The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Oyedepo: Facts are sacred, comments are free (2)

I am compelled to write a second part of my last week’s piece following the observation of most respondents that I should have included what Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel said during the recent visit of President Goodluck Jonathan to the church.

In the article, I had insisted that contrary to the widespread claim that the Bishop threatened to open the gate of hell on those opposed to President Jonathan’s second term ambition, he never said anything of such.

I took it for granted that one week after the controversial visit, there were enough counter claims online to leave no one in doubt that the statement attributed to Bishop Oyedepo was false.

I gathered that before last Sunday, video and transcripts of what transpired during the visit were available for those willing to hear the other side of the story as required in a circumstance like this.

Even after my column in which I indicated that I witnessed the event, sent out tweets, wrote a report published in The Nation, many readers were not convinced that I was not, as one put it, not defending a defenseless case because I am a member of the church.

Coincidentally, Winners Chapel last Sunday officially responded to the controversy with a press statement and advertorials on what the Bishop said and did not say during the visit. Full video of the third service attended by Bishop Oyedepo has been uploaded on the church website and social media accounts.

For the benefit of those who are yet to see the refutal, here are Bishop Oyedepo’s exact words:

“I only had an idea of the president’s visit just yesterday morning. The information was not there last Friday when we had the One Night with the King. So, we are going to be praying for our president. Let prayers and supplications and intercessions be made for all men; first of all, for kings, and for them that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

“I like us to be on our feet and lift the president up to God. Whatever you desire to see God bring about in his life; bring about in our nation; begin to pray that prayer right now. Father, release your grace upon the president to match the demands of his office. Release unusual grace in increasing dimensions, to match the demands of his office. Cause your face to shine upon him. Lord, grant the desires of his heart. Grant Nigeria peace! Under him, grant Nigeria greater advancement. Thank you, Father; in Jesus’ Name we pray”!!

“This entire church proclaims the president blessed today; blessed with divine wisdom to match the demands of his office; blessed with peace to see the miraculous in his life; blessed with grace that will advance His (God’s) cause on our nation. Every time we pray here, God hears. The Bible says wherever two or three are gathered, I’m there in their midst, and if we agree concerning anything, it is done for us. Therefore, in the name of Jesus, our president is declared blessed. His going out is blessed; his coming in is blessed. The will of God is blessed in his life. Thank you Father; blessed be your name; in Jesus’ precious name!”

For the originators of the false report, Jesus’ prayer for those who crucified him is very appropriate; “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

February 8, 2015
Towards our date with destiny 1

Citizens just do n ot want the 2015 to be better than the 2011 election; they want the 2015 election to be free, fair, and credible by world standards

The thing on the tongue of the average Nigerian these days is that the country is poised for a rendezvous with destiny on the fourteenth day of February. When asked to comment on the 2015 election, many citizens across the social spectrum tend to rephrase in various indigenous languages Victor Hugo’s famous quotation: “There is something stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” This is how citizens perceive the palpable enthusiasm of citizens about the ongoing political campaign for the 2015 national elections. Many even say that the electrifying political energy in the atmosphere is more of a movement than just about any political party, suggesting that it is the new awakening of Nigerians to put in place a government that reflects their wishes that is in evidence more than the sophistication of any political party in particular. In short, citizens are saying in every corner of the country that it is about time for the country to have a date with destiny after more than six decades of wandering in the wilderness.

The growing enthusiasm about the election, despite growing lack of interest in some political quarters about holding the election as scheduled, appears to be about the resolve of Nigerians to rid the country of decades of conspiracy at the level of government against genuine unity of purpose and sustainable nation-wide development. To a first-time visitor to the country, the first impression is that Nigeria is a country that is about to experience electoral democracy for the first time. Never in the history of the country has election been perceived as the panacea to myriads of problems facing the country for over half a century. Not even when Alhaji Abiola and Alhaji Tofa contested for a government to replace Babangida’s eight-year military dictatorship did citizens show so much monastic faith in going to the poll. What is at stake is not so much the victory of any particular candidate (despite the obvious crowd that follows Buhari in different parts of the country) as it is the desire of the average Nigerian for a free, fair, and credible election that can change the traditionally cold or lukewarm relationship between government and the citizenry over the years.

Informal chats with first-time and experienced voters suggest that the average Nigerian is inspired by the promise of a free and fair election, interpreted as an unfettered opportunity for citizens to exercise their right to vote in an atmosphere that is devoid of intimidation and with certainty of getting reliable results of their votes, to ensure that their ruler as from 2015 is the person that majority of citizens have voted for. When probed further, citizens who had voted in previous elections respond that they have hardly experienced any free and fair election in the country, apart from the presidential election of 1993.

The general feeling is that Nigeria has been captured since 1959 by rulers who had not been freely and fairly chosen to lead the country. In the decades of military rule, the country was literally hijacked by coup makers who used their ownership of the power of coercion to rule the country. With respect to the so-called democratic elections in 1959, 1979, 1983, 1999, 2003, 2007, and even 2011, many citizens perceive these elections as manipulated by political authorities in charge of the elections, adding that the free and fair election of 1993 was annulled because it did not go the way preferred by the government in power and then in charge of the election. If there is any promise by President Goodluck Jonathan that citizens want to hold him down to, it is the pledge to make the elections of 2015 noticeably better than that of 2011, just as the 2011 election was seen to be better than the 2007 poll, known all over the world as the country’s worst election. Citizens just do not want the 2015 to be better than the 2011 election; they want the 2015 election to be free, fair, and credible by world standards.

In short, the crowds in evidence at election rallies are about the desire and resolve of Nigerians to use the 2015 election to liberate the country from the grip of manipulators that have ruled the country via military power or rigged elections since 1959. It is not the possibility of the forthcoming election to unseat the incumbent government or retain it that many citizens are concerned about as much as it is the effect of a free, fair, and credible election on the psyche of the nation. Nigerians, particularly those at the grassroots, feel that they have been imprisoned by various governments in the past and show the desire for a government that is of their choice and that will thus be answerable to them, and not to vested interests of former military or civilian rulers.

Nigeria’s date with destiny may not be tied to the emergence of any particular candidate (despite the growing visible support for General Buhari). It seems to be tied to the fact of free, fair, and credible electoral process. Those who are sold on ‘electoral business as usual’ may alter the nature of the engagement of citizens with the nation’s destiny by thinking that they can take voters for granted this time. Voters show in what they say, more than ever before in my participation in elections in the country since 1959, that they are ready to move the country into a full democratic culture by ensuring a free, fair, and believable election. To the average voter, conducting a free and fair election will put the country in a good stead to move the country to full democratic governance that ‘electoral panel beating’ over the years had ruled out, as elections have been turned into a primitive warfare in which every method is acceptable once it leads to desired results for the warriors.

