years ago. I am not sure how many Nigerians know what the incubation centre is all about. Most residents of Yaba must have been shocked that such an internationally acknowledged centre exist in their neigblourhod without knowing much about its operations.

    For the owners of the Centre, the visit of one of the richest men in the world is a confirmation of the good work they have been doing without seeking unnecessary attention or recognition. They have proved that success or recognition in any endeavour is not a function of location but dedication and accomplishments.

    If you are good at whatever you do, you will be found out sooner or later. From being a local champion, you can be sure of getting global attention as it is the case with CcHUB.

    For the government, CcHUB, the ‘faceless’ developers and entrepreneurs that were the main reason for Zukerberg’s visit, confirm the abundant talents in the country which needs to be recognized and supported to maximise their potentials.

    CcHUB is a social innovation centre dedicated to accelerating the application of social capital and technology for economic prosperity. We need more of such centres for innovation and new thinking that can help reduce the high rate of unemployment in the country.

    More than ever before, the government must go beyound paying lip service to its commitment to technological advancement which is crucial to the development of any society.

    Education at all levels must accommodate present-day global trend of emphasis on use of new technologies. A conducive atmosphere must be provided to enable the developers and entrepreneurs Zukerberg met and many others do more than they are presently doing.

    Nigeria, as President Muhammadu Buhari stated while receiving Zuckerberg has always been identified as a country with great potentials for growth, especially with our youthful population, but the potentials must be converted to reality.

    Zuckerberg’s commendation for the energy and entrepreneurial spirit displayed by young Nigerians in all the ICT camps that he visited should be a challenge to other youths who are yet to master the use of new technologies or are presently using  it for fraudulent means.

    Notwithstanding the limitations that may be peculiar to our environment, technology has proved to be a leveler and made the world a truly a global village. Instead of being a major distraction for youths who can no longer do without their gadgets, the wide access to knowledge which the Internet provides should enhance learning and broaden their horizon.

    Before now, there have always been concern about imbalance in information flow between developed and underdeveloped nations, the Internet provides an equal opportunity for creating and sharing content.

    If we are not contented with the image being projected about our country, we must be ready to create and upload our own content. No one can tell our stories better than we can do. Zuckerberg and others have done well to provide the online platforms, it is up to us to use it to our advantage.

  • Okon survives WAI mugging only to speak ill of the dead

    As the rumours of the death of a leading Second Republic politician who has contributed immensely to the political and economic misfortunes of the country began to gain considerable traction, Okon has been huffing and puffing with malicious gusto asking the almighty God to make sure that the departed crook and sleaze merchant rot in the hottest part of hell.

    For days, Okon has been nursing the wounds he sustained in a nasty street brawl while posing as a rogue WAI official arresting pedestrian violators of the overhead crossing at Oworo. But given the nasty mood in the country, it was obvious that an irate populace was not about to buy into the new WAI nonsense, particularly given the background of economic and political miscreants roaming the streets without any remorse or shame. An angry crowd had pounced on Okon and handed him the beating of his life. He had been carried home with his nose bulging, his uniform torn and his swagger gone.

    “Ha oga, katakatadey for town.Famine dey road and hunger dey highway.  He be like if say dis WAI thin no go work dis time oo. Dem come wire man well well for Oworo. Why WAI now, dem Ibo man dey scream as him dey slap man like dem Taekwondo boy”, the crazy boy moaned.

    “Okon, you are a fool. There is time for everything. We have told the man that you cannot step into the same river twice”, snooper offered. But the crazy boy’s capacity for swift recovery is a tad short of the miraculous. A few days after this and resplendent in resource control attire with Marrakesh fez cap to match, Okon barged into the sitting room with Baba Lekki in tow.

    “Oga, man wan quickly reach demolosi man’s residence make man sign demcondomness register. He don reach time make we dey tell demyeyepeople dat God go punish dem”, Okon announced.

    “Ha Okon, but I heard that the man was going to be buried in Israel where he died”, snooper noted.

    “Israel ko, Ishmael ni”, Baba Lekki jeered with a vicious grin.

    “Ha oga you dey behind news. When dem tell dem illustrate village wife dat Israel be dem place where demdey wake after three days dem woman ask make dem bring dem body quick quickbecosdem useless man must never to wake again”,Okon retorted.

