The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Elephants and the Castle
- A Convergence of Consequences
There are some big elephants in the sitting room. And when elephants converge before a magnificent castle, it is usually a sign of unusual developments. Elephants are known to have a long memory. But with the humongous mass of their brains, nothing less must be expected except by foolhardy and feckless humanity .They are usually placid and easygoing without the ferocious temper of a rhinoceros or the tempestuous rage of a hippopotamus. But that is until they sense danger or the perpetrator of some old infractions in the neighborhood. That is when all hell is let loose with the infuriated pachyderms pulling out and pulling up everything in sight or out of sight in elemental rage. The jungle can no longer contain the plaintiff and the defendant. This is when the hunter becomes the hunted.

Like the ghost of Banquo at state dinner, Bola Ige, a master poet, intellectual pugilist and political prizefighter, seems to be whispering from beyond: Tell my perjurers and assailants that I did nothing unworthy of poetry and philosophy! That is only two of the three Ps, leaving out perhaps the most important P, which is punitive politics in a postcolonial penal colony. Ige himself would be the first to let you know upfront that he was not a saint and that politics in a fractious, multi-ethnic and multi-faith polity seething with primordial envy and animosities is not for saints. Even then, it beggars belief that a   nation’s chief law officer could be slain like that in his bedroom without the assailants caring a hoot about the consequences. Here was a man who could not hurt a fly, despite all appearances to the contrary. He was armed only with his abrasive tongue and nettling pen and it was with these that he whipped political fools and other chancers into line.

But Abuja is not the most benign habitat for literary generals. Before Ige, its most famous poet who was a warrior-general was militarily liquidated by his colleagues. Sensing danger, many of us who felt close enough railed from a distance that leaving the comfort of his ethnic fortress in a towering huff for the killing fields of Abuja was a bridge too far. But we were sidelined and testily ignored. Caesar must cross The Rubicon. Ige had privately told some of our mutual friends that he could not understand how a teacher of Literature could have the temerity to be telling him what to do in politics. Like Cicero, his Roman progenitor, who had his tongue literally pulled out, it was our own Cicero’s proud and noble Ijesa heart that was shot to pieces.

   But it is well. Almost a quarter of a century after his dastardly assassination in his bedroom, James Ajibola Idowu Ige seems to be having the last laugh over his tormentors. First, and in a remarkable piece of finely honed historical denouement, the late Cicero of Esa Oke appears to be presiding over the funeral rites of the group he belonged to and of which he was the undisputed intellectual and political master of the game. It is a remarkable funeral pyre, an enchanting spiral of decline, dissolution and death enacted as a consuming public spectacle. Judging from the bits and tidbits of information being released by his family, his close associates and acolytes and the cagey pushback this has elicited, it is becoming obvious that Ige’s elimination was hatched and executed from the innermost sanctuary of state liquidation. But we must warn that nothing last forever. The Nigerian postcolonial state is not an organic formation but a brittle ensemble of deadly intrigues and Byzantine conspiracies against the people of Nigeria. Judging from the deadpan and poker-faced revelations of recent weeks, it is just possible that countervailing elements from a rival power formation now have access to classified information which they may not be averse to insinuating into the public domain if only to put some Nigerian tin gods permanently out of political contention. Beyond the public purview, it is just possible that another deadly power struggle for the soul of Nigeria has commenced and it is going to be nasty and messy.

   It is only in the Third World that people act without expecting repercussions for their actions. Sometimes, the sheer wickedness of humanity is ascribed to God himself. But as Dele Giwa, the martyred Nigerian superstar journalist, once hauntingly put it, nobody mocks God and the rewards of villainy are often handed out in life. In the fullness of time, karmic retribution often appears strange and unreal if not totally bewildering to the onlooker. This is the beauty of historical development which on the surface appears to obey only its own law and inner logic. The public excoriations and private torments our former military and civilian dictators are currently experiencing may appear to be against the run of play, but they are the logical consequences of past infractions against a nation and its people that they owe so much.

The impunity of lawlessness is often a reflection of lawlessness as the organizing principle of a society in the trauma of transition. No one, however highly placed, should exploit the void to conduct themselves with abominable lawlessness. Order, or some semblance, will eventually return to question disorder. In postcolonial societies transiting to modernity, the unstructured and ungoverned nature of things makes impunity to wear the garb of divine immunity. But that is only before hitherto unseen and unknown countervailing forces rise to the occasion, forcing a resolution of the crisis or a tense deadlock as the case may be. It is known as the return of the repressed.

   This much is evident in the other elephants that have taken up residence in Nigeria’s palatial sitting room in recent times. Namely, the protracted legal tussle over the Mambilla Hydro-electric Project which has exposed the soft underbelly of official impunity in Nigeria in all its cancerous possibilities. There is also the statement said to have been issued on behalf of Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar asking the South-West populace to accept the reality of Sharia rule over their considerable Muslim segments. Yoruba self-determination groups have been implacable in their umbrage. These are dangerous developments indeed that tug at the heart of the National Question and could lead to a recrudescence of ethnic, religious and geo-economic tensions in the nation. Both Obasanjo and Buhari have already had their day in the court of International Arbitration. It was a sad day for Nigeria.

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If the two gentlemen were expecting national commendation for their yeoman’s labour in Paris, the gale of rebuff and recrimination should serve as an indication of the seething national misgiving about their conduct in office. As for the Sultan and the insidious charter of domination however diplomatically coded, the furious rejection of his suggestion even by traditional die-hard Muslim adherents in Yorubaland should inform him that the days of extending feudal hegemony under the guise of some pernicious narrative of superior compliance are over. In a multi-ethnic nation, the rising tide of ethnic nationalism appears to trump religious overlordship of some dubious vintage. The instant uproar in the west ought to serve as a cautionary reminder. Allow me to conduct my Islamic religion as I deem fit, is a joyous Yoruba refrain. Fundamentalist adherents of an Islamic credo that has nothing but debilitating poverty and political anomie to show may scoff at this, but it is this eccentric and idiosyncratic syncretism that is the strength of Yoruba culture which has allowed the people to survive ages and epochs of adversity from invading hordes. Nigeria is in a state of tense and precarious equilibrium. We must refrain from doing anything that could tip the balance into anarchy and chaos which are the usual precursors of the collapse of regular politics.