Election is not a war between contestants for power; it is a contest between the political class and the class of voters, citizens that want to freely choose those they want to govern them. This view of election appears to be what the electrifying energy among potential voters is about, much more than the victory of any particular candidate. Those who misread the handwriting on the wall are likely to make an egregious mistake that can incense citizens if they continue to press for cancellation or postponement of the elections, for whatever reason. Nigerians want a smooth transition between one government tenure and the next. They also want to ensure a smooth transition with their votes. They do not want to be made politically impotent on account of any of the two leading candidates asking for their votes. They want to have the freedom to choose the candidate they prefer, because they feel that the ability of the country to move towards development and unity of purpose depends solely on free, fair, and credible elections on February 14 and 28.

As the country inches towards these dates, there needs to be a separation between the voice of the media and the voices of public relations officers for political candidates. Citizens want and deserve to see and hear themselves in the media, not any less than they see and hear public relations men and women functioning as campaign staff for candidates. This moment calls for more interpretive reporting than mere presentation of what candidates and their image makers say or do. Nothing else is capable of accelerating the country’s rendezvous with destiny more than a free, fair, and credible election conducted as and when due. This is what citizens are yearning for, not just the victory of Buhari or Jonathan. The incumbent government and whichever government succeeds it are both going to gain from free, fair, and credible elections, believed by many citizens as the only safe gateway to democracy, development, and unity of purpose in the country. Any attempt to toy with people’s choice is dangerous for everybody and the country’s destiny.

February 8, 2015
Jonathan’s Supporters’ Predicament: Capitulation, Desperation or Armageddon?

Ojo gbogbo ni t’ole; ojo kan ni t’olohun [On one single fateful day, the thief who thinks that all days and nights belong to him in perpetuity will be caught by the owner] A Yoruba anti-barawo, anti-looting adage

In almost any other country in the world, or perhaps in almost all the other democracies on the planet – bourgeois, social-democratic or popular-revolutionary – the predicament of Jonathan’s diehard supporters would very simply be the fact that in the President, they have a hopelessly uninspired and uninspiring candidate, a candidate so handicapped that Dr. Mimiko, one of his staunchest supporters, called him the “most abused and negatively profiled President in the history of Nigeria”. But not in Nigeria at the present time where to our politicians, nothing evil or shameful is an embarrassment or a disadvantage to a candidate, no matter how high the political office being contested. In other words, for those who might think that Mimiko’s declaration that the masses of Nigerians across space and time have no love or respect for Jonathan constitutes a dilemma or a predicament for the PDP, they are mistaken. Except for token gestures and acts that do very little to alleviate the great suffering, the acute insecurity of life for the majority of our peoples, doing things that could truly make life better for Nigerians, things that could genuinely win the hearts and minds of the people has never been a priority of the PDP in particular and, more generally, virtually all the other ruling class parties in our country. No, compatriots, Jonathan and the PDP are not losing sleep, they do not feel any predicament at all because their man is not liked or respected. What then is the source of their predicament?

The answer to this question is simple, but only deceptively so: in the innermost core, in the deepest recesses of their minds and imaginations, Jonathan and the PDP feel that APC and Buhari are no different from themselves and therefore are not morally and ideologically more deserving of electoral victory than themselves. That is their predicament: the thought that they might lose to people who are no different from them, people who deserve the same treatment as themselves. This is of course a delusion, a psychological displacement of the PDP’s obsession with power. After all, the campaign slogan of the party is “PDP? Power! Power? PDP! But it is not an entirely fanciful or unfounded delusion. At one time or another, virtually all the mainstream politicians now in PDP, APC, ANPP or APGA have belonged to the same party. This is because, with few exceptions, political prostitution is one of the hallmarks, one of the defining aspects of our present political order. For this reason, all our political elites know one another inside out and body and soul, with an intimacy born of mutual predatoriness and cynicism.

There is also the fact that there are no decisive issues of policy and vision that separate the two main contending parties and between them and the other ruling class parties. Indeed, to the contrary, there are big and important areas of collaboration in the shameless and relentless looting and despoliation of our country’s oil wealth by all the political parties and mainstream politicians. One of the most telling examples of this extensive cooperation among all the main parties in looting our resources dry is the cult of secrecy and silence that all members of the National Assembly rigorously maintain over the exact figure of the combined salaries, allowances and emoluments that they are paid. The Nigerian masses have been crying out; activists have been crying out; and foreign correspondents have been wondering why Nigerian parliamentarians are the highest paid on the planet in a country where 7 out of every 10 Nigerians live in dire poverty. But not one party, not one politician has broken ranks from the cult to reveal the figure and/or refuse it. Well, let me correct myself here: Hon Dino Melaye broke ranks with the rest and attempted to spill the beans but look what they did to him: they threw him out from their ranks and the secrecy, the silence was restored. All the same, it is delusional of the PDP to think that the coming elections will be won or lost solely or mainly on the claim that no party, no candidate has a moral and ideological advantage over the other.

This whole subject of the delusionary brinksmanship of the PDP/Jonathan ticket interests me because I believe that as the day of reckoning approaches, we must try to get into the collective mind, into the roiling psychosis of a very desperate ruling party which feels, not without some justification, that its opponent is not more deserving of electoral victory than itself. I cannot tell about Jonathan himself, but with the likes of some of the most militant chieftains of the PDP – in their actions and utterances – we see nothing but psychotic desperation. This includes Femi Fani-Kayode, Ayodele Fayose, Bode George, Segun Mimiko and the Minister of Police Affairs, Abduljelili Adesiyan. And of course, there is the collective group of some of the ex-militants of the Niger Delta that have been “settled” by Jonathan and Yar’ Adua before him; they are threatening Armageddon if Jonathan loses. In such circumstances, why do I indicate the possibility of capitulation by the PDP in the title of this piece?

Capitulation is possible, perhaps even probable if somehow it finally percolates to the collective mind of Jonathan and the PDP that the forthcoming elections do not, in the first instance, rest on whether or not the APC and Buhari are more worthy than themselves. Jonathan and the PDP happen to be the incumbents, the hegemons of a rotten, wasteful and oppressive system and they must pay the price. If a mature, developed, legitimate and nationwide popular revolutionary movement existed in the country, all the ruling class parties would have been swept away – and good riddance! But that is not the case, alas. Regular elections to sustain a quasi-bourgeois democracy will be held and for the first time since 1999, the appearance, if not the robust reality, of a choice is being presented to the Nigerian people. So it matters little whether or not APC/Buhari is more morally and politically deserving of electoral victory than PDP/Jonathan; what matters is that the people perceive a choice. As a matter of fact, the possibility of the PDP’s capitulating to the force of historical necessity rather than resorting to Armageddon rests precisely on a recognition and acceptance by them of how this principle of choice has emerged this time around and not before, from 1999 to 2014. What does this mean?

