The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

On principalities and public principles

Principalities, being primates of power production and consumption, endanger public principles because public principles are a danger to them. Democracy, being the principal public principle by which modern man has chosen to order and govern his affairs, is a principal enemy of principalities. Democracy remains the most implacable enemy of principalities because it replaces the rule of principalities with the reign of public principles. But what are principalities?

Principalities are like principals and wardens of politics and public institutes. But comparing principals with principalities is like comparing conditions to conditionalities. Conditionalities are also conditions, but they are much more than that. Conditionalities are structured and organized conditions which give a higher efficiency and abstract rigour to their operative order.

Going by the same logic, principalities are structured and highly organized principals who endure much longer and whose domination of their environment is such that they can only be prised apart by force or higher cunning or a combination of both. Such is the power of principalities and the way it has been burnt into human consciousness that long after the material conditions which gave rise to them have been superseded, they continue to exert tremendous pressure on human imagination and institutional memory.

Long after they had arrived in the new world, away from tyrannical and feudal Europe where ancient principalities abounded, the Americans gave considerable thought to the power of principalities in the exercise of their new found freedom. They hedged their bet about the efficacy of democracy which may well degenerate to mob rule in certain circumstances. Like the ancient Romans, they put in place an authoritarian and patrician senate to act as a countervailing check to the rowdily plebeian House teeming with casual riffraff. In addition, the American president is elected by an electoral college rather than a simple democratic majority.

Although they may be vestigial remains of an ancient world of kingdoms, fiefdoms and empires, powerful principalities do sometimes return to haunt the modern world and to remind it of unfinished business. The twentieth century had its fair share of these sacred monsters. There is no record of modern civilization which is not at the same time a record of superhuman struggles against principalities.

Every human society has to negotiate its terms of release from principalities, either through dodgy or sometimes tense cooptation (Britain, Spain, Holland, Norway, Denmark etc), through the introduction of a monarchical presidency(France) or an all-powerful imperial presidency(America). In many other parts of the world such as the Middle East, Far East, Asia and Latin America, authoritarian traditional monarchies, dynastic despotism and the cruel oxymoron of democratic autocracies subsist.

In Africa where the ancient, the colonial and the post-colonial modes of power productions jostle in bitter contention and with several mutually incompatible people and societies thrown into the historic melee, powerful principalities have been engaged in a perpetual political warfare with the residual, the prevailing and the emergent platforms of human emancipation at very great cost to the nascent nations. Sometimes in the course of the struggle, the state or the nation disappears altogether. It is the Nigerian chapter of this centennial struggle that we must now address.

July 12, 2015
Pros and cons of presidential ‘go slow’

In his last incarnation as Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari and his second-in- command, Tunde Idiagbon, were a couple of all-action soldiers who took an unruly nation by the scruff of the neck and set it straight.

The impact of their short reign remains branded in the nation’s psyche such that many anticipated another action-packed crack at governing Nigeria. The opening 30 days of the new All Progressives Congress (APC) have been anything but that – leading to the resurrection of the less than flattering “Baba Go Slow” tag that was last hung around the neck of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

A recent Bloomberg article by Daniel Magnowski titled ‘Buhari Goes From Nigeria’s Change Champion to ‘Baba Go Slow’ aptly captured the frustration of people who expected him to come out with guns blazing. Aside from those who are interested in Buhari’s appointments because they hope to be beneficiaries, there are others for whom politics is spectator sport.

For them the whole business of hiring and firing is entertainment. On that front very little is happening. Many who had expected that Buhari would send the remnants of the Goodluck Jonathan era – everyone from service chiefs to hastily appointed agency heads – packing once installed in office, are mystified that he’s taking his sweet time getting rid of them.

In fact so frustrated have some Nigerians become that since Buhari would not name his aides and ministers they have taken to appointing them for him. In the course of a meeting a little over a week ago a colleague excitedly announced that the president had just ‘named’ long-time associate Col. Hamid Ali as Chief of Staff. News of the ‘appointment’ soon went viral online. Three hours later the Presidency was denying that such an appointment had been made.

While Buhari keeps his list of cabinet nominees in a bomb-proof safe in Aso Rock, journalists and other stakeholders entertain themselves with speculations, or vent their anger at the lack of action by reminding us of how everyone from Barack Obama to Olusegun Obasanjo had – to use their favourite cliché – ‘hit the ground running.’

The leisurely take-off of the new administration has inspired Nigerians who are past masters at gallows humour to offload a few jokes. I saw an online comment the other day asking Jonathan to quickly send ‘Patience’ back to Aso Villa because Buhari keeps asking for her!

Although six weeks have passed I still refuse to join the chorus line that’s already writing the obituary of the new administration. My position is simple: If Buhari received a ‘change’ mandate doesn’t he deserve breathing space to do things differently – even if it’s not at the pace some would like?

Those who keep reminding us of what Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan did in their first few days in office are actually saying – yes we voted ‘change’ but what we actually want is for you to do things the exact way these former leaders did.

Pace is important given that the last administration left Nigeria prostrate. But in the current situation haste just for the sake of appearing busy has dubious benefits. What is important in a race is not how fast the take-off is but how well you end. Jonathan et al presumably ‘hit the ground running’ but ended up running the country aground.

That said, we must concede that not everyone who has criticized Buhari’s tardiness in naming a team has done so with base motives. Many have made very strong points that the president and whoever has his ears need to take on board.

We have heard excuses about the lack of cooperation from the last administration with regards to hand over notes. But that doesn’t explain the fact that between when the presidential election results were declared and May 29 the incoming crew had a clear two months to put together some sort of skeletal structure.

We’ve been told that Buhari is busy doing mysterious things to make the governing environment pristine for his new team to operate in. The upshot is that the earliest a cabinet would be constituted could be September.

No matter how reasonable the reasons are the longer the president takes to cobble together a governing team, the more uncertainty would shroud the government and its intentions within the country and without. People have mentioned the impact of this uncertainty on the financial markets. It is also critically important in a country where much of the activity revolves around what the government does or doesn’t do.

It has also been argued that one of the reasons there seems to be an upswing in the spate of insurgents attacks in the North-East is the sense that the new administration is still feeling its way – trying to put in place its own strategies.

Somehow the military momentum that swept Boko Haram out of the villages and towns they had hitherto occupied appears to have dissipated. In the intervening period when one government gave way to another, the insurgents have gotten second wind, retooled their strategy and returned with multiple suicide attacks in different locations.

It is hard to argue with the statistics. There has been an upsurge in suicide attacks in recent weeks. Every few days now there’s a new one. Last weekend in Borno State six female suicide bombers wreaked havoc. The killers have visited Kaduna and Kano States and have been to one of their old stomping grounds – Buni Yadi.

Something is definitely going on here. It may or may not be down to the fact that those tasked with leading the fight against the insurgents are unsettled because they are uncertain about their future. Whatever it is, that feelgood factor that was so evident in the days following APC’s stunning electoral victory is slowly ebbing away. The new regime would be making a costly mistake if it dismisses this view out of hand.

The delay in constituting a team may have conveyed a sense of ennui, but the bungled National Assembly leadership selection process added a picture of disarray so early in the life of the administration – leaving its foes to crow ‘morning shows the day.’