    “So what will you put in the condolence register?” snooper asked.

    “I go ask God make him punish the crook, make him never know peace and make hunger dey wire him as hunger dey wire us”, the mad boy drooled endlessly.

    “But Okon, you don’t speak ill of the dead”, snooper said hushing up the crazy rogue.

    “Ogana Yoruba wuruwurube dat. If a man don die, how come he dey ill again?”Okonrejoined as he dragged out his drunken accomplice.

  • The lesson our youths are not learning (1 ¾)

    Character does one thing special for us: it prevents us from demeaning ourselves to the level of brigandage, common thievery or deception. These are very common with our adults and our youths should run from them

    Reader, today’s essay is a pseudo-continuation of last week’s essay in a sense; hence the peculiar title. On the one hand, it represents a reaction to commentaries on the topic, you know, the reaction to a reaction; and on the other, what we can do to counteract this stifling culture of waste. ‘Waste’ here does not refer to the non-use of material resources but to the attitude and perspective that says ego and vanity should be pampered and adored – a characteristic of the present generation of adults and parents. For them, vanity rules, OK!
    So, I would like to thank all those who reacted through text or e-mail messages to last week’s column on the lessons our Nigerian youths are not learning. The compliments were very kind. I would have reproduced them here today but for the fact that there is not enough space for all of us to cohabit this tiny pinhead I have been given. I tell you, sometimes it’s all I can do not to go rent my own crowd to protest to the editor to give me the entire newspaper.
    I also sincerely thank all who read the commentary but refrained from passing their comments, mostly because they disagreed violently with me but they did not want to be accused of doing violence to a harmless newspaper. I assure you that your emotions are duly noted. Most especially, I really thank those who read me regularly every week and laugh at my stale jokes. They are obliged to: they have become family. Thank you indeed for not giving me up to the police for ruining your week’s ration of laughter. One commentator once told me he/she laughed so hard at my column his/her cheeks still hurt. Now, if I can just discover what caused the laughter…
    The comment I found most touching was the one where the writer declared that he was ‘worried for the Nigerian youth’ owing to their ‘…half education’ and ‘…even the schooled among them are thoroughly misinformed.’ How right you are sir; I am worried too about the direction or lack of direction of growth of our youths. Believe me, there is no education like the one that thoroughly misses the mark, such as cooking lessons. Have you tried those? I tell you, missing the mark is what makes Pompom Bread to come out looking like fish with chicken pox.
    No doubt, our youths have missed the mark. Don’t get me wrong, I love them. I have worked with them nearly all my life so I know how they think. Although to be honest, I cannot say I can predict all the things they do. For instance I could not have predicted that a youth would set his mattress ablaze just to see how it burns and the colours it would bring out. I quite confess I didn’t see that one coming.
    I am deeply concerned though that most of our youths have been taught to grow up so… so… so… dependent on parents who unfortunately have missed their own way. Truth is that many parents these days have arrived at their own career ports by slithering like snakes before their bosses, done some voodoo to their predecessors, killed and scratched the eyes out of their rivals, betrayed their enemies and friends, used human beings to make rituals, drank human blood, ate dead bodies… to get to their posts. (So sorry, reader, to have been so indelicate but these are things I have heard). So, they see nothing wrong in breaking or bending the law for their young ‘uns. Unfortunately, they power and direct these youths down Failure Lane.
    The signs of youth failure are all around us. They are not in the message passed round sometime ago about how Gowon was Head of State at thirty; this was that at twenty, and so on. Actually, I believe that the people listed in that message are the very reasons for the politico-economic retardation the young country suffered under them and has experienced since their era. The signs of youth failure can be found in the doctrines that youths have since imbibed: get-rich-quick, do little work and practice religions of hatred. Enough has been said on these here to require any further jaw-jaw.
    What worries me most is the fact that youths do not seem to have much patience with integrity any more. Integrity lives, but only in the dictionary! Previously, it used to mean something close to moving steadily in a wholesome direction in all manner of things: thoughts, words and deeds. These days, however, I find that youths seem to think that integrity means having a wholesome social image. A youth’s social image has since toppled other considerations like character, selflessness and humility.
    You know what character is, don’t you? It is that thing that is intrinsic to you which enables you to face any lion in the world and he would bow to you. Your character would not allow you to do anything demeaning to the lion and if you had to kill it, you would do so like one with good breeding. You would not tear it up and make some messy glue out of the poor thing because you would think it is just probably looking for something to eat. Character does one thing special for us: it prevents us from demeaning ourselves to the level of brigandage, common thievery or deception. These are very common with our adults and our youths should run from them. One day, I sure hope to grow some character.
    Selflessness is a rare commodity around here but is actually not expensive to get. You know what that one is, surely. It is the attribute that enables you not to think twice before you dive into a lion’s den to rescue a child’s doll or a snake’s pit to rescue a stray cat. That attribute helps you to close your eyes to your own safety, comfort and the integrity of your face. When you emerge from that den or pit victorious with the prized item, believe me, the feeling of achievement that will engulf you is better imagined than said. True, many will call you an idiot but never mind, your integrity will be intact.
    Seriously though, it is selflessness that made people like Yuri Gagarin take the giant stride to become the first cosmonaut to orbit the earth in the 1960s. It is on record that he inspired others to reach for the moon and aim for the construction of the space shuttle and space stations. The present group of adults have failed to do this. They have rather reached for the pockets of the nation and are even still shamelessly scraping the bottom of the government’s purse, as I hear, but the youths must develop this selflessness and reach for the stars.
    Youths must build, not tear down. They must build structures, institutions, and people. Once, I visited Munich in Germany and our tour guide told us about a king they had some time back who constructed a good deal of that city. They called him the Eager Builder. Many of his constructions are not only still standing; they are proudly maintained by the state. It takes a lot of bending down to build anything higher than oneself anyway. That is humility.
    I just read that the federal government has signed a $5.1b railway contract with a Chinese firm. Why should that be, I ask myself? What are our youths doing that they cannot study prototypes and replicate them? It is so because the present crop of adults failed their character test in their youth; this present crop must not fail theirs anymore.

