The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

As the Yoruba reflect on this moment in history

Despite the age-old tradition that Obas should conduct themselves as supra-partisan leaders, the ruling party brazenly made some Obas to act in a partisan manner

It is an understatement to say that the Yoruba are already thinking about this period in the country’s history. The present moment is in many ways similar to what obtained in 1965 in the Yoruba region when Hubert Ogunde, the father of the Opera Mode in Nigeria, composed Yoruba Ronu. The use of ‘reflect’ in the title in today’s piece is the closest English translation of Ogunde’s use of Ronu. For Ogunde then, the Yoruba were at a crossroads in their region’s history and development and needed to do self-assessment and critique; audit the region’s political culture; and dream a-new about its future.

In his most evocative imagery, Ogunde then described the Yoruba society as a pace-setter and model for others, suddenly transformed into a football that everybody on the street kicks around for fun, all on the strength of the control of means of signification by a few Yoruba politicians in power or with access to power want to control the political destiny of the Yoruba .Ogunde was then preoccupied with the extent of political crisis and decline in the Yoruba region. Today, the decline in the region is more than political; it is also looking cultural and moral, given the character of participation of some Yoruba sons and daughters in the new campaign culture in the country.

What Ogunde warned against in his Yoruba Ronu, a song that had been used generously by opposing parties in the current campaign, was a political leadership that appropriated the public means of mass communication to tell only the story of the ruling party and in doing so, insult citizens directly or indirectly. As we observed in this column last week, the dominant political culture of that period was summarised by the sentence: “We do not have the time to campaign about programmes; whether you vote for us or you don’t our party has won the forthcoming election.”

The intention of today’s column is not to query individuals or groups for exercising their freedom of association and expression. This freedom had been part of Yoruba culture for centuries and long before the advent of colonial political culture. In most Yoruba communities, there was the tradition of self-expression that allowed citizens to critique or even lampoon their leaders at the times set apart for rituals of rebellion and castigation of those with power over citizens, be they monarchs or chiefs or the economically powerful in the society, just as everybody was free to canvass for support for his or her candidates for office in the precolonial Yoruba polity. But the exercise of such rights in the traditional context, as it is in the modern context in other modern societies, also had rules of engagement. Deception or humiliation of citizens, particularly vertical figures in the society, was frowned upon.

The events in the last three weeks are reminiscent of what happened in 1965 when the ruling party in the region humiliated some of our Obas. Despite the age-old tradition that Obas should conduct themselves as supra-partisan leaders, the ruling party brazenly made some Obas to act in a partisan manner. Fortunately then, as it seems to be now, there were also many Yoruba Obas who chose to act in compliance with tradition: avoiding to identify with any of the political parties contesting the election. At the end, it was the citizens that voted. Not one Oba out of those generously suborned and those that were left as black legs and fanatics of the opposition party, was seen at any of the polling stations. But all the same, 1965 started the abuse and humiliation of Yoruba traditional rulers, even at a time when cultural and moral decline was not this self-evident.

Of course, the decline was accelerated and deepened by military dictators. During the many years of military rule, traditional rulers across the country were wooed and cultivated by dictators at the federal and state levels with the consequence that the institution became politicised more and more. Some Obas were encouraged to become contractors of the government and thus pushed into a situation where they could not resist supporting the government in power, regardless of the deleterious effect of its programmes. But generally, military dictators on the surface showed some respect to the Obas until the annulment of 1993 and in the years of Abacha’s rule of terror.

The last sixteen years of post-military rule appeared to have given traditional rulers the space they needed (and still need) to conduct themselves as statesmen and not as rapacious hustlers that some of them were deemed to be during military rule. But the event of a few weeks ago in many parts of Yorubaland brought the humiliation of Yoruba traditional rulers to an embarrassing level. Those who organised the campaign of President Jonathan in the north acted in a way to show respect for northern monarchs. President Jonathan visited individual Emirs in their palaces to announce his presidential candidacy and to repeat the accomplishments of his administration. In most cases, he asked northern Emirs to pray for him, instead of asking them to vote for him.

In contrast, Yoruba Obas were treated as government employees by those who coordinated the presidential campaign in the Southwest. Several Yoruba monarchs were herded and assembled to receive the president, not in palaces of individual monarchs as it was in north. Like school kids on excursion, Yoruba Obas were assembled outside their palaces to listen to the president’s campaign, especially his promise to de-marginalise the Yoruba region, if elected for another four years.

It is one thing to have or know monarchs that are rapacious enough to want to take any risk with their crowns. But it is another thing to treat many monarchs as if they are Warrant Chiefs who were created to facilitate colonial governance and thus owed their livelihood to the goodwill of colonial administrators. Whoever organised the presidential campaign in the Southwest was not fair to Yoruba monarchs for failing to encourage President Jonathan to visit the traditional rulers in their palaces individually, the way he did in the north. Summoning Yoruba monarchs from their palaces to a central place to listen to the president’s campaign is wrong and can be counterproductive. Many voters who still have respect for the institution of monarchy in the region may see the levity with which Yoruba monarchs were herded as a sign of continued Yoruba marginalisation, more so as this is already a dominant theme in the campaign of Yoruba Council of Elders and other groups.

Of all the elections I have observed in the country, I cannot remember seeing any Oba cast a vote. The electoral value of the Yoruba monarchs may not be as high as to deserve summoning them to a central place to listen to political campaigns of the ruling party or of the opposition party. Yoruba Obas themselves know this. No self-respecting Oba can come out openly to campaign for any political party or candidate. A few of them that may have the temerity to persuade their subjects in secret also know the consequence: loss of respect among their subjects.

It is churlish that the coordinators of the PDP campaign in the Southwest treated the Obas the same way they treated their subjects: ordinary voters that needed to be brought together to hear the candidate campaign. It is even worse that many monarchs left their palaces to listen to political campaigns. What tradition requires of Yoruba monarchs is for them to wait in their palaces for political leaders to visit them and bring to them whatever messages they have. Tradition also requires that the monarchs talk diplomatically to such candidates without making any overt commitment one or way or the other. Whatever may be the problems of individual monarchs and whatever specific politicians may know of individual Obas, traditional rulership in Yorubaland is an institution that still requires, like its counterpart in the north, respect from politicians.

March 8, 2015
‘Born-again’ President Jonathan

Nigerians should pray that all days should be Election Day because that is the only time they see result

President Goodluck Jonathan is ‘born-again’ indeed. In need, everyone becomes born-again. Suddenly, he has begun to give a damn to those little things he hitherto did not give a damn about. But, unlike one of our former presidents who was ‘born-again’ only from his head to his stomach, President Jonathan appears ‘born-again’ (or transformed) from head to toe. We should not expect anything less from the initiator of ‘Transformation’ as a government slogan and the patron of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN). Again, we should not expect anything less from a president who has traversed many churches in the land. That is the essence of those spiritual voyages to Lagos while his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan, took care of the eastern flank which, unfortunately, ended in a fiasco, with Father Ejike Mbaka’s outburst against the First Family’s reelection campaign. By the way, what has happened to that magic wand of the president – the Neighbour to Neighbour outfit which was a major plank of his campaign for the 2011 election when his good luck shone unchallenged? That good luck appears to be in trouble these days.