I will try to respond to this question as simply and as concretely as possible. To put it mildly, the PDP that contested the 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 general elections is not the PDP that is contesting the 2015 elections. In number, size and electoral plurality, it has been vastly and fatally downsized. And internally, it has imploded. There are the mass defections from the party. There is the loss of status as the majority party in the House of Representatives. But for the neo-fascist tactics of the Senate President, David Mark, the same thing would have happened in that upper house of the National Assembly. There is also the fact that the PDP no longer nominally controls the largest number of states in the federation. Perhaps most significant of all in terms of electoral politics, the loss of nationwide advantage in plurality over the other parties took place because the North, or the most populous and ideologically driven parts of it, departed en masse from the PDP, leaving a gaping hole where that pivot of the party’s hegemony rested. Thus, on the eve of the 2015 elections, we are looking at a greatly hobbled, some would even say permanently crippled party. Most Nigerians know these facts; and all well-informed and interested foreign commentators, governments and organizations are also conversant with these facts. But not the PDP. Or at least, the party pretends not to recognize this fundamental fact that everyone else recognizes: it is no longer, as it used to brag and still brags, “the largest ruling party in Africa”. Perhaps if the saner and more realistic minds within the PDP come to the sober realization that the centre of its once real nationwide plurality has vanished for now and perhaps forever, the party will bow to the inevitable and not resort to the lure of Armageddon.

On one single fateful day, the thief who thinks that all days and nights belong to him in perpetuity will be caught by the owner, so goes the anti-barawo, anti-looting adage that serves as the epigraph to this essay. Permit the sardonic bent with which I will try to apply this adage to my observations and reflections in this essay. On the one fateful day of reckoning when owners finally catch thieves who have been plaguing them, not all the thieves are caught; indeed, the owners are pleased to catch the biggest thieves and leave the capture of other members of the gang to another day. Days of reckoning are not singular, they are multiple; they may occur in cycles that are few and far between one another, but they surely always come. This electoral cycle, things have come full circle for the PDP. I wish to end on the hopeful note that thieves and brigands that escape on one particular day of reckoning will thank their stars and mend their ways. But this “miracle” must not be left to the voluntary exercise of the will of the escaped thieves; only the popular will of a mobilized people can instigate such a change of heart, mind and practice in our endlessly predatory ruling class. For believe me, this predatoriness will not end, will not simply go away on its own after February 14, 2015.

Biodun Jeyifo

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

February 8, 2015
This tension should not be postponed

With the fears being expressed by everyone, one would think the third world war was imminent

One of the most memorable passages I have read comes from a little story about a local football referee who had been rough-handled once too often by the losing side. His beautiful body was either beaten black and blue or his bicycle was mangled by the losing side. After having to walk away with pain from the pleasurable activity of football too often, he decided to be smart about the next match. One, he parked his bicycle close by the field. Two, he blew the last whistle as he jumped on his bicycle and sprinted off. So he was off before any player or fan could get their wits together.

I do not envy Professor Attahiru Jega right now. I think he is perched on a hillside that is overlooking some jagged rocks ending on some more jagged rocks below on one side, and a deep, deep sea on the other. I bet you he has more white hairs than the polar bear to show for his efforts. Right now, all eyes are focused on him as the ultimate referee, umpire, middleman or whatever in this all-time race. Poor man, what he needs now is to have his wits sharpened some more. He also needs to have his bicycle close by, mainly because everything that goes wrong in this election week is going to be heaped on him.

Right now, PVC distribution is somewhat awry, and we are all asking questions of INEC but everyone knows that means Jega; never mind that the distribution fault may lie somewhere between the blessed things not arriving on time or at all, and the local distributors being somewhat sluggish about the matter. When I went to collect mine, it took my steely resolve to get it that day to enable me endure the long standing outside the offices of the distribution centre, inhaling dust, car fumes and hisses from fellow voting hopefuls. The reason was that the offices did not open early enough. I also had to endure being pushed and pulled and pummelled on all sides by people desperate to be the first to collect theirs too. I assure you I did not do any pushing, pulling or pummelling: I was intent on using and keeping my head because I knew something the others did not: this is the jungle of Africa where everything is done by fire, by force, even praying.

Were all things to be equal, you and I know that something like my voter’s card should have been sent to my home by post. There should not be any need for me to spend my precious man hours standing in long queues just to collect my driver’s licence, voter’s card or housekeeping allowance. My voter’s card should arrive at my doorstep by the concerted efforts of the INEC chairman, the Postmaster-General and anyone kind enough to find my mail lying around. But, like I said, we live in a jungle where everyone prefers to do things the hard way.

Jungle or not, however, if election materials do not arrive on time, the country will want answers from Jega. That’s another reason I pity the man. I bet you that there are many Nigerians from all kinds of nameable and unnameable parties who have even now concluded plans to hijack, steal, beg for or borrow some truckloads of voting materials and guess who will be blamed.

Right now, we are prepared to blame Jega for anything: not finding our names on the voters’ register; not being able to find the polling booth or the voters’ register; not being registered; being too busy to register; not finding the address of the polling booth; not being able to decide between the many candidates, not being able to press our thumbs hard on the sheet because of hunger; etc. That’s right; I hear we are even now preparing to use him as an excuse to postpone the elections! See what I mean?!

Yep, the rumours are strong; and by the time you are reading this, the matter of postponement should have been decided one way or the other. It is surely another situation where we can decisively use that famous quotation of indecision: to be or not to be. Should INEC declare that it is ready (which I hear it has done) and things do not pan out for the candidates, the parties or the country, there will be a sea of troubles for the oga on top. In short, whoever loses is ready to blame someone for lack of readiness.

Anyway, a postponement at this stage will not do for many reasons. First, Nigerians have become so worked up over the mid-February elections they are looking forward to the third week when they hope the tension should have died down. Secondly, that same tension has led many to practically put their lives on hold until after the elections. They are practically holding their breath. Thirdly, many have therefore postponed their mid-February programmes to after-mid-February. To postpone the elections would mean postponing people’s emotions, breathing, living, and other programmes! I beg you; this tension can no longer be postponed.

Forgive me, but it’s a little like watching two equally matched medieval armies pitched on opposite sides of a hill ready for battle, waiting, just waiting for someone’s horse to spark off the battle. In these elections, we have an umpire to blame. The side that loses will query: why did INEC not do more to ensure that the fight was fair? The side that wins will also ask: why did INEC allow someone to tamper with their winning numbers?

I don’t know whether we are taking some national examinations or someone is attempting to start a war of the worlds on our beautiful soil. With the fears being expressed by everyone, one would think the third world war was imminent. As we explained before, this is a voting exercise to elect a leader, not an exercise to partition Nigeria all over again. Whoever wins will only get the chance to govern the country for a while only before it passes on to someone else. The world will not or should not end for the loser. He is expected to go on and do something else to contribute to the development of this country. There is more than one way of doing this.