Buhari may have been forced to calibrate his speed by the shock of what he met on the ground, but he must understand that his stock of goodwill with an impatient population cannot last forever. It is in his interest to constitute a team as soon as possible. There’s too much pressure when one man is the focus of all, and he definitely doesn’t need the air of uncertainty generated by his ad-hoc arrangement.

July 12, 2015
Fear of progressives in our country

Trying to pretend that there is no wing of the northern elite that is opposed to Buhari’s candidacy and may thus be interested in sponsoring opposition to his anti-corruption policies and programmes is being deliberately myopic

Fear of progressives or of progressive ideas by individuals and groups obsessed with reactionary or conservative ideas has been a part of human organisations from time immemorial. The tension since the beginning of human history between conservative (originally known as feudal) forces and liberty-oriented individuals (generally known as progressives) is still evident in many societies of today. For as long as there are people who identify with ideas that seek to promote and protect the interests of the people at large while there are others who remain fixed to the position that it is only the personal or class interests of the few with various forms of advantage that should dominate majority with the power to determine what benefits should be given to the masses from the common wealth in any society, there is bound to be morbid fear between the two groups. It is usually the few individuals with the advantage of power in politics, economy, and society that generally appear more afraid of those cultivating new ideas than the other way around. But in cases of successful revolutions championed by those on the side of progress, such progressives quickly learn that the fear of reactionary forces is the beginning of wisdom.

Those who were around to witness the political history of the country and those who have had opportunities to study the country’s political journey since independence ought not to be surprised when Chief Bisi Akande made the following observation: “Most northern elites, the Nigerian oil subsidy barons and other business cartels who never liked President Buhari’s anti-corruption political stance are quickly backing-up the rebellion against the APC with strong support….While other position seekers are waiting in the wings until Buhari’s ministers are announced, a large section of the South-West sees the rebellion as a conspiracy of the north against the Yoruba.” Many persons and organisations, including the north’s apex socio-cultural organisation, the Arewa Consultative Forum, have castigated Chief Akande for making inflammatory statements and for attempting to return with this statement, despite his contributions to the building of a pan-Nigeria political party in APC, to the politics of ethnicity and religion. The ACF said authoritatively that “the era of tribal and religious politics or inciting one tribe over [sic] the other has no place in our present political focus.”

As expected, people have lined up in the last two or so weeks behind or against Chief Akande for his statement or assessment of what went wrong with the election of National Assembly officers about a month ago. What is missing in the reactions of individuals and associations to Akande’s statement is the courage to ask pertinent questions before attacking the messenger. One of such questions should have been about whether there is a stratum of the elite in the north and other regions that is mortally opposed to Buhari’s anti-corruption stance and his ethic of change of the manner Nigeria is governed.

Without mincing words, there are and have to be members of the elite in the north and south who are not comfortable with Buhari’s electoral victory and citizens’ mandate to him to work towards change of governance philosophy and style in the country. From the infancy of modern politics in multiethnic Nigeria during and after colonialism, there has always been a stratum of the elite class in all the regions with unmistakable aversion for modernity and change. In the 1940s for example, a strong group of traditional elite in the north unapologetically stood against calls for political independence from colonial subjugation, apparently for fear that sending British colonisers away would diminish the power and influence of the core of the north’s traditional leadership.

Even in the west, now referred to as south-west and some sections of the south-south, there were persons who considered themselves cultural leaders who campaigned overtly and covertly against the introduction of free primary education when Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his Action Group party launched the policy of providing access to members of all social classes in the western region to acquisition of knowledge that could accelerate the process of modernisation. It was such opposition against reducing the barriers to change and equality that explained why the northern region looked away from copying the experiment in free universal education in the west after Awolowo’s progressive politicians overshadowed their conservative counterparts in the region with large support of the citizenry.

Similarly in the second republic, conservative members of the elite in the north and the south in the NPN tried to justify the denial of access to universal education to citizens by insisting that there should be no universal education until the country was in a position to provide ‘qualitative education,’ as if access and quality were mutually exclusive. The entire country is suffering today for the denial of education to millions of children in the north when the Unity Party of Nigeria, a progressive political party, pleaded with citizens that no amount of learning was useless. Most of the young people in the army of Boko Haram terrorists today must be children or grandchildren of Nigerian citizens in the north that were denied access to modern education in the first and second republics in particular. The current push by the international community for a total approach to the problem of Boko Haram certainly includes a recognition of decades of marginalisation of the masses in a region dominated by elites with little confidence in universal education, one of the pillars of political and social reform.

Just as there were conservatives or reform-averse individuals in the north and the south in the pre-independence era, so were there agents of reaction and reform in both sections of the country in subsequent republics. While the NPC was the dominant political group in the north at the time of the 1959 election, so was there NEPU of Malam Aminu Kano. In the second republic, the dominance of change-resisting NPN in the north was countered by a change-promoting political party also led by Aminu Kano, the PRP. Alhaji Balarabe Musa and Abubakar Rimi won gubernatorial elections in Kaduna and Kano under the PRP. Both agents of change then served as governors until the wheel of impeachment at the instance of the conservative wing of the northern elite removed Balarabe Musa from office. There were many intellectuals even in the southwest who believed that the UPN was not progressive enough for the problems confronting Nigeria and thus chose to register as members of the PRP. Just as the north had fire-eating enemies of change then, so did the region have change-promoting activists and intellectuals. For example, Bala Usman compared favourably with his radical counterparts in the south: Segun Osoba (the historian, not the journalist) and many others.

Even in the third republic, the nation’s political space was divided into two: ‘a little to the right and a little to the left.’ The candidate for the right emerged from the north while the one for the left came from the south. It is only in 2015 that the candidate for the presidency on the platform of progressives is a northerner, an unmistakable member of the northern elite that Chief Akande referred to as producing most of those who sponsored the controversial election of officers in the National Assembly. Clearly Akande’s use of northern must have been in terms of geography, rather than ethnicity or religion.

Reducing Akande’s argument about the role of conservative forces in the crusade against change (after the election of Buhari as the nation’s agent of and for change) to ethnic or religious distraction does not help matters in any way. It smacks more of intimidation of the first chairman of APC who Buhari himself has referred to as a major builder of the party. Even though northern elite in general asked for a northerner to succeed Jonathan, it is not unexpected that Buhari’s coming to power on the platform of change, reform, and improvement may not please all members of the northern and southern elite. Trying to pretend that there is no wing of the northern elite that is opposed to Buhari’s candidacy and may thus be interested in sponsoring opposition to his anti-corruption policies and programmes is being deliberately myopic.

If our children are to have proper political education, no individual or group should deny the existence of some elites in the north and in the south and of their power or influence to scuttle the process of change, especially when power is in the hands of a progressive, whether he or she is from the north or the south. Ideological differences have always been a part of the country’s political culture and no amount of effort to occlude this fact can lead to reform. Conservatives and progressives must have the courage to identify public with their political stance, and no group should seek to benefit from the regime of change from shielded enclaves of reactionary forces in any part of the country while denying the existence of reactionary forces. Most modern countries of the world use ideology to structure their political conflict and competition for power. Majority of Nigerians opted for a progressive political party in the March/April elections and those who are behind neutralisation of the party of change need to be exposed so that citizens can take proper note.