Anyway, while we await answer to that, it is good to mention some of the areas the president has suddenly ‘repented’ and become ‘born-again’. For the better part of last week, there was fuel scarcity all over the country. This was attributed to so many things, but it was apparent the fuel marketers did not want to be caught in a situation where their subsidy claims would not be paid in the event that President Jonathan is retired on March 28. They know it is only under the incumbent that spurious claims could be made and paid and that once a serious government takes over, that is the end of that satanic honeymoon. So, they decided to hoard fuel or stop placing orders for it.

The thing worked. President Jonathan’s ears must be full with the numerous allegations of incompetence levelled against his government and so would never allow the scarcity to linger for long because he would not want fuel scarcity added to his long list of failures. Promptly, the government rose to the occasion and the marketers are happy once again. Fuel queues are gradually disappearing.

Then, look at the case of the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) outstanding corps members that the president honoured last Monday; 164 in all. They belonged to the 2012, 2013 and 2014 service years. The presidential honours for youth corps members is an annual event but the president who had not deemed it fit (sorry who had been too busy to hold the event in the last two years) suddenly discovered that it could now be accommodated despite his tight schedule for the elections.

Then the Chibok girls. President Jonathan on Thursday sent the Minister of State (Power), Mr. Mohammed Wakil, to meet with the parents of the girls abducted from school by Boko Haram insurgents last April. “Mr. President is pursuing multi-faceted strategies which address the pains, anger and frustrations of victims.

“Our President directed me to tell you that his government is committed to doing everything possible for the safe return of your daughters”, Wakil told the distraught parents. He did not forget to add that their children would return safely and thanked them, even if unsolicited, for not aligning with those who are politicising the issue, as if we have forgotten that it was the government that began the politicisation by saying no girls were abducted, at a critical time that it was still possible to rescue them from their spineless abductors with relative ease.

On the same Thursday (last week), President Jonathan sent the woman with whom he is well pleased such that he has abandoned everything about our economy to her care, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to the same Chibok to lay the foundation of rebuilding the Government Secondary School where the girls were abducted. Would you still call the president a coward when he had sent two eminent cabinet members to Chibok in a week to appease the people? And, if you are still thinking the president is doing all these for the sake of elusive votes, I pray that God would forgive you because I know he is doing them now because he is no longer of the world. He abandoned Chibok when he was still in the world. Now, old things are passed away and all things have become new. That, indeed, must have informed his decision to send an emissary to the parents, as well as commence rebuilding of the school damaged during the Boko Haram invasion last April, three weeks to elections.

With all these, I must have convinced, rather than confused those still harbouring the impression that our president is incompetent that the reverse is indeed the case. See what the man has done in just one week. This is aside the numerous claims of victory our soldiers are claiming in the war against Boko Haram, but the glory of which many Nigerians are giving to the Chadian, Cameroonian and allied forces that are helping us out with the war against the insurgents. That was how they accused a military governor of not being able to speak impeccable Queens English years ago whereas the man was working. What has Queens English got to do with performance? Soon, the whispers got to the governor who fired back: won la a gbeebo, a gbeebo, arson si nlo (they say we cannot speak good English, but arson (action) is going on!) If the man did not ‘have action’, he would not have seen the shoddy job done by the contractor that his government awarded a bridge project. ‘Who built dis gada’, it is shaking?’ (Who constructed this bridge that is shaking?) he asked when ‘bouncing’ on the bridge to test if its integrity had not been compromised.

Now, simply because some critics do not like the president’s face, instead of praising him for the feat so far achieved, they are busy lamenting that it was the same Chad that General Buhari pursued several kilometres into their territory (their tails between their legs, in 1983, when that country tried to insult Nigeria) that is now warning the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, to surrender or be smoked out and killed! Apparently many Nigerians who are displeased with this role reversal are now asking: how did things get this progressively bad? Indeed, I remember when in one of those lacklustre advertisements put up by a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) agent castigating Buhari, the advertiser had alleged that our military in such a bad state is Buhari’s doing! Trust Buhari’s acolytes, they would never allow such fallacy go unchallenged. So, they replied that Buhari left the stage since 1985; and many other governments had come and gone after him. Even the PDP that has ruled for 16 long and tortuous years, what has it done to improve the lot of the military beyond making it an annex of the ruling party, with ‘bloody civilians’ allegedly ordering generals about for electoral malfeasance? This is despite the fact that those who are supposed to probe the allegation are yet to admit that the said event occurred.

For those who see Chad’s role in the Boko Haram saga today as an irony, I ask: what is ironical about that? What is wrong in Nigeria seeing Boko Haram and Chad killing it? Are we not all familiar with the saying that there is nothing wrong with a man seeing a snake and a woman killing it; that what is important is for the snake not to escape? Or, as our people versed in Pidgin English would say, whether we tie wrapper around the waist or we tie the waist around the wrapper, what matters is that one is not naked! Are we not to be celebrating the fact that it is a fellow African country that is doing for us what the United States of America, Britain and other world giants could not do?

Honestly, my advice to those who thought not much could be done within six weeks’ postponement of the elections is to have a rethink, seeing the grounds our new, improved and ‘born again’ (to boot) President Jonathan has covered in so short a time. One, two, three and still counting! My own fear , however, is of a different kind. My worry for the president is that if he rushes all that he has to do now, what then would he do if he is reelected? Honestly, this is my fear. Otherwise, we should be happy that our prayers for him are being answered.

March 8, 2015
Okon bemoans his dollar loss

The recent charm offensive directed at the old West by President Goodluck Jonathan has come and gone. But it was not without its merry moments. For a whole week, the seat of governance appeared to have been relocated to the old Marina in Lagos as Jonathan tried to woo the stubborn and politically tempestuous children of Oduduwa to rally behind his electoral ensign.

It was a long queue of political renegades, ideological orphans and other notorious state mendicants. Men and women disappeared into the bowels of Marina only to come out grinning from ear to ear with their flowing agbada and caps fearfully distended and bulging with illicit largesse. After a particularly nasty traffic disruption which subsisted for hours, snooper overheard some exasperated market women around Balogun dismissing Jonathan as Johnny Walker or Jonnie Waka Waka in local parlance.

