The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • The siege of the light brigade

    The siege of the light brigade

    As a prelude to the “democratic” war of succession that will make or mar Nigeria, irrespective of the outcome of the ongoing National Conference, the old west is being gradually militarised. The entire region appears to have been placed on the political equivalent of a war footing. The siege is on. It is the kind of shock and awe military terror that will turn Stormin Norman Shwarzkopf to a whimpering old bugger.

    A pincer movement is unfolding with the major strategic objective of paralysing the dominant political tendency in the region, or at the minimum render it hors de combat in the bid to capture power at the centre. You cannot be advancing when your stronghold has been set on fire. Militarily, it is known as a bridge too far.

    With Musiliu Obanikoro, the newly appointed Minister of State for Defence, war-gaming from Lagos all the way to the Ilaje coastline, with Iyiola Omisore and Jelili Adesiyan sadistically probing the heart and plexus of the old region in Osun state, and with a column of reaction heading from Ondo to link up with joyous thugs and fifth columnists already in place in Ekiti-land, once again the Yoruba nation is being turned into a theatre of war and strife.

    This time around, it promises to be the mother of all political wars. But it is the charge of the light and light-headed brigade, and once again, they shall not pass. After the rubble might have cleared, Nigeria will never be the same again. No politician or political group will ever be allowed to come to the western sphere again with the threat of war as the antidote to peace and progress. Even for a libertarian and seemingly carefree people, there is time for everything.

    This is not an idle intellectual speculation, but a conclusion reached after a rigorous interrogation of the unfolding political process in the region. It is either the dawn of a new era or darkness forever. The reasons for this stark conclusion are threefold, and they are historical and sociological in nature. It is proper to delve into recent history first.

    After the annihilation and political obliteration of the PDP from the region, the whole place has experienced a period of development and accelerated modernity. It is not a perfect state but the fruits are showing for all to see. Not even personal hatred for the individual actors involved or animus towards the chief motivator can remove the fact. From Benin to Ekiti, through Osun, Oyo, Ogun and unto Lagos, the old West is experiencing a developmental resurgence akin to a religious revival.

    The people are grateful for the relative peace and stability that being relatively well-governed has brought unlike many other places in the country that have degenerated into hell-holes before our very eyes. You cannot give what you don’t have. At the federal level at least, the ruling party has shown itself to be ideologically bereft and politically bankrupt. As a party, the PDP is beyond soap and water.

    You cannot confront light, however imperfect, with darkness however perfect. In order to make a dent in the evolving political consciousness of the sophisticated electorate of Western Nigeria, the PDP will have to come up with a superior paradigm of development and progress. It will have to come up with a visionary blueprint for the radical amelioration of the suffering and biblical misery which have plagued this land and turned Nigeria into the world capital of cannibal capitalism.

    But after fifteen fruitless years in power, it is clear that the PDP lacks the intellectual cadre, the political discipline, the psychological stamina, the moral magnitude and imagination to come up with a transformative blueprint. As its body language reveals, it is obvious that it relies mainly on force and thuggery, when it is not fanning the ember of religion and ethnicity in a dangerously polarised polity like Nigeria. The kind of murderous and misbegotten individuals its primaries have thrown up in western Nigeria shows its contempt for the feeling and sensitivity of the Yoruba people.

    The PDP is relying on old tricks where only new techniques will suffice. It will meet more than its match in the old West. You cannot fight a modern battle with ancient weapons, particularly a battle also joined at the level of an intellectual contestation for human consciousness and the greater good of the greater community. Unlike the old guard progressives who were sold on law and order, the hazards of the Hansard and other parliamentary canards, the new generation of progressives cut their teeth on the streets and in the trenches fighting against military despotism.

    There is always a tide in human affairs. Anybody who witnessed the dogged ferocity, the relentless commotion with which Oshiomhole, Aregbesola and Fayemi and even the normally urbane and debonair Abiola Ajimobi fought to reclaim their stolen mandate will be living in a fools’ paradise to ever imagine that they will allow themselves to be flushed out of their respective gubernatorial mansions like terrified mice, more so when they have the might of the multitude behind them.

    Anybody who mistake Oshiomhole’s gamey gambolling for complacency, Aregbesola’s steely sangfroid and diligent defiance for loss of concentration, or Kayode Fayemi’s donnish demureness for loss of power appetite will have themselves to blame when real political hostilities commence.

    It is curious that despite all the information available to him on the disposition of the region, President Jonathan has allowed himself to be sold the impossible betise that all he needs to do is to spring some politically expired thugs on the region and the people will scatter. We hope the federal collaborators and their new recruits take note of this show of love and admiration.

    The people of the west have never scattered before bullets. As their tormentors always find out to their peril, when they retreat it is usually to gather momentum for the next determined push against the bastion of reaction. In the history of modern Nigeria, the west has never sought to dominate anybody, but it will resist domination, whether internally or externally inspired.

    All the west had tried to do is to extend its vision of modernity and life more abundant for everybody, irrespective of race, region and religion. In this seemingly quixotic venture, it has met impossible and impregnable impedimenta, not to talk of an iron road block, and it has paid terrifying price in the loss of many of its golden children.

    But whenever these moderate ideals of human emancipation are brutally suppressed such as happened during the First Republic, the repressed always return with greater vigour and ferocity such as we witnessed in the Second Republic and the aborted Third Republic when an impossible coalition headed by M.K.O Abiola won a presidential election that was summarily annulled. In the Fourth Republic, the very same ideals have turned out to be the most potent threat to a clueless Federal Government.

    We cannot try to hang the messenger while ignoring the message. There must be something about this progressive ideal of an emancipated community which must explain their durability and persistent eruptions. What Jonathan and his henchmen should do is to study this ideal of governance, interrogate it intensely and see whether there are no lessons to be learnt.

    There is no harm in picking the brains of your political adversaries. As old Abe Lincoln famously demonstrated, there are immense political advantages accruing from converting political adversaries to principled collaborators. The Nigerian project, or whatever remains of it, is too important to be left at the mercy of small minds.

    Having said all this, it is also time for our progressives to engage in intense soul-searching and deep introspection about the tortured trajectory of progressive politics in contemporary Nigeria and the kind of progressive ideals they want to bequeath to coming generations. There can be no successful externally induced plot without a successful internal conspiracy.

    Yoruba modern history is steeped in internal treachery, betrayals and perfidy. It may be due to the libertarian nature of the people which abhors despotism and unwarranted domination. In post-colonial Nigeria, the cloak and dagger politics have accentuated rather than diminish. This may be due to the epic sweepstakes of a predatory economy. But the question the progressives need to ask themselves is why since independence and up till now, the people who have always given them the worst troubles and headaches are people who have at one time or the other been part of the progressive umbrella.

    In the First Republic, the Action Group fractured irretrievable as a result of external plots and internal rebellion. In retrospect, it can be seen that the Action Group was a disaster waiting to happen, being an ersatz and unstable coalition of modernists, monarchists and outright rightwing reactionaries. But a firm lid could be placed on the simmering cauldron as long as there was a strong and charismatic leader like Obafemi Awolowo at the helm.

    In the Second Republic, the party fissured as a result of the jostling and jockeying for position among Chief Awolowo’s closest aides and lieutenants. In retrospect, it can safely be said that it was ironically the military bell that saved the UPN from catastrophic implosion. Awo himself hinted at this in his last epistle to the faithful in which he made an allusion to a coming Hegelian synthesis.

    Just before the Third Republic could be properly inaugurated, the entire party machinery seceded to the waiting military thus sealing Abiola’s fate. From that moment, the Republic died in vitro, as they say. Now in the Fourth Republic, we are witnessing a wearisomely familiar script with so many falcons deserting the falconer. Take a count of the following and find out where and how they originated: Omisore, Obanikoro, Dayo Adeyeye, the late Wahab Dosunmu, Gbenga Daniel and now the young and youthful Michael Opeyemi Bamidele.