The rest of us citizens also have our responsibilities. We are expected to retrieve our voter card from the recesses of our box, dust the blessed thing, give it some food if it wants it (no, don’t pour libation on it), find your way to the ballot box, and cast your votes. It will not do to inflame the tense atmosphere with careless utterances, cutlasses or guns. Remember, no election is worth dying for.

Here, I would like to make an appeal to INEC. It would be a beautiful thing for INEC to allow those among us who do not have PVC to be able to vote if we can be confirmed to have registered. In other words, if our names can be located on the register (which is the most important thing), I think such a one should be able to vote. This should ease the PVC tension and reduce the load of blame that Jega may find himself carrying at the end of the exercise so he does not fall on the jagged rocks or the deep sea, or need his bicycle!

Here’s wishing every one of us the best of luck. May we emerge from all these national examinations stronger and wiser! May your PVC remain strong in your hands (if you have one, PVC that is, not hands), your name be true on the register (if it’s there), and may you live to see the Nigeria you have prayed for (if you have prayed)!

February 8, 2015
Inferno and the filmmaker

What a grisly birthday present! In August this year, Ola Balogun, the notable Nigerian filmmaker, visual artist, dramatist and culture impresario, will turn seventy. Penultimate Thursday, Ola Balogun lost everything he has acquired in life to a terrible inferno which consumed everything in sight until it was put down.

I use the phrase “put down” and not “put out” advisedly. In our part of the world, wild fires are like mad dogs. Everybody runs away from them if they have the chance. They range and roam with volcanic gusto until a combination rudimentary technology and sheer primitive prowess knock them out. Then everybody goes home to await the next mad dog.

Such is the fate of societies trapped between the ancient order and modernity. Modernity will bring the consumer goods and all the trappings of occidental and oriental civilizations. But you cannot rent fire-fighting equipments and fire-fighters from America. In the absence of these, all the emblems and totems of civilization, all the gadgets acquired from other people’s technological labours, are mere ephemeralities awaiting the ultimate consumer. It is known as uninsurable goods and goodies.

There are periods in a nation’s life when the personal tragedy is indistinguishable from the public tragedy, when indeed the private tragedy of the exceptional individual is a profound metaphor for the collective tragedy of human existence in the society. Take another look at the picture of the bewildered and stoically bemused filmmaker of impeccable upper class breeding amidst the rubble and horrific carnage of what used to be his adored home and you may well be looking at the last snapshot of the old Nigerian middle class or what the French call the “haute culture”.

In its classical epoch before the barbarians overwhelmed the barricades, Ola Balogun’s father, an Aba-based Yoruba lawyer, was part of it all, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Zik, Francis Akanu Ibiam, Eyo Ita, the Adeniyi-Jones and many other members of the emergent illuminati that birthed around the Enugu-Aba-Port Harcourt and Calabar axis. Just as the middle ground has disappeared from Nigerian politics, the middle class, the cultural, spiritual, political and economic backbone of any civilized society, has also vanished from the Nigerian horizon.

It is perhaps profoundly symptomatic of this loss that the values of Calvinist thrift, restraint, delayed gratification, liberality and tolerance with which the European and American bourgeois classes powered modernity and rapid development in its classical epoch have also disappeared from Nigeria. The old African jungle with its commodious capacity for the re-absorption of the absconding has reclaimed its own.

It is a tragedy that has been long in coming. Rues Ola Balogun: “Everything is gone now-my books, films and other belongings. Although I still have some of my books in Paris, France. I have not lived in Paris for many years now. My family is over there. Meanwhile, this is a rented accommodation, which I have occupied for more than 10 years now”.

Ask yourself what an internationally acclaimed filmmaker was doing in rented quarters and you are beginning to fumble with the firmly shut lid of a national scandal. How many retired professors can boast of having their own houses? As to the cause of the fire, Balogun was even more ironically revealing of the state of the nation and the collapse of its old middle class: “I can’t say I saw the start of the fire. There was no light before I slept and I put on my generator. Suddenly, I noticed that my generator went off by itself at about 1.30 am, but I didn’t come out for security reasons”.

This is the image of a global citizen stranded by patriotic choice, a gifted and sensitive soul marooned; a cosmopolitan intellectual trapped in the punishing hell of a retarded post-colonial state. In the darkest moment of tormenting private loss, of strenuous intellectual and creative labour summarily eviscerated, Balogun must have wondered what made him stick to his beloved fatherland in spite of the ominous signals of distress.

But it was not always like this. In the not too distant past, there was another country. The mind rolls back to Ife at the turn of the seventies. Anybody associated with the old University of Ife at the turn of the seventies, particularly the ancient Faculty of Arts, must remember a tall stripling young man fabulously attired in native fabric of francophone pedigree and his enchantingly exotic wife.

Impeccably mannered and impressively credentialed, Ola Balogun had returned home after degrees from Dakar and Paris to contribute his own quota to the development of the fatherland. The great university at Ife was the place to be at that particular time. There was the aroma of human distinction and future greatness in the air. Mesmerising exotica abounded. Ola Balogun together with the likes of Ulli Beer, Professor Feuser, the Heywoods, the Euba couple was part of the charmed circle of learning and culture. There was also the recently departed Jeffrey S. Gruber who had studied Linguistics at MIT and was rumoured to be a protégé of the old MIT hell-raiser, Noam Chomsky. It was a magic mountain.

Forty five years down the line, both mountain and magic had disappeared as if toppled by an erupting volcano. But no matter what the ruins of a great architecture must remain. A few months back, as Snooper was traipsing and trampling around the Ikeja supermarket hub like a footloose flaneur, the eyes suddenly fell on a gentleman of unmistakable distinction quietly sipping his afternoon tea while browsing through some newspapers in cheery solitude.

It could have been a Parisean café in the glorious era of Jean-Paul Sartre and his companion, collaborator and confidante, Simone de Beauvoir. But this was a small cramped coffee shop on the upper stairs of Goddy’s Supermarket in Ikeja. Consumed by his own company, it seemed that the gentleman sipping his tea was bent on avoiding eye contact with everybody. But there was something about him and the aura of solitary politeness which increased one’s fascination. Then he made a slip by briefly looking up, or it may be that the intense gaze penetrated his chilly armour. It was Ola Balogun.

“Dr Ola Balogun, I must presume”, Snooper opened with a famous gambit of colonial interlopers. He smiled back, the hesitant and polite smile of the wellborn and well bred before inviting yours sincerely to a vacant seat near him. We had barely finished exchanging pleasantries about the good old days when an animated discussion about the state of the nation ensued.

Like all concerned patriots, the famed filmmaker was disturbed and distressed about the state of the nation and how things could have been allowed to degenerate to this level where everything seemed to have gone to the dogs. He was quietly vehement but soft spoken. He did not seek to impress or to castigate unwholesomely. There was something about him which reminded one of the Etonian charms and diffidence of the old public school boy. From his travels, he has acquired the cosmopolitan savvy of the global denizen. But he also communicated a calm fortitude and stoic endurance.