  • Compatriots, things could be worse; or, things will get worse – three parables/riddles

    Compatriots, things could be worse; or, things will get worse – three parables/riddles

    First parable/riddle

    A tree, a mighty tree falls in the forest but no one, no conscious, prescient being is there to see the fall: does this event have any significance? The riddle is more forceful if the tree is a mighty tree, one of the biggest in the forest, but the implied enigma could be arguably extended to even a small tree whose height or girth is unremarkable since all trees, all living things are deemed inherently worthy. So, let’s make the riddle, our riddle, pertain to any tree in the forest, even though we agree that the parable works better if the tree is a tree among trees. By this very extension of the object of the parable, we have already indicated a possible answer to the riddle. What is this answer? It is the contention that no one needs to be present for the fall of the mighty tree – indeed of any tree – to have significance or meaning. This is because the fall, the death of any living thing is of inherent value in itself whether or not anyone is around to see it, record it, mourn the loss or perhaps even bear witness to its passing. For what is life if it is not, in and of itself inherently valuable? But this very answer already poses its own problem and further complicates the riddle and this is because no living thing is satisfied with only the inherent, inalienable worth of its life, its existence? Put another way, we could ask the following question: which living thing, which human being does not like for its/his/her passing to be recorded and mourned? The pure phenomenology of being alive, of having once passed through this time and place in the grand scheme of things in the universe may seem philosophically elegant and pleasing, but it does not seem to suffice for how most living beings, especially humans, wish to live their lives.

    There are of course women and men who do not care much that how and when their passing occurs should be noted. However, such people are in a significant minority among human beings. Why do most people, in all times and places, care so much that their passing should not be anonymous and unremarked? It is perhaps because what happens in and after death is a big, consequential commentary or even judgement on life. On this account if one life, or the many lives of a group of people, end without anyone noticing or recording the event, the conclusion is that the life or lives have, in their entirety, been meaningless. The awesome social critique and ethical commentary implied in the Yoruba notion of “awon asiniwaye” comes to mind here. In a rough translation, this means “expendable fellow travelers that accompanied the real, true and worthy human beings to the world”.

    Summing up, this in effect means that our riddle has an open-ended answer: we can either affirm the philosophically and ethically humanistic “answer” which states that every death, regardless of whether it is noted, recorded or mourned, is inherently worthy in its own right; or we can affirm the contending “answer” that deaths that are unnoted or unrecorded, willfully or accidentally, constitute a powerful commentary on life, the life or lives that the person or the community lived before the moment of death.