    The situation calls for a candid evaluation of the following: the mode of leadership recruitment to the progressive fold, the pattern of political preferment and the process of consensus building among the progressives. It is in human nature for those who have been given undue and premature preferment to develop outsize appetite for power and glory.

    While those who are sworn to the progressive ideal as a lifelong commitment to fundamental principles could afford to be sidelined or treated with brutal disregard, it should now be obvious that the political wayfarers and those who have not reached the level where individual ego can be subordinated for communal good would have none of that. Bar a few sublime souls, the anarchic ego is an outgrowth of anarchic and inchoate human societies.

    These are the historic demons the progressive leadership would have to grapple with as they seek to protect their political stronghold even while making a bold pitch for the centre. It is going to be a tough call, particularly given the cultural anxieties and markers of political incompatibilities the coalescing factions bring to the alliance. But it is not an impossible task. As for the light Brigade, perhaps it is time to retrieve their history books from roasted plantain hawkers.

  • Will it be watched at home with fresh eyes and open minds?

    Will it be watched at home with fresh eyes and open minds?

    It was with great expectations and even much greater anxieties that on Wednesday this week I went to a private screening of Biyi Bandele’s film adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s prize-winning novel on the Nigeria-Biafra war, Half of a Yellow Sun. The “expectations” can be quickly or summarily expressed. Both the filmmaker and the novelist rank very high in my estimation. Adichie is now one of the most deservedly world famous authors in contemporary literature and Half of a Yellow Sun is one of her best works. The occasion of its adaptation for the big screen of cinema in the highways and upper levels of popular culture and not the alleyways and side streets of video films is therefore an occasion that excites great expectation. Add to this the fact that though Biyi Bandele who adopted the novel for the screen is an accomplished playwright, this is his debut film, his first venture into the rarefied world of movies optioned by very influential producers and made with big-name actors. [For truth in public discourse, I must state here that Biyi Bandele was my student at the University of Ibadan in the mid-1970s]

    For these reasons, I was immensely pleased that my great expectations were not disappointed and I left the cinema on Wednesday night very glad, very gratified that the film version of Adichie’s great novel is also a delightful and absorbing work. I understand that it will premiere in Lagos next week and bearing this in mind, I strongly recommend that everyone reading this piece should see the film if they happen to be in Lagos during its run there. It is precisely on the basis of this “recommendation” that I now go to the matter of the anxieties with which, side by side with the expectations, I set out to watch the film last Wednesday, especially since even after watching the films, the anxieties still remain. But before dealing with this issue, permit me to briefly discuss the things that I found delightful and compelling about the film.

    Most of those who watched the private screening of the films at Harvard on Wednesday had all almost certainly read Adichie’s novel. But in the marketplaces of popular cinema in the world at large, the vast majority of those who will see the film will not have read the novel. For this reason, the film must and will stand or fall on its own and cannot bank on the celebrity status of the novel and its writer. I am glad to report that it succeeds in doing this wonderfully, so much so that I expect that after watching the film, many of those who have not read Half of a Yellow Sun will be sufficiently piqued by how close to or different from novel is Bandele’s film that they will rush to read the novel. They will of course discover, either to their pleasure or disappointment, that the novel is far more complex than its film version. But that is beside the essential point being argued here. With very few exceptions, nearly all film adaptations of great works of literature do not match the depth and complexity, the unique perturbations and intimations in the original literary works. This is why, in the last instance, film versions of works of literature must stand or fall on their own. Not paying sufficient attention to this categorical imperative, many adapters of literary works for film use the reputation of the work or its author as a crutch to lean on and in the process fail woefully. Perhaps the most notorious example of this phenomenon is Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and its many film adaptations, not one of which is successful as film, as a work dependent on the mastery of the medium of film and its demands and satisfactions.

    Perhaps at the base of Bandele’s success in his film is his recognition that though its subject is an epochal historical event, Adichie’s novel is not a historical novel. This is because though it is fiercely faithful to depicting the harrowing and unforgettable effects of the historical event of the Nigeria-Biafra war on those who had to live through the war, the real strength of Adichie’s novel lies elsewhere. It lies in its ineffable ability to both capture the quotidian realities of life in the midst of devastating war and to plumb the depths of the conflicting inner drives and motivations of characters in whom the war brings out the best and the worst in them. In Bandele’s film these two aspects of the novel – the terrifying banality or ordinariness of the ravages of war and singularly driven characters for whom the war serves as a backdrop to who they really are and who they are striving to become – are realized powerfully without the slightest hint of exoticism, the bane of films made from novels on Africa or by Africans. Thus, where films on such novels as Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe), Cry the Beloved Country (Alan Paton), A Good Man in Africa (William Boyd) and Out of Africa (Karen Blixen) all failed to rise above the level of cliché and exoticism in depicting Africa as background and Africans as human subjects, Bandele’s film is, in my opinion, the first film in the genre to soar exultantly into the realm of unforced plausibility and warm, funny, intriguing and compelling presence of all the characters, African and European. Nollywood directors and actors will find a lot to learn from this film. This, in fact is the point of departure for the anxieties that I had about this film, anxieties that have not disappeared with the great pleasure and delight that I had in watching the film.

    If Bandele’s film succeeded in assuaging my anxiety about the tendency in Hollywood or British films based on novels on Africa or by Africans to exoticize the continent and its peoples, alas it did not allay my worries concerning the baleful effects of the popularity and influence of Nollywood on cinema audiences in Nigeria, the African continent and the Diaspora. At the screening of the film at Harvard where slightly under half of the audience was African or black, this influence of Nollywood was very palpable, very disconcerting. Every time that the Mother of Odenigbo, (the main male character in the novel and the film played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) spoke, the majority of the Africans in the audience either burst into raucous laughter or tittered uncontrollably, even though how she spoke and what she spoke about did not entail comedy. In time, I became very conscious in the “racial” division in the audience response to this character’s role in the film: blacks laughed all the time; the whites were silent or perhaps mystified and querulous about the laughter. Personally, I was greatly inconvenienced by the fact that one of the loudest of the laughers was sitting right next to me! It did not matter that this role of the Mother was played by Onyeka Onwenu with verve but also with nuance and with dignity in the second half of the film; every time the Mother appeared laughter erupted. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the voluble, completely unselfconscious laughers did not and could not see Onyeka in the role; what they saw was Patience Ozokwor, the Nollywood essence of Mothers and Mother-in-laws as insufferable shrewish termagants.

    Let me hasten to say that I am not making too much of this laughter around one single character. What I saw, what troubled me was the fact that, as soon as she appeared in the film, this character’s presumed essence became the benchmark for the response to the whole film. Laugher, loud comments, voluble talking back to characters became commonplace in the response to the film. And in nearly all cases, these responses trivialized the film and its brilliant, compelling probing of existential and social issues of great moral and psychological weight that the war bequeathed to us, as represented by Adichie’s novel and Bandele’s adaptation of it for film. In this particular case, my anxiety is this: after Nollywood, can serious and engaging cinema in our country hope for and get popular audiences who will watch films with fresh eyes and open minds?

    This question, which indeed provides the title for this piece, is all the more vital given the fact that the film is after all about the Biafra-Nigeria civil war which is second to no other historical event or crisis in postindependence Nigeria in causing wrenching divisions between us concerning both its prosecution and its legacies for the present and the future. The concrete terms in which this pertains to Bandele’s film can be gauged by the controversies that erupted after the publication of Achebe’s last book, There Was A Country. Thus, following those controversies around Achebe’s book, the question that is the title of this piece can be applied to the film: will it be watched at home in Nigeria with fresh eyes and open minds where Achebe’s last book failed to produce such freshness and openness? I certainly hope that it does.