“Na only now him waka come?” an Ijebu woman was overheard sneering in bitter derision. Another took a shrill umbrage at being told that she could not enter the Cathedral Church where she had worshipped for over forty years on the grounds that the presidential train was already ensconced.

The aftermath of this Poverty Alleviation Scheme was equally dramatic. The entire region was literally drowning in greenback. There was a dollar deluge which temporarily affected the exchange rate of the naira and fed directly into the current biting fuel shortage. Area boys around the Marina were overheard discussing in hushed tones how to forcibly recuperate their own share of the relief material.

But it does appear as if the looming revolution will begin from the kitchen. A week after the gravy train departed, snooper was lounging in bed savouring the return of the early morning rains to Lagos when he overheard some animated discussion between the irascible Okon and his palaver prone mentor, Baba Lekki. It was filled with subversive ranting and wholesale excoriation of the Nigerian political elite.

“Baba if no be say na dis yeye man I dey serve, I for don become millionaire for dem dollar”, the crazy boy lamented bitterly as snooper stiffened up in bed waiting for any eventuality. But Baba Lekki was in a foul and contrary mood.

“Foolish boy, asiwere, you no get hundred naira for pocket you dey talk about millionaire. A beg wey dem paraga jare”, the old man snorted as he burst into sadistic laughter. But Okon rose stoutly to the occasion, carrying the battle directly to his mentor and tormentor.

“Baba no be dem reason why hunger dey wire una be dis? No be dem reason why poverty don scatter your life for Obodo after dem deport you from London? Like all dem foolish Yoruba people, you no get business sense at all at all”, the mad boy snarled. Baba Lekki was momentarily stung by the ferocity of the response.

“Oya digbolugi, come tell us how you fit be millionaire for this obodo, after the bourgeoisie people have captured the commanding heights of the economy. You are suffering from lumpen delusions”, Baba Lekki noted with an affectionate scowl as he alternated between pidgin English and perfect English.

“All dat na jibiti grammar. Dem never fetch you hundred naira. Abi no be dem Shina boy come say grammar no be success? See my oga na so so grammar him dey blow even when him bedsheet don tear. Listen baba, if I dey work for one of dem Yoruba Oba I for don become millionaire”, Okon insisted.

“So how you go do dat one, yeye boy?” Baba sneered.

“You see, after dem Goodluck don give dem Oba yafunyanfun dollar, dem smart Oba baba come see opening, he come ask him driver, him cook and him herbalist to go dress like dem small small village oba, so him come give dem title and him come dey introduce dem to Jonathan one by one. He come call him driver and come tell dem Jonathan, your Excellency, dis one be him be, him be, I don forget dem Yoruba title him give dat one..”

“Oluoko of Okopo”, Baba Lekki interjected.

“Thank you, baba. So dem Jonathan come dash dat one plenty dollar. Next him call him cook and come say, your Excellency dis one be , dis one be, wetin he call am again?”

“Onisibi of Obelawo”, Baba Lekki interjected again.

“And dem Jonathan come giam dollar gbua and dat one wan faint. Dem Oba come call him herbalist and come tell Jonathan, baba, wetin be him own title sef?”

“Gbekude of Ikubadeje”, the deranged old man supplied, now clearly enjoying the drama.

“Kai, kai na him Jonathan come finish dat one with dollar. So for evening, baba kabiyesi come say make dem call all of dem make dem come settle account, but dem don vamoose. Dem don cross dem border and dem don dey make merry for Cotonou. Na him baba come dey cry like small pikin. Dem French police say dem no dey take dem order from Nigeria police and dem wan shoot dem naim dem come pick race. Baba, sebi you now see why I say I for don become millionaire?” Okon concluded gloomily.

“You see, that is what is known as primitive redistribution of primitive accumulation”, Baba Lekki snapped and summarily dismissed Okon.

March 8, 2015
What women want

In commemoration of the International Women’s Day marked worldwide today, the mmessage of Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, for the 2015 is hereby reproduced.
The message sums up what has been done and what is still required to needs to be done to accomplish gender equity and ‘Planet 50:50’ before 2030.

In 1995, at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, world leaders committed to a future where women are equal.

One hundred and eighty nine countries and 4,000 civil society organizations, attended the conference.

Women left Beijing with high hopes, with a well-defined path towards equality, and firm commitments at the highest level. Their hope was that we would see this by 2005.

Today, not one single country has achieved equality. It is more urgent than ever that we define – and stick to – a time frame.

There has been some progress in the last 20 years – although it has been slow and uneven.

Countries have narrowed the gender gap in education and some have even reached gender parity in school enrolment.

They have reduced the toll of maternal mortality and morbidity. Many more women survive pregnancy and childbirth than in 1995.

Many countries have created institutions that address gender inequality. Many have passed laws against gender-based discrimination. Many have made domestic violence a crime.

This is all good news.

And yet we are still a long way from achieving equality between men and women, boys and girls.

Implementation of good policies has been patchy. Allocation of the resources needed for effective implementation has been insufficient to fund women’s ministries, gender commissions, gender focal points, and gender-responsive budgeting.

For too many women, especially in the least-developed countries, not enough has changed.

In Africa, 70 per cent of crop production depends on women yet women still own only 2 per cent of the land.

Violence against women continues to blight lives in all countries of the world.

And no country has achieved gender equality.

Women need change and humanity needs change. This we can do together; women and girls, men and boys, young and old, rich and poor.

The evidence is overwhelming of the benefits that equality can bring. Economies grow, poverty is alleviated, health status climbs, and communities are more stable and resilient to environmental or humanitarian crises.

Women want their leaders to renew the promises made to them. They want leaders to recommit to the Beijing Declaration, to the Platform for Action, and to accelerated and bolder implementation.

They want more of their leaders to be women. And they want those women, together with men, to dare to change the economic and political paradigms. Gender parity must be reached before 2030, so that we avert the sluggish trajectory of progress that condemns a child born today to wait 80 years before they see an equal world.

Today, on International Women’s Day, we call on countries to “step it up” for gender equality, with substantive progress by 2020. Our aim is to reach ‘Planet 50:50’ before 2030.

The world needs full equality in order for humanity to prosper.

Empower women, empower humanity. I am sure you can picture an equal world!

March 8, 2015
Ladies, ladies…

It is possible for a woman to transmute to an elegant lady if she remembers that the measure of a woman is still the health of her family

Today is the International Women’s Day. Hooray! I don’t know what it means exactly but I think it has something to do with me abandoning all my womanly duties, kicking off my shoes and just going altogether harrobarahoo! What’s that word? Honestly I don’t know, but I don’t care. This is the day that women are not allowed by law to care about anything. So what if the rest of the house does not eat, or joins the world body of the great unwashed, or even goes hoorabarroha? So, let them! If you are a woman and are reading this, you are covered by the international law not to care. If you are a man and are reading this, well, you are doing so at your own blessed risk!