What particularly irked and riled Balogun was the virtual collapse of the middle class culture which supported and valorised the creative industry and artistic production in the country. The half a million readers that bought Gbolabo Ogunsanwo’s Sunday Times in the mid-seventies have all vanished into thin air. Even the down market Onitsha market literature has disappeared. In contemporary Onitsha market, you can see sweaty musclemen physically lugging expired freezers and other monstrous looking contraptions. It is not a scene for effete literati.

But what was clear that afternoon was that despite the parlous state of the nation, the likes of Ola Balogun refused to be fazed or daunted. He kept coming up with schemes to revive the reading culture and the revival of an active intellectual class which will spearhead and pioneer the rebirth of the nation. He had many names ready and already penciled down. His quiet enthusiasm was to say the least quite infectious.

If he is not persuaded to leave the country as a result of traumatic loss, Balogun may yet live to witness that glorious dawn of a renascent Nigeria and its resurgent middle class. But it is going to be a lot of hard work and imaginative thinking. As they say in American boxing parlance, the Nigerian middle class has taken a bad beat.

The middle class is the most vital and vibrant stratum of any society. It is a historical truism and not a curse that any society that tries to wipe out its middle class will know neither peace nor stability. This is because it has removed the buffer that prevents the filthy rich from coming to direct collision with the filthy poor. Those who will redeem Nigeria have their work cut out for them. For now, there is going to be a helluva hollerin and hammerin in the land. May the notable filmmaker find the strength and fortitude to bear his huge loss.

February 1, 2015
This is some real confusion of the head now, eh?

Politicians tend to think that once they get into a representative seat or office, that seat automatically converts to being theirs to keep and to hold, till death do them part. In many instances, death has been the perfect gentleman; it has obliged them

Have you ever stayed still long enough to observe children at play? They call it play, but the earnestness on the faces of the children almost belies the fact. First, they agree they want to play hospital. Then they assign roles to each other. Then they gather what materials they can lay their hands on that closely resemble those used in the hospital. Then the conversation starts. That’s when you begin to hear the instructions flying left, right and centre from the leader; you hear the reproofs shooting straight at erring ones, and the open threats coming out of young, innocent lips when other innocent lips howl their protests, ‘why do I have to be the one to take the injection all the time? Why can’t I play the doctor today?’ And when it is time to take injections, you begin to hear the threats, ‘I’m not playing with you anymore; you are baaaad.’ Indeed, the declarations from the innocent lips are so bad they rival the sanctions coming out of the globalised lips of the United Nations.

Since the beginning of Nigeria’s latest experiment in democracy, I have been hard put to it to distinguish between politicians’ antics and children’s play. At all levels, whether representative or delegate, your politicians have found ways of cornering the biggest chunks of the nation’s resources to themselves, just like the children, as if that is what politics is all about. And just as children also forget that they are only play acting, your politicians also forget that their power is not real but temporary. Somehow, however, they convince themselves that they are there forever. To me, that is some real confusion of the head.

Not long ago, I read the story of a woman who had been stricken by a rare autoimmune disease which attacked her brain and made her imagine many impossible things. She imagined that her parents were plotting against her; she was being watched on her hospital bed on national television through cameras strung on helicopters; she was being pursued by enemy forces … the list goes on. Actually at a point, she had to be pursued by nurses who strapped her down as she kept trying to escape from the hospital.

This woman’s story is pathetic, no? Our politicians’ story is even more pathetic. I would pity them if I wasn’t so outraged by their audacity, carelessness and devil-may-care attitude. Usually, it’s that kind of attitude that causes many a cartoon character to whistle his way right into a pothole, manhole or deep, deep gully. And, if you are like me watching these cartoons, you will laugh heartily because you are sitting there in your comfy chair, righteously thinking that the character only got what he deserved. I mean, when you can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is delusionary, and you’re whistling and not watching where you are stepping, it can make for some real scratching of the head and some loud guffaws.

I will be honest. I scratched my head at the utterances of Buhari while he was campaigning in 2011. I believe he was said to have said (I was not there) that he would make the nation ungovernable should he lose the elections. (Indeed, he lost, and the nation became ungovernable for a while). What made many of us scratch our heads? I think we thought something like: what was he thinking, like the state was his? I believe he has since learnt not to make that kind of utterance.

Not so our brothers from the south-south though. They have fallen, whistling in a devil-may-care attitude, into the same pothole, manhole or deep, deep gully that Buhari had to struggle out of. I would honestly have been laughing from my deep, deep armchair if I wasn’t so disgusted, outraged and scratching my head. Did they really say they were ready for war if their candidate did not win the election? What the…?! Well, if they did utter those words, then I can only say: what were they thinking of, like the state was theirs?

Illusions, delusions, make beliefs, false convictions, you may call them what you like; my encyclopaedia is not helping me. Perhaps, I should appeal to higher authorities: say, Aro. Anyway, pardon me for mixing them up but they do nothing good for the soul because they deceive. Unfortunately, our politicians and their supporters are suffering from them all. Supporters can often be pardoned. One, they are poor. Two, they are mindless, mainly because they are poor. Three, they are often full of drink, mainly because they are poor and mindless. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? Anyway, supporters often think at the behest of the suppliers of their passion.

So, when people make such utterances as credited to the boys from the south-south, it sends a few signals about the delusions that Nigerian politicians are labouring under, the suppliers of thought to the supporters. First, they tend to think that once they get into a representative seat or office, that seat automatically converts to being theirs to keep and to hold, till death do them part. In many instances, death has been the perfect gentleman; it has obliged them. Nevertheless, it is a wonder just where this illusion sprang from. Could it have come from the fact that people are hardly thrown out of office, impeached or not given a return ticket unless they inadvertently displease their godfathers? Who knows?

Secondly, people tend to think that the seat they have won has become an inheritance from their father’s house. They think it is a permanent win to pass down to the son and for the son to shoot bullets into the sky over (just to frighten away all goats that may want to nibble at it). I honestly do not know where this also came from. Maybe it’s the fact that Nigerians have ways of worshipping their representatives who throw crumbs at them in the form of money, jeeps, or marrying their daughters while dissipating everyone’s future in useless fritters.

The third signal these winners pass across flows naturally down from the above: that the nation which houses the seats they have won belongs to them. Big illusion, huge! Somewhere along the thin line, the illusion translates to the nation even existing for them. I think this is the grandest delusion of them all, pure fantasy. The source of this is not clear. Perhaps, it has something to do with the docile nature of Nigerians who do not cry foul unless you tamper with the source of their daily corruption.

I have been thinking. Should Nigeria go to war now over the loss of an elective seat, what is to be gained? Nothing, except for losses, huge losses. For one thing, history will judge us most unkindly. Have you noticed that you can distort your face, your car but not your history? The blessed thing has a way of recording exactly what happened, just like children. ‘Question: Children, what was the cause of the year twenty-something war in Nigeria? Answer: Someone lost an elective office.’