    I will not dwell much on the implications of this parable or riddle for our society or, more generally, the world in which we all live at the present time. But I do suggest that the reader think about the number of lives that are lost needlessly every year on the death-traps we call roads and highways and the temporary morgues that we call hospitals and clinics. Even more portentously, I suggest that we reflect on the slow, long drawn out deaths of hundreds of thousands of our peoples every year through the grinding poverty that is structurally and forcibly imposedon them by the cannibalistic looters’ paradise, the predatory political order we call a “democratic”republic. And I ask: how many of these deaths, actual and symbolic, are ever noted or mourned by our leaders?

    Second parable

    This parable is from an Afro-Cuban myth which, generally speaking, goes thus: In the beginning, Olofin created the heavens and the earth; he created all the living things in the world and all the principles and attributes, positive and negative, through whichthey could live in happiness and dignity on the condition that they would always have to find a reconciliation, a synthesis between the positive things and the negative things. It was with this in mind that God created Truth and also created its opposite, Falsehood. To help humankind, he made Truth big and powerful and made Falsehood skinny and weak, though God made him cunning and duplicitous. Also, unbeknownst to Truth, God armed Falsehood with a cutlass.

    For a long time, things worked to the best advantage of human beings: Truth was big and strong and for this reason was very helpful while Falsehood, being only too conscious of his disadvantages, could not wreak havoc with human beings by manipulating the darker inner promptings of their hearts. However, one fateful day, Truth and Falsehood met and a fight ensued between them. Being very big and powerful, Truth felt confident – but also very complacent, perhaps because he did not know that Falsehood had a cutlass.This was why a fight which seemed so uneven ended rather quickly and surprisingly when Falsehood cunningly took out his hidden cutlass and cut off the head of Truth.

    The fight could have ended on that decapitation of Truth if it wasn’t the case that this was a fight, not between ordinary mortals, but between fundamental principles of the universe and their incarnations in Truth and Falsehood. And so, with his head cut off, rather than being finished, Truth felt doubly, trebly empowered. He went scrambling around for his head in order to put it back on his neck and continue the fight. At that point, something of great and everlasting consequence for human beings happened: in scrambling around for his head, Truth accidentally felt the head of Falsehood which he mistakenly took for his own head. His strength being truly awesome, a pull from Truth yanked off the head of Falsehood and this Truth then placed on his neck. And from that day, what we have had in the world is this grotesque and confusing mismatch: the head of Falsehood on the body of Truth.

    We do not have the space in which to explore the full ramifications of this myth, this parable. Beside pointing out that it powerfully encodes the suspicion that we encounter in almost all human societies of the past and the present that “truth” lies more with what we feel in our bodies while the head is the seat of all falsehoods, I only wish in the present context to apply the powerfully suggestive implications of this parable to the “head” as symbol of leadership and the “body” as metaphor for followership in our present political order. Please dear reader and compatriot, look carefully at the terrible tales of suffering and hardship among and within the collective “body” of the followership in every part of the land. Is the “truth” not in plain sight everywhere you look? And then look carefully, compatriot, at the “heads” of nearly all our political institutions and organs of power, law and administration and what do you see? Is it not falsehood everywhere? The headship of government? The headship of the judicial system, the Supreme Court, and its own headship? O The headship of the state governments? Of the legislatures, national and state? Above all else and especially now, at this present time, the headship of the Senate and the House of Reps?

    Third parable

    This third and final parable in our reflections in this piece may seem to have a primarily religious provenance but its ramifications are very wide and affect every sphere of life. Basically, it pertains to what we might call the “end of life or of time” myth or legend. It has recurred again and again throughout recorded history and in diverse regions of the world. Basically, here is what it consists of: an either sudden or gradual feeling of deep and widespread malaise builds up into a conviction, a premonition among large segments of the population that the world is coming to an end. Typically, the religious expression or version of this myth is the most culturally and socially significant, if it is also often the most alarmist. For in most cases, this religious version signifies the coming of a messiah, quite often the Messiah. Needless to say, we have already been hearing echoes of this religious version of the myth in our country for at least a decade now. Definitely, it gathered momentum under the rule of the PDP. Will this chiliastic and apocalyptic myth or parable resurface and gather more strength and volubility during the reign of the new ruling party, the APC? Your guess is as good as mine!