July 12, 2015
Slavery in commercial banks in nigeria: CBN must intervene

We knew nothing of the pressures young bankers are today put through chasing deposits, mostly proceeds of corruption, in billions, which their crafty directors end up fraudulently converting to their own

The title of this article does not belong to me. Rather, it belongs to a highly introspective senior citizen, a retired public servant who has seen more than eight decades on terra firma. He is, incidentally, a trained economist who, therefore, knows the critical role banks play in the economic development of nations. And as I recently wrote on these pages, unlike the young, who looks forward when he falls, the old does the reverse, that is, looks backwards, eager to know exactly where the fault lies. Chief Deji Fasuan, MON, JP and, by His grace, 84 next September, has been doing just that about what tragedy has befallen the banking industry in Nigeria, at least, in one particular respect.

More about that later.

My first ever job on graduating from Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, December ’63, was as a banker at the prestigious Bank of West Africa, now First Bank, starting out at its headquarters in Marina, from where I would later be transferred to its Ebute Meta branch, Apapa Road, opposite the Fire Brigade office. Those were the days of 500-page ledgers, and bi-monthly balancing – 15th and last day of every month – when you were sure to sleep in the office if you could not balance those assigned to you. For instance, some of us, Tayo Orukotan, our most proficient ‘balancer’, inclusive, said our Happy New Year hurrays, right there in the office, on Saturday, 31st December, 1966. There were, of course, much more interesting things about banking in the 60s than having to spend your New Year eve in the office. For instance, I was guaranteed, as gift, the topmost five of whichever denomination the ever fashionably turned out Papa J M Johnson, then Minister of Labour in the Tafawa Balewa federal government, was paid any time he came to the bank. Just like I knew I was loaded whenever the wealthy business magnate, Papa Aduroja, breezed in all the way from Ilesha. And, of course, those unforgettable bankers’ picnics that saw many of us, friends , among them Leke Owolabi and dear departed Arthur Medeiros, and bankers from Barclays Bank, African Continental Bank, Bank of West Africa, etc with Victor Abiodun of the Central Bank coordinating, heading to Pension Smith, Agege, at every festive period. We used to charter the popular LMTS bus. We knew nothing of the pressures young bankers are today put through chasing deposits, mostly proceeds of corruption, in billions, which their crafty directors end up fraudulently converting to their own. We are told the ladies among them are now, in fact, encouraged to do whatever, as long as deposits roll in. How many of these young Nigerians are now on medication for hypertension we would never know. Right from our desks, in our various banks, we ordered the best of Van Heusen shirts, all the way from England, which enabled the likes of Bayo Famotibe, Funmi Banjo, Femi Turton, Mike Okonkwo – yes the Bishop – and, of course, yours truly, turn out smelling like a thousand roses week in, week out. Indeed, after leaving our almost every month-end parties at Railway Recreation Club around 6 am on Sunday, the Bishop, rather than sleep, was sure to drive Papa and Mama to the early morning Mass. Such was the ease under which we lived as young bankers, envied by our contemporaries in the community. Today, smart Alecs have so changed it that the first thing even a chronic unemployed tells you is that he/she does not want a marketing job. While fraud was not completely unheard of – I won’t ever forget Orukotan, a cashier, bursting a local unemployed boy who was being used by a colleague of ours to withdraw from dormant savings accounts- they were a far cry from what now obtains as billions now get stolen annually. Indeed, NDIC has just reported an increase of 182.8 per cent in bank frauds for 2014. Deposits, in our days, were voluntarily brought in by individuals like the Oke Arin traders, cooperative societies, churches etc unlike now when banks daily deploy armadas of young persons in search of deposits.

And this, precisely, is what here engages the attention of a concerned Chief Fasuan who is calling on the Central Bank to urgently address the issue.

Happy reading.’

I am not exactly sure of the origin of commercial banking in Nigeria. All I grew to know in the late 40s and early 50s is that there were BBWA (Bank of British West Africa), Agbonmagbe Bank, African Continental Bank, New Nigeria Bank, National Bank of Nigeria Limited and Barclays Bank. These banks served the needs of market men and women around whom they were located. Very little was known of their staff outside the banking circle. They were either headed by expatriates or highly skilled Nigerian professionals. And all you hear were ‘manager’, ‘accountant’ and ‘clerk’; certainly none of today’s plethora of hierarchies and titles. The economy was compact and banking customers were few. Customers took their cash physically to their banks for deposit either at the current or savings level. The customer was given a document in which the transactions (deposit and withdrawal) and liquidity position were clearly stated. However, banking in Nigeria has changed dramatically within the last two decades. For example, it’s no longer necessary to carry bank documents (Savings Book for example) to and fro, each time you want to pay or withdraw although you still write cheques to collect money from your current account. The practice now is that bright, educated and spritely young men and women are hired by commercial banks, designated ‘marketing officers,’ and thrown out to the world to look for customers. Desperately, these young ones invade homes, offices, entertainment centres, etc to look for depositors and other customers. You will think they are newly recruited salesmen and women for goods and articles manufactured by local industries. They hardly have a seat at their branch office.

One can see the level of desperation and anxiety to keep their jobs in the faces of these young Nigerians. When you tell them you have no money to invest in their bank, they will try to persuade you to transfer your money from your present bank to theirs, even if for only one month. This is to show their bosses back in the office that they are working. Some, indeed, travel out with their bosses at weekends to retain their volatile jobs!

Without a doubt, the banking industry in Nigeria has been infiltrated with negative practices that were originally unknown to commercial banking – an otherwise elegant and elitist profession. The question now is what is the role of the Central Bank as a regulator of the banking industry in Nigeria? Also, are the labour unions within the banking industry unaware of the treatment meted to these young people, which border on slavery and exploitation?

Some may ask how banks would get customers if these young men and women are not sent the harm’s way. Simple. Advertisement in the media, all media, is the answer. Vigorous advertisement on radio, television, the social media and billboards can ensure the competiveness of banks and how attractive their products are will then be the deciding factor. It is absolute obscenity to send our girls to the streets in adolescent age to canvass for business for the big man up there.

The Central Bank of Nigeria should not be seen to be concerned only with the safety of the depositors’ funds or returns on investment. The regulatory body should also look into the ethics of the profession especially between the mighty managers and the vulnerable ‘marketing’ officers. Some level of security of job and the sanctity of the human dignity are necessary in banking operations as we see it in other climes. While each member of the industry should continue to have freedom to organise its operations within the extant regulations– the CBN must ensure a level of decency and comportment by the banks.

Also, Labour, as a defender of the dignity of labour, has a responsibility not to allow a sector of the workforce be treated as slaves and be assigned derogatory, even dangerous and hazardous roles in the work place.

July 12, 2015
The premier university is (now) Nigeria’s highest ranked university? So what?