Actually, I think it’s a good thing they have not declared today as the international ladies’ day. I would have had a lot to say on the matter. As it is, I still have somewhat to say to us women because it seems to me that many have already thrown many cares to the wind on the matter of their womanhood. When I look at them, I despair very deeply of any hope of their transmuting to ladies any time soon. Nope, not in this century; because it appears they have already transmuted into something close to the intermediary stage of the mutant family, something like X-Women. Let me show you a few slides (more or less) of what I mean.

During this recent fuel scarcity which God alone knows how we’ll get out of, many frighteningly long queues occurred. And you know how rowdy the pump areas can be with everyone, car and Okada owners, wanting to buy fuel for their cars, bikes, generators and maybe to drink. Well, you know how those queues are enough to stretch a woman’s ladyship qualities to the limit. As I heard it, when this woman saw that queue, she determined that she wasn’t having any of it. So, she determined to use every ounce of womanly wiles in her puny possession to get fuel at all costs without paying the price of queuing up. Taking a deep breath, she reached down into her bag of artillery and bellowed at the sellers: don’t you know, she said, don’t you know I belong to the nation’s armed forces? I think she thought that should immediately throw everyone into the quakes and scramble to serve her, but she was mistaken as only an angry, frustrated silence greeted her. Retreating like a dog with a tucked-in tail, she muttered something to the effect that people should begin to learn how to value women.

I also think, a woman should be valued by the society. A woman should not be subjected to the many insane horrors that go for the Nigerian story such as struggling for jobs, customs style; struggling to ensure that the house has enough electricity; or struggling to keep the cars fuelled up. I tell you, these are enough to turn any woman into a fangs-baring fiend. Whenever I have had to use the generator and there has been no man around to undertake the sweaty job of turning it on, I have found myself transmuting, I will not tell you into what; the children may be listening. Ok, ok, it’s nothing too sinister.

When the public light fails (more often than it does not), first, I turn into something like a barking dog: is anyone at home to help me? I need to get this blessed document out of the printer. No answer. That’s when I become a moaning seal: Ooooooooh, what is wrong with these people that they can’t do the most basic thing, give one light? I move to the generator anyway, like any well tuned Nigerian. Then I move to the changeover, where, I suspect, I am getting these wrestler’s arm muscles as I need to wrench the stick up and down with all the grunt I am capable of. Now, as soon as I get the whirr of the generator going, what do you think happens? The public nuisances restore the electricity. Then it’s the whole process all over again in reverse order. As soon as I turn off the generator though, the electricity company strikes again, and shaking my head, I repeat the process like a fetch-it dog. On a particular day, I found myself doing the yoyo dance four good times. I was that desperate, but not as desperate as I was to strangulate someone belonging to the electricity company.

That is not a very ladylike sentiment I agree, but who can help it? Not you, I’m sure. I believe that desperation prompted our lady of the armed forces to ignore the general, pervading mood in the country and declare what she took to be a potential advantage: force. I believe it is this force that many women are now displaying on the road when they drive. I tell you, many women drivers leave me feeling shame for the entire woman-race. They weave in and out and cut other drivers off indecently, display rugged stubbornness on the road, swing right and left and refuse to acknowledge other people’s rights on the road, and generally carry on as if it were the bronco era of the Wild, Wild West again.

I get it; women are now living the life their great, great, great grandmothers wished they could have lived. Women now get to work and have a family. That is some serious advantage I tell you. Unfortunately though, trying to juggle the two advantages has left many women not knowing where or what they are any more. They need to be men to survive in a male dominated workplace with all the intrigues, rivalries, scrambles for posts, underhand cuttings, and other unsavoury survival things. On the other hand, they need to be women to bring up well-rounded children and provide the needed human sentimentals to counter-balance the absolute male aggression coming from the males.

Someone stirred up a controversy the other day by writing an article titled something to the effect that women can have it all. In a logic-filled treatise, the writer tried to show how women are trying to balance the art of child or family rearing with the intricacies and demands of the work place. Her conclusion? Women can have it all but not today, not just yet. And that got people really talking.

In the same way, I believe that women’s attempt to have it all is killing them mainly because their needs are diametrically opposed to each other. Family needs require that women stay in tune with their naturally endowed qualities of gentleness, patience, kindness, and love. Workplace demands require that women acquire unnatural and unsavoury qualities of harshness, rudeness, hatred and self-advancement, all of which kill the woman in a woman. So, I would say, the evolutionary process in women is at a cross-road just now when a woman puts forward her force of occupation over and above her for force of nature.

Perhaps, a woman can have it all in this century, I don’t know. I do know that it is possible for a woman to decide just how much of the ‘all’ she wants to have and how much she is willing to pay for it. If she decides to get it all, then of course she must give all and transmute into a mutant of her race. I think it is possible for a woman to transmute to an elegant lady though if she remembers that when all is said and done, the measure of a woman is still the physical, psychological and social health of her family. So, ladies, ladies, kick off those shoes gently now…

March 8, 2015
The problem with presidential interviews

During his blitz through the Southwest more than a week ago, President Goodluck Jonathan met with many Yoruba politicians and traditional leaders to sensitise them to his political and managerial virtues, and to convince them to ignore the mixed reviews on his past five years presidency. He stressed his promises for the future, such as the implementation of the national conference reports and bountiful representation of the Yoruba in his government. A faction of the Southwest elite is convinced, without proof, that the president will keep his word. Such faith has no precedence. Dr Jonathan also granted interviews to a few media establishments, among them Tribune and THISDAY newspapers, in which he reveals far more about himself than the mere answers to the questions asked him, some of the questions ingratiating and supplicatory, indicating he still has difficulties comprehending and responding to the deeper and more complex issues of statecraft.

The interviews exposed Dr Jonathan’s curious mindset. He is prickly, somewhat superficial, excitable and boyish. Age has done nothing to temper this mindset. Nor, to borrow from his favourite exaggerated allusions and anecdotes, can 100 years on the presidential throne do much to transform or ennoble him. From the interviews, there is little doubt he wants to do great and mighty things, but he is both unable to summon the discipline required and incapable of appreciating the weight of work and the intellect necessary to match contributions with expectations. Had he any of these qualifications, either singly or, better still, in combination, his boyish and infectious innocence, not to say his yearnings for praise and renown, would have led him to extraordinary feats of statesmanship and valour.

Alas, his faults and weaknesses cannot be remedied, for they are already cast in granite. His critics and traducers must also now know that whatever they have to say of Dr Jonathan, particularly about his weaknesses, will only lead him to more resentfulness, bad temper, scurrility and tempting and insidious acts of tyranny. He is keenly aware of the bad press he has attracted, much of which he attributes to local and international consultants working for the opposition, and he is keener on ‘investing’ in managing it and turning it around. He tries to present himself as studious and cerebral, even flaunting his second class upper degree, but he frets under the weight of the anonymity of the course he studied, a course he self-deprecatingly described as ‘not prestigious.’

