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Category: Sunday

APC and 2015

The All Progressives Congress (APC) boasts an incredibly lofty political and social ethos it wants to midwife for the country. But if care is not taken, it could find itself entangled in pitfalls and traps of its own doing. The problem, it will be discovered, is not that the party has set goals too high to be accomplished. No, the problem is that it has so far been unable to structure its operations and ideas in such a way that the gap between its ideals and its identity is narrowed substantially for the electorate to embrace the party overwhelmingly. Unfortunately for the party, it has very little time to do the almost impossible; very little time to, as it were, shuffle the galaxies, tweak the earth’s magnetic force, and prevent any of the planets from spiralling out of orbit.

If Nigeria is to be saved, if the black race is to be redeemed – forgive the hyperbole – the APC must do the impossible in the next few months to save itself and the country. For if it fails, not only will the mega coalition it has cobbled together so gingerly be endangered, even the very notion of country which we have struggled over the years to sustain will itself be gravely imperilled. As for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its leaders, particularly those in power in Abuja today, I have long written them off as a total disaster, notwithstanding what jobholders and sycophants worming their ways around in Abuja say.

A good place to start in admonishing the APC – they should forgive my imperiousness – is the recent order they gave to their legislators in Abuja to stall President Goodluck Jonathan’s policies, bills, budget, and confirmation of service chiefs. Is the party justified in linking its cooperation to the president’s attitude and presumptions? I think it is, for if some pressure is not brought to bear on a president and party that have actually and irreverently spun out of control, that political lassitude could unwittingly encourage the ruling party and the president to entrench themselves in their anti-democratic misconduct. But is the APC wise to condition its legislative cooperation upon the president’s good behaviour? I seriously doubt it.

The first problem is that the party obviously misjudges the Nigerian voter to be highly enlightened and even somewhat idealistic. If he were enlightened, he would effortlessly appreciate that something drastic ought to be done about the creeping disaster and recklessness manifesting in Rivers State, a disaster given fillip by the president’s own lack of private and public scruples, and by the opportunistic alliances of Dame Patience, the meddlesome first lady, Nyesom Wike, the superficial and ingratiating Minister of State for Education, and Mbu Joseph Mbu, the conniving and servile police commissioner for Rivers. And if the voter were idealistic, he would understand that it was imperative to sacrifice a few legislative bills relating to our existential comfort in order to achieve the pristine and much higher goals of sustaining and nurturing the country’s infant democracy.

The APC must not forget that even in the United States, a point many commentators alluded to in newspapers in the past few days, the fairly well-educated voters in that developed democracy still spurned any attempt to play politics with their meal tickets. I wager that in any society, no matter what lofty principle is imperilled, issues of meal ticket will always predominate. The APC should, therefore, stop insisting on its legislators’ defiance in the National Assembly. It should also stop rationalising the orders it gave its lawmakers. The voter will not buy it, period. Nor does the party even need that tactics.

It is not certain that the party can even enforce its directive to its national lawmakers. But if it can, it will have to look for ways of surmounting a distressing backlash certain to follow the order. Does the party not appreciate that Dr Jonathan has thoroughly misruled the country, and his budgets, even when they seem to make some sense, have become worthless pieces of documents that fail every objective test of practicability, consistency and coherence? Dr Jonathan’s budgets have impoverished the country, and they do not work. Why would the APC want to be blamed for a budget designed to fail anyway? The party should publicly rescind its directives and let the lawmakers do their jobs dispassionately and professionally. Had the APC not intervened with its hasty directive, the budget would have naturally suffered searing and merciless reviews from the lawmakers. Now the legislators will have to be more accommodating so as not to be seen to be implementing APC’s order.

More crucially, it is now more urgent than ever for the APC to set up think tanks for the 2015 elections if the humongous goodwill it has accumulated with the electorate is not to be frittered away. I do not have the impression, for instance, that the party thoroughly debated its visit to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, let alone the decision to flatter the imperturbable aurochs. The ex-president is the most reviled politician in the country, hated by his enemies and friends alike, and in equal measure. It was completely needless visiting and coaxing someone so incorrigible and so absolutely unessential to the wellbeing of the country and its fledgling democracy. The party must resist the temptation to play emotive politics. It must encourage debate, seek out devil’s advocates when a position appears unanimous, and sleep over its decisions before making them public.