I end as I started. If you have ever observed children at play, you would have you noticed that when their play ends (usually when the leader gets hungry or when someone breaks into howls over the imaginary injections), they all leave the scene of play to go home. They don’t go to war, but wait to reconvene the next day to play at something else, say housekeeping; they don’t remember yesterday’s howls. Let us clear the confusion from our heads and remember that Nigeria belongs to nobody but Nigerians only.

February 1, 2015
Jonathan as “the most abused and negatively profiled President in the history of this country”: seeing beyond the man to the party and the era

“You are the most abused and negatively profiled President in the history of this country”.Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, at the launching of the Jonathan reelection campaign in Lagos, January 7, 2015

In all honesty and fairness, I should start this piece by admitting that when Dr. Mimiko, the outgoing Ondo State Governor, addressed President Jonathan with the words that I am using as the epigraph for this essay, he added the following words to complete the full intent of his declaration: “And yet, you have not sent anyone to prison for abusing you”. Thus, Mimiko’s full declaration was this: ‘Mr. President, you are the most abused and negatively profiled President in the history of this country and yet you have not sent anyone to prison for abusing you”. The point of Mimiko’s declaration was to contrast Jonathan with Buhari whom he accused of sending even people who hadn’t abused him, who had told the truth to prison when the APC presidential candidate was a military dictator. But in making this sidewise attack on Buhari, Mimiko made the extraordinary declaration that Jonathan is the most abused, the most reviled President in our political history.

In continuation of my invocation of honesty and fairness here, I should add that Mimiko did not give any reasons why Jonathan is in his view the most despised Head of State that this country has ever had bar none – bar even Sani Abacha. As a matter of fact, in that speech from which this declaration has been culled to serve as the epigraph to this essay, Mimiko went on to give very weak and forgettable reasons why, in spite of this universal dislike of their President, Nigerians should vote for Jonathan. But he made absolutely no effort to reflect on and give some explanation as to why Nigerians so much love to hate Jonathan.

It is a strange thing for someone like Mimiko who is very close to the President, someone who, body and soul, is devoted to Jonathan to declare to his face that he is the most hated and despised Nigerian Head of State in our political history. Indeed, as I watched that launching of Jonathan’s reelection campaign on TV, I looked to see if the cameras would pan to show Jonathan’s face at that particular moment when his chief promoter was declaring him a ruler for whom Nigerians have no respect, no love. Unfortunately, no camera showed what the President’s reaction was to this extraordinary declaration. At any rate, neither at the event itself nor since then has the Mimiko declaration drawn any commentary from the PDP campaign machine and its army of spokespersons. I suggest that the reason for this is quite easy to fathom: Mimiko was saying what everyone in the PDP already knows and knows only too well and this is the fact that their candidate draws contempt and hatred to himself the way excreta draws flies to itself. Thus, Mimiko’s declaration was merely a moment of slippage, a moment at which the pressure cooker of campaigning for a weak and unloved candidate reached boiling point and the truth came out unrestrained and unvarnished.

I am using the scatological metaphor of faeces here deliberately. In my view, the most appropriate metaphor for what it takes for most of our peoples to merely survive at the present time is not that of a vast pit latrine; rather, it is that of a vast refugee camp in a land where oil wealth is flowing in abundance. The excreta analogy is suited specifically to the moral and psychic condition of our country and the great majority of the populace. In line with this metaphor one can say that everywhere and anywhere that faeces reigns untreated and is left as an affront, a danger to public health and public good, there disease-carrying flies will flock. Not to mince words at all, I am suggesting here that the excreta of monumental corruption, colossal waste and squandermania and mediocre performance for which Jonathan is hated and despised by most Nigerians is symptomatic; it goes far beyond him to his party, the PDP. Beyond that party, it goes to virtually all the other ruling class parties; and it attaches to the whole political order that has been in place since 1999. This is the main point that I wish to reflect upon in this piece.

I do not of course wish to deflect attention from Mimiko’s hapless and unintended quarry, President Jonathan; he is the current chief occupant of the cesspit of Nigerian political misrule and he must bear full responsibility for the miasmic rot and decay in the land. But the rot, the decay goes far beyond Jonathan and I think in fact this awareness may have been the unconscious motivation for Mimiko’s extraordinary declaration. At any rate, in the rest of this piece, I wish to briefly pursue this line of thought that urges us to look beyond Jonathan to, first the PDP and then to the whole of the present era if we wish to usher in a tidal wave strong enough to clean up the vast reaches of the moral and psychic ordure that covers the whole land.

To see how the moral excrement that covers Jonathan has its roots in his party, the PDP, one need go no further than the fact that, as strange as it may seem, the strongest revelations and denunciations have come not from its opponents but from present and former party members themselves. As the list is long, we can only select a few telling instances. Item: in the year 2005, Obasanjo sent a letter to the Nigerian parliament asking for the impeachment of his Deputy, Atiku Abubakar, on charges of gross acts of stealing and embezzlement of state funds. In his letter, Obasanjo gave copious details of Atiku’s thievery. In a countermove that took everyone by surprise, Atiku did not deny the charges; rather, he produced his own document detailing Obasanjo’s extensive acts of looting and misuse of public funds. In the event, both men revealed enough about one another that could or should have led to their impeachment. Item: while getting rid of honest and generally respected people like Audu Ogbeh, Party Chairman, Obasanjo enthroned know-nothings and nonentities in positions of power at federal, state and local levels throughout the country, the most astounding of whom were Mrs. Ette, a semi-literate hair dresser, as Speaker of the House of Representatives; Chris Ubah, a person whom Chinua Achebe describes in his book, There Was A Country, as one of scores of “politicians with low IQ” as the godfather of Anambra state PDP; and Lamidi Adedibu, an illiterate enforcer and the infamous avatar of “amala politics” as the godfather of Oyo state PDP. Item: In the year 2011, a cardinal member of Jonathan’s cabinet, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, told an interviewer from the British newsmagazine, The Economist, that corruption and waste were so monumental and so entrenched in the federal government that she would be quite satisfied if by the end of her term in office she might have reduced the scale by as little as 4%. Thus, Jonathan is completely at home in this gargantuan moral cesspool, this landscape of untold psychic aridity.

But isn’t this profile applicable to the whole country in at least the last two to three decades? What exactly are thinking people in our country to feel, to imagine confronted with the grim fact that in this same period, the passing rate of our high school leavers has never risen above 35%? What are we to think, to feel about the fact that in one year, 2009, 98.2% actually failed in the NECO exams? What are we to think of the fact that no state of emergency has ever been declared to confront this extremely dispiriting crisis of the utter collapse of the education of our young people? And what of the widespread incidence of examination malpractices which are sometimes accompanied by great violence when attempts are made to expose or curb them? What of our universities and other tertiary institutions: doesn’t everyone say that, with few exceptions, they are all in a state of complete ruination? What of the universal fear and worry among our peoples at all levels of society that the man or woman who decides to be honest and hardworking, who refuses to bribe, cheat or lie is putting her/his life and the lives of relatives and friends at great risk? Jonathan is also at home in this universe of moral darkness for just as we love to hate the President, every thinking Nigerian loves to hate all these things about our country and its terribly anomalous moral and psychic state.