    Like Adichie’s novel, Bandele’s film is pro-Biafra. But also like Adichie’s novel this film cannot be reduced to a pro-Biafra tract. As in Adichie’s wonderful novel in which only the most narrow and intractable anti-Biafra and anti-Igbo zealot will fail to respond to the evocation and probing of common, universal failures and strengths, Bandele’s film takes us beyond narrow and intractable divisions of ethnicity, religion and region to inner recesses of the heart and the mind that are common to all of us. If this film can take its audiences at home to these regions of the heart and the mind, perhaps, but only perhaps we might be able to seriously begin to engage the legacies of the civil war with fresh eyes and open minds.

    But then, first of all, Bandele’s film has to get past the invisible but impregnable obstacles set up by Nollywood. Oh, Patience Ozokwor and your countless Nollywood partners-in-cinema-yamayama, what great obstacles thou hath all unwittingly wrought in separating complexity from healthy laughter, depth from comic frivolity and nuance from mindless joviality!

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Okonjo-Iweala’s hour

    Okonjo-Iweala’s hour

    Let’s celebrate our debasing; sorry rebasing

    “A prophet is without honour in his own land.” This is true of our Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Some readers took me up on why I excluded the minister when two weeks ago I lambasted our legislators, particularly the House of Representatives, for always willing to ask every beautiful woman in President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet to resign over (sometimes) flimsy reasons. I did not know how to respond to their queries. However, less than two weeks after, the answer came, even if somewhat fortuitously. I must have excluded the finance minister then because something bigger was in stock for her. In other words, her hour had not come when I wrote the piece, “Diezani here, Diezani there, wetin dis Diezani do”.

    I deliberately avoided saying‘ her hour finally came last week Monday’ because the present glory could just be the beginning of the ‘positive reports’ that the finance minster would get, despite criticisms by Nigerians that we are not doing well economically. Whatever they meant by that. Anyway, the present ‘endorsement’ came through a six-letter word – rebasing – that is so innocuous and easy to pronounce, but has led to damning reactions since Monday when the report was made public.

    I do not know why Nigerians are not happy with the rebasing report that is making waves in government circles. Are the reasons given for the achievement not convincing? With the rebasing, our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as at 2013 is now estimated at N80.3trillion ($509.9billion). An elated Okonjo-Iweala noted; “Nigeria has moved to be the largest economy by GDP size in Africa and has moved to be the 26th largest economy in the world; it notched 10 points up. On a per capita basis, Nigeria is number 121 in the world, so we have the total GDP size of $2,688 per capita now and moved up from 135”. This has pushed us ahead of South Africa as the continent’s largest economy. Factors responsible for the new development include sectors like telecoms, information technology, music, online sales, airlines and film production that we did not reckon with when last we did the rebasing.

    And we say this is not worth celebrating? Even the president’s most unrepentant critics know that we have gone far in these previously neglected sectors between 1990 when we last did rebasing, and now. The icing on the cake for me is that we are even ahead of South Africa in terms of the size of our economy. For once, we are ahead of the South Africans in something good. Again, I ask, isn’t this worthy of celebration?

    The man who made the glory known, Nigeria’s Statistician-General, Dr Yemi Kale of the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said with the development, Nigeria is close to being in the league of the top 20 economies by 2020. This is one other good thing the rebasing has done. Auditor-general, we know; attorney-general, we know; accountant-general, we know. But I am convinced many Nigerians do not know our statistician-general. In spite of that, we are not even ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. May be this is because even though we have always known there is an agency called the NBS, we never knew by what title its head is known. But the bureau’s boss has been thrust into limelight, courtesy of this rebasing report. We used to take whatever statistics the then National Office of Statistics (NOS) released with a pinch of salt not necessarily because its men were inherently incompetent but because when we saw its equivalent in other countries and the state-of-the art equipment they paraded, we knew that our own NOS was just not there. It would seem Dr Kale realised we still nurse this fear and that was why he took the pain to explain to us that the bureau spent two years to complete the report, with the release date changed twice to get the numbers right. What the statistician-general is saying is that he is cock sure of the figures released by the bureau.

    I can see critics of the Jonathan presidency trying to remind Dr Kale that even the Federal Government had before now doubted the possibility of our joining the first 20 economies in the world by the year 2020. So, the government must have been talking nonsense. With Dr Kale’s rosy picture, what we have been unable to achieve through deliberate planning is now to become reality by playing with figures (statistics). In which case President Jonathan can now go to sleep; rest assured that the country,on auto pilot, will arrive the 20-20-20 destination in one piece and in no time. If we can come this close to the top economically despite our epileptic power supply, Boko Haram and what have you, then why have critics been telling us all these years that we must fix power supply and address our other challenges, as if we cannot make progress even in darkness and with insecurity as our companion?

    Critics of the rebasing say it does not put more money in the bank; that it does not put more food on the table or in their stomachs. Despite the rebasing, the people keep asking the same old questions about what some of them see as the latest ‘scandal’. All this while, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala has not been linked with any scandal. How come it is through a mere rebasing that some people will now be talking about scandal? Some others say the revision is ‘a vanity’; yet some say we are ‘a troubled giant’. As far as I am concerned, ‘troubled’ is an adjective; we remain a giant, troubled or untroubled, period. Some people are asking, why now? What political point do the minister and government want to make of it? And I say, why not now? Some others are saying the rebasing could lead to an increase in 2014 budget deficit by about N400billion, and that this is “very tempting to politicians in pre-election mood”. So what? Is election time not the only time our people have direct access to the pockets of politicians seeking votes here?

    For once, our caring President Jonathan said he would not celebrate the feat even though it calls for celebration. I hope he is not pandering to critics, particularly the opposition, that have made up their minds not to see anything good in his government. Hear the president in a Facebook message: “…Our Gross Domestic Product was rebased to give an accurate picture of where we are as a nation … While this calls for celebration, I personally cannot celebrate until all Nigerians can feel the positive impact of our growth. There are still too many of our citizens living in poverty”. Says who, Mr. President? Isn’t this too a question of perception?

    Come on, Mr. President, let’s celebrate this feat because it is not easy for a country to post this kind of statistics. Remember also Mrs Okonjo-Iweala’s pedigree. The truth is, it is one thing for a country to post impressive figures, it is another for this to reflect on the people’s lives. They are two different things; so, we shouldn’t mix Genesis with Exodus, as one of my former lecturers would say. It is Nigerians who do not know what the mantra of the administration – transformation – is that are saying nonsense about the rebasing. The president should not be celebration-weary. After all, the hang-over of the centenary celebration is over now.

    So, I hereby move that President Jonathan should cause a process to be put in motion to enable us ‘wash’ this rebasing. Those opposed to celebrating rebasing should pray for debasing as their portion. I can’t wait for the invitation because I am already salivating in anticipation of the new experience I am sure the bash, being a Nigerian affair, will always offer. Continental Dishes I have tasted; I am also fed up with Intercontinental Dish/es. As a matter of fact, the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) men are so used to some of these intercontinental dishes like ‘kus-kus,’ ‘pok-pok’; not to talk of ‘shawarma’ that ‘Iya Shawarma’ takes to them at their duty posts daily to make their stay on the roads pleasurable. The only dish I have not tasted is this one that everybody talks about everyday – Satellite Dish. So, I won’t mind to have it for a change when the president sees the need to change his mind and allow us celebrate this major achievement. On the D-Day, I’ll take Satellite Dish. (It should not be an exclusive preserve of the rich). And wash it down with an exotic wine. We don’t have to reduce everything to bread and butter. We must roll out the drums and celebrate Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s fine hour. We need to vote billions for something again. Or what is the essence of our big economy?