Now and again, he rises, in the interviews, to heights of Machiavellian ecstasy, with his panegyric to the gullible faction of the Southwest elite with whom he is today besotted, but against whom in the first few years of his presidency he contemptibly erected a benumbing architecture of exclusion and marginalisation. The love affair is waxing hot, and it is perhaps a relief that both the president and his Southwest converts are locked in embrace, else, they would have had to seek out classes and groups more virtuous than they to seduce and desecrate. No one who reads the interviews can fail to conclude that the president is pristinely untouched by the rudiments of democracy, notwithstanding his vainglorious assertions on the subject, and may never be able to comprehend its philosophical underpinnings beyond its consideration as a system of government.

A few examples from Dr Jonathan’s rich and revealing interviews will suffice. Asked to expatiate on his now discredited seven-year single tenure proposal, Dr Jonathan seems painfully incapable of understanding the irony embedded in his suggestion. It is true he is persuasive in denying his interest in benefiting from the proposal had it been accepted, but he simply could not see that the damage to the polity of an ineffective president remaining in office for seven years, just one year short of two terms of eight years, far outweighs the hazards of the cost and dislocations of electioneering. Political campaigns have their therapeutic effects, their potential to trigger a country’s renewal, and sometimes to cause an acute change of direction. Dr Jonathan simply focused on the cost of elections and the troubles of campaigning and renewing mandates almost to the total exclusion of the other benefits. The idea was roundly denounced when he first suggested it; it is a remarkable indication of his stoicism and imperviousness to reason that time and experience have not helped him to either refine his view or redefine the basis of his conviction.

Apart from erroneously claiming credit for voter awareness, affirming that he gave ‘freedom’ to Nigerians who now value their voter cards and are eager to participate in the electoral process, Dr Jonathan stretches that questionable bequest with a rueful statement. He says: “Look at the freedom Nigerians enjoy. You abuse the President and I smile. In some countries, you abuse the President, they deal with you. In so many countries, including African countries, you cannot abuse the President and go to sleep with your two eyes closed. It is only in Nigeria that you can do that.” In the first place, Nigeria is not another country, as he himself acknowledges later on in the interview, on account of the country’s diversity and complexity, and in the second place, Nigeria is not the only country where freedom of speech does not come with devastating repercussions.

But rather than celebrate this strange bequest, Dr Jonathan in fact laments it. He may deny it, but the fact is that if he had his way, those who abuse him, a word he confuses with criticism, he would deal with them, or at least make them lose sleep. That way, the quietude he pines after would be achieved. According to him: “It is easy if you write something against me for me to ask my security agents to come and arrest you and throw you into a dungeon for 24 hours, so that you know that there is government. Yes, one can do it. But is that what you use power for?” For a president who had just rhapsodised democracy, he betrayed his secret preferences by entertaining the thought of locking a critic up for 24 hours. And he entertains the thought because it is not beneath him.

His response to the Charles Soludo criticism of his economic policy is appalling. Here, he simply demonstrates an exceedingly poor grasp of economics, and illustrates his embarrassing subservience to and awe of World Bank economists. He also chafes at the Chibok abductions, that remorseless totem of his impotence, and makes the non sequitur assertion that only a failed president could preside over a failed state.

One last example. Asked to justify why he dismissed the Ekiti audio recording done by a military intelligence officer as fabricated, the president backtracks a little and puzzlingly suggests that the officer must come and defend his recording. Dr Jonathan does not show his dismay and discomfort with the fact that some of his ministers were caught on tape conspiring with an Anambra moneybag and a top army general to subvert the electoral process on behalf of his party, nor does he appear to understand that he occupies an office that has a responsibility to defend the constitution without reservation and uphold the law without fear or favour. Nor, obviously, does Dr Jonathan have the mental fortitude and intellectual depth to appreciate, like great leaders, how to build a country and a legacy. At 56, and given his mindset and intransigence, it may be a little too late for him to acquire the wherewithal for profound leadership. And should Nigeria return him to office in the next poll, as he intrigues, irrespective of his huge and irredeemable shortcomings, the country is unlikely to fare any better than it has done in the past five years.

March 1, 2015
The importance of visionary discipleship

(For Professor Stephen Adebanji Akintoye)

This past week, one of Nigeria’s most notable historians, exceptional public intellectual and outstanding member of the magic circle that enabled Obafemi Awolowo to make a critical and crucial difference to his Yoruba people and Nigeria as a whole, turned eighty in faraway Delaware. In keeping with the great man’s humility and self-effacement, the event was quietly celebrated.

Akintoye writes history with the entrancing and enthralling ease and facility of a Yoruba master story teller without sacrificing rigour of presentation and logic of articulation. There was always something of the magisterial traditional savant about him. As university orator in the old University of Ife between 1974 and 1978, the dapper and impeccably turned out historian was a pure class act with his sedulous, mesmerizing voice and inexhaustible repertoire of pithy wisecracks.

Together with other avatars such as David Olatunbosun Oke, the late Sam Aluko, the late Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, the late Professor Stephen Awokoya, the late Professor Victor Oyenuga and many others, they formed the Brains Trust of the most radical and innovative governance that the Yoruba people have seen in a momentous transition to political modernity. They confirm the thesis that a mental revolution is the prerequisite for any enduring political or economic revolution.

It was not surprising when in 1978, Akintoye emerged as a distinguished UPN senator of the Second Republic. To those who still remember, the UPN senators in the Second Republic were quite a revelation. Bar one or two laggards, they would not have been out of place in the Roman senate or at the American Capitol Hill at its most sublimely cerebral.

At eighty, Akintoye is still plying his trade as a public intellectual, writing one or two pseudonymous columns even as he contributes trenchant interventions about the state of the nation as the patron of the Oodua Foundation. Only recently, he released his magnum opus, an epic history of the Yoruba, which completely revolutionized the way we view the origins of the Yoruba people, the Oduduwa revolution and the dynamics behind the warlike ethos and imperialist imperative of the Oyo Empire in the northernmost fringes of the Yoruba people.

The irony of it all was that like Sam Aluko and many others, Akintoye came from a Zikist background, his politically aware father being an ardent fan and implacable admirer of Nnamdi Azikiwe. Any burning family political discussion was impatiently terminated by the old man’s catch-all categorical query in Ekiti dialect: “Mi kini Namadi so?” —-“Namadi” being a corruption of Nnamdi, Zik’s first name.