In advanced societies, the collapse of regular politics can have adverse and ruinous consequences for the ruling classes. This is why Donald Trump is currently kicking their butt about in America with aplomb and cruel relish. Governance of fickle humanity requires constant vigilance and continuous inventiveness. In what feels like an outstanding feat of magical realism, Trump has just revoked the security pass of his predecessor. Once the ruling classes allow the initiative to slip either through carelessness or a stalling of vision, it opens the door to either demented demagogues of the right or deluded messianic crackpots from the left, depending on the balance of forces. Donald Trump is an exemplary product of the regnant contradictions of contemporary American society. He does not possess the intellectual wherewithal or the political temperament and emotional intelligence to make a dent on America’s social, economic and political problems. But he will so muddy the waters that resetting America will be a herculean task for his successors until one of them is able to rediscover the magic that made America an exceptional country.

In less advanced societies with weak structures and weaker institutions, the precipitate collapse of regular politics can have more catastrophic consequences for nations and their traditional ruling classes. Twice in Nigeria in January 1966 and December 1983, it led to state collapse with the first one accompanied by virtual nation-collapse culminating in a thirty-month civil war. In post-independence Africa, the collapse of regular politics has led to civil wars in Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Algeria, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Cote D’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau and Libya.

    It is within this broad context that one must express grave concern and particular disappointment about the outcome of a recent gathering of political notables and their freshly recruited satraps ostensibly to feel the pulse of the nation and to offer new insights about how to take the country to greater heights. On both counts, it was a dismal failure. It was a celebration of trivia and platitudes about who did what to whom in the run up to the last presidential election and its aftermath. If this is a peep into the embryonic formation of what is shaping up as opposition force in the next presidential election, the ruling party might as well go to sleep with a Do Not Disturb sign screwed to the door.

Those who are principally fixated on the dreary outcome of an electoral process without focusing attention on the shambolic state of opposition forces will have plenty of tears to shed when they come to grief once again. By then, those who rely on traditional disruption of the electoral process in its concluding phase would have become so enervated and exhausted by their errant exertions that they would have become a spent political force with the status of extinct volcanoes. By the prevailing logic of a fractious, multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation, power can only be forcibly wrested and will not be shared out except by stringent and pacted elite negotiations.

   What the gathering left unsaid is more eloquent than what it actually says. The unstated fact is that they have been rendered hors de combat even before the commencement of battle. In Literary Theory, this is known as “the effectivity of the absent cause”. In this case, the absent cause which the political notables could not bring themselves to reflect on is the complete homogenization of the Nigerian ruling class which has made it impossible for the so called opposition to come up with an authentic alternative vision of the country since nothing can distinguish or set them apart from the ruling faction apart from their infantile tiffs. This unification of elite consciousness is a direct result of politics without principles and party formation without coherent ideology. If this is where we are almost a quarter of a century after his martyrdom, Bola Ige will be frantic in his grave.
February 9, 2025
Remaking political opposition

Those who suspect that opposition parties in Nigeria are dedicated to taking or retaking office rather than offering realistic policy options to the parties in power are not far from the mark. Both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), but more accurately both former vice president Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, exemplify this suspicion. They have sometimes spoken copiously and abusively about certain government policies, but they have done little else to explicate the foundations of the policies, particularly the economic ills those policies are targeted to address. Oppositional imperfections and wild assumptions, including the opinionatedness of political candidates and party leaders, are not peculiarly Nigerian. These failings are fairly global, leading to the conclusion that great leadership has been greatly diminished everywhere.

That the PDP is embroiled in crisis today does not mean it cannot solve its problem and go on to offer Nigeria great leadership. But it has not shown any likelihood that it is capable of meeting the country’s idealistic yearnings. Indeed, for its 16 years in office it went from being a divisive and overbearing party to a divided and cowering party without the redeeming grace of being a promising or inspiring party. Since it lost the presidency in 2015, it has teetered on the brink of implosion, careening from the desire to become Africa’s leading and biggest party to managing to rein in its recalcitrant members and fractious leaders. Its leading lights, such as the politically nomadic Alhaji Atiku, are flawed and tightfisted, and its platform ideologically suspect and detached from reality. Hobbled by internal dissension, and weakened by tenuous ideology, the party has so far been unable to unite behind a common cause. But without putting its house in order administratively and ideologically, a task they are now undertaking clumsily, amateurishly and frantically, it is impossible to champion any oppositional cause, let alone fight the ruling party.

The LP has not fared better. In fact there is little hope it can unite its members around a common cause, seeing that the party leadership is reviled by the sometimes lawless and obtruding unionist leaders who founded it. Factionalised into two, much like the PDP, it nevertheless boasts of one factional leadership under Julius Abure, a lawyer, who has had the good fortune of winning nearly all the court cases brought against his faction or suits his faction filed. Though founded by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the union has unimaginatively tethered the party to its withered apron strings, and hoped that such linkage would be enough to guarantee discipline and control. It has not. Worse, the union has been successfully resisted by the court-sanctioned faction; and so far, everyone other than Mr Abure aspiring to the leadership of the party has come to grief, including the unresourceful and pretentious ideologue, Mr Obi. To the dismay of those who support the party at the instance of Mr Obi, the party has appeared to lack ideological direction, having never been imbued with any philosophical paradigm by the NLC at its founding. The union has sometimes pretended to be left-of-centre, or at times practical, but it has been unable to produce a consistent and coherent ideological foundation for a party which, in its hands, has turned into a disreputable special purpose vehicle for taking power.

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Both the PDP and LP must, therefore, find solutions to their existential crises before they can aspire to real opposition or take/retake the presidency. The PDP may be able to achieve unaccustomed unity among its cantankerous members and leaders, but it is likely to create a worse tear in the party’s fabric. Whatever is left of the party, and whatever forced concessions it makes in order to present a smiling face to the electorate, will not include an administrative and ideological remake of the party powerful and convincing enough to drive its campaigns in the years ahead. It will need a tectonic overhaul to create a synergetic effect capable of unifying the party and catalysing its electoral drive for power. That overhaul will have to involve forcing out the main combatants who have turned the one-time ruling party into a relic, men like Alhaji Atiku, Nyesom Wike, Bala Mohammed, Iliya Damagum, Adolphus Wabara, et al. Unfortunately, the party is unused to such massive decapitation. It has a foreboding history, not to say habit, of bandaging its gangrenous wounds and pouring on them nothing more than medications that have only analgetic properties.