    An interesting version of this myth or parable is that which pertains, not to the end of life or time in general but to the end of things as one generation has known and loved it. Although nearly every generation goes through one or another version of this myth, it is often far more powerfully floated and peddled around among members of some generations more than others. I definitely cannot speak for the generation of my father and of his father before him, but I am pretty sure that my generation in general feels more acutely that between us and the generations of my children and grandchildren, the world, time itself, is coming to an end as we have known and perhaps cherished it, with all the inevitable challenges and crises that we faced. Here’s one of the most troubling expressions of this generalized feeling of angst, of an ineluctable malaise of my generation of Nigeria’s educated elites: merit is gone, the professoriate itself has been degraded beyond belief and repair and so, what will happen to the transmission of knowledge and the social reproduction of intellectual capital in our country. And will this not further decrease or narrow the opportunities for equality of opportunities between the classes in our society?

    Epilogue

    Against the logical thrust of the title of this piece, I will neither say, “take heart, compatriot, things could be worse”, nor say, “be afraid, be very afraid, compatriot, for things will get worse”. Why not? The future is open-ended and our fate lies in our hands. If one set of rulers cannot or will not lead us to the promised land, we cannot and must not give up. The parables or riddles in this piece are all provocations to the mind to raise issues but not to be controlled or limited by the implications of the issues that we raise. That tree that fell in the forest and no one was around to see and record its fall? Well, a dozen other trees have risen and grown in its place. And these new trees sprang from the shoots, from the efflorescence of the fallen tree. That is a testament to the fallen, “asiniwaye” tree having once been here in the forest, in the world.

    Biodun Jeyifo                                                                                                        bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Fr. Mbaka’s religious and political amalgam