But the young Action Group Turk gradually began to wean the old man and the entire household away from Zikist ideology and to win them over to Awolowo’s visionary reconstruction of the role of his race in a multi-ethnic nation. By then, the gains of Action Group’s radically innovative programmes had begun to kick in. The old west, the hardy and unflinchingly principled Ekiti people, and the Yoruba race would never be the same again.

The public career of this exemplary Yoruba patriot and Nigerian nationalist speaks to two things which are of crucial and critical importance to contemporary Yoruba politics in this new round of perfidy, unseemly rancor and betrayal of trust. First, the importance of being steadfast in the face of provocation and irritation. Second, the primacy of apostolic followership and visionary discipleship as the original visioner recedes into remote history and legend.

Throughout his long career and particularly after the departure of his beloved leader, Akintoye, a proud and doughty Ekitiman, has never seen it fit to vary the doctrine of Awo to suit momentary exigency or twist them to support strange political alliances based on opportunism and the hatred of a particular individual.

Despite his private discomfiture with some of his turbulent but worthy political children, Awo never saw it fit after the Akintola episode to publicly disown his own. As the Yoruba would say, it is the calm and temperate old man whose brood multiply and increase. Akintoye , with sagely equanimity, once told a private gathering in his hotel bedroom in Newark, Delaware that it is the stick in hand however severely misshapen that we use in killing a snake and not an imaginary cudgel.

Second, and following the worthy example of his departed leader, Akintoye, despite his private misgivings about the lack of courtesy of some of the new Yoruba progressive kids on the block, has never seen it fit to vent his bile in public or resort to unworthy temper tantrums and Machiavellian machinations against his own. His noble example should commend itself to some of our surviving political grandees if only to avoid political humiliation in the twilight of otherwise illustrious careers. This is the only sane way forward in the current distemper and political dyspepsia.

In keeping with the intellectual tradition of this column, snooper now takes leave to engage with some of the cardinal tenets of Professor Akintoye’s current animus with the dysfunctional nature of the Nigerian nation in its post-colonial stasis and irredeemable dystopia. Here is wishing the great historian many more years of active service to Yorubaland and the nation at large.

March 1, 2015
…And Jonathan gets embroiled in land deal

It is apparently part of politics to defend the indefensible. Otherwise it seems incomprehensible that anyone, let alone a political party that claims to have set norms and standards for Nigeria, will attempt to defend Dr Jonathan’s Abuja land deal under some constructive corollary of constitutional approbation. The facts of the case are as follows. In 2011, in his second year in office, Dr Jonathan incorporated Ebele Integrated Farms Limited, with him as major shareholder. Sometime between that 2011 and 2013, the president applied for land in Abuja for farming purposes. He did not think it indiscrete. Then, in January 2014, he was granted a huge 94 hectare plot in, of all places, Abuja’s Aviation Village, a bad enough distortion as any.

When the opposition APC brought the matter to light some two weeks ago, the president’s campaign organisation rested its argument and justification on two main grounds, to wit, that when former president Olusegun Obasanjo was in office, he also applied for an even bigger plot of land and was granted; and that second, the constitution permits a sitting president, like any other government official, to do the business of farming. No other kind of business was permitted. This perhaps explains why, according to the APC, the Minister of the Federal Capital City (FCT), Bala Mohammed, incorporated a farming business, Bird Trust Agro-Allied Limited, in 2012, applied for land in Abuja over which he is minister, and was granted about 40 hectare plot by his ministry in April 2014 in the same choice Aviation Village.

It is inconceivable that both the president and the FCT minister do not consider what they have done as corrupt. Of course, had the president not set the tone, there is no way Mallam Mohammed would have imitated him. But let us examine the arguments of the president and his campaign organisation. As the APC and many commentators have argued, it is not clear how Dr Jonathan and his supporters think his land grab was excusable simply because Chief Obasanjo committed the same indiscretion. It is a lousy, childish and senseless argument to make. Two wrongs do not make a right. Second, does the constitution really sanction farming for a sitting president? Yes, it does, but it is also clear that (a) it assumes that the president was already doing the business before he assumed office, and (b) he was of course not expected to begin to use state resources, state power, and presidential influence to run that business because it would inevitably lead to a conflict of interest.

Third, and significantly, it is a bad law, one probably inspired by Chief Obasanjo himself when he was military head of state, and which the military, also inspiring our various constitutions, incongruously retained in every constitution they midwifed. The president should not be involved in any business, and every business he had before assuming office must be put in blind trust in order to avoid conflict of interest. It is certain the constitution, notwithstanding its drawbacks, expected nobility from those elected into office. Since Chief Obasanjo, Nigerian leaders have unfortunately fallen disastrously short of the standard of morality the spirit of the constitution, rather than the letter, naively presumed on their good sense.

There is no way Dr Jonathan can claim the high ground in this seedy transaction. Apart from the fact that he is naturally and personally lacking in noble deeds, and his life and politics not based on any philosophical principle or conviction, he appears bereft of an understanding of the history of the country he so undeservedly presides over. Does he remember that some First Republic leaders like Obafemi Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello established or prepared the framework for universities without citing them in their own towns? Chief Awolowo conceived the then University of Ife to be established, not in his Remo Division of present Ogun State, but in Ile-Ife. Nor did Ladoke Akintola, whose government announced the establishment of the university in 1960 put it in his native Ogbomosho. And the Sardauna, Sir Ahmadu Bello, planted the Ahmadu Bello University not in Rabah, Sokoto Province, but in Zaria. Examine these facts against the unflattering fact that when Dr Jonathan would put a university in his state, he invariably put it in his small town of Otuoke in Bayelsa.

All of Dr Jonathan and his campaign organisation’s excuses are disingenuous. Applying for land under his own government was immoral and indefensible, and getting that land in Aviation Village is a bad and horrendous distortion of what that piece of territory is, from its name, reserved for. African leaders, it is said, lack discipline and moral compass to take their nations to great heights. Nigerian leaders are probably even much worse, and Dr Jonathan a far more ignoble example.

March 1, 2015
Where is the fire?

If it is true that pastors got bribe from govt, then we don’t have to look far for why the altars are cold

Although some things are done or accepted differently in different parts of the world, others are universally permissible, irrespective of people’s religious persuasion or colour. I learnt that among some tribes, for instance, the best way they appreciate their male guest is for the host to occasionally dedicate his wife to the male guest for the number of nights he would be with them. But if a guest messes up with his host’s wife in Yoruba land, southwest Nigeria, that guest may crow like cock thrice, after which he falls down and dies, like someone under the spell of the ‘fall down and die’ people. Well, some people have argued that there is nothing like that, and that people who die in many such circumstances die of exhaustion or overexcitement.