For the LP, no one really holds out hope that the fractious party can be salvaged, not even the unusually optimistic and romantic Mr Obi. It is a lot of headache for him to have to battle to smother the crises in his borrowed party. He has never formed a party, and has always preferred to hitch a ride when the steed is close to being described as a thoroughbred. When he latched on to the LP and began to mouth his sectarian rhetoric and fulminate against the Muslim religion’s capture of Nigeria, it was fun for him riding the pedigreed stallion he thought for one crazy moment he could dashingly ride to power. Once he failed and was exposed as an opportunist, and once the mob he inflamed to cause havoc seemed finally spent, he began to dither badly, wondering what next to do beyond propagandising the absurd theories of opposition. Accused of being disinterested in offering the requisite leadership to manage the crisis in the LP, he waded in belatedly and half-heartedly, huffed a little in one breath, sounded grandiose in another breath, but finally resigned himself to fate as he sought succour elsewhere, preferring to meet minds with PDP, APC and New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) rejects in a political merger they love to describe as a mega party.

The APC has not operated flawlessly, and some of its policies and appointments have raised eyebrows. There are, therefore, enough reasons for a resourceful and imaginative party to play the opposition role fittingly and productively. That they are not doing it is not because the ruling party is fostering division in the opposition or crippling their efforts; it is simply because the opposition parties have found themselves in unfamiliar territories, unable to appreciate their roles in a presidential as opposed to parliamentary system. They will need to develop sound administrative frameworks for their parties, unite their members as much as it is practicable, and anchor all their existence and operations on very sound, if not sounder, ideological and ethical principles. They must be able to give what the APC does not have, both in style and in party philosophy. And they must engender discipline on a scale that makes them far more appealing than the ruling party. Can they do it? In fact, are they capable of it? If they have no idea what ails them, why on earth would they feel compelled to do what needs to be done, not to talk of give what they do not have?

February 9, 2025
Rethinking the Lagos Assembly impasse

The January 13, 2025 removal of the Lagos State House of Assembly speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, came out of the blue. He was on holidays when the putsch took place. On his return, he has quibbled about the legality and semantics of the removal, insisting that during and immediately after the process some people used the words removal and impeachment interchangeably to describe what was done to him. It is true that some reports described his removal as impeachment, but it is equally true that the Assembly described his ouster as removal. Regardless of his book knowledge or his conviction, there is no semantic stalemate regarding his removal. His colleagues, all 32 of them out of 40, knew what to call the process that led to his exit, and they are comfortable and adamant about it. They deserve the support of everyone.

There are indications that in one form or the other the Governance (or Governor’s) Advisory Council (GAC) was involved in the removal, perhaps even sanctioning it. The Council may be an extra-constitutional body, but it has remained influential since it was set up under the Bola Tinubu governorship. Soon after Hon. Obasa was unhorsed, his successor, Mojisola Meranda, visited the GAC and received their blessing. Their assent as well as the visit should have been more nuanced, lest many analysts begin to squirm over the role of the Council, even believing erroneously that it was behind the putsch. But since the mistake was made, both the GAC and the Assembly have battled to sustain the action the state’s lawmakers took against Mr Obasa. It has turned out that a few members of the GAC, perhaps three or four out of about 24 have balked at the former speaker’s removal, but regardless of the stridency of their voices and protests, they have been unable to give traction to their reservations. There are speculations about All Progressives Congress (APC) hierarchs wanting to return Mr Obasa to his seat, but no one is sure the rumours are not just amateur name-dropping or red herring.

The procedure adopted by the lawmakers to remove Hon. Obasa was democratic. His removal over alleged financial misappropriation, misconduct, and high-handedness cannot be downplayed. Indeed, the lawmakers could even remove him if they happened to take a dislike to him at any time and at any point. It is unclear what role the GAC played in the removal beyond merely assenting it. If the party and its hierarchs begin to nitpick over such removals, ignoring the sensibilities of the lawmakers, and overplaying their hands, they risk alienating the rank and file. Worse, they risk becoming accessory to the many alleged misdemeanours of errant officials. Hon. Obasa was in his tenth year as speaker; he had become complacent, imperious and garrulous. For these and other reasons, his colleagues got tired of his tyranny and wanted him out. The removal may upset the political permutations of the party, but they would be courting disfavor, if not disaster, to insist on reinstating him. If the removal blindsided them, they must find intelligent and democratic ways of closing ranks and regaining control of the party and the legislature.

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Hon. Obasa makes it hard for party leaders and members to defend or back him. Regardless of his misunderstanding with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, his response to the governor’s budget presentation on November 21 exhibited poor judgement and a lack of grace and understanding. He was not only mortifyingly indecorous, he was also bombastic and boastful. How he managed to hold down the speakership position for so long must remain a mystery. It is uncertain whether party leaders looked deeper than the surface of his leadership; but the near unanimity of opinion against him by most of his colleagues, past and present, speaks to the poor choice they made of him when they first elected him speaker nearly 10 years ago. It is possible the GAC had been uncomfortable with him for some time, perhaps after recognising his limitations; but they were probably too noble to force the matter. His colleagues, therefore, had to endure him.

The GAC and the party must now move beyond Hon. Obasa. Their speakership choices have not always been flawless, as evidenced by their election and sustenance of the former speaker. It is, however, time for them to begin seeking ways to match the election of their legislative officials with a clear vision, in fact grander vision, of the dizzying heights where they hope to take and put Lagos. If their vision of Lagos remains lackluster and pedestrian, then they could continue electing principal officers who cannot transcend the ordinariness of their collective aspirations. Lagos has attracted an incredible influx of people from other parts of the country, many of them young but ethically unmoored. The state, therefore, needs men and women in key positions who can think fast and loftily on behalf of the state, without sacrificing the interests of the indigenes. So far, Lagos has not quite transcended its amorphousness; and Hon. Obasa was simply incapably of embodying the hopes and aspirations of a new, bigger, more modern, and cosmopolitan megacity.

It is disturbing that the GAC and the party have hemmed and hawed over a fairly straightforward matter. Mr Sanwo-Olu himself has kept discretely silent so as not to be accused of having a hand in the removal of his combative nemesis. The problem with Hon. Obasa, however, is not just his politics, as fairly ineffective as that was, nor even his serial indiscretions, as mortifying as they were, nor yet his mistreatment of his colleagues, which was enough to earn him a place in the guillotine, nor even the suspicion that his successor could be overwhelmed by the speaker’s office. What ailed the former speaker so profoundly is what all these damning attributes say of his person and his judgement, in short what they say of his lack of leadership character. That cannot be remedied by any reinstatement, no matter how temporary it is designed to give him a soft landing. And from all indications, given his age and the level he has attained in politics, not to talk of the undignified and ignoble way he has handled his removal, it would be a mistake to give him any kind considerations when he does not even know what that means.