But perhaps the most difficult issue the APC will grapple with in the coming months is its presidential standard-bearer. If it gets it wrong, the campaign will at best be a huge struggle, and at worst be completely doomed. In electing its candidates, no matter what methods it prefers, whether open primaries or caucuses or a combination, it must not pretend to be ignorant of what and how the voters are thinking. Nigeria has changed, and with it, its politics too, perhaps in ways so frightening and threatening that it sometimes seems pointless for any principled man to offer himself for the thankless job of leadership. One of those changes concerns religion. The PDP, it is clear, has seized on religion as a campaign tool, and Dr Jonathan has already embarked on that dangerous journey with incomparable carefreeness and adroitness. The APC must not just condemn that dangerous folly, it must counter it, not defy it.

Without being told, the APC knows its aspirants who have been rightly or wrongly stigmatised as either fairly or completely bigoted. No matter how valiantly those stigmatised have worked for the mega coalition, no matter how popular they are, and no matter how electable they are in certain parts of the country, the party must resist the temptation to elect them as standard-bearers, not even on point of honour. There are younger, fairly accomplished and more connected politicians in the party, perhaps some of them not yet fully APC. The party must be flexible enough and ready to accommodate them. For, in the end, what matters most is not how honourably the APC has structured its politics, or how principled it has kept faith with its political and ideological views. Indeed, what matters most is winning the elections, regardless of the suspicions about the order of elections and the horrifying chicaneries of the ruling party.

The APC is on the threshold of a great and uplifting experience. It cannot afford to be careless, and its leaders must not allow themselves to be distracted by abuse, envious politicians mouthing strange historical heresies and inaccuracies, and political foes luring the party to commit blunders. They should go out there and make history, for history beckons to them.

February 2, 2014
Mothers of Africa?

Liberia, Malawi and now the war-ravaged Central African Republic. What do these African countries have in common? They are ruled by women , iron ladies if you like. We have had daughters of the east, those aristocratic women of oriental steel who seized their countries by the scruff of the neck. From India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, to the Philippines, these women of exceptional valour swept away the historic cobwebs of patriarchal oppression and male-ordered ineptitude. The result is often mixed. Most of the feudal monuments are still standing in these countries. But things will never be the same again. In Burma, the lady tiger will not be kept waiting forever.

One unique thing about these daughters of the orient is that they all seem to come from political fathers. They are daughters of former presidents as we have seen in Indian, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines, or they are whelps of generals and founding fathers of the nation as we have seen in Bangladesh and Burma. Benazir Bhutto’s brothers came up to no scratch and sometimes it is left to these exceptional women to carry on with the family trade and tradition.

It is said that in traditional societies, when men foul things up they usually abandon the mess for the women to clean up. With the developments in Liberia, Malawi and now the Central African Republic, can it be said that the revolutionary waves are finally reaching the shores of Africa, the last bastion and redoubt of gendered and engendered feudalism? No one gives up entrenched historic privileges lightly. Snooper can already hear the bugles of war from the cultural descendants of the Ottoman emperors.

Liberia and Central African Republic have been particularly unlucky. Any human community saddled with the likes of Jean Bokassa and Samuel Kanyon Doe as leaders must be ready to reap the social pestilence. The syphilitic bandy-legged Bokassa and the rotund master sergeant had one thing in common: they were both certified cannibals. When the syphilis finally reached his head, the lunatic emperor was known to regularly snack on human flesh. In the case of Doe, he had openly boasted that he helped himself to the testicles of Thomas Quiwonkpah after the poor fellow fell in a failed coup bid.

Malawi has been lucky not to have descended into open civil war. But for a long time, the Southern African nation was under the dark spell and authoritarian hammer of Hastings Kamuzu Banda. Banda did not take hostages and once famously threatened to feed his main opponent to crocodiles if he had the temerity to step on Malawian soil. It was rumoured that this was his favourite pastime. A rumoured centenarian, Banda was so old by the time he died that he did not even remember who he really was. It was whispered that he was not even from Malawi.