    Fr. Mbaka’s religious and political amalgam

    CATHOLIC priest and founder of the Enugu-based Adoration Ministry, Ejike Mbaka, has remained undaunted in his fiery engagements with people of power despite the dreadful unease he causes the Catholic Church. His latest outburst suggesting that plans were being hatched by some shadowy persons to assassinate President Muhammadu Buhari is certain to bring grief to his superiors in the church. A few days ago while ministering, Fr. Mbaka had declared that opponents of President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war were determined to bring the campaign to a halt by getting rid of the president. He gave no substantiation other than to say heaven revealed the plot to him.
    Hear the outspoken priest: “So I want to tell you that so far, God is happy with Buhari. And him whom God has blessed, may you not try to curse, because God will curse you…Many people are planning, as it is revealed, to kill him. There are many plans on how to eliminate him so that corruption will continue, so that quantum embezzlement will continue…But the Lord says ‘God who put you there will not forsake you. Be firm, be resolute, remain focused, and be unbiased. Refuse to be intimidated and refuse to be distracted. Go ahead and war against evil. President Buhari, go ahead and war against corruption. President Buhari, God and his people are behind you, you are the answer to the prayers of the people. Amen.’”
    It is not clear where God’s word stopped, and where that of Fr. Mbaka began. But the priest’s fulsome support for President Buhari predates last year’s presidential election. Happily for the priest, his love for Buhari has been amply requited. Last December, many months after assuming office, President Buhari hosted the priest in Aso Villa and eulogised his courage and faithfulness in ministry. The priest beamed. But an evidently distressed and alarmed Catholic Church thereafter transferred him to Emene, a suburb of Enugu, having stayed more than a decade at Christ the King Parish, GRA, Enugu. His new place of posting, Our Lady Parish, is much smaller. Fr. Ejike immediately concluded that his transfer was punitive because he spoke the truth to power and denied former president Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian, support. He added very colourfully and even poetically that given the smallness of the Emene parish, it was apparent he was destined to suffer, without a place to lay his head or place the assets of the Adoration Ministry which he founded and nurtured to host thousands of Catholic faithful regularly.
    Since he repudiated Dr Jonathan in January 2015 by calling on the electorate to reject the then president and instead embrace Gen Buhari, Fr. Mbaka has sustained his love, admiration and support for President Buhari, a support that has intensified and become amplified since the presidential election of 2015. Indeed, the priest argues passionately that President Buhari is the answer to the people’s and Catholic Church’s prayers concerning the election of a leader who would fight corruption. It was not surprising that this kind of unalloyed support would elicit equal adulation from the president who last July congratulated the priest on his 21 years in ministry and 10 years of the Adoration Ministry.
    However, increasingly, many Christians are becoming a little wary of both Fr. Mbaka’s fulsome praise of President Buhari and his fulminations against the president’s enemies and everyone who shows any reservations about his style. In fact, the Catholic Church appears greatly saddened by what they see as Fr. Mbaka’s politicisation of religion. His transfer to Our Lady Parish, they suggested last February through their spokesman, Rev. Fr. Ralph Madu, was routine, overdue and definitely not punitive. Priests, the spokesman continues, are meant to serve anywhere without grumbling and with humility, while posting of church functionaries has always remained the exclusive preserve of the bishop. Fr. Mbaka, he adds, had indeed overstayed at Christ the King Parish. His new posting, the spokesman concludes, should even give him time for his Adoration Ministry which is a private, not church, ministry.
    Neither Fr. Mbaka nor his supporters, who are in their thousands, nor yet his financiers, one of whom announced a N100m donation to the Adoration Ministry a few days ago, are persuaded that the transfer was routine. They encourage him to stand strong and defiant, and ask him to continue what they describe as his prophetic ministry. Fr. Mbaka himself has revelled in predicting things and is determined to give his followers and converts many of the spiritual offerings they have come to depend on and expect. He knows he has caused a lot of distress to the church and his superiors in particular, but he sees his loyalty to God as priority, and to his supervisors only secondarily. In the foreseeable future, he will, therefore, sustain his outspokenness, keep the tap flowing on his prophetic offering, and exercise defiance whenever the occasion demands it.
    While his supervisors eye him warily and squirm as he jauntily darts crosses the boundaries between prophetic ministry and political ministry, they will be even more at a loss what to do with him. To keep him is becoming to them an almost sheer impossibility; but to dispense with him entirely, assuming church rules make it expedient and easy, is even more challenging. Should they hope he would make an ass of himself one day with a spectacularly misplaced prophecy, they would still worry that the collateral damage to the church could be unbearable. When mega churches such as the Catholic Church deal with an unorthodox and possibly obstreperous priest, they find themselves caught between the rock and a hard place. They will of course recall with anguish the famous case of Martin Luther, the German-born Christian reformer. They will also not be unmindful of the fact that Fr. Mbaka seems to retain a lot of respect in and out of the Catholic Church.
    That respect may, however, begin to fade soon as Fr. Mbaka haughtily transcends the divide between religion and politics. He has belaboured Igbo irredentists in terms that are unexampled and unflattering, even describing them as evil and illogical. The various irredentist groups in the Southeast have responded in kind, advising him to drop his cassock and play full-time politics if he has the courage and the conviction. The more he abandons federal politics, which he fulminated against so popularly and effectively under Dr Jonathan, for local politics, a strange and unfamiliar ground to him, he could get ensnared. Even heavyweight Igbo politicians have been careful not to directly and irreverently oppose either the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) or the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). Fr. Mbaka has shown no such sensitivity or even discipline.
    More, the priest could soon get into trouble with the wider public as he starts to allude to factors and sentiments that are either illusory or indefensible. Fr. Mbaka got away with murder, so to speak, when he assailed a deeply unpopular Dr Jonathan in the run-up to the last general elections. It is not clear that his fawning sentiments about President Buhari will continue to resonate as clearly and richly as he hopes and presumes. Will he recant sometime soon when that epiphany hits him? In March last year when he alleged that the Goodluck Jonathan family was after his life, the former president and his wife simply hissed and moved on. The First Family recalled that he had fawned over them in their early days in office, almost as if he was after certain patronage, according to their surmise. So when he began to rail against them, they first tried to blackmail him by releasing video recordings of how he praised the First Family. When that failed to unnerve the faithful who thronged his ministry grounds, the president and his wife simply ignored him.
    Fr. Mbaka will be sensible an sensitive enough to know he cannot play ducks and drakes with the affections of the mercurial President Buhari. The president has a reputation for not taking prisoners; but in addition, he has enough agencies and aides who do not balk at using state power in seemingly transparent manner to disembowel any upstart or critic, no matter how highly placed, or of whatever colour or religion. Fr. Mbaka is sucking up to the Buhari presidency now. He had better stand pat, for if the Nigerian cultural standard is anything to go by, he may be incapable of living or ministering above suspicion to escape the arm-twisting the Buhari government is becoming famous for.
    But above all, the Catholic Church cannot because of the fear of consequences continue to indulge Fr. Mbaka’s crass politicking. They should rein in their priest as they know how best to do in line with experience garnered from centuries of interaction with difficult political situations and upheavals. Priests have a voice in any social and political environment, especially as the Catholic Church knows in terms of the so-called liberation theology. And they can express those opinions brilliantly and within the context of the scriptures. But open and unadulterated partisanship is another thing entirely. If Fr. Mbaka will not caution himself, and the state is too intoxicated by his panegyrics to ask him who is planning to assassinate the president, the church should step in and do what is necessary to restore normality and decency.