I don’t know about you, but I am not interested in finding out whether this is true or not because, apart from the fact that society frowns at such in this part of the world, it is too risky to do a thing one may never live to regret. Yet, in Igboland, machetes may have to come to the rescue of the host whose guest decides to sleep with his (host’s) wife. So, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. But then, there are some things that are universally adjudged bad and they cannot be given any other name, irrespective of creed, colour or time. Stealing or corruption, for instance, is frowned at by any religion that I know or has heard of.

It is in this context of universal badness that I see the allegation, first by Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, to the effect that some Christian leaders in the country were given N6billion by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to campaign against the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari. Amaechi, who spoke at the party’s governorship rally in Emohua Local Government Area of the state early last month, said: “Some pastors collected N6bn and they are circulating document and telling you not to vote for an Hausa man; not to vote for a Muslim; that they want to Islamise Nigeria. Tell them to return our N6bn”.

When Governor Amaechi initially made the allegation, I deliberately refused to be dragged into the matter. It is not that I believed or disbelieved him, or that it was not weighty enough; it is just that I wanted to avoid it, if possible. In the first place, some of the pastors linked with the alleged bribe are too rich to fall for such temptation; at least so I thought. I was somehow tempted to join the fray when Borno State-based pastor, Kallamu Musa-Dikwa, more or less confirmed that the allegation was true. Again, somehow, the allegation was overtaken by events. This is a season when things are happening in the country at an alarming rapidity. Before you make up your mind on what to comment on, many other things have reared their heads, (usually ugly heads) begging for attention. Of course, both the PDP and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) through which the bribe was allegedly disbursed have denied the allegation, no one expected them to do otherwise.

However, with the insistence by Pastor Musa-Dikwa last week that what the PDP gave was N7billion and not N6billion as alleged by Gov. Amaechi, it dawned on me that I could not run away from the matter perpetually. Moreover, from the pastor’s account, he said he fell out with the national body of the CAN when in 2013, some clerics from the United States (Christian Association of Nigeria-Americans) visited Nigeria and donated $50,000 to the victims of the Boko Haram in Borno State. He said rather than the CAN to disburse the money to serve the purpose it was meant for, the victims were only given a paltry N100,000. If he is correct, what happened to the balance? Indeed, one other thing that made it compelling for me to intervene now is the one billion Naira difference in the two claims.

First, this probably shows that there cannot be smoke without fire. In other words, money probably changed hands. Second, the possibility of the common thing in government whereby people given money to share to others suddenly become ‘editors’ who also ensure that what is delivered is less than what was allocated, is high in this instance, too. So, it is possible that while editors are at their various desks editing stories, some government officials are ‘editing’ millions, perhaps billions, into their pockets. Recall the different claims over what was given to the Chibok mothers when they visited Aso Rock last year.

But, to be fair to the Jonathan presidency, this ‘editing’ did not begin with it. Indeed, the matter reminds me of a story of something that allegedly happened in the military era when the then head of state was said to have sent a senior public official to give some money to some traditional rulers in one part of the country. The man left and returned to tell the head of state that he had delivered as instructed. Somehow, the head of state got to know that he ‘edited’ the money so drastically for the owners to notice. I think one of the beneficiaries called or wrote the head of state to thank him, stating the amount given to him. That was how the head of state got to know that what was delivered was far less than what he asked the executive messenger to deliver. So, he called another senior government official and gave him some amount to give to the same people. That one went and delivered only half the amount and pocketed the remaining. But when he returned, he reported himself to the head of state who only smiled broadly and remarked that at least he was honest enough to deliver ‘a whole’ 50 percent of what was given to him to deliver, and to also report himself!

It is true that the Bible says we should touch not God’s anointed and harm not His prophets. I do not intend to do either. But I do not think pastors can hide under this canopy to escape criticism when they deserve to be criticised. After all, they are human beings, too. As a matter of fact, that is the point I always stress whenever some people want us to see the men of God as some super humans. The point is, the way and manner some of them have exalted prosperity over and above salvation makes them susceptible to corrupt tendencies and practices. It is not beyond people who do this to take the kind of bribe that Governor Amaechi and Pastor Musa-Dikwa have alleged because such people are not likely to see any money as ‘haram’. To them, such money, even if it comes from Satan, is manna from heaven and whatever is impure or unholy about it disappears the moment it is sanctified! Perhaps the cleansing process is complete as soon as they take tithe out of it and pay it to the tithe account.

The truth of the matter is that there is hardly any difference between the secular and the spiritual in many churches today. Indeed, most of these churches are spiritually “poorly lit”, as a friend of mine said in a book that I reviewed for him about a decade ago. Virtually everything has been ‘funkified’ in many churches today, from gospel music to the mode of praying and even mode of dressing. A message posted on Facebook by one of my readers says it all: “Those who subverted the wish, aspirations, and desires of millions of people by rigging elections later went to the church for thanksgiving, stood in front of the congregation, raised their hands and shouted “Halleluyah”. HA!!! The Church in Nigeria has become too cold; the fire has gone out! Thieves, rogues, fraudsters, election riggers, treasury looters, murderers, and all manner of criminals are comfortable in the church. In fact, they are given special reception, recognition, and special seats, what a pity…what a shame.”

It is because the pulpits and altars are too cold that many of these politicians go there for thanksgiving. I doubt if they would ever go before the gods of Iron and Thunder (Ogun and Sango, respectively) and feel comfortable the way they do in the churches. Yet many of our pastors cannot see that something is wrong. As a matter of fact, when I see such politicians sitting comfortably in the church or dancing towards the altar, I feel sorry for the church because the men of God in some of the cases know the truth but the truth has always failed to set them free because of the fat envelopes that such politicians drop at the end of the service.

Now, if such a huge amount was said to have been given to the Christian leaders and only about N3million was given to each state chairman of CAN, as claimed by Pastor Musa-Dikwa, isn’t it obvious that another serious ‘editing’ has occurred? I doubt if all the angels can exonerate CAN from this peculiar mess. But that is what happens when neither the taker nor the giver is anxious about receipt for ‘transactions’! There is God o!

March 1, 2015
In the streets, the clarity of long PVC lines; in the Senate, a mix of technocratic and voodoo logic

I admit it. When I first read news reports that in his appearance before the Nigerian Senate on February 18, 2015, the INEC Chairman, Professor Jega, stoutly refused to give any assurance whatsoever that the elections would hold on the postponed dates of March 28 and April 11, I was greatly disturbed. I was as much disturbed by Jega’s refusal as by the reason that he gave for it, to wit that there were some things that were simply out of his control that made it impossible for him to give the nation his assurance that the elections would hold on the postponed dates. As a matter of fact, it turned out that I was not the only one greatly perturbed by this news. Within a day or two of this news report, I received dozens of emails expressing the same worry that I had. Indeed, some of these emails went as far as to assert bitterly that Jega, my old “comrade”, had sold out, had succumbed to the forces willing to scuttle Elections 2015 and plunge the country into uncertain but perilous months and years ahead. It was on the basis of what these emails said that I decided to check for myself what actually transpired during the INEC Chairman’s appearance before the Senate. For this, I had to listen to several audio and video recordings of the event. In one case – the longest of these internet clips – the audiovisual recording of the event lasts for more than three and half hours. I listened patiently to all of it. This piece is a digest of what I was able to garner from the recordings of Jega’s appearance before the Senate. My worry, my concern remains, but not in the same form before I very carefully went over many short and long recordings of the event.