February 9, 2025
Buhari embraces mirage

Gradually, after many months of reticence or monosyllabic responses to national issues, former president Muhammadu Buhari has begun to find his voice. On January 25, speaking in Katsina at an All Progressives Congress (APC) caucus meeting, he addressed the subjects of frugality and transparency, declaring that he really never learnt to live above his means. He talked about owning only three houses, one in Katsina, and two in Kaduna, one of which he let out to cover his daily and living expenses. He strangely omitted to speak about his retirement benefits and pension, which are sizable. There is no reason to doubt his frugality or that he actually owns only three houses. It is thus really impressive, and despite receiving flak over what he said next in the same Katsina last Wednesday, he must be commended for his physical and financial asceticism.

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When the former president speaks about himself and his lifestyle, he manages to sound believable and even endearing to Nigerians. But when he speaks about his record as president, or before that, as military head of state, few Nigerians want to give him a hearing. They neither believe what he has to say nor think he has a commanding knowledge of the principles of great governance and leadership. In fact, he exaggerated his leadership prowess when he spoke without blushing that he left Nigeria better than he met it. In his words: “Nigeria’s security and economy improved significantly under my administration compared to what we met in 2015. Things will continue to improve in Nigeria.” His analysis of what he met as a carryover from the Goodluck Jonathan presidency was correct. The situation was indeed dire, which explained why he was elected.

But when he exclaimed that he bettered the security situation of the country, perhaps his mind was fixed only on Boko Haram, and not the banditry and herdsmen pillage that was birthed and accetuated under his presidency. And when he added that the economy ‘improved significantly’ on his watch, it is unclear whether he was not being astigmatic. The fact, as everyone knows, but which the APC would be loth to admit, is that he ran the economy aground. It is true that he met a troubled economy; but he never improved it. Whatever improvements he thought his administration made were erected on flimsy anchors and borrowed futures. Let him stick to rhapsodising his private principles and endowments whenever he receives guests. They would resonate. As for his leadership qualities, even he is unqualified to speak.

February 9, 2025
A futile exercise

Of Nigeria’s many challenges, it is curious that our House of Representatives’ law makers are fascinated by apathy during elections and are therefore thinking of making voting mandatory. The House is considering a bill to amend the Electoral Act 2022, to make voting compulsory for Nigerians of 18 years and above.

The proposed law, titled “Bill for an Act to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make it mandatory for all Nigerians of majority age to vote in all national and state elections, and for related matters,” is sponsored by the Speaker of the House, Tajudeen Abbas.

The bill seeks to amend sections 9, 10, 12 and 47 of the Electoral Act 2022. If passed, Nigerians of voting age who refuse to cast their vote are to be penalised.

Let’s look into the bill proper:

The proposed amendment to Section 9 of the principal act states that “the Commission (INEC) shall compile, maintain, and update, on a continuous basis, a National Register of Voters (in this Act referred to as ‘the Register of Voters’) which shall include the names of all persons -(a) who have attained the majority age of 18 and are entitled to vote in any federal, state, local government or Federal Capital Territory Area Council election…”

The proposed amendment to Section 47(4a) provides that “It shall be mandatory for all registered voters who have attained the majority age of 18 and above to vote in all national and state elections;

“(b) A person who has attained the majority age of 18 years who refuses to perform his civic duty to vote commits an offence and is liable on conviction, to a fine not more than N100,000 or imprisonment for a term not more than six months.”

It is true that, as Abbas noted, there is large-scale apathy to elections in Nigeria. “The percentage of registered voters that present themselves for actual voting is abysmally low and requires parliamentary attention.”

Indeed, figures released on the matter by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) puts the apathy in frightening perspective. Perhaps nothing exemplifies it more than the abysmal low turn-out of voters during the 2023 General Election. Whereas 94.4 million people registered to vote in the elections, only 87.2 million collected their permanent voters cards (PVCs) while only 25 million voted in the presidential election.

Another example was the last Ondo State governorship poll for which 2.053 million voters registered but only 508,963 persons ultimately voted. Other elections are not significantly different.

True, it is bad that only about a quarter of registered voters do exercise their mandate during elections. This is contrary to what obtain in many other countries where democracy is practised. In the United States, for instance, the percentage of registered voters vis-a-vis the actual number of voters is quite insignificant. Even in some African countries, we do not have such an appalling disparity between the number of registered voters and those that actually voted.

Of course one reason that may account for the disparity in the number of registered and actual voters is the reform that INEC has been bringing to bear into the electoral process in the past few years. Tools like the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV), among others, that the electoral commission has introduced are helping to enhance transparency in elections, even if there are still occasional glitches in their applications. Unlike before, it is getting more and more difficult for impersonators to hijack the process.

In a sense therefore, we can understand why far fewer people that registered for elections do vote on Election Day.

But that does not totally explain the wide gap.

The main reason why many Nigerians stay away from voting is because of the feeling that votes do not count in the country. And this is not a recent phenomenon. There is hardly an election in the country that its result was not disputed. The only exception being the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.

Most other elections have remained largely controversial. The result is that rather than winners being declared at the polls, the job has become that of judges who eventually decide election losers and winners. Not many people are comfortable with this arrangement which has sometimes brought the judiciary into disrepute because of allegations of bribery that are usually levelled against some of the judges handling the election petitions. The feeling on the part of many voters is that; if ultimately winners and losers are going to be decided by the courts, why don’t we select a few judges to choose for the country; why go through the rigours of election?

For me, therefore, if the law makers are worried about voter apathy, making voting compulsory is not the place to start. What is the essence of waiting in the scorching sun or heavy rain, defying the odds just to vote, only for some people to make nonsense of the process?

One other thing that is even annoying is this idea of shutting down the country during elections.

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Elsewhere, people go about their lawful duties on polling days. The recent presidential election in the United States is an example. Over 156 million voters participated in the election. Yet, we did not hear of ballot-box snatching, we did not hear of rigging, voting took place over days without political parties’ supporters clashing, not to talk of killing or maiming one another. Voting was successfully concluded and results announced; we were not told of any serious breach in the process.

And, if you want to say that is the United States: I recall a particular African country where voting took place overnight and only the polling officers were there till day break, attending to voters who strolled in till dawn to vote; they were not attacked and nobody attempted to snatch ballot boxes or compromise the result. May be that was many years ago.

In our own case, election is war. The violence starts before the elections, with one party accusing the other of perfecting plans to rig an election that is yet to be conducted. Then all manner of scenarios come into play on Election Day proper. Thugs would snatch ballot boxes. It is almost predictable that violence would occur, with the possibility of some deaths being recorded. Figures would be falsified, and what have you. Yet, few persons, if any, are punished.