  • Many rivers to cross but only one bridge

    Many rivers to cross but only one bridge

    In the citadel of evil, justice is discarded and branded a name unspeakable.

    This past week, America marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. Ending legal segregation against those whose skin is black, the Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were the crowning achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in America. These laws were greeted with jubilation by the thousands who marched to effectuate their coming into being. Black America anticipated the dawning of a more just nation where skin color would no longer be a political and economic invective.

    Had the laws been honored according to the fullness of their letter and spirit, they would have ushered in a quiet, voluntary revolution the likes of which no other nation had ever undertaken except at the point of crisis or of a bayonet. Adherence to these Acts would have severed America’s tether to the 19th century in time for America’s timely entry into the 21st. Sadly, full acceptance and adherence were not had.

    People tend to exalt those noble moments when people seize the courage to engage the brave fight against unjust laws and oppressive government. These high points in history showcase the best of human nature. We mark these moments on calendars and write about them that our children may learn to be heroes by rising to the occasion should the occasion ever rise against them. However, the reality of change generally proves far less succulent than the ideals that spawned the attempted change. We can think perfect thoughts but are capable of only a flawed reality. This discrepancy is partly due to the inherent imperfection of man. Everything we make is broken from the moment of its assembly. Humans do nothing perfectly; even our mistakes have a touch of correctness and logic about them.

    But part of the distance separating reality from ideal has nothing to do with the flaws in our pursuit of the noble destination. Some of the discrepancy is attributable to the adept pursuit of an ignoble outcome on the part of some people. In the social universe as well as in the world of physical objects, every action has an opposite reaction. Matter is counterbalanced by antimatter. Good cannot be identified but for the existence of its opposite. The pursuit of justice has a sinister alter ego: the pursuit of injustice. As good rises to protest evil laws and indign governance, Evil slithers to undermine what is right and condign. We shy from recognizing this because it is unsettling. It means the past is never really the past, and no victory is ever secure without constant vigil. He who quickly sleeps after attaining the prize will lose more in brief slumber than he gained through years of strife and toil.

    There is a common saying, often echoed by the cynical to hoodwink those sufficiently naïve to believe that evil comes by accident or ignorance. We commonly here people sermonize “evil committed against one person is an evil against all of humanity.” This sounds good because it assumes everyone defines good and bad similarly. Thus, once the error is identified and its perpetrators are tutored properly, they will become agents awash in goodly purpose. This is all too comforting to be true; it also runs contrary to the grain of history. Before the lie, there must be a man willing to tell it. Before there was a slave, there was a person who thought owning another human would benefit him. If injustice damaged all, it would not exist. It would devour itself like a wildfire with nowhere to go. Injustice thrives because its architects profit thereby. They love to make of themselves more than they would allow another person to make of himself. They do not want equals. They want inferiors and subalterns. They disdain discourse and relish giving orders. They detest voting and love decrees.

    This is human nature. This is the reason that those who gathered at various events across America commemorated the Civil Rights Act with an air of ambivalence. They did not know where to celebrate it as a partial victory or mourn it as a partial death. For the Act is of that duality best described as one leg in and the other leg out of the coffin.

    Clearly, progress has been made because of the Act. To claim otherwise is to be obdurate. America has a Black President and Attorney General. Members of the Black elite advance in the corridors of business and halls of government. Yet, life for the Black majority has barely budged. If we remove the elite from the measurement, the plight of Black people in the years since the Civil Rights Act was passed as barely nudged forward, save for this rather cynical tradeoff. No longer are Black men in dire fear of the vigilante lynchings. Today, they have more to fear from police aggressiveness and maladministration of the criminal incarceration system. Police homicides of Black men hover at record levels. Meanwhile, young Black men are more likely to be jailed or arrested than attend university.

    The common response to these figures is that those in jail deserve to be there or they would not have been apprehended. That response is fueled more by emotion than common sense or a sense of history. People not accosted by the criminal system tend to support the system even when that system commits wholesale injustice. As long as the injustice it visits is in a different neighborhood or on a different group that injustice tends to resemble a form of justice to them. The truth of the matter is that most people convince themselves about the presence of justice in anything that advances or preserves their status in the political economy.

    Remember the vast majority of the Southern White community adhered to the law and propaganda of slavery. When slavery was abolished by force of arms, servitude’s proponents did not just sink into the ground. They sketched new notions of how society should be ordered to fit their objectives and no law could change that. The more others tried to convince them of abolition’s humanity and enlightenment, the more they convinced themselves they had been victimized by a force far more sinister than the slavery they imposed on the bondsmen.

    Unable to resurrect slavery in its fullest form, they reengineered society to where the former slave became a serf. On a daily basis, his condition was as close to that of a slave without being one. This was the fate of rural and Southern Blacks from the Civil War until passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

    In hindsight, the leadership of Black America made an understandable yet devastating strategic mistake during the Civil Rights Movement. They fought for civil/political but not full rights such as economic justice. Partly, this was due to the overarching American political economic culture. There is an intellectual separation of economics from politics that people in other parts of the world find startling and artificial. Just as the 1776 American Revolution would be led by an elite seeking only political independence from their colonial father, the Civil Rights Movement would be led by a Black elite seeking political equality with White society.

    Already relatively comfortable economically, the Black elite knew a wider political aperture would also open economic doors for them. That the dynamic was different for other Blacks did not overly concern them. Economic progress would sink to the lesser folks on the by and by. Because it fit their narrow interests, they suddenly became adherents to conservative trickle-down economics. Getting soft and flabby around the midriff, they betrayed their cause without venturing to tell the people how they had agrees with dominant power to shortchange them. Thus, just as the elite of the new American nation continued trading with England, the new Black elite would enhance its “economic trade” with the mainstream economy by becoming more integrated into that economy than before. This was progress but only of a sort. Not all progress is capable of sustaining itself, let alone expanding to lift others. This had the gross effect of hiving the Black leadership from the Black majority in ways unexpected and unprecedented.

    There should have been a concerted effort to link economic justice with political reform. Belatedly, Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to cure this lacuna. He was shot for acting upon this revelation. The Civil Rights Act ended the era of serfdom but it did not emasculate the power of those who created that malevolent predicament. These people merely retooled the system to steer things to a comparable outcome given new legal realities and given the evolution of the modern economy. Thus, we have the aforementioned rise in Black incarceration and unemployment. This is not historic accident. It is by design. If the Black man can no longer serve in large numbers as slave, serf or peon, better to make a prisoner of him. This will keep him so poor and disunited, hindering him from becoming a political or economic catalyst for reform.

    During slavery and serfdom, Black unemployment was not such a problem. During those years, work found the hiding Black man. In the modern era, the Black man cannot find the work because it now is hidden from him.

    The lack of economic power and stability deflates the value of political equality. It renders political equality a hollow concept not an active reality. Ironically, the group that most understood the linkage between political and economic power was the group supposedly defeated by the Civil Rights Act – racist conservative Whites. Drawing a lesson from Black exertion in the Civil Rights Era, they where the greatest but most unnoticed victors of that period. It was a period where ever group fought for its rights. Minorities and women fought mostly for political rights.

    Conservative Whites did two things. First, they united to form a conservative moment that continues to lend definition to the American political topography to this day. This movement has swung the ideological pendulum so far to the right that people claim President Obama is a liberal Democrat when the positions he espouses are more like those of moderate Republicans in the 1970’s than of liberals of that era.