In the interest of briskness, let me go directly to what my concerns, my worries are now. In the course of a hearing, a briefing that lasted more than three hours, the INEC Chairman gave an account of preparations for the elections that was truly amazing in its comprehensiveness, attention to details and frankness only to then say that regardless of these preparations, the one and only collective entity that could determine whether or not the elections would hold on the postponed dates are the Service Chiefs. Well, he did not actually put it this bluntly. What he literally said is that there are things beyond his control and when he was pressed on this he said “security”. In other words, what the INEC Chairman was in essence saying was this: concerning everything else minus “security” we are in full control and in spite of a few remaining difficulties and challenges, everything is going well and we are on course to conduct free, fair and credible elections on March 28 and April 11; if we can’t or don’t conduct elections on these postponed dates, not us but “security” will be the cause.

I don’t think I have ever encountered anything more tainted by voodoo logic and politics than this! In plain language, what this means is that concerning the current election cycle of 2015, “security” is the ultimate deity and the Service Chiefs are his high priests. Indeed, Jega at one point during this extraordinary briefing of the Senators more or less suggested that we should all get on our knees and pray that “security” take pity on us when he said – about himself and INEC – “we are hoping and praying that the Service Chiefs will accomplish their aim in the six weeks that they asked for”.

At this point, it may perhaps be useful for me to direct the reader to Jega’s briefing of the Senators on the technological aspects of INEC’s preparations for the coming elections. In a commanding, masterful presentation on the technological processes involved in the use of Permanent Voters Cards (PVC) and card readers, the INEC Chairman more or less demolished the opposition of the doubters and disbelievers among the Senators, incidentally most of them from the ruling party, the PDP. He demonstrated how the new technological tools and processes that would be deployed in the current electoral cycle would anticipate and frustrate those who will try to rig the elections, people like fraudsters who are already either stealing or purchasing PVC’s. Moreover, the INEC Chairman gave ample demonstration of his and INEC’s preparedness for both human errors and frailties. About the only item in which Jega at this briefing seems to have been less than convincing and impressive was his testimony on the collection of PVC’s. More on this later in this piece. In all other respects, the INEC Chairman gave a good, perhaps even excellent account of himself. Except of course on his occultation, his mystification of “security” and the Service Chiefs as the ultimate guarantors of whether or not elections will be held on the postponed dates, March 28 and April 11. For the last time in this piece, let me speak briefly in expatiation of this particular issue.

Neither “security” nor the “Service Chiefs” is an abstraction, an objectified and impersonal avatar like God, like symbolic representations of natural phenomena or like inevitable fate or destiny. Moreover, the will, the volition of the Service Chiefs is not unknowable and inscrutable like that of God and other divinities. They are not only human beings like you and me, they are in fact human agents who have shown how deeply they are tainted by an abject, unprofessional and self-serving deference to the powers that be, in effect to the ruling party. Revelations of their partiality, their spinelessness have left them unmoved and unrepentant. For these reasons, it is nothing short of the height of voodoo logic, of mumbo jumbo thinking to ask us to hope and pray that these same Service Chiefs will have accomplished their security objectives within the six weeks they demanded. Moreover, there is absolutely no legal and constitutional basis for giving these Service Chiefs the last word on whether or not the elections should take place on either the postponed dates or any other dates for that matter. Several times in his briefing of the Senators, Jega asserted that on every disputed item of his preparations for the elections, he had consulted legal and constitutional authorities. But significantly, not once did he say that he had consulted anyone on the legal and constitutional legitimacy of making the Service Chiefs the ultimate arbiter on if and when the elections will take place.

Concerning the distribution of PVC’s, some Senators disputed Jega’s interesting and confident assertion that the problem was not with “production: but with “collection”. By this, the INEC Chairman meant that although there is a shortfall in the production of PVC’s, there is a much greater problem with “collection”. To prove this, he asserted that to date, more than 66 million out of a total of 68 million PVC’s had been produced and that people are simply not collecting them. Moreover, Jega asserted that in both the Ekiti and Osun gubernatorial elections, less than one third of PVC’s produced were collected. Finally, the Chairman asserted that the 75.9% collected out of the 66 million PVC’s so far produced is an impressive figure, one on which valid elections can be held. So far, so good, it would seem. Except that some senators countered that distribution of PVC’s by INEC officials had in many cases been shoddy and incompetent and that in many places throughout the country people show up without being given PVC’s only for them to return again and again and leave each time empty-handed. On this count, it seems that those long PVC lines that have become ubiquitous this election cycle is an apt metaphor both for the determination of many of our peoples to vote and for their votes to make a difference in their present dire circumstances and gloomy future prospects. I admit that there is a tension between what Jega is saying about the rate of collection of the PVC’s and what the Senators are saying about the epic struggles and the determination of many on those long, long PVC lines. However, a tension is not a contradiction in which one term negates the other; rather, it is an invitation to think creatively, to accord such determination respect and legitimacy.

I wish to end these observations and reflections on an admittedly somber note. Like all other election cycles, violence has already begun to rear its head in many parts of the country in the run-up to the postponed elections. Only a few days ago, several dozens of people were slaughtered in Port Harcourt. This is both highly regrettable and condemnable. Thankfully, none of the reported cases of these election-related acts of violence remotely requires the deployment of the army. Indeed, in all true and functioning democracies of the world, the place of the army during elections is – the barracks! Even in countries where the regular armed forces are conducting full scale and nationwide counterinsurgency campaigns, the army is never brought in as the ultimate arbiter of when and if elections can and will be held.

Let us be perfectly clear on this point: if INEC yields ground to “security” and the Service Chiefs as the ultimate arbiters on when and if the elections will take place, this will be nothing other than a coup, a coup that may in the first instance be bloodless but in the long run – heavens help us! – may drown our country in oceans of blood. The epic struggle, the determination expressed in those long PVC lines will not simply fade away, Professor Jega. I say this not as an apostle of doom or a lover of violence but as a student of history and human affairs. In those long PVC queues is a deep, almost bottomless reservoir of controlled violence, this being the bottled up violence caused by suffering, deprivation and injustice.

Biodun Jeyifo

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

March 1, 2015