Last Saturday in an email directed to me personally, I received the news from JournalsConsortium.org itself: the University of Ibadan, my alma mater, is the new highest ranked research university in Nigeria; and it is the eighth ranked on the African continent. I don’t know whether JournalsConsortium.org sent the memo to me because they knew that I am a product of UI or because I am one of the academics they specially targeted. Whatever their reasoning might have been, I was very surprised to receive the notification. There are two reasons for this: one, it had never happened before; two, it is not the usual practice for any of the dozens of organizations dedicated to collecting, computing and disseminating data on the ranking of universities to send their findings to individual academics.

I confess that my first reaction to this memo from JournalsConsortium.org was that of elation. This is because I have warm and admittedly somewhat very sentimental memories of my years as an undergraduate at UI.We received very sound university education from the UI of those years, even if this high quality education was based on a very elitist conception of access to higher learning in a developing country like ours. Moreover, to the soundness of the education, add the very comfortable physical and social conditions within which the high quality learning was dispensed to us. Later on, I would discover that that sound education was compromised by the enormously crucial fact that if had little relevance to the cultural and social dimensions of any truly progressive and liberating intellectualism in the world we live in, especially in the developing nations of the global South. This critical knowledge about the kind of learning that my mates and I had received at UI was crucial to the emergence of my intellectual adulthood. But all the same, it did not erase, indeed could not erase the value, the fondness that I had and still have for the learning I received as an undergraduate at Ibadan. And this is why the email from JournalsConortium.org last Saturday gave me a strong sense of pride in my alma mater. But this elation did not last. In fact, it was so short that altogether, it must have been less than ten minutes in duration! What is the reason for this?

Perhaps the best way to express the complex and ambiguous feelings of great unease that followed my initial happiness in this matter is to invoke the analogy provided by the sublime satire and parody of both the title and the plot of the late Nkem Nwakwo’s novel, My Mercedes Is Bigger than Yours.The passion and the anxieties over rankings that we now see everywhere in the universities of Nigeria and the world seem to come from the same social and psychological etiology of the magical or fetishistic spell that the Mercedes Benz car or brand used to exercise over all segments of our society. People who did (not yet) have it used to look with deep admiration and envy at those who (already) had it. People who could afford to buy a Mercedes but chose not to were mercilessly hounded by their relatives and friends until they succumbed to the pressure and bought a Mercedes. Even people who could not and would never in their lifetimes be able to buy that fetish of a car exulted in its powerful, seemingly occult hold over the popular imagination. And so it is now with university rankings and the magical hold they exercise over virtually all the universities of the world, especially universities in our country and our continent.

One particularly illustrative fact might serve to underscore the analogy that I am making in this discussion between university rankings and “Mesi oloye”. If my memory serves me right, not too long ago, the University of Ilorin was ranked the highest in Nigeria. Before that, I remember that Uniben occupied the spotlight. In the case of Unilorin as now with UI, the spotlight was beamed across the length and breadth of the land.There were secret and not-so-secret whispers that Unilorin had achieved that spotlight by questionable means having to do with computational mumbo jumbo. We can very well imagine that UI’s present claim over the spotlight will also be disputed, if not on the same grounds then on some other comparable grounds having to do with methodology. At any rate, the most important point that I wish to draw attention to here is the highly distorted and exaggerated value that university rakings have come to have in our society over and above real value in teaching, learning and research precisely because of the ruinous state of teaching and learning in virtually all our universities without a single exception.

In the present discussion, I do not wish to rehash all over again as I have done many times in this column the many terrible things wrong with both the content and the environment for basic teaching and learning in all our universities and other tertiary institutions. Suffice it to say that apart from the perennial complaints of would-be employers of highly educated, highly skilled labour that the products of our universities are so badly trained as to be “unemployable”, there is the very important fact that late last year, under the initiating direction of ASUU, all the unions in our tertiary institutions collaborated to convene a so-called National Educational Summit (NES) to address all the problems contributing to the regressive state of our universities, colleges of education and polytechnics. I had the honor of being the Chairman at that important Summit. While we await its final document which will be issued under the title of a “National Charter on Education”, I can report here that the ranking of Nigerian universities, whether in Africa or in the rest of the world, was not a major theme at the Summit. To simplify a lot, that theme had two distinct but interlocking ideas: relevant and quality education; and liberating education whose effect would be to develop critical skills indispensable for a developing nation like ours. In other words, the Summit focused squarely on two things. One of these is the fact that in all modern societies and economies, education has become an intellectual capital of great importance in which great investments must be made. The other thing is the recognition that education is more than a sellable or marketable commodity; it is also a means of self-liberation on both the individual and national levels.

The University in Ruins, that is the title of a book written by the late Bill Readings, a brilliant poststructuralist theorist and critic of millennial capitalism and its educational institutions. The “ruins” that Readings discusses in this book is of course not exactly of the same kind of “ruins” that have overtaken the UI that trained me as an undergraduate; and neither is it of exactly the same kind of “ruins” of physical infrastructures and teaching and research facilities that we see everywhere in virtually all our universities in Nigeria today. Readings had in mind in his book the “ruins” that have come in the wake of the take-over of North American universities by superannuated administrators and managers who run universities exactly like profit-making corporations, with the attendant almost complete marginalization of the professoriate. In other words, when professors, when women and men of great learning are no longer in control of what happens in teaching and research in the major universities of the heartland of global capitalism, the university is, for Readings, historically in “ruins”.

It is time to begin to bring these reflections to a close.In Readings’ deployment of the trope of “ruins” university rankings derive their rationale and power from the “branding’ that they give to universities in order to make them more competitive in the marketplaces of higher education. In our own historic case in Nigeria and Africa, things have not gotten that far down the road of the corporatization of universities. As a matter of fact, the obverse is true: the private, for-profit universities in Nigeria and Africa are now far more numerous than “national” or public-funded universities, but they are extremely parasitic on the public universities without which, in fact, they could not survive. For this reason, the “ruins”, the extremely deplorable conditions under which teaching and research take place in our universities, come from pseudo-capitalist political and economic conditions in which the private preys on the public, the rich prey on the poor, economics preys on politics, primitive accumulation preys on sustainable development – andthe ranking system preys and feeds on the need of our universities to keep up the appearance of quality and relevance. My Mercedes is bigger than yours, even though all our roads and highways are barely motorable; the ranking of my university is higher than yours, even if we are all in a terrible state of ruination.

Biodun Jeyifo

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

July 12, 2015
Principalities and people’s power in Nigeria

Over since the colonial inception of Nigeria, the constituent nationalities have waged a war of emancipation against the state and its principalities of power. This perpetual political warfare against an alien and alienating state is occasionally collective but more often the efforts of individual nationalities resisting an oppressive power and its principalities. It has shaped and framed the political contours and topography of modern Nigeria and has turned the nation into a permanent war camp irrespective of the principality in power.

Democracy became a ruse; a pious fraud in which the people and the power to determine their democratic destiny were summarily abolished. More often than not, the electorate tried to elect and the selectorate selected. On one occasion when the table threatened to turn against the run of play, less than thirty Nigerians summarily annulled the electoral will of fourteen million other Nigerians. Talk of the power of principalities.

On some other occasions, principalities in power simply imposed their preferred principalities even as they organized expensive electoral charades and chicaneries to formalize the epic joke. But as we have noted in the first part of this treatise, the problems with principalities of power is that they never know when the balance of power has shifted against them. If they are imbued with this historical awareness, they would not have been principalities in the first instance. Emperors exist to defend empires even when the empire has virtually collapsed.