    After signing the Civil Rights Act, President Johnson remarked the Democratic Party would lose the southern White vote for a generation. His prophesy seemed cataclysmic at the time. Today, it smacks of understatement. The Republican Party snatched the south from the Democrats and has continued to own that section of the nation. Second, conservative Whites have pushed a rapid corporate capitalist agenda transferring massive wealth from the poor and middle class to the elite. This has impoverished Blacks and Whites who were already on the economic margins. It has also injured the mostly White middle class. However, the conservative elite has been ingenuous in political stagecraft. They have convinced much of the White middle class that the reason for their lost ground economically was because Blacks have gained ground politically. Thus, two constituencies that should unite against the elite have been pitted against each other by that very elite.

    The two prongs of the conservative counterattack have merged recently with a vehemence borne of bottled-up racism. Many members of the elite now openly advocate a return to wealth or property ownership requirements for voting. A recent decision by the conservative Supreme Court invalidated a law that provided a ceiling on the amount of money wealthy people can contribute to political campaigns. As the rich get richer, America also moves toward a system where elections can be purchased by the highest bidder. Control of the most powerful nation is being concentrated in fewer hands.

    Against this backdrop, a tableau of high political theatre and hypocrisy went on display as American past and present presidents gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. Former President George Bush (Bush I) was there. A congressman at the time of the law’s passage, he voted against the Act and has never expressed remorse for that tawdry bit of racism. He son (Bush II) was there. Had he been president at the time, the Act would have died on his desk. He would have vetoed it, seeing in its provisions an arsenal of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction of domestic tranquility.

    Both Presidents Clinton and Obama spoke in eloquent terms about the Act. However, their addresses had an elegiac aspect. It was as if they were speaking about a dead man not the living law. In many ways they were addressing a cadaver. With each day and year that pass with the majority of Blacks being broken under the relentless economic winepress, the political finery of Civil Rights Act loses zest. He who has no bread does not vote. And he who is bereft of any aspect of economic mobility cannot persuasively argue that he is being denied his rights any more than a boulder can complain that it is being prohibited from ambling like a river.

    Defenders of the establishment, Clinton and Obama could not venture beyond eulogizing the Act. They raised the alarm that the Act was under attack from conservatives. As such, they focused on what might be lost if the Act were eroded as if it were not already eroded in the effect. They veered away from talking about what was missing from making the Act a modern whole. Asking people to rally around and venerate the Act is like asking people to defend a partial victory from a war fought long ago. This is a losing proposition. Such a defensive stance is tantamount to retreat given the dimensions of the conservative onslaught. The Presidents should have tried to rally the people to fight that part of the war left undone. The only way to revive and defend the Civil Rights Act at this point is not to treat it as a national landmark but to treat is as half the foundation of a great edifice still awaiting its complement.

    To ensure true equality, America needs to focus on economic justice. This is particularly true at a time when wealth disparity in American is more severe than at anytime since the advent of the Great Depression ninety years ago.

    This matter may seem to be a parochial American one. It is not. The same patterns are reflected in the West’s relationship with African nations and their leadership. Generally the leadership, much like that of the Civil Rights era, is willing to compromise too quickly to accommodate western interests. They trade their nations’ long-term interests for a thin slice of transient personal legitimacy in western capitals. In this exchange, they get photo opportunities with western leaders and the people suffer. It is a bitter transaction better left unconsummated. Given the poverty that persistently stalks the continent, African leaders would better refocus on economic advancement for their nations instead of trying to win foreign accolades by forfeiting the gold they have in exchange for someone else’s worthless glitter.

    08060340825 (sms only)

  • 2015: Jonathan’s ambition irretrievably edging Yoruba Land to Golgotha

    2015: Jonathan’s ambition irretrievably edging Yoruba Land to Golgotha

    The PDP, under President Jonathan’s lead, wants to turn Ekiti, no Yoruba land, to a battle ground

    All things considered, there is every indication that President Goodluck Jonathan has decided to shatter the peace subsisting in the only part of the country where there remains  a modicum of peace as opposed to the horrifying bloodletting, armed robbery, kidnapping and piracy that have completely overwhelmed other parts of the country. In the only section of Nigeria where children’s throats are not being slit while asleep or where the president’s own uncle and godfather’s  children are not being kidnapped, the President, who has appropriately been likened to Nero, is irretrievably edging Yoruba land into war. This president, who has failed to secure the lives and property of Nigerians but who, instead, has justifiably been accused by some Northern leaders of  trying to profit from the horrendous and ghoulish mayhem in the North, is doing  everything to cause chaos in Yoruba land. Some three months ago, I drew attention to his outflanking and, surreptitiously surrounding the Southwest. Today, he has succeeded in procuring, like merchandise,  a minor but respected section of  the Yoruba leadership which has, in turn sold him the national conference agenda and donated one of its own to kick start the process. The result is that while the extravagantly funded talk show is ongoing, the  hard-headed  and vocal  section of  the Yoruba intelligentsia, the Femi Falana’s, Akin Oyebode’s,  the Bisi Adegbuyi’s,  not to mention Wale Oshun,  who by now would have shouted themselves hoarse about Jonathan’s  serpentine designs on Yoruba land, are at peace with the President’s men in Abuja.

    No, I am not by any shred of imagination suggesting  that the president and his party should not wish to have a reasonable showing in the coming elections in Ekiti and Osun or, indeed, strive to conjure another Jonathan victory in Yoruba land, come 2015; but for the president to want to inflict this species of Yoruba politicians on us; persons whose antecedents are an open book to Nigerians in general and to us, in particular,  should ordinarily be beneath him. We were recently told in Ibadan that what he wants in Yoruba land  are not politicians but ‘soldiers’ of fortune and we  have since seen some of them. But  if we  may ask: what does Jonathan want with ‘soldiers’  if  not  to turn Yoruba land into a war zone? After all, there is no evidence to suggest that this President will faint at the sight of more blood. He is not known to squirm at those daily slaughters up North; not even a whimper. Rather, our President embarks on joyous trips to the places like Jerusalem and Rome, in an apparent show of religiosity which Nigerians now know is hollow.  It will matter nothing  therefore, if a few thousand Yoruba men and women, children in particular, get needlessly slaughtered.  His 2015 ambition is enough motivation, he must have surmised.

    The President may wish all these and more for us but it is we, the larger, un purchase-able Yoruba,  that must think deeply. We must remember that it was during a no less grim circumstances like this that  the Yoruba  legend, Hubert Ogunde, composed his timeless Yoruba Ronu, a song  which our governors must immediately contract the Ogunde family to reproduce in millions for distribution all over the Southwest just as Tunde Kelani’s epic musical film of that song must be shown all over;  even in churches to which the President has taken his political tourism. Yoruba must  refuse to be led again  into a second slavery. Some unthinking Yoruba politicians, out of envy and jealousy have decided to: SE RA NWON NITORI OWO, ATI NITORI IPO.  NWON TUN FE SO YORUBA DI BOLU FUN JONATHAN GBA. SUGBON O,  ENI  BA DALE A BALE LO  meaning they want to turn Yoruba to a ball to be kicked anyhow by President Jonathan. Waterloo awaits them.

    Nigerians must have seen what the PDP is  already making of both the Army and the Police. While we have Senator Adeleke’s word as to how, on the orders of  Jonathan’s Police Affairs Minister, seven A.K 47’s were trained on his head, Musiliu Obanikoro, the Minister of state, Army, was reported in newspapers to have led soldiers to Ilaje Ese Odo, Ondo state,  last Saturday even  as a  legislative bye election was ongoing. Till now,  a supposedly independent National  Electoral Commission, INEC, has not been able to announce the result of that election.  We can only imagine  how many battalions, a President who  has no faith in the ballot box, will inundate Ekiti and Osun states with on their respective election day. As a Christian, we hope he knows the story of David and Goliath. It would have been interesting, if not calamitous, that the President went all the way to  his South-South region to  zero in on  a man Nigerian courts declared to be above trial in a massive corruption case,  at the instance of EFCC, to do his  wish in the PDP primaries in Ekiti.