All of these happen despite the deployment of thousands of security personnel, from civil defence corps to regular police men, the military, etc. Take the last governorship election in Edo State for example. It was an off-cycle poll; yet, no fewer than 43,000 security personnel were deployed. It is like that in other states.

One major question the representatives have not asked themselves in their bid to make voting mandatory is why election has become a do-or-die battle in the country such that many politicians are ready to make votes not to count? The answer is simple: the perks attached to many political offices are too tempting such that people are ready to do anything to win. It is the same reason losers don’t want to accept defeat without a fight.

So, if our law makers truly want voters to troop out on Election Day, the place to start is to make votes count. And that starts with them; the politicians. Not the hapless Nigerians who are not just victims of the unrepresentative people in power (due to election apathy) but are only reacting to the politicians’ contempt for free and fair polls.

Our House of Representatives’ members may have been fascinated by mandatory voting for people of voting age in some other climes. But some of these countries have since jettisoned the idea having seen its futility. Again, the reasons why they adopted the idea may have been overtaken by events. There is nothing wrong with people in leadership positions in the country bringing ideas from other lands as part of the evidence of their being widely travelled. But then, they have to take into consideration the socio-cultural circumstances before introducing such.

I know the idea of mandatory voting is dead even before arriving because it cannot just stand the test of time here. It may interest Mr Speaker who is sponsoring the idea that, what he wants to do is tantamount to not only forcing a horse to the stream, but also forcing it to drink water.

And, should the law makers have their way on the bill, Nigerians too would perfect the act of turning out to cast votes that would ultimately be voided. To vote or not to vote should be a matter of choice; not legislation that borders on coercion. After all, that is the essence and beauty of democracy itself. Politicians cannot defecate on the floor only to turn round to want to use Nigerians to deodorise the stench. Nigerians would start trooping out to vote the day their votes begin to count.

For now, our leaders at all levels must work more towards giving Nigerians the basic things of life. Water, light, food, house, transportation, good roads, etc. That is their main concern. Give them that and other things would follow.

February 2, 2025
Cricket, lovely cricket
Over the last couple of months, I have caught myself going through the motions of bowling a cricket ball and reliving those sunny days of my life when cricket was at the centre of whatever life I had at the time. I have frequently wondered if I would not have opted for the life, in my imagination, the glamourous life of a professional cricketer. Being a professional cricketer would not have been a bar to my becoming the pharmacist or anything else. After all one of the most prominent cricketers of the day was Alan Sheppard who not only played cricket for England as a clergyman but had the added distinction of being enthroned the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool. Long before Sheppard, there was the case of the first Cricket super star of his days, the legendary W.C. Grace who combined a glittering Cricket career with the duties of a physician. Cricket is cricket and virtually anything else can be added into it. Playing phantom cricket in my head convinced me to turn my attention to that beautiful game, no apologies to Pele and football, which is what has sat me down this morning to write an article about cricket. I am not assuming that the majority of my readers know anything about cricket. Indeed I would be safe in assuming that most of them do not know the first thing about the game. Those who know, or more appropriately used to know about cricket have, over the years forgotten about what the game is all about. What I know however is that quite a few people will have their imagination fired to the extent that they want to know more about the game. This has happened before.

In 2003, long before the football World cup finals was hosted by South Africa, the World cup of cricket was played in South Africa. Although the whole of South Africa was agog over this tournament, the only other countries which took any bit of notice of the event outside South Africa were Kenya and Zimbabwe which were co-hosts of the event. I was constrained to give notice of this event in the face of the studied indifference or perhaps more appropriately the ignorance of this competition in this country. Then, I wrote an article in the Guardian which I called ‘The other World cup’. I was most pleasantly surprised when a couple of people told me that although they had no knowledge of cricket before reading my piece, they were sufficiently encouraged to follow the competition on DStv. More than twenty years on, they are still passionate about the game.

I have said on several occasions that one of my greatest accomplishments of my career was to pass the highly competitive entrance examination to Igbobi College. It is an experience that may no longer be replicated in contemporary Nigeria. There are elite schools in Nigeria today but getting into one of them is a question of cash and carry. Students can no longer walk off the street as it was possible to do in those far off days. I must confess rather shame facedly however that with my parents being accomplished teachers, I was not one of the geniuses who just strolled off the streets into Igbobi College but I can assure you that there were quite a number of such strange animals not just in the school but in my class. I won’t say anything more about such freaks because this piece is about a game and that being the case, there really is no space for nerds in this corner.

I passed that entrance examination with some room to spare but maybe I needed some rest from the academic grind which propelled me into the school. Weeks into my first term, I was still celebrating my entrance examination success on the vast playing fields of Igbobi College, an exercise which was not exactly compatible with academic excellence. My report at the end of that first term was less than stellar and the second term results were only marginally better but still in disaster zone. There was still hope for a redeeming outcome in the third term and I was determined to get my act together, at least enough to be promoted to the next class at the end of the year.

The third term started right enough but whatever determination I had to do well evaporated within a few days and the memory of what happened has stayed fresh in my mind all these years. Only a few days into the term, Mr. Bicknell my housemaster and Maths teacher walked into the class to inform us that afternoon prep for that day had been cancelled and instead the class was to assemble on the field in our whites and canvass shoes. We did not exactly burst into cheers but we were in a state of excitement at the prospect of not having to sit at our desk that fine afternoon. We reported to the field promptly at the appointed time as we had to do for any assembly and listened with rapt attention as Mr. Bicknell spun a yarn about a game which only one of us had played before. Had I listened with such attention to Mr. Bicknell in the maths class, as I did to what he was telling us about cricket I would have been alright. After his little speech, it was time for a practical demonstration and that day a cricket bat was put in my hands and glory be, a hard cricket bat was thrown in my direction. My reflex reaction was immediate. I took a step towards the ball and hit it with surprising power and authority. I felt that stroke in every part of my body and like a true junky after his first fix, I was hooked on the game of cricket for life as it has turned out.

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I did not find it difficult to accept that being an Igbobian conferred an elite status because I was surrounded by unmistakable signs of that status. What I came to know later was that the game of cricket was perhaps the last sign of my elitism if only because cricket was part of the curriculum in only a handful of the top schools in the land. Several years later when I fetched up at the University of Ife, I was immediately recognised as being part of an elite group when I turned out for the university cricket team.