The last elections in Nigeria, particularly the presidential slugfest, is a classic confirmation of the great observation that history often moves forward by lurching sideways. Away from the watchful eyes of the principalities of power, single drops of the water of resistance often become a mighty ocean of retribution and restitution sweeping all before it.

But contradictions and ironies abound. As history teaches us, the people in themselves cannot successfully conclude democratic revolutions without a fraction of the ruling class who have consciously or unconsciously committed political suicide. In other words, you cannot subdue principalities without the help of principalities. This is the iron paradox of historical advancement which lies at the roots of threatened and aborted democratic revolutions.

In March and April, driven to the edge of frustration and despair by poverty, misery and biblical suffering, the Nigerian multitude rose as one, irrespective of tribe, creed, region and religion, to reaffirm their humanity and to send off the evil principalities of power that have held the nation hostage for sixteen sorry years and by extension since independence. It was the very first time in the history of the nation that a ruling conglomeration has been forcibly retired and sent packing. It sent reverberations round the world that Nigeria has finally arrived.

Leading the pack against the principalities is a retired general who is himself a lapsed principality and military autocrat with fanatical following among the northern masses who had gradually moved away from the shrine of northern protector to the altar of national emancipator. Thrice the stubborn and implacably self-willed general tried to breach the Maginot Wall of oppression and thrice he was beaten back. On the last occasion, he broke down and publicly wept for the nation.

It is important to situate things and put them in a proper context so that Nigerians can grasp what has just happened to the country. It is also important to explode certain myths so that we may know where we are headed from here. There are those who maintain that this is not the first time the west has been in alliance with the north. As proof, they cite the old Akintola/ Sardauna working arrangement in which the NNDP was fused with the NPC to form the NNA.

The truth of the matter was that the NNDP and NPC alliance was not a marriage of equals but the incorporation of the weaker faction of the Yoruba political class into the dominant northern feudal machinery for the purposes of protection and reassurance. With the west very much on fire, Akintola felt very much unsafe from the rampaging Yoruba mob without the federal might.

It was clear that throughout this period, the late premier felt very much at home with his status as a junior partner in the federal arrangement. When he was not wittily excoriating his former political associates turned bitter enemies, Akintola was content with relentless Igbo-baiting. As documented by Chief Awolowo himself, Akintola held the Igbo political elite in seething contempt. What Awo did not add was that it was over what Akintola, rightly or wrongly, considered to be a lack of a sense of fairness or fair play on their part.

The fusion of ACN, CPC, ANPP and others to birth the APC was the first time in Nigerian history that the dominant political tendency in the west will go into alliance with the core north. This would have been impossible during the Awo era. The Ikenne titan viewed northern feudalism with towering rage and implacable contempt which betray a cultural rigidity which was also evident in the old northern power masters.

Perhaps this was how the colonial barons, in their divide and rule proficiency wanted things. Yet one of the unintended but beneficial trade off of protracted military rule is that it has forcibly brought sections of the nation’s political elite together in a way and manner that tend to thaw old cultural and political animosities. We may yet have to thank the military for this paradoxical bequeathal.

As it is evident in the robust self-assurance and sheer bravura of its leaders from various sections of the country, the APC is a marriage of equal partners with a visionary conception of a new national project. The old north may have the edge in sheer numbers, but Buhari’s previous attempts show that in the battle against principalities, the organizational discipline, the maximum mobilization, the technocratic savvy and the political modernity of sophisticated message infiltration brought to bear on this by the South West political elite may count for more. Fanatical mobs vote but they do not protect their votes, waiting instead for the call out against the electoral infidels.

It should be noted that for a long time after the Abiola tragedy and the forcible imposition of General Obasanjo on the nation, the old west went back to its default mode of insular and isolationist tendency dreaming of regional resurgence in a multi-national nation brimming with mutually hindering and inhibiting political conspiracies. But as long as it has not developed the military will to impose its political wish on the nation, it cannot opt out just like that.

How history often plays poker with political developments! In July 1966, the victorious northern military putchists were shouting “Araba!”, before they were reportedly cautioned by western diplomats about the sheer stupidity of attempting to secede after they had just captured an entire country. Ever since, arms and their managers assumed a centrality in determining who rules or who prevails in the power game in Nigeria.

But almost fifty years after, it has taken a rebellious scion of the north and former golden boy of the establishment to return full electoral sovereignty to the Nigerian people in a nation-defining presidential election that pitched him against the first minority president of the nation. When thus contextualized, it can be seen that the alliance between the dominant tendency in the South West and the core North cannot be envisioned as a conspiracy of domination but an unfurling pan-Nigerian elite project gradually incorporating all the progressive and forwarding looking segments of the nation in a bid to rescue a traumatized polity.

This is why what happened in the senate on June 9th is as unfortunate as it is tragic. It brings back the politics and polity of principalities and insinuates through the backdoor what Nigerians have just thrown out through the front door. It brings back the demons of ethnicity, of religious divisions and opens up old cultural and regional animosities. No matter how much anybody hates Tinubu’s political guts, you cannot blame a man if his politics are in canny alignment with the prevalent mood of his country.

Contrary to the insinuations of ethnic carrion feeders, there is nothing special or unique about the South West political elite who spearheaded this alliance that has given Nigeria a fresh chance. But there are moments in the life of a nation when a particular segment of the elite are placed in a position by history and culture to think through the national contradictions and come forward with practical solutions. This has nothing to do with any unique gifts.

As traditionalists looking back at the political evolution of their own society, the emergent dominant political tendency in the South West can view the problem of underdevelopment and feudalism in the north with sympathetic insights and hindsight. But as forward-looking modernists, they can also align with the economic dynamism and republican industriousness of their eastern brothers as long as it doesn’t tip over into the carnage capitalism which breeds anomie and lack of compassion for others. Unregulated mercantilism often brings out the worst in human beings.

But there is a price to pay for everything, even for being at the vanguard of change. For the Yoruba establishment, this in-between and go-between and the distrust it provokes from all sides may well turn out a formula or recipe for revolutionary political suicide. While we are still at the game, the federal establishment has poached two vital Yoruba states and others may well be threatened in the current combustible configuration, which all but removes the old plank of regionalism as a fallback position.

Going forward, for there is no going backward in the situation we have found ourselves, the dominant political tendency in the west must find all the political savvy and calm comportment it can muster and avoid the political narcissism which grates badly on others without compromising its core ideals. Sacrifice does not equate to surrender. As for President Mohammadu Buhari, he must avoid being captured by ethnic irredentists who view everything from the narrow primordial prism of ethnic supremacy.

We are not out of the wood yet. Many are already deeply disillusioned by the turn of events. But it is morning yet on creation day. As Buhari’s ascetic personal example and reforms kick in, those who profited from the old order and who cut across ethnic formations will fight back. In a society in the throes of traumatic transition, the struggle against principalities is not a tea party. When not prosecuted with vigour and alertness it may open the door for other lurking principalities as we have seen in the battle for the senate. Having shed the toga of a military general, Buhari must now look for the civilian fatigues of a political generalissimo.