    Need we any further evidence of his designs on Ekiti and its people?

    We hope they will not be led by the Satan itself to self destruct. It is our hope that they will not resort to the Oyinlola strong arm tactics of 2007 in Osun state which saw many of our people to their early graves. Those pictures are forever engraved in our subconscious in Yoruba land. Their game is up and the Presidency, INEC, the Nigerian Army and the Police should know that  this clarion call is not only being read all over the world but  it could very well be part of dispatches from several embassies to their home governments. The most interesting thing, however, is that his armada will not meet Ekiti or Osun people with our hands tied behind our backs. Before that D-Day, however, we, Omoluabi Yorubas,  have work to do.  I quote below how aptly  this  work was captured on ekitipanupo during this past week: “There is a gang up to force a regime change in Yoruba land which is being  backed up  and is  fully and massively  funded by the presidency

    – remember the stolen billions. If we don’t want  them to take us  back to their inglorious past of  infamy and bloodletting, then all hands must be on deck. Our  elite must step out of their cocoon and  go to their  respective  towns and villages to reach out to the electorate. The real village square meetings of the people must hold publicly at which the people, especially the impressionable youths, who have voter’s cards and  are eligible  to vote, will be properly counseled on the communal position on fundamental political issues”,  especially  the need for Ekiti never  to become a colony of  stranger elements. Ekiti has  forever  sealed her  freedom  with the blood of its citizens shed at the KIRIJI war.

    These men should poignantly remind us of U.S President Bush 11 when he wanted a regime change in Iraq. He ferociously battled Iraq, and today, on a daily basis, Iraq loses not less than 20 or double that number of its citizens to suicide bombing. The PDP, under President Jonathan’s lead, wants to turn Ekiti, no Yoruba land, to a battle ground. There would have been no problem if they believe in the ballot box, but they don’t since, even in cahoots with their lackey in the Labour party, PDP cannot garner 40 percent of the votes in either Ekiti or Osun state. Therefore they intend to suborn INEC to do the unthinkable and the impossible. They will forever regret the day as Jonathan would have thereby sounded Nigeria’s death knell. And his 2015 ambition, the leitmotif for all these shenanigans, would have gone with the winds.

    We can only hope he will be better advised and will not dare.

  • Devolution or federalism: which way for Nigeria?

    Devolution or federalism: which way for Nigeria?

    Proper relationship between national and subnational governments in a federal system should be a case of give-and-take between the two levels in a context of free negotiation between the two tiers

    The conference modalities passed by the Secretary to the Federal Government to delegates and the day-to-day response of delegates to the modalities continue to deconstruct the unitary constitution upon which the central government and the President derive their powers to discuss the problems that have made the country’s unity and peaceful development precarious over the years.

    Delegates are not freely chosen representatives of their people; they are nominated by the President and governors at the instance of the federal government. They cannot determine number of committees nor choose chairpersons of committees. More importantly, delegates are not free to determine what they deliberate on; they are handed a list of topics to consider by the agency that convenes and sponsors the conference. The rules to guide the conference include what they cannot discuss: dissolution of the federation. They also include what delegates can discuss: devolution, federalism, regionalism, etc.

    Exercising control of the power of signification characteristic of unitary governments, the federal government even chooses concepts that delegates should examine. An example of such semiotic or semantic confusion or control is the listing of federalism under Devolution of Power and also under Political Restructuring.As trivial as this may sound or look, it has the capacity to create confusion for delegates and reduce their focus on what should be the matter at hand: freeing the country from unitary model of governance and endowing it with a federal system. It is important for citizens observing the proceedings of the conference and waiting for some results to know ahead of conference deliberations that Devolution is not synonymous with Federalism. It should not even serve as a set that includes federalism as subset.

    Devolution does not automatically lead to federalism. It is, simply put, the shedding of functions by any central government – unitary or federal— to subnational government levels. A unitary government that feels overburdened or over-pressured can choose to transfer some of its functions to any subnational government without losing its superintending authority. So can an existing federal government devolve new functions to subnational governments to carry out in compliance with whatever standards the central government establishes for performance of such functions by the tier of government to which new responsibilities have been devolved. Such devolved functions are funded through grants or special allocations from the central government. France is a good example of a unitary government that devolves a lot of functions to other levels of government.China is another example. Closer to home, Ghana operates a unitary system that delegates some functions to provincial governments that are seen as subordinate to the central government. An abiding aspect of devolution without federalism is that the central government reserves the right to take back whatever functions it delegates to subnational governments. Such devolution is generally not embedded in the constitution and is not subject to negotiation between federating units.

    If delegates had been elected as representatives of communities, they would not have been under any obligation to base their discussion on the paradigms handed down by the central government. They would have been given issues to negotiate by their communities. Elected delegates would have been briefed that the crux of the matter and raison d’etre for the conference is federalism, not mere devolution of responsibilities by an overarching central government. It is still not too late for delegates to be reminded of citizens’ assessment of the cause of the failure of the central and most state governments to deliver public goods that can enhance the quality of life of citizens. It is obvious that communities have no power to hold delegates accountable, having not had a hand in how they get to the conference. But it is proper for delegates to know that citizens are capable of detecting subtle efforts (via modalities handed to and adopted by conference leaders) at constraining discussion at the conference.

    What was taken away by military autocrats and sustained by post-military constitution and rulers is proper relationship between the central government and subnational governments. Federalism has been removed since 1979 from the form and content of government in the country. This cannot be remedied by mere devolution. It can only be restored through establishment or re-establishment of federal system of government. Whether this is called political restructuring or restoration of federalism, what is at issue is having a proper share of powers between the central government and regions or states as federating units.

    Proper relationship between national and subnational governments in a federal system should be a case of give-and-take between the two levels in a context of free negotiation between the two tiers. Thus, the relationship between national and subnational units must be framed as constitutionally guaranteed interaction and transaction between coordinates, rather than superordinate and subordinate. The two levels are not to share just functions; they are to share sovereignty including resource sovereignty. It is not the incumbent central government that should determine unilaterally which power to transfer to regions or states. It is both levels of government that should negotiate which powers to leave for the central government for the common good and which to leave for regions or states for effective delivery of public goods and services to citizens.These are the central issues that pertain to constructing a federal polity.

    Knowing that the ongoing national conference is not sovereign and does not have the power to determine what to discuss and how to turn the outcome of discussion into a constitution, the only thing left is to appeal to delegates to find time to listen to members of their respective communities about what to do to re-launch Nigeria.For example, agreeing to just transfer a few functions from the current Exclusive list of the central government to regions or states and adding 5% to funds from the federation account to subventions to states may not solve the problem that stimulated convening of the ongoing conference. Creation of states is not as much of a problem as sharing of powers between the two principal levels of governance: central and state. Turning an essentially local matter, the role of traditional rulers into a federal matter is not necessary. Nigeria as a unit does not have traditional rulers. It is local communities that have traditional rulers. Delegates must avoid spending precious time on such distractive topics as local government administration. Local government administration, like traditional rule, is a matter to be determined by states in their own constitutions. What should take delegates’ time is sharing of responsibilities and powers between federal and regional or state governments.

  • Before Fani-Kayode defects

    Before Fani-Kayode defects

    In the political cat and mouse defection game being played by Femi Fani-Kayode, it is not known at the moment who reached out to whom – he to the president or the president to him. But when he offered his trenchant views on the All Progressives Congress’s proposed presidential ticket a little over a week ago, and those views were published to the consternation of many, it was clear something was afoot. We may never know whether the presidency sensed his vulnerability after his views became public, and decided to invite him over, or whether Chief Fani-Kayode flew a kite and followed up through a middleman to let the presidency know he would not be averse to a visit. Whatever the case, and whoever made the first move, we now know that both President Goodluck Jonathan and Chief Fani-Kayode found comfort and inspiration in each other’s company, with the latter perhaps more awestricken than the former was more evidently manipulating.