In conclusion, compatriots, as I urge that we kick Jonathan and the PDP out of office and into political and historical oblivion, I also urge that we please note that PDP is secreted deep, deep into the moral and psychological veins and arteries of the country. I would in fact suggest that three quarters of APC is PDP! Thus, Mimiko is right but not in the manner that he intended his declaration to be read. For if Jonathan is indeed the most reviled and despised President that we have ever had in this country, that is because the Nigeria we have been living through these past two decades is the most hateful and frightening expression of who we are. At almost every level this is far, far from who we would like to be, for now and for those that will come after us.

Biodun Jeyifo

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

February 1, 2015
The militants’ threats

They missed it all when they threatened to plunge the country into war should the president lose the election

THREATS by some Niger Delta militants to shut down the country by taking their (the Niger Delta) oil back should President Goodluck Jonathan lose reelection on February 14 have deservedly attracted angry reactions from many Nigerians. Perhaps the latest was from General Theophilus Danjuma, a former chief of defence staff who hardly comments on national issues. Danjuma is of the opinion that the said militants, Mujahid Asari Dokubo, leader, Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force; Victor Ben Ebikabowei, aka, Boyloaf and Government Ekpudomenowei, aka Tompolo went overboard and ought to have been arrested by now.

Dokubo was quoted as saying: “For every Goliath, God created a David. For every Pharaoh, there is a Moses. We are going to war. Every one of you should go and fortify yourself,” Premium Times quoted him as saying. You may be wondering how Dokubo came about such knowledge of the Holy Bible! Holy Moses! I am, too. Then, Boyloaf: “Keep grudges and sentiments apart. We are ready to match them bumper to bumper”, whatever this means.

These, no doubt are weighty statements for which the militant warlords ought to be sanctioned. But then, President Jonathan has hardly caused to be arrested people who make combustible statements that could tear the country apart. For instance, when in 2011 Alhaji Lawal Kaita said the north would make Nigeria ungovernable if President Jonathan became president in 2011, hell was not let loose. If the president did not arrest him and others then despite the security challenges the country has been witnessing in the last five years or so, then it is going to be difficult to expect him to crucify his own in the Niger Delta for similar provocative statement now that elections are around the corner. At least not with the waves the opposition has been making all over the country in the kind of ‘hurricane’ that would have seemed unimaginable only a few months ago.

A shocking aspect of the tragedy is that the meeting where the provocative statements were reportedly made was the Bayelsa State House, with the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs and chairman of Amnesty Implementation Committee, Kingsley Kuku, and Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, among others, in attendance. One can understand where Governor Dickson is coming from, though. He has been having running battles with Dame Patience Jonathan, the president’s wife and, since he is seeking reelection, he probably felt he had to do something to impress the president who actually used him (Dickson) to unseat the former governor, Timipre Silva, in spite of indication the president’s wife might have made up her mind not to reconcile with him. Perhaps some underground fence-mending was done seeing the way things are going for the president, to ensure that he does not have a major challenge in his home state, hence, Dickson’s volte-face because he appeared set for broke only a few days back.

It is possible the governor was not aware that such threats were going to be made since he might not have had an idea of what the militants would say prior to the time the meeting took place. In that case, a public apology from him after the unfortunate incident would have ameliorated the damage done to his person, his office and the State House in Bayelsa. He never did. Rather, he appeared to give his imprimatur to what the militants said in his remark at the occasion by thanking the former militant leaders for deciding to back President Jonathan, and promised to convey same to the president.

Apparently, the feeling by the militant warlords (I don’t necessarily want to equate that to be the thinking of all Ijaw) is that it is the Ijaw that has been dethroned if the president loses the reelection and they would not accept such an intimidation by other Nigerians. One wonders where they got this impression from. The way the militant leaders are talking, it is as if they were the ones that put President Jonathan in office. They know that even the entire votes in the south-south could not have done that. So, why would anyone be threatening fire and brimstone if the president is not reelected? If that is the way to go, then Nigerians should have had no business having election this year; we should not have wasted the billions that we have committed to the polls. We simply should have been told that the president is the sole candidate for the office as is done in many backward African countries so that militants won’t shut down the economy or plunge the country into war, as restated by Tompolo on Thursday, despite denial from the Ijaw Youth Council. But the militants need to tread cautiously.

Perhaps what they call dethronement is the fact that unlike Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, President Jonathan may not be able to enjoy a second term in office going by the political trend in the country. But this cannot be automatic. Even the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that has zoning in its constitution never said a candidate must do two terms. Again, even if that is the rule in the ruling party, it is unknown to the grundnorm, the Nigerian Constitution. The implication is that there is an opportunity to replace a non-performing leader at any level after four years, or reward him with reelection if he has done well. And, in a democratic setting, only the people can make such decision.

The way things are going, it is as if even the militant leaders themselves are not confident the president could scale the reelection hurdle, hence the resort to threats now. The point is, if an incumbent president who has stayed more than five years in office is having difficulties at seeking reelection the way President Jonathan is, then, something must have been amiss. And, indeed, a lot is amiss. Apart from the fact that the president has not performed well, his kinsmen have not helped his cause. They keep talking as if it was their votes alone that brought the president into office in the first place. Whereas when Chief Obasanjo was president, his kith and kin in Yoruba land were about his most vociferous critics. Even when President Jonathan was about being denied his right to succeed former President Umaru Yar’Adua after the latter’s death, Nigerians, not the Ijaw, rose in unison to ensure that the constitution was protected.

If today, Nigerians are looking back with nostalgia at the days of General Muhammadu Buhari (the All Progressives Congress’ presidential candidate in the February election) in power and the high-handedness, perceived or real, with which he ruled the country alongside his second-in-command, the late General Tunde Idiagbon, President Jonathan is to blame. Even as civilian president ruling the country 32 years after Buhari took over, one would easily forgive Buhari’s sins because we are supposed to have advanced in every particular material by now; regrettably, we have not. Rather, we are retrogressing, or at best marching forward to the past. If the people benefitting from the present government do not know that things have progressively gone from bad to worse, especially in the last half decade, then their patriotism is suspect because that alone explains the huge support that General Buhari has been having all over the country, that is now making people with whom he contested thrice before to suddenly remember now that he does not have school certificate. It means he is now an issue; and, indeed, Buhari has always been an issue at the polls because, for anyone to have more than 12 million votes in elections twice (2003 and 2011), coming second to the ruling party in all elections he had contested against it, you can only write off such a person at your own risk. Mind you, in all those elections, Buhari was, so to say, on his own. It certainly must be source for worry now that his political tentacles have widened, such that the ruling party that had been under the euphoria of ruling for 60 straight years now feel sufficiently threatened and has realised, almost too late, that it could only ignore him now at its peril.