Up till today, I have not been able to quite explain how I managed to pass the promotion exam at the end of that torrid first year. This is because from that first day of introduction to cricket I could think of nothing else but cricket. To make my situation worse, many of my classmates were similarly afflicted and there was no getting away from the game which occupied all our waking moments to the exclusion of virtually everything else. Cricket is a game of bat and ball and we found a way of turning all everyday objects into a bat or ball. Every stick was a potential bat and we raided every orange tree for hard unripe fruits which were transformed into cricket balls, at least in our fertile imagination but our greatest improvisation was to use empty milk tins which assumed a roundness of shape after being pounded enthusiastically with a hard stick which as far as we were concerned, was a makeshift cricket bat. Needless to say, we were transported into seventh heaven whenever we could lay our hands on proper cricket bats and balls.

My dexterity with bat and ball was exposed very early on which meant that I was one of the first to be chosen on any team for our interminable scratch games and glory be, I was drafted into my house junior cricket team in my first year which made me a minor celebrity throughout the school because I had achieved that in spite of the limit of my small frame.

I spent all my spare time and more playing one form of cricket or the other. My one other preoccupation was reading cricket books. How many books on football can a young boy read? Maybe the odd one or two. Not the case with cricket. The school library was full of cricket books and I contrived to read and digest them all. Apart from books about all the individual technical aspects of the game, there was a profusion of biographies of the more famous players going back to the dawn of the twentieth century. There were also books about some of the legendary cricket teams of the past. I read them all which left very little time for me to get up close and personal with my extremely full school books. Somehow I squeezed myself through my own personal door of no return and from then on, lost all fear of failure in all subsequent examinations. I reasoned that if I was able to pass that particular examination with virtually no preparation, I could assume that I could pass any examination as long as I set my mind to it.

The game of cricket was invented in England in the darkness of the Middle ages and evolved over more than three centuries before it assumed its current form. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century before it assumed the form in which it could be recognised by players and spectators today. The first universal laws of the game were first codified by members of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) at the Lords Cricket grounds in London in the closing years of the nineteenth century. Although the governing body of cricket is now the International Cricket Council (ICC), the headquarters of cricket remains the Lords Cricket grounds or Lords for short. That is the Mecca of cricket and it is the dream of every international cricketer to walk out at Lords on at least one occasion and the gods of cricket are those who score a century on the hallowed turf at Lords or take five wickets in an innings. Such performances are faithfully recorded in history and retold countless times by ancient men and women who were privileged to have an eye witness account of those feats.

When I made up my mind to write this article I thought quite seriously of giving it the title, “Beyond the boundary” in recognition of the title of what has been described as the finest book on cricket. The writer CLR James published the book, Beyond a boundary in 1938 and it was as fresh as a warm loaf of bread when entranced; I read it forty years later. I have an intense longing to read it again but my copy disappeared long ago and a replacement copy has eluded me. CLR James was born in Trinidad and died in London eighty-seven years later. He, at one time was the cricket correspondent of the Manchester Guardian long before it moved to London and became just the Guardian. He was a journalist, writer, playwright and a teacher who had the privilege of teaching the great Eric Williams history in the secondary school. For good measure, he was a committed socialist, political activist and life long Pan-Africanist who devoted his many talents to fighting for the freedom of Africans everywhere from all forms of bondage. No wonder he had such passion for cricket, a game which appeals to the fairness of human nature, a game which demands fanatical commitments to the rule of its many laws. Cricket is played in many ways, the sedateness of the English, the grit of the South Africans, the passion of the people’s of the Indian sub-continent, the panache of our cousin’s from the West Indies and the studiousness of the New Zealanders, the game is everywhere always played with decorum within the boundaries of the law.

I came away from Igbobi College with many precious accouchements in my bag of life. Cricket is a prominent occupant of that bag. And, Congratulations to Igbobi College and all Igbobians past and present on the occasion of the celebration of the Igbobi College ninety-third Founders day today.

Cricket, lovely cricket – calypso composed to celebrate the first test series victory of the West Indies over England.
- The series on capitalism resumes next week.
February 2, 2025
As PDP implodes

PDP has imploded again. That cannot be news to Nigerians who have come to know that party like their palms. But then am not referring to last week’s fracas at the party’s National Headquarters in Abuja over which the member representing Ideato North/Ideato South Federal Constituency of Imo State and spokesman of the Coalition of United Political Parties, the once – expelled, Ikenga Imo Ugochinye, so praised one of the cruiserweights, you would think that one had just won a national wrestling contest.

The bruising contest had erupted when thugs from the two flanks of the embattled party emerged, fighting for either of the National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, and the former National Youth Leader Sunday Ude-Okoye – see the names, and mentally recall the unending imbroglio for the position of President of the senate in the Obasanjo years, and give yourself a good laugh. This cannot but be so as while in office, the U. S Ccommittee on Foreign Relations had long concluded that this is a party that thrives on rent seeking and clientelism. Giving Nigeria’s current challenges they are believing themselves as capable of winning elections in 2027, even without planning, without attempting a thorough cleasing of their Augean stable of a party.

Let them carry go!

Resplendent in their VIP seats as the war raged were the big guns, who never stopped deluding themselves, calling PDP ‘our great party’, rather than a hollow party – the BoT Chairman, Senator Adolphus Wabara, the Acting National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Damagum.

BoT Secretary, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, Hajia Inna Ciroma, Senator Ben Obi, Chairman of PDP Reconciliation Committee, Gen. Olagunsoye Oyinlola, and former Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu, among others.

The scene easily reminded me of what I wrote here recently in the tribute to my inimitable teacher, Dr Segun Osoba, to wit:”looking back now, one of the very important lessons I learned from him was the importance of understanding the past in order to appreciate the present, with a view to shaping the future. He taught us that history is not just a series of dates and events but a rich tapestry of human experiences, cultures, and traditions”.

So is it a tradition of the PDP to always implode?

Yes, of course, majorly because it have always been an ensemble of the same kind of people, united as President Obasanjo once said, by love of office, and patronage, or a fresh craving for office.

Unfortunately, even if this were not the case, the mere presence of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the party would have been enough to set it into a tailspin as has been the case since he returned from ACN, and later, APC. When he exited the party for the ACN, it was for the sole purpose of wanting to emerge the Presidential candidadate of a party he did not found but which Ahmed Tinubu indulged him, and then went, solely on his own, to pick his VP without consultation.

He actually has never been able to invest the patience and intellectual depth needed to found a political party.

And that ambition to ride roughshod over any, and every, party to which he belongs, believing that money will make that a done deal.

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I enjoin Nigerians to watch out as the equally ambitious politicians like Obi, Saraki, El Rufai, Ogbeni and others he must be surreptitiously romancing now, will not lie low and be prepared to play the monkey.

Let us hear how President Segun Obasanjo situated this Atiku’s corrosive ambition on reliance on Marabouts.