    “This is a Presidential Villa,” enthused Chief Fani-Kayode after he met with the president. “The President is President of Nigeria and every single person in this country that is a Nigerian is entitled to come here from time to time, when the doors are open to come and pay their respect to the wonderful people that are here. As a Nigerian, I have done that today and I am delighted to be here.” His fulsome description of the president apart, not to say his exaggerated belief in the openness of the presidency doors, Chief Fani-Kayode in addition said his hosts were a wonderful people. Had he been a neophyte visiting the perfumed corridors of Aso Villa for the first time, we would have thought he was mesmerised by the marbled and ersatz glitter of the buildings and denizens of the presidency. But he had been there before, and apparently he felt nostalgic about an environment whose splendour made him long for the past.

    Given the exuberant manner he expressed his joy at visiting the president and talking with him for about an hour, as the media reported, it was not unusual that there were speculations about his motives. The online media were less charitable in drawing their conclusions, but the regular media would not be drawn into brazen speculations, perhaps afraid to be drawn into a press war with a man who does not shirk a fight, and whose prolixity is both damning and acidic. Asked what he intended to do given the fact that a few months ago he rubbed shoulders with top APC leaders and hurled invectives at the PDP and the president in particular, Chief Fani-Kayode stonewalled. “The step that I will take will be made known to Nigerians at the right time,” he said curtly and self-importantly. Then, as if he in fact had already made up his mind, he added censoriously: “The most important thing, and I think you are fully aware of this, is that I cannot and I will not be associated with a situation whereby any group of people is promoting a religion above another. I think all of us have gone past the stage of religious politics in this country.”

    It will be recalled that less than two weeks ago, Chief Fani-Kayode had told the media he strongly and unrepentantly took exceptions to the plan by the APC to field a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket for the 2015 election. Speaking to the media after his visit to Aso Villa last week, he restated that position, unmindful of the dissonance of not waiting to see whether the APC would carry through with the plan he suspected. Should he defect, Chief Fani-Kayode would have the unenviable distinction of being one of the few politicians anywhere who anchored a life-changing decision on a mere suspicion. There is, of course, nothing incontrovertible to indicate he will be defecting to his former party where, some suggested, he feathered his nest and rose to some prominence. All we have are his body language and some of his statements. But there is also nothing to suggest he could not defect at the drop of a hat, for he has not managed in his many years in politics to be taken seriously, either for his ideas or for his principles.

    I have not perused the online speculations about his motives and his person which drew his ire. In my opinion, the online media has become a feral beast slashing and tearing reputations without scruples and sometimes without respect for accuracy or facts, and I distrust them. But no one needs the online media, nor even Chief Fani-Kayode’s famous background, to assess his person and politics. He has done and said enough in the past few years to elicit a fairly competent, evocative and substantial analysis on him. Except something extraordinary happens to thwart his plans, I think Chief Fani-Kayode has made up his mind to defect. When the president hosted him, it was not a social or casual visit, as he pretended. And his unsolicited offer to every Nigerian to visit Aso Villa is not only misleading, given the way that redoubt has turned into an armoured and impregnable fortress, it is insulting to our intelligence to preach a sense of entitlement to us.

    Chief Fani-Kayode is an enigma, a brilliant enigma. He is eloquent, polemical, gregarious and hyperactive. He writes damn well, even if he cannot disguise his irredentism and parochialism. And because he holds very strong and often opportunistic views, he is sometimes viewed as a nuisance to have on one’s side rather than to have with the enemy, for in his discordant and amorphous perspectives lies an obsessive longing to further his private and insular interests. He took on former President Olusegun Obasanjo until he was belatedly invited into the team. In the past few months, he also took on Dr Jonathan, and after last week’s visit, he has given indication he would mellow because disagreements are to him as normal as rapprochement is routine. It is useless engaging Chief Fani-Kayode in arguments; the gifted rhetorician will likely outtalk and outflank you with flawless dexterity. Indeed, given his adventures and dalliances, not the least the Bianca tiff, there is enough evidence to prove his dexterousness comprehensively transcends politics.

    I do not know whether he can be trusted again in the APC even if he does not defect. However, given his unconscionableness and irreverence, he is quite capable of boldly retaining his membership of a group even while undermining it. It is an indication his desultory ideas of politics and his general malleability do not arise from a deliberate intent to hurt anyone. Long used to having his way in life, and long accustomed to making modest gains from a general lack of adherence to principles, the former Aviation minister will not feel compelled to change both his ways and his style. His cavil about APC’s proposed presidential ticket is popular; he will use its justifiability as a cover for his other hidden agenda.

    Many observers were astounded when they saw Chief Fani-Kayode with APC leaders touring the country and extending hands of fellowship to other politicians. They were equally stunned when they saw the party leaders in company with Senator Ali Modu Sherrif, the former Governor of Borno State blamed fairly or unfairly for the outbreak of the Boko Haram menace. The APC in fact has an apparent knack for drawing into its fold some politicians whose persons or ideas raise eyebrows. But whether they can keep controversial politicians out of their ranks remains to be seen when the other parties, especially the PDP, specialise in producing and unleashing gadflies and termagants on the opposition.

    If Chief Fani-Kayode should defect, it is unlikely to have anything to do with the APC’s presidential ticket. He weighs his options expertly, though often short-sightedly, and those options are never based on ideas, principles or morality. But his controversial visit to Aso Villa has concentrated attention on the APC’s coming presidential primary in a way the party probably never imagined. I do not think the lesson of Chief Fani-Kayode’s denunciation and manoeuvres will be lost on the opposition party, assuming they ever thought of taking such humungous risk in a polity riven by ethnic and religious distrust, a distrust now accentuated by the Jonathan presidency’s Machiavellian use of religion.

  • The politics of size

    The politics of size

    In terms of population, land mass and mineral endowments, Nigeria is massive relative to most countries in Africa. Our population of over 150 million people – if they were truly economically empowered – would make this nation a powerhouse. So the controversial recent rebasing of our gross domestic product (GDP) is only stating the obvious in book form.

    Unfortunately, our high numbers are made up largely of very poor people who cannot afford much. Instead of squabbling about whether the rebasing is right or wrong, we should rather be scandalised that given our huge population we are only generating so much.

    Over the last 53 years, a succession of leaders have failed to harness the natural advantages our size offers either on the economic front locally, or diplomatically on the continental and global stage. That is why today millions of Nigerians have become economic refugees fleeing to unlikely places like South Africa, Libya or Cyprus – anywhere would do!

    It is the same failure of leadership that has seen smaller African countries run rings around us as we have contested for things on the international stage. They have little or no respect for our size – pre or post rebasing. Their reaction is a function of how we’ve squandered our potentials.

    It isn’t that size doesn’t count. There are obvious advantages that being identified as the biggest economy in a region or continent confer on a country. Were it not so, many would not have paid any attention to last weekend’s landmark.

    Size does count for something. For many years the South Africans basked in the honour of being described as Africa’s biggest economy. They were certainly not too thrilled at seeing the title slip out of their grasp – no matter how untidy the process of Nigeria’s emergence on top may have been.

    The official reaction from Pretoria was very proper and welcomed the fact that African countries were rising on the global scene. However, unofficial tweets that circulated in the country in reaction to the new GDP figures were more revealing. Most were keen to emphasise that while Nigeria may have a larger population, the rebasing didn’t change the fact that South Africa had the more prosperous and advanced economy.