  • Two Brazilian Miracles for Nigeria

    Two Brazilian Miracles for Nigeria

    The 2016 Rio Olympics has now come and gone. But the stupendous hangover lingers on for the host nation and arguably the most successful participant. When Santa Claus beautifies the Brazilian samba everybody wants the beat to go on forever. The Rio Olympics has been adjudged as a spectacular success, one of the most inspiring and splendidly organized ever. A week after the events, there remains the sweet scent of human triumph against impossible odds.

    For Brazil, the host nation, it is the equivalent of a modern miracle; and there is a magical hint of the comeback country in all its gravity-defying essence. Given the seemingly laggard preparations, there were many who swore that the games would never take off or that if they ever did it would be so miserable and dismal, that the foolhardy Brazilians would be forced to hide their head in shame. Up till the opening ceremony, there were whispers that Brazil might throw in the towel. It was as if the endemic tropical languor was about to overwhelm this mammoth nation. But Brazil threw its hat in the ring instead.

    The reason for the singularly unoptimistic and bleak view of Brazil’s prospects is obvious. In recent times, the country has been so traumatized by a series of interlocking political and economic crises that it appeared to the outside world that something was about to give. The president who was facing impeachment over allegations of corruption was eventually impeached. In the event, the feisty and indomitable Dilma Rousseff was forced to watch from the sidelines an opening ceremony which was supposed to be a personal coronation; a site of great historic triumph.

    But far more serious was the fact that the economic miracle wrought by the immediate past president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which had seen about forty million Brazilians lifted from the trough of abject poverty to the portals of prosperity had stalled. The much beloved Lula himself was in disgrace and political ruination having been found guilty of corrupt practices. The fetid Brazilian slums otherwise known as favelas normally bristling with feral violence and social implosion were rousing once again as implacable returnees lurk with intent.

    So serious was the situation that on the eve of the opening ceremony workmen were still working round the clock even as harried artisans could be seen feverishly trying to put finishing touches to structures that seemed destined to remain monuments to architectural folly. And then there was a looming plague known as the Zika virus. But the Brazilians pulled off a dramatic coup. It was a feat of national redemption which will remain evergreen in the annals of the nation-state.

    After the opening ceremony which completely silenced cynics, this immense former Portuguese colony and slummy backwaters of underdevelopment left no one in doubt that it intended to make the Rio Olympics an incontrovertible evidence of its arrival at the front seat of modernity and rationality. In the words of Ade Ojeikere, the fine and ever perceptive columnist of The Nation who was there: “With the hosting of the World Cup and the Olympics, the Samba land can safely be called an industrialized nation”.

    The last World Cup? It has been said that the hour of gold can also coincide with the hour of lead. If the last World Cup was a national triumph for Brazil, it was also a site of a great national calamity. For most denizens of this soccer crazy nation, Brazil failed woefully where it mattered most and that was in the department of the alternative national religion: football. For this deeply religious and superstitious people, the event is often referred to as “the bad thing” and it has entered national folklore as a day of dark portents.

    They are referring to the clinical decimation and disembowelment of the Brazilian national soccer team by a pack of German hard boys in a historic 7-1 drubbing at the semi-final stage of the competition. The entire nation went into a grief-stricken coma. The Maracana stadium, the Mecca of soccer, had seen floods of Brazilian tears before, particularly in the historic fiasco against Uruguay in the 1950 final, but never before on this industrial scale. Men wept and women wailed even as old people sobbed uncontrollably. It was as if the nation has been hit by a major earthquake.