When an incumbent government is campaigning as if it is just seeking a fresh mandate or lists such esoteric things as Nigeria attaining the status of the largest economy in Africa as its achievements, it is saying nothing. Indeed, that is akin to what the Austrian chancellor, Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, referred to as ‘high sounding nothing’. It does not appeal to the man on the street whose son left school five, six years ago and is still roaming the streets. It makes no sense to the millions that go hungry daily, in spite of the country’s resources. I looked at a particular advert on the president’s achievements, nothing was said on corruption; nothing was said on power. Nothing on security; the raison detre of any government properly so-called. Although this is charitable enough because it is better to be silent on such when there is nothing to report, than assault our sensibilities with provocative lies as achievements.

I agree with Dokubo and his colleagues that those stoning the president’s campaign in the north or anywhere in the country should be arrested and punished, irrespective of whether they are from the opposition or they are aggrieved members of the ruling party. That is barbaric. Anyone that is unhappy with what is happening in the country now has an opportunity: ‘stone’ the president with his or her vote on February 14. That is why many people have been clamouring for the sanctity of the vote. There won’t be problem if people who lose election admit and quit honourably, after all there is always another time. That is what election is all about. That is what democracy is all about. There is nothing unusual in people losing election; it is like that all over the world. You rejuvenate government when those there are beginning to show signs of fatigue. In our own case, it is not just inertia but one worsened by massive corruption. So, unless Tompolo et al already have a different agenda which they only want to use the result of the election to achieve, there is no basis for their threats of fire and brimstone.

It is a sad commentary that in our country, it is militants or warlords, whether in the north or in the south, that are calling the shots now. It is part of the tragedies of how far sunk we are as a nation that we are returning to the Hobbessian state of nature. In democracies all over the world, the majority always have their way; the minority only their say.

February 1, 2015
Doyin Abiola @ 70

Her lithe, slim and petite build belie her true age. But believe it or not, Dr Doyinsola Abiola , the first female Managing Director of a newspaper conglomerate in Nigeria, turns seventy this week. Snooper celebrates a great friend of column and columnist. In this age of frauds and other psychotic poseurs, it is a thing of joy to celebrate our true heroes and authentic icons.

This talented and exceptionally endowed woman is one of the finest products of the old Nigerian middle class. Educated in the best schools in Nigeria and abroad, this pioneering newspaper dowager has done her country proud in many respects. As a Visiting Scholar and travelling theorist, Snooper remembers being taken to the office of Professor Molefi Kete Asante at the State University of New York at Buffalo in the summer of 1982. Conspicuously displayed on the shelf of the notable African American scholar was the Ph.D thesis of his former ward, Doyin Aboaba. Needless to add that yours sincerely spent the afternoon devouring the thesis.

As a youth, one of Doyin’s fondest memories as revealed to Snooper was watching her father, a top class civil servant of the old school, playing lawn tennis with the movers and shakers of colonial and post-independence Nigeria. This was when the civil servant was a really civil and civilised servant. Mother was a doting and devoted full time housewife. From her parents, Doyin learnt the middle class habits of restraint, soberness and Calvinist prudence in everything.

But there is also a warrior’s streak lurking somewhere. On her father side, the former Managing Director of the Concord stable is descended from a proud lineage of redoubtable Egba warriors, one of her ancestors actually reaching the pinnacle of his career as the Balogun of the old Egba army. From them, Doyin must have taken her fierce determination, rugged streak of independence, indomitable courage in the face of overwhelming odds and ability to fight her own corners and battles with weapons of choice. God will help anybody who mistakes her quiet mien for docility or her natural placidity for timidity.

In some other societies more appreciative of exceptionally endowed women with leadership traits, she would have been a natural leader. But we live in a patriarchal male-ordered society where men confuse gender with inherent greatness and masculinity with sagacity and perspicuity. A bundle of talents herself, Doyin took her time to nurture and cultivate talents from their nursery beds to full maturation. There is a whole generation of contemporary Nigerian journalists who would forever be grateful to her for discovering them and allowing them to come into their own.

Ever since her husband’s political martyrdom, Doyinsola Abiola has led a life of pious rectitude and exemplary public decorum. She has proudly and stoutly avoided anything that would bring her illustrious husband’s name into obloquy and public ridicule. The redoubtable MKO must be nodding gratefully in his grave. In keeping with her determination to stay out of the limelight and avoid all public display of vanity, Doyin Abiola quietly slipped out of the country a few weeks back together with her children and grandchildren. Here is wishing the great dame many happy returns wherever she may be.

February 1, 2015
Oyedepo: Facts are sacred, comments are free

The origin of the controversial statement credited to Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel in which he allegedly threatened to open the gate of hell for anti-Jonathan supporters is one of the wonders of social- media.

An activist who was nowhere near Cannanland, Otta where President Goodluck Jonathan worshipped last Sunday sent out a tweet claiming that a source told him Bishop Oyedepo made the statement.

A popular blogger simply shared the shocking tweet on her platform and asked “Can this be true?”.

What followed was the typical frenzy of re -publishing of the quote and comments of all kinds, majority of which were not only unjustifiably critical but abusive.

For those who have been angry about the alleged preference of the Bishop for President Jonathan in the presidential election, they found the statement a good excuse to lash out at him as hard as they could irrespective of his revered position.

As a journalist, though also a member of the Church, who witnessed the visit and shared live tweets on statements by both President Jonathan and Bishop, I was shocked by the slant of reporting of the visit.

I found it difficult to understand how such a quote could be fabricated and attributed to the Bishop when he said nothing close to it at all. I concede to those who do not think it is right to allow the President or any other politician mount the pulpit for any reason, but attributing a statement the Bishop did not make to him was the height of mischief.

What those who originated the falsehood did for reasons known to them was an abuse of the freedom offered by the social media. While anybody should be free to share information and comment on the social media, it is wrong to deliberately mislead others on the platforms.

What I find more disturbing is that, even when every evidence has shown that the Bishop did not make the statement, the originators and many promoters of the falsehood have refused to admit their error and apologise for engaging in what has been rightly described as social media terrorism.

I salute some facebook commentators who have withdrawn their comments on the matter and regretted being misled.

One of the lessons of this unfortunate incident is that more than ever before, social media users have to be more careful about the information they get online. In a situation where some people can choose to spread falsehood as truth, there is need for more restraint before commenting on what is attributed to people.

As the campaign for the general election continues, supporters of candidates should refrain from heating up the polity through social media postings that make it seems that the February 14 presidential election is a do-or- die battle.

Everybody should be free to support whichever candidate he or she prefers. The acrimony generated over choice of candidate is unnecessary.

Democracy is about freedom of choice and nothing should be done to deny that freedom.

February 1, 2015