    One commentator, Dr. Martyn Davies, CEO of Frontier Advisory, argued that the new label didn’t amount to more than underlining the fact that Nigeria had a larger population. “No country became rich through buying consumer goods. They become rich through saving, investing, innovating, embracing technology, driving productivity… Not GDP.”

    “Three things create wealth in successful economies – obviously considering clean, effective government as a given… its innovation, its productivity and its technology… And I don’t see really any of the three coming out of Nigeria at all. It’s purely a numbers game. Fast moving consumer goods facing numbers game. That is it,” he said.

    One advantage of being branded the biggest is that it is now a reality investors looking for opportunities on the continent must deal with. The challenges and cost of doing business here notwithstanding, they would think hard about sidestepping the immense opportunities offered by our huge market.

    On the home front, the largely negative reaction to Nigeria’s overnight emergence in the ranks of the world’s 30 largest economies can be understood from two perspectives. Firstly, it represents one of the few bits of good news on the economy for President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in a very long while.

    He and his team would naturally want to take credit for the new labelling because it has happened under his watch. It doesn’t matter whether his policies or those of his predecessors are what triggered the quantum leap.

    But what really riles people is that no attempt is being made by the government to put the rebasing in perspective. The suggestion somehow seems to be that the new GDP figures mean life for the average Nigerian has become better under Jonathan because his statisticians tapped their calculators – releasing a batch of impressive new numbers.

    Worse for the government, the results have been unveiled against the backdrop of the tragic Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment exercise a few weeks back which left 19 dead across the country. As of today millions of able-bodied, educated citizens are pining away in the ranks of the unemployed. Indeed, one of the defining images of the Jonathan years would be the cavernous Abuja National Stadium overflowing with desperate jobseekers.

    It is hard to be impressed with the rebasing when it is happening at a time Nigerians are feeling the pinch of the absence of the most basic public infrastructure. The bulk of our people live in the dark – without hope of power any time soon. The same frustrated ones who have to pay through the nose to provide their own electricity are supposed to crack open bottles of champagne to celebrate some new statistic that has no bearing on their lives.

    Here is one statistic that shows why many are so cynical. South Africa which we have just ‘overtaken’ generates over 45,000 megawatts of electricity; Nigeria with her grand GDP figures can only manage a little over 3,000 megawatts.

    Still, we should be grateful for little mercies. The ongoing numbers storm has focused attention on what is important: the state of the economy and the ability to turn it around – rather than mundane matters like religion and ethnicity. It should now be the key test as we edge towards electing a new set of leaders in 2015.

    Former United States President Bill Clinton rode into office in 1992 hammering on the parlous state of the economy. Jonathan’s leadership over this critical area of national life should come under scrutiny. So also should the credentials of his potential rivals who think they can do a better job.

  • Okon in kidnap nightmare

    These are strange and very interesting times in Nigeria. It is becoming increasingly difficult to separate living from a permanent nightmare and horrible reality from realistic horror. Even for a Stone Age society, there are some horrors that are simply unimaginable. But they are for real. The widespread trading in human parts induces a suspension of reality in the sane and sober.

    Is this an official scam to turn everybody into compulsory vegetarians? At least in Ancient Rome when African gladiators were trotted out to fight animals unto death, they were given the chance of a honourable exit. But this new Negro necrophilia on the Equator suggests a vast cuckoo’s nest from which no one can escape.

    Increasingly, snooper finds himself taking to bed to avoid the seemingly inevitable. But it turns out that even the bed is no longer a bed of roses. The bed is a bedlam in its own right. Last Friday as snooper lay in bed ruminating about the heinous crimes in the land, particularly the recent idiotic nonsense about the Nigerian economy overtaking South Africa, the phone suddenly rang. It was Okon sounding agitated and distraught.

    “Okon, where are you?” snooper bellowed.

    “Oga, katakata don burst. Agaracha don….” the boy mumbled.

    “I say: where are you? You’ve gone to the market for over five hours now”, snooper screamed, cutting him off.

    “Oga, monkey don go market and he no go return. Dem kidnapper don get man”, Okon replied.

    “If they like let dem keep you forever”, snooper raved. At this point a voice in the background demanded the phone from Okon and then began in clear crisp English.

    “This is General Constitution Iponkiri. We have your boy”, the voice announced.

    “And you can keep him forever”, Snooper screamed.

    “Send us five million before evening or we shall cook one of the boy’s legs and send it to you as pepper soup”, the general announced calmly and without any fuss or funfair.

    “Oga, if I be your son…” Okon whined in the background.

    “You can do whatever you like with him. I don’t negotiate with criminals” snooper cursed with much distemper.

    “You see, it is you we actually want, and we know how to get you. I can tell you that you are wearing blue pyjamas and lying on the bed with lots of books”, the general continued as fear crept up the spine of yours sincerely.

    “What?” Snooper exclaimed in disbelief.

    “I can also tell you that there is an unfinished bottle of beer under your bed”, the poker-faced terrorist continued.

    “E la tanran ooo!” snooper screamed in acute distress as he lapsed into ancient Ife dialect. The force of the exclamation was such that he hit his head against the bed and woke with a searing headache. And there was Okon bringing tea with a devilish smile.

    “Oga, abi you be kidnapper sef? I been dey hear you speak to dem”, the mad boy chortled with satanic relish.

    “Get lost!” snooper screamed in alarm.

    “Oga, if you be kidnapper, I get business” Okon noted with a wink, Snooper leapt at the mad boy who fled shouting, “Oga wan kidnap me oooooo!!!”.

  • What a developed country is

    Former Mayor of Bogota in Columbia, Enrique Penalosa must have a ‘weird’ sense of reasoning. His definition of what a developed nation is intriguing and thought provoking.

    While many would prefer to simply describe a developed nation as one where the standard of living is very high Penalosa’s definition is graphically apt.

    According to him, a developed nation is not where the poor have cars, but the country where the rich use public transportation. If the number of likes on this definition on my facebook is anything to go by, many obviously wish our leaders have this kind of understanding of what development should be.

    Penalosa is definitely not against the poor having their own cars if they so desire and can afford it, what he simply wants and did during his is the provision of enough infrastructure and other facilities that will ensure that majority of the people are not denied basic necessities of life.

    He is obviously against the situation where citizens are classified as rich or poor based on what kind of facilities they utilize. The government has the responsibly to provide basic infrastructure which everybody should find good enough to utilize. Unfortunately this is not the situation in the Nigeria presently.

    While in some developing and developed nations, top government functionaries and even rich members of the public can use public transportation, the dream of everyone in Nigeria is to own their cars even when they cannot afford to maintain one and the roads are not good.

    Our transportation system has continued to degenerate despite the billions allocated to the sector. The Rail which used to be a reliable means of transporting people and goods across the country is yet to be restored to its good old days.

    Due to lack of good rail system as in other nations, Nigerians who cannot afford the exorbitant airfare have to resort to dangerous long journeys either with their own vehicles or commercial transport. The high rate of accidents on our roads is avoidable if our rail system is in order and the roads are in good condition.

    For the super rich in Nigeria, some of whom their source of wealth is questionable, buying their own jet has become a fad.

    Instead of widening the gap between the poor and the rich, government policies must result in improve standard of living as defined be Penalosa.

    The citizens must feel the effects of economic policies in concrete terms that give them a sense of a leadership that cares and a country they can be proud of. The government should not be claiming to be implementing a transformation agenda which majority of the citizens cannot attest to.

    The recent controversy over the outcome of the rebasing of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the National Bureau of Statistics which puts our economy the first in Africa and the 24th in the world is a good example the progress we are supposed to be making without much movement.

    The federal government can celebrate positive economic indicator if it wants, but like many have noted, what is the benefit of increased GDP to the ordinary citizens if they still have to battle with poverty, unemployment and myriads of other challenges that make daily living a miracle?