He wrote in MY WATCH, Pages 31 – 32-

“What I did not know, which came out glaringly later … were his propensity to corruption, his tendency to disloyalty, his inability to say and stick to the truth all the time, a propensity for poor judgment, his belief and reliance on marabouts , his lack of transparency, his trust in money to buy his way out on all issues and his readiness to sacrifice morality, integrity, propriety truth and national interest”.

Had Atiku not sacrificed morality, he would have known how immoral it was to think that a Northerner should succeed President Muhammadu Buhari after completing two terms of 8 years. And to imagine that some myopic Northern leaders so supported him they bulldozed a frightened Aminu Tambuwal out of the race is insulting.

As a historian this leads me to my article of 16 January, 2011 titled:

AS PDP IMPLODES –

It reads:

It is a settled truism that a house built of spittle must, of necessity, collapse. So let it be with the Peoples’ Democratic Party which one of its unreflective past chairmen once said would rule Nigeria like forever. Since they do not read, he could never have heard about Hitler’s Third Reich. But then, we must not be deceived; for a dangerous game is afoot, and Nigerians, especially those in both the ACN and the Labour party, two parties currently receiving hordes of departing decampees from the PDP, and therefore, the obvious gainers from the demise of the party, must show themselves much smarter than either the manipulators within the PDP or the miserable cast of individuals now jumping ship in droves, determined only to go out there to prostitute, profit and then promptly return to their vomit. Therefore, they must be understood for who they are, and must be kept at reasonable arm’s length.

They must be made to campaign for the presidential candidates of their new parties, whoever it turns out to be.

We said it long ago that the party’s Chairman, Board of Trustees will lead it to its demise.

The hour has come and even with the very best of intentions, it is now beyond the PDP to save itself. But we must ensure that Nigeria does not go down with this ‘biggest rally’ in Africa.

I haven’t the slightest doubt that those now decamping are on a mission to go and find an avenue for their political ambitions whilst leaving their supporters for the would-be PDP presidential candidate. In which case, the parties now receiving them in droves may actually end up being used and subsequently dumped. They must not be allowed to eat their cake and at the same time, have it.

The scenario building up before our very eyes is one more reason why the Almighty God must always be given His full due of thanksgiving in all circumstances, as the holy writ enjoins us. He uses anybody, or anything, to accomplish His words and desires. He appears ready to use a once, all-conquering, Obasanjo to set this country free. God in His infinite mercy is about taking plan – lessness, dubiety, profligacy and kleptomania out of our body politic. He is setting us on the right path, in a way that Nigeria’s traducers would no longer blaspheme that God gave us abundant resources but fools for leaders.

The implosion of the PDP must be celebrated like the Israelites did the unprecedented parting of the red sea. Or where today is Nigeria after 12 years of outright rudderless – ness in the hands of a manipulating, and thoroughly unfeeling PDP? What is the status of infrastructure stock, energy or security in a country that received, in the last 12 years, an unprecedented quantum of petro – dollars?

As you read this in the year of our Lord, 2011, twelve years into PDP’s stranglehold over the country, you do not have a dedicated road from Lagos to the nation’s capital, Abuja.

In my view, nothing better illustrates the complete irresponsibility of the PDP than the state of our roads; not even the equally parlous state of electricity after blowing 16 billion dollars? How can PDP, buoyed together only by patronage, be so acutely bereft of a plan to genuinely move this country forward, not as in their slogans, but genuinely, for the sake of today’s, and even unborn Nigerian generation? What exactly is that party doing to ensure that our young ones do not graduate into unemployment or into paving the streets, selling cheap imitation goods from China and Taiwan under the scotching sun?

Should Nigerians, whether in our collective un-wisdom, or cruel trickery, allow the victory of the PDP come the next elections, then we would truly deserve our servitude, condemned as we would then be, to four more years of the same.

What was true of the PDP in 2011, is true today, 14 years after, as Alhaji Atiku Abubabakar’s purpose for it has not changed one bit.

He sees it as a Northern political party to be used solely for the benefit of the North.

February 2, 2025
Martin Luther King Jr and the revolution of values

There is often the risk of getting carried away by the eloquence of the Reverend (Dr.) Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), the African-American civil rights Baptist Minister, so much that a significant part of his profound thoughts gets missing. MLK had taken it as his bounden duty to shine a guiding light on public morality. In a 16 April, 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” MLK wrote: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Moreover, in his famous 28 August, 1963 “I have a dream” speech, MLK declared: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Though a Christian Minister, MLK was conscious of the use of religion to service segregation and oppression. In a 25 March, 1965 speech titled “Our God is Marching On!” which he delivered in Montgomery, Alabama, he said: “If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow [the metaphor for racist and anti-communist hysteria]. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. … And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological oblivion.”

On the persistence of the struggle for freedom and justice, MLK said, in the same speech: “Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. We are on the move now. The burning of our churches will not deter us. The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. We are on the move now. The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. We are on the move now. The wanton release of their known murderers would not discourage us. We are on the move now. Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom.” MLK then exhorted the audience passionately: “My people, my people, listen. The battle is in our hands.”

On the Vietnam war, MLK remarked, in his 4 April, 1967 speech entitled, “Beyond Vietnam: A time to break silence,”: “The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence … in 1945 … after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. … For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. … After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem.”

Furthermore, MLK noted, in the speech: “These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.” Agreeing with “a sensitive American overseas official” who said in 1957 that America was on “the wrong side of a world revolution,” MLK recalled the words of the late US President J.F. Kennedy: “Five years ago he said, ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.’ Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.”

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According to MLK, “A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

He continued: “A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, ‘This is not just.’ It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, ‘This is not just.’”

Furthermore, he remarked: “A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, ‘This way of settling differences is not just.’ This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

He also contends: “This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. … We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.”

Moreover, MLK asserts: “A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. … This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing – embracing and unconditional – love for all mankind. … We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.”

On the question whether progress was being made in the struggle for justice and freedom, MLK responded in an 11 January, 1968 speech at Ohio Northern University: “I think in answering the question we have to avoid, on the one hand, a superficial optimism. On the other hand, we must avoid a deadening pessimism, because a superficial optimism says in substance that the problem is about solved now and we really don’t have much to do, while the deadening pessimism tends to conclude that the problem can’t be solved and that we’ve only made minor strides in the struggle for racial justice. I would much prefer following what I consider a realistic position which combines the truths of two opposites while avoiding the extremes of both. The realistic position would agree with optimism that we have made some meaningful strides, but it would also agree with some aspects of pessimism in recognizing that we still have a long, long way to go. … We have come a long, long way, but we have a long, long way to go.”