July 12, 2015
Media: The log in our eyes

Following widespread media reports about state governments owing civil servants’ salaries for months, especially in Osun State, I remember seeing a Facebook page post meant to justifiably mock some media organisations.

The post read: Hypocrisy is when a media house is owing staff salaries and is writing an editorial criticising state government defaulting in payment of salaries.

Whoever came up with the post has good reasons to do so, considering the shocking salary debt profile of some media organisations in the country.

Some broadcast and print media organisations in the country are as guilty as some state governments for failing to meet their obligations to their workers. A report by the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) shows that the salary debt ranged from five months to 18 months.

Despite all efforts to get the concerned media organisations to pay up, they have refused to pay and continued to publish and broadcast as if the welfare of the journalists does not matter.

The NUJ and the workers have been forced to resort to picketing some of the organisations in the hope that the managements will pay. Most times, the media owners have not been able to fulfil the terms of agreements reached with protesting workers.

It is very ironic that some media houses in the forefront of campaigning for the payment of salaries and allowances of civil servants are not paying their workers. How can the concerned media organisations be taken seriously by defaulting governments and private organisations when they preach what they don’t practice themselves?

If they knew better, they would have implemented their suggestions in their media organisations and shown other employers how to treat their workers better.

What some media houses pay as salaries and allowances is poor enough compared to other sectors. Their inability to pay is a major indictment which they should be ashamed of instead of carrying on as if they are above the law.

While media houses like others can complain about the down turn of the economy which has negatively impacted on their operations, there is no justification to subject affected journalists to the kind of hardship they have had to cope with due to non-payment of their salaries.

What is apparent in some cases is that lack of proper management of human and financial resources is responsible for the sorry state the debtor media houses have found themselves. It is not that some of them are not making money that is enough to pay their staff and for operations, the problem is that they are not operating the proper corporate governance principles required for growing the business.

I remember joining The Punch newspaper in May 1987, when the company was battling to survive. That the newspaper has grown to become the leading newspaper in the industry is a testimony to the efficient management which the company has become known for.

If only some of the owners and management of some of the defaulting media houses can be more disciplined and subject their operations to due diligence, they will not find themselves in the mess they are today.

The media houses are lucky that they are operating in a country like Nigeria where the labour law is not strong enough to penalise employers who don’t pay their staff. One of them who tried to publish in South Africa folded up in less than a year due to the stringent law that protects the interest of the workers.

It is high time media houses which cannot pay their staff were shut down and stop pretending to be what they are not. Media organisations cannot continue to point out the speck in others’ eyes when we have logs in ours.

July 12, 2015
Has anyone found Nigeria, please?

With Nigeria lost in the power games and starched agbadas of her rescuers, we do have a situation

I don’t know if you have noticed this trend, but these days, our politicians seem to be carrying on as if they were superstars of Hollywood. At least, we all know that Hollywood stars, by dint of hard work and paid dues, usually earn enough money to buy themselves large egos. Don’t ask me if they deserve all that money considering that teachers and road-side labourers labour more, spend more hours working, less hours frolicking, and still cannot manage to keep their roofs. Your stars however find that they can buy themselves some exotic islands on earth as Marlon Brando was reputed to have done once.

Our Nigerian politicians have quite a bit in common with them. They also spend less hours working than the teacher, or roadside labourer who spends his entire energy digging up an unyielding earth. Politicians are supposed to be people whose lives have been interrupted ‘for a bit’ to ‘go and work for the people’. (Someone, not me, said they have been engaged to ‘just talk’). In the process, however, I guess they fancy themselves something like superstars; so they like to carry on like them stars and also buy themselves islands not by dint of hard work but courtesy of the Nigerian treasury.

You know how to recognise superstars, no? First there is the dressing, which is often outlandish. In fact, it often goes against the grains of sense; indeed, fig leaves make much better sense. If they are not opening up the frontage and dipping the neckline to the toes, they are putting on things that expose the muscles to the naked elements. You recognise our own superstar politicians by their own coverings also. Rather than baring anything, they don starched and excessively flowing agbada which are big enough to use as parachutes in landing emergences; or Savile Row suits and shirts, the costs of each of which can feed a family for a year.

Then there are the rides. Man, when you see the rides, you agree that there are stars. Every superstar knows that. We will not talk about Hollywood rides. We are more concerned about the big, shinny, black jeeps that shove my poor car off the road each time we have a confrontation. Actually, it’s got to the point now my car recognises them: as soon as one of the big bad wolves comes in view, my car begins to tremble. Honestly, if I wasn’t so annoyed by the cowardice of my car, I would be green with envy.

The conclusion is that it now pays to know one politician in Nigeria. There was a time it used to be that a family that had produced a graduate considered itself in seventh heaven. People could no longer talk to them anyhow in the market place. Soon after, graduates became two a penny, while some can’t even get jobs. So, it seems that our politicians have risen to take the superstardom space formerly occupied by graduates. People now stand tall knowing there is a politician in the family. Judging by the way they carry on, you would think they were now second class citizens while the rest of us are consigned to carrying on with life on the plains of sixth class citizenship (sniff! sniff!). By their politico-familial connections, they can get taken abroad, build houses and generally do well. Honestly, if I wasn’t so preoccupied looking for a politician who would adopt me as family, I would again be envious.

Something gnaws at me though, and that is that, in the midst of all this confusion, many things are being lost. There is first that thing that you use to remember with… what do you call it now… err…err… oh yes, memory. These days, I find that my memory is not what it used to be, like our president’s strength. Previously, I could remember the names of all the people throttling this country and holding it by the jugular. Now, I’m content to remember what I had for breakfast.

Then, I have established beyond any doubt that Nigeria has lost her sanity. That is the only thing that can account for all the carryings-on within her walls. Just imagine, only insanity can explain the juxtaposition of extreme poverty endured by the majority in the land and having the highest number of private jets in the world enjoyed by Nigerian governors. Worse, none of them entered the government houses with the jets. Even worse, many of them cannot now pay their workers’ meagre salaries, yet they are unwilling to let go those jets. Worse…. I need not go on. However, know this; only total loss of sanity can warrant thugs beating up people who were merely reading the news considered unfavourable to the governor as happened in Osun State. That is a sign that we have lost it completely.

This is why I can authoritatively and solemnly declare that Nigeria itself is lost. Somehow, between the flowing parachutes and the turbulence of the inter/intra-party fisticuff parlances, chair throwing jaw-jaws, swirling round-table talks and boiling turbulences arising from minor elections, everyone seems to have lost the country. Last time I looked, it was tucked in somewhere between the thick layers of starch on these parachutes but now, it’s not even there anymore. I tell you, things are going on around here, the most important of which is that everyone is busy promoting him/herself to superstardom and no one is considering the interests of the country.