    For this writer, the enduring symbol of this Brazilian soccer debacle is frozen in the image of a beautiful Brazilian girl who suddenly toppled and lurched forward on her seat as if shot from behind when the Germans crashed in their fifth goal. It was the most tragically sublime expression wounded national pride that one has ever seen and will remain with yours sincerely this side of the abyss of transition.

    But it was the Brazilian masters who had stabbed themselves in the back. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat the past. For decades, analysts have been warning that the fluid and free-flowing Brazilian soccer template with its carefree naivety and lack of meticulous focus is very vulnerable to the relentless Panzer-like soccer of the Germans and the sublime cynicism of the Italians and Spaniards. In 1982, not even the magic of Eder, Socrates, Zico, Junior and Falcao could save a brilliant and iconic Brazilian team from the relentless goal-poaching of Paulo Rossi.

    A week ago, everything, including the God of soccer, came together seamlessly this time for the Brazilians in the Olympics soccer final against the inevitable Germans. It was a Brazilian team redolent of  future greatness. In an epic feat of national redemption, the Brazilians have managed to overcome the unrestrained flamboyance and lack of coordination. The soccer still flowed as if the masters were dancing to the samba. The brilliant individual flourish remained and so did the deft magical passing.

    But the Brazilians have learnt how to “kill” space going forward and to quickly fall back when dispossessed. In the event, the game stalemated into a deadly midfield duel with neither side wanting to take unwarranted chances which could disrupt the rigid militarized formation. In the ensuing penalty shoot-out, it was Neymar da Silva Santos junior, the eccentric Brazilian genius, who made the difference. Politically, economically and in the soccer department that mattered most to the nation, the Brazilians have come back from the dead.

    This inspiring Brazilian double miracle commends itself to a nation like Nigeria as it struggles to overcome its internal difficulties. It is brimming with tropes of redemptive resources. Like the Congo Democratic Republic, this mammoth former colony also shares some major similarities with Nigeria. They are both domains of immense natural resources and variegated economic possibilities.

    But Brazil could have been in a worse shape than Nigeria. Although Portugal was technically the very first modern nation-state dating back to the twelfth century, the ancient Portuguese were bearers of a rudimentary modernity shot through with pre-modern irrationality and superstitious fetishes. In terms of civilization and enlightenment they were only marginally better than the ancient Africans they enslaved. But they had superior firepower and a genius for global seafaring.

    Yet since the Portuguese had no conception or concept of the nation-state, all their prized overseas possessions, including Brazil itself, were treated as a mere extension or ancillary to the metropolitan homeland. At a point all the colonies were incorporated into the metropole in the first tri-continental kingdom the world has seen. At another point when the Iberian heat became threatening the entire Portuguese royalty relocated to Brazil and this was the case until a series of local revolts put an end to the royal road show.

    This was why all the Portuguese colonies in Africa, Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau, descended into huge infernos of war and chaos as the struggle for liberation and decolonization got underway. You cannot give what you don’t have. Portugal itself underwent a revolution to see off its ancient ruling caste only in the last quarter of the last century. But all this was mere antiquated stirring in a superannuated feudal tea cup. It was a case of the blind leading the blind.

    Yet unlike their indigenous African counterparts, the Brazilian white-settler ruling class have taken the task of modernizing their colonial behemoth far more seriously. This has proved the difference between Brazil and Nigeria. In constant and continuous exertions lasting almost six hundred years, the Brazilians have seen off their colonial conquerors, their imported royalty, their meddlesome military and lately their hegemonic white master-class currently fighting a rearguard battle for a return to the retrogressive status quo. Nigeria has not even thrown up an organic and cohesive nationalist ruling elite.

    So while we are ruing the paucity of medals from Rio, let us also remember that this is a reflection of the endemic Nigerian disease of confusing the symptom with the real ailment. Medals are for heroic and well-organized nations. Until a truly modernizing elite arrive that will drive accelerated development and deepen the democratic process in Nigeria, medals will be few and far between. This is the lesson of the Brazilian miracles.