On the value of hope and patience, MLK said, in the speech titled “Our God is Marching On!”: “Somebody’s asking, ‘How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?’ Somebody’s asking, ‘When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets … be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?’ … ‘How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?’ I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because ‘truth crushed to earth will rise again.’ How long? Not long, because ‘no lie can live forever.’ How long? Not long, because ‘you shall reap what you sow.’”

The ultimate value which MLK himself acquired was to conquer the fear of death, and given the inevitability of death, that was the best thing any human being could do. So, he ended his 3 April, 1968 “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech as follows with respect to information on threats against his person: “What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don’t know what will happen now. … But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. … And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. … And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” The next day, he was assassinated at the age of 39.

February 2, 2025
The Afe Babalola/Dele Farotimi saga

Early last week, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi II, led five other traditional rulers in the Southwest to placate Afe Babalola, legal icon and educationist par excellence, over his disagreement with activist Dele Farotimi whose new book allegedly slandered the founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti. After stalling for weeks, and after withstanding the interventions of former president Olusegun Obasanjo and a few other highly placed Nigerians, Chief Babalola announced that he could not turn deaf ears to the obas’ pleas. He announced an end to the litigation against Mr Farotimi.

But that was as clear as Nigerians could possibly have of the case. Too many questions were, however, left unanswered. One of the reasons for the legal icon’s intransigence was the refusal of Mr Farotimi to apologise and withdraw the book from circulation. In this latest instance, there is no indication of any apologies or book withdrawal. Without book withdrawal, which would imply the repudiation of its contents, whatever the author wrote would stand as uncontroverted for all time, also suggesting that the contents will be held to be true.

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Uncharacteristically too, Mr Farotimi, who had earlier insisted he was not going to apologies, and had indeed not sent anyone to beg on his behalf, has kept mum. So, what does he think of the case? Is he standing pat or caving in? And at whose instance did the monarchs, all six of them or so, travel to Ado Ekiti to beg Chief Babalola? Such high-powered subversion of litigation is uncommon, especially in a highly litigious society like Nigeria.

Finally, what will happen to the other litigants and non-litigants whose reputations have been allegedly injured in the book, including nearly all the eminent jurists, up to the Supreme Court, who received dishonourable mention? Would the traditional rulers rely on Chief Babalola to also importune the offended lawyers and jurists simply because his fury had been conciliated? Mr Farotimi has been loquacious and bold; might he be persuaded to speak up and shed light on these mysteries? Whatever happens, it does not seem Nigerians have heard the last of both the case and the vexatious book.

February 2, 2025
Between Obasanjo and Orunmila

Speaking at a luncheon in Abeokuta recently, former president Olusegun Obasanjo lamented the relegation of traditional beliefs and values in the face of so-called modernism. He went on to angrily denounce those who promote Western cultures to the detriment of Africa’s rich and authentic cultural heritage. It is hard to fault him or get riled by his trenchancy or desperation. His politics may be faulted, and his social views suspect, but when it comes to Africa’s cultural heritage, Chief Obasanjo has often been incomparable, and his avid promotions unexampled.

“I am a Christian; I have been to two churches today, but whoever says Ifa Orunmila is nothing must be a bloody fool because Orunmila has been with us before the advent of Christianity or Islam,” he said without any equivocation. “Culture is the totality of who we are, unfortunately, we have relegated some of our culture to the background, our food, our language, our dress and so on. They even say Yoruba is vernacular; that is not right, Yoruba is Yoruba, it is the authentic and we must learn to celebrate what belongs to us because that’s the authentic.”

If his thesis is not patiently examined, it would be erroneously surmised that he was by his remarks promoting syncretism or polytheism. Privately, he has been quite discrete in his religious observances, with many analysts quite unable to determine just how expertly and deliberately he draws a line between his public show of Christianity and his respect and almost total reverence for traditional African beliefs. As president between 1999 and 2007, he was unapologetic about his Christian faith, even going as far as correcting the calculated refusal by his predecessors to erect a church building at the presidential Villa when a mosque had been erected long before his assumption of office. But whether despite all this he lets his respect for traditional African beliefs lead to some form of abjuration of his Christian precepts is difficult to say.

It is not clear why the mere disparagement or seeming repudiation of traditional beliefs provoked his fierce anger, why he considered those who denigrate Ifa Orunmila as bloody fools, or why he laid emphasis on the order of precedence between Christianity and Ifa. But overall, he seemed to insinuate that his Christianity has been a logical progression from conventional wisdom which frowns at anyone but a Christian or Muslim at the State House, not too different from the American experience which for a long time precluded Catholics from the White House. It may never be known what really goes on in Chief Obasanjo’s mind. The country must, therefore, satisfy itself with the public convictions and statements of the former president. He says he is Christian, and had been to two churches on the luncheon day in question. Going by his public statements and his precedence, it must be assumed that he is indeed a Christian. And who is anybody to judge anyway.

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Chief Obasanjo is, however, correct to say that the essence of a people is the totality of their culture, and even more correct to denounce any reference to a people’s language as vernacular. These are all unfortunate indications of the Eurocentric interpretation of African history. But the former president was unable to offer any analysis on the dynamism of culture, one that sees a previously Muslim or pagan country or empire transforming into Christianity, and vice versa. The histories of Rome, the Maghreb, and Ottoman Empire copiously illustrate these dynamic transformations. Europe before the advent of Christianity was encased in various forms of religious practices. Today, the continent is largely Christian. Human history is not static; so, too, religion.

Instead of angry denunciations, it would have been far better and more productive had Chief Obasanjo anchored his otherwise sound arguments on the need to treat Nigeria’s religious diversity with the respect enunciated in the Nigerian constitution. Had he vigorously defended the constitutional provision that enshrines Nigerian secularism, and opposed with all vehemence the efforts by some states to impose state religion, his conclusions would have been unassailable. But typical of his frequent hyperboles, he took the route of making direct comparisons between the religions and dismissing anyone who diminishes another religion as a ‘bloody fool’. He should have spared his fierce anger for the law enforcement agents in many northern states, including Kwara, who abet the open and embarrassing mistreatment of other religions in a misguided contravention of the constitution and national cultures. What remains is how Nigeria, and indeed other African nations caught in the same web, should preserve the sanctity of their new religions, while at the same time treasuring their traditions and cultures and ensuring they do not die. Chief Obasanjo was obviously overwhelmed by that dilemma; no true African, including the largely Pentecostal Nigerians, is immune from that conflict of interest.

February 2, 2025