To start with, have you noticed how so many sirens have taken over our roads now? Seriously, on a particular day last week, the vehicle I was in was forced to give way to a siren-blaring convoy tagged ‘Oni-Something of Somewhere’ consisting of a Hilux outrider, the blessed vehicle and another one bringing up the rear. Along the same route, we were forced yet again to give way to a bullion van carrying gun-wielding policemen and any amount of money. I took solace in the fact that we are used to being pushed aside for money’s sake. Next day, my vehicle had to give way to what I can only conclude must have been the convoy of a politician – no name tag, only one or two black, evil looking jeeps roaring around the kingdom. There are so many convoys on the road, so much shoving and pushing of ordinary people and their poor cars, so much indifference to people’s dignity and esteem that I am inclined to believe that somewhere along the way, the soul of Nigeria has evaporated.

It’s a little like the story of our folk tales in which someone is sent on a quest but ends up getting lost. Unfortunately, those sent in search of them also end up getting lost. Think the rather tragic story told in the film Saving Private Ryan in which the searchers end up getting more dead than the object of rescue. Think of the stories of Troy and Greece in which the rescuers end up suffering more than the bereaved. Now think of the tortoise who insisted on crying more than the lizard at the latter’s mother’s burial. Now, you’ve got the situation.

Those we sent to rescue Nigeria have somehow contrived to get themselves lost and this is no laughing matter; for that matter, it is no crying matter either. Every one of our politicians in all the political parties has demonstrated nothing so far but naked greed for posts, positions and power – total loss of focus. With Nigeria lost in the power games and starched agbadas of her rescuers, we do have a situation.

It seems to me that the Nigeria of our dreams must be retrieved from these agbadas by our collective voices. We must insist now on the country we want before it becomes permanently folded into those parachutes. We must find Nigeria.

July 12, 2015
APC lucky to face crises early

Last Friday’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) merely attempted to paper over the cracks in the party. But Nigerians want the ruling party and their leaders to concretely resolve their differences and move forward more sure-footedly to provide or inspire solutions to the country’s multifarious problems. It is doubtful, however, whether they have the courage and wisdom to do this. Notwithstanding this deficiencies, they must consider themselves lucky to be facing grave, life-threatening intra-party crises early in the day. There is still a chance they may overcome the main crisis tearing the party apart; but the resolution is unlikely to come through the disingenuous compromises some party leaders are proposing, or through living in denial of the true nature and dimensions of the problem, as the presidency appears to be doing.

Given the tempo and direction of the said NEC meeting, it seems the solutions being proposed by party leaders are unlikely to tackle the fundamental grounds of the disagreement. These grounds pertain to the principles, ideology, character and identity of the party. Attention is disproportionately placed on securing peace and moving on. Attention should, however, more appropriately be put on what kind of foundations are being laid for the party, and how the edifice would be built, an edifice whose silhouette won the last polls. The solution the party leaders devise will flow from how they frame the problem. From all indications so far, they have framed the problem as a twin issue of securing the independence of the legislature, and checkmating the influence of one or two leaders of the party. But the problem really is how to ensure the party has an identity, character, inspiring principles; and then to identify and promote to prominence the men and women upon whose strong will, philosophy and moral grandeur an enduring party can be built.

By framing the problem simplistically along the lines of engendering legislative independence and of also curbing a few influential or domineering party leaders, it was not surprising that the crises confronting the party had coalesced around personalities and the conjuration of ogres. It led to and brought into bold relief the machinations of Bukola Saraki, the Senate President, whose election, once it was concluded, determined the outcome of the elections in the House of Representatives. The senate leadership election is a great opportunity for the party to look itself in the mirror and determine whether it likes what it sees. So far, a majority of party leaders appear to like the image they see in the mirror. But because the problems that accompanied that election are disturbingly visible and have accentuated the ugly cracks in the party, party leaders may wish to pause and take a second and closer look.

If they are competent to frame the party’s problems correctly, they may, in the light of that deeper understanding, want to examine the processes that led to the election of Senator Saraki on June 9 and ask themselves a number of questions. It was obvious the election proceeded from a clear Machiavellian exertion of plots and schemes. While the election has been legitimised, senators and the public must wonder whether those who wished to reform the country, those who wished to offer the country role models, those who wish to set standards for public morality and behaviour, should embrace the tactics of rushing an election among 108 senators when 51 of them were yet to arrive at the senate chamber. Instead of framing the problem as one in which the party was yet to accommodate certain tendencies and legacy parties in the APC, the country must wonder what other disturbing moral monstrosities inhere or are incubating in the minds of those who emerged from such amoral and controversial legislative electoral processes. The country must wonder how competently and morally those who embrace such tactics can make great laws for the country. Winning anything is not everything; how victories are procured go a long way in determining what kind of peace will be enjoyed, and to what noble end that victory would be put.

If the APC summons the wisdom to see their crises in far wider and deeper ramifications than are apparent to a majority of Nigerians and analysts, they will recognise the onerous responsibility confronting them and the huge courage they will require to boldly reset their party’s foundations. Admittedly, this task will be left to a few within the party, for the majority often neither sees any complexities nor understands the nuances that shape the moral and existential fibres of a political organisation. To reset a party’s foundations will therefore be a long, brutal, and agonising enterprise, a task that is, in the case of the APC, compounded by President Muhammadu Buhari’s seeming timidity and lack of perspective. It was hoped that before the crucial APC NEC meeting of last Friday, the president would have recognised where the problems actually lie. His statements do not give hope that he did. However, it is still an advantage to the party that early in its life as a ruling party, the president is embroiled in the crisis, either as a self-professed onlooker, or as a victim of collateral damage. Here is why.

President Buhari has not suggested he has any misunderstanding with any APC leader, or whether frictions are being promoted between him and a few party leaders. But, given the rancour in the party, he must face the great challenge of correctly identifying the roots of the problems confronting the APC. How he carries out that identification will determine what kind of solutions he inspires, and what measure of success he will have as president. The seemingly interminable acrimony in the party is an opportunity for him to now begin reexamining his ideas and political behaviour, and assessing party leaders, principles and values. If he had done that early in the day, perhaps before assuming office, he would have seen the hollowness of staying aloof from the leadership elections in the National Assembly. What the public disdain is not for a president to show his preferences, but for that president to acknowledge and accept the outcome, even if his candidates were defeated.

President Buhari missed a great opportunity to inaugurate the National Assembly. He had no reason in the world to be absent, not only for its rich symbolism had he done so, but also for its denotative and connotative meanings to his presidency. Now, except he wins reelection, he will never get that chance again. More importantly, this early APC crises should afford the president the opportunity to reflect on what his political beliefs really are, what he stands for, who he is in the scheme of things, and, beyond the clichéd stories of his personal life, what his presidency should represent to present and future generations. He does not have the luxury of time to acquire and imbibe these ideals, for he is already in office. All he can do now is to provide remedies and engage in deeper reflections, if he is capable of either task.

He stood virtually aloof from the NASS leadership elections, as he himself had said and every Nigerian knows. But it is also known that his candidate was actually Senator Ahmed Lawan, whose candidacy he failed to back with presidential wherewithal. As a result of the APC crises, the president must now take very seriously the task of erecting a defensive perimeter around himself and coming to an understanding of the philosophy upon which his presidency must be built. In terms of a defensive perimeter, a concept he is perfectly familiar with, he must by now have understood that by failing to get his own men into key positions, he actually stands the risk of being encircled and even held hostage by politicians whose political behaviour may grate on his nerves, weaken his mandate and programmes, or, worse, castrate him and make him pliable. Proceeding from this, he also needs to avoid being encircled by northern politicians and caucuses, as he seems to be gravitating towards, a predilection his current appointments inadvertently indicate.

APC’s early crises should also have the positive effect of concentrating the president’s mind wonderfully in terms of which idea(s) would dominate and propel his presidency. So far, there is absolutely no indication what that idea is. For had it been obvious from the outset, it would have helped him approach the NASS leadership elections much more philosophically, futuristically and forcefully. Every presidency, whether in the United States or elsewhere, or any other great government or leadership for that matter, is always balanced on a fulcrum of great and noble idea(s), whether conservative, traditional or progressive. A government must have a philosophical raison d’etre. Let President Buhari study the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, if he needs recent examples, and other great statesmen in general. If he does not construct his own fulcrum, others less competent and less principled than he, and without a point of view, will design one for him, as now seems very likely. Or they will design something much worse, perhaps a pell-mell of contradictory and ineffective ideas, as many waiting in the wings are getting set to do. Surely, he will remember that atrocious cabals hijacked the presidencies of Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. President Obasanjo built his own fulcrum but lacked the depth, knowledge and wisdom to make his presidency a roaring success.

The tragedy of the APC NASS leadership and structural crises is that it is a manifestation, if not an outright exemplification, of the decline in quality of leadership. The decline is obvious everywhere, whether at the state or national level. For all their faults, First Republic leaders were far more intellectual and altruistic than the present generation of leaders, many of whom have been thrust into national consciousness by their association with former coup leaders and military regimes. President Buhari must urgently appreciate these delicate nuances and trends in order to reorder his presidency away from where it seems tragically headed. He made mistakes in the first few weeks of his presidency, some of them showing in his initial appointments, a pointer to the fact that he seems to be associating with the wrong crowd and taking inappropriate advice.

But the presidency is neither a joke nor a garish display of ephemeral splendour. It is a tough, introspective and exceedingly deep business. President Buhari may not have all the attributes to match the gravitas of the presidency, but he can get help from the right people. So far, neither at the NASS, where a torrid display of political exhibitionism and atrocious and amoral politics are afoot, nor at the presidency, where so far no one of great consequence has shown any intellectual wizardry and principles, can the president find that much-needed help. All Nigerians ask of him is that he get the right help from whichever quarter. If all the problems engulfing the APC lead the party and the president to reform and rebuild, then the crises would have been worth the troubles.

July 5, 2015
Amor Vincit Omnia

America sanctions same-sex marriage as ‘victory for love’. Oh love, I am coming home!

Some decades back, a Yoruba musician sang about some future date when bush rats would be shooting hunters. (Lojo’waju o, okete a ma yinbo f’oloko), he said. That musician must have been speaking metaphorically, though. But his message is not lost: that a time would come when things stranger than fiction would be happening. I had always expressed optimism that I would have been long gone before bush rats would be shooting hunters. Alternatively, I should be a bush rat myself. Or better still; if I happen to be around at that time, humans must have developed more potent weapons that would make the guns the bush rats would turn against them look like a child’s toy.

But that time that I had thought would take eternity to come if it ever did appears to be here, with as many as 21 countries legalising same-sex marriage, the United States being the latest of such countries. Other countries that had done same since the Netherlands went that way in 2001 include Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden the United Kingdom and Uruguay. With the judgment by the American Supreme Court on June 26, it would appear that supporters of gay marriage in the United States finally had the last laugh. That day would therefore forever remain indelible in their minds, given the bitter contest and activism for the soul of the marriage institution between the ‘naturalists’ (the one man one wife people) and the ‘un-naturalists’ (those in support of gay marriage).

Five judges voted for gay marriage while four opposed it. Expectedly, the judgment has elicited reactions that could be described as mixed; or simply different folks, different strokes. Whilst those in support of the judgment have been celebrating across the country, those who object to it also have expressed their dissatisfaction. Indeed, to demonstrate how shocked some Americans were about the court’s decision, some counties initially refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the judgment, with their officials insisting that doing that also offends their religious sensibilities. But it is apparent it is only a matter of time for all across the country to comply with the judgment.

Although there is a 25-day period after a decision is handed down where individuals can petition the Supreme Court for a rehearing, hopes of supporters of traditional marriage would appear dimmed because the court had almost never granted any rehearing.

So, what are the likely consequences of this judgment that has been variously described as ‘freedom for marriage’ and ‘victory for love’, for the rest of the world, now that the all-powerful America has pitched its tent with those that many people feel are depraved? I mean how does it feel when a man decides to take on another man from behind, in the name of marriage? Or when a woman has to do it orally with another woman? Or, when it has to be done differently through ways that were not contemplated by God as enshrined either in the spirit or the letter of the holy writ, the Bible?

Holy Moses! When God created man and woman, He did so for some purposes, among which is procreation. Again, God first created man and then created woman to be his helper. Let’s even assume that same-sex marriage does not in any way hamper the help-mate aspect of the relationship; that is, that man can still help man and woman can still help woman in same- sex marriage, what of the aspect of procreation? Are we not going the way of the Tower of Babel? Or Sodom and Gomorrah?

Of course, nothing here suggests that homosexuality is new even in our own country. Indeed, one has heard several tales, some sounding like moonlight tales, about its prevalence in very high places and even among some students in a particular part of the country. Moreover, the competition among leisure spot owners and some hoteliers in Lagos for the pockets of their clients has pushed many of them to engage young girls and ladies of between 18 and 38 years of age to work as strippers and dance provocatively nude in their bars. In some cases, the girls even reportedly engaged in anal sex in the open. It was the 14 years imprisonment by the National Assembly for gay sex that has reduced the activities of these girls and their patrons who at the height of arousal reportedly engaged in homosexuality, also openly.

Of course, too gonorrhea we know; syphilis we know, even staphylococcus we know as sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs). As a matter of fact, a time there was when gonorrhea became so common in the country that it was referred to as a sickness of the famous (arun gbajumo). When in the late 1980s (or thereabout) I wrote a piece titled “The danger down below”, I had thought that the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was going to be the height of the consequence of sexual perversion. But, with same-sex marriage, the worst is probably yet to come.

With this latest development, it would appear that America has passed the mundane stage of ‘victory for democracy’ that we perpetually celebrate whenever a court gives any judgment in our favour in Nigeria. That appeared settled many years ago in America, their America. In America, what is in vogue is ‘freedom for marriage’; ‘victory for love’, etc. In effect, in America, love conquers all (Amor Vincit Omnia).

But America has to be careful about this its usual ‘one-cap-fits-all policy all over the world. It must resist the temptation to impose this as world standard as it tried to do by threatening Nigeria with sanctions when the then President Goodluck Jonathan signed the anti-gay marriage bill into law last year. This was even as America’s Supreme Court was yet to give its blessing to same-sex marriage. As I have always argued on this page, one man’s meat is another man’s fish (please pardon my adulteration of the original saying). The rest of the world too should have the right to freely decide whether given their socio-cultural circumstances, they want it gay or straight. That is the beauty of democracy.

July 5, 2015