With the advent of Joyce Banda, the country is experiencing a new lease of life. The feel good factor has been phenomenal. Banda has famously disposed of the lone aircraft in the presidential fleet on the grounds that it was surplus to requirement and had taken to the open skies like a responsible and responsive leader of a poor country. This cannot be said of certain African leaders who can boast of a presidential airline when there is no national airline.

In the historic morass that is contemporary Nigeria, it is of no use singling out women as beacons of hope and moral rectitude. Satan has no respect for gender. The cankerworm of corruption and venality is an equal opportunity agent in Nigeria. While the male species appear to be more blameworthy, there can be no doubt that the Fourth Republic has thrown up some equally vile and vicious women of low reputation and non-existent integrity. Where are the real mothers of Nigeria?

February 2, 2014
Nigeria is it, but…

It’s not always that you get the opportunity to showcase your country to first time visitors.

I was glad to perform the task last Sunday when I had the privilege of hosting three colleagues from Ghana, Sierra Leone and Cameroun after a meeting in Lagos.

Being their first time in Lagos which they have heard a lot about, their excitement about being live in the famous city was understandable.

I did my best to show them some of the places they requested to visit and some places I thought they would love to see.

My guided tour of Lagos and Otta in Ogun State turned out to be a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly experience for my guests who were very grateful for what one of them called “my generous Nigerian hospitality” contrary to the impression his countrymen think of Nigerians.

As we drove from the hotel in Ikeja to Cannanland, Otta for Church service at the 50,000 seater Winners Chapel auditorium and later headed back to Victoria Island, my guests could not hide their admiration for our mega facilities and infrastructures.

They were mesmerized by the Winners Church and Covenant University complexes.

My Ghanian lady colleague noted that the best private university in Ghana could not boast of half of the structures she saw at Covenant University.

“ You Nigerians don’t know what The Lord has done for you. You should be grateful instead of complaining,” she remarked.

The third mainland bridge was also a sight for them to behold as the Sierra Leonian wondered why the government in his home country has not thought of building a bridge like ours to link the capital city of Freetown to the airport located on an Island. To fly out of Sierra Leone, he has to travel by land, sea and air!

They were also captivated by the imposing CMS/Broadstreet landscape and insisted that I park on the bridge to take pictures.

Being widely travelled journalists, they have seen better structures, but as one of them said, it’s nice to know that Lagos is indeed a mega city.

On sighting Segun Arinze on an advertisement billboard, they recalled his various roles and that of many Nigerian actors in Nigerian films they have watched. Explaining the popularity of Nigerian films in his country, My Cameroonian colleague said, “You people have so tortured us with so many films but we always enjoy every moment of watching .”

Beyond the glitz and glamour however, they were quick to note how dirty the environment was. They wondered why refuse littered the major roads in Otta and some buildings along the roads were not painted.

While our meeting we had earlier attended lasted, they were shocked by the poor electricity supply. They were no strangers to power failure in their countries but it was not as bad as they experienced during their stay.

Perhaps lowest point of our tour was the encounter with policemen who sighted me answering a phone call while driving. One of them threatened to shoot even after I had parked as directed by another member of the team.

The Ghanian was so scared by the experience that she asked that we should return to the hotel. She just couldn’t imagine why the policeman should cork his gun in the open for the offense I committed. It won’t happen in Ghana, she swore.

The next time they return to visit Lagos, I assured them we would have fixed our electricity problem considering the on-going privatization of the sector. For a country that claims to be the giant of Africa, the state of our electricity supply is a shame and rubbishes whatever progress we claim to be making in other sectors.

The earlier we solve this problem and others the better to make Nigeria the ultimate destination economic and tourist capital of Africa.

February 2, 2014
National conference and perennial half measures

If anything can be said for the national conference the Goodluck Jonathan government is organising, it is that the vacillation over what to call it – national conference, national dialogue or national conversation – has finally ended after many months of waffling. What have not ended are the debates over its relevance, whether to subject it to a referendum or not (which nuisance the government has passed on to the conferees themselves), uncertainties over the nomination process, and legal and constitutional issues surrounding its convocation and adoption. There are probably a few more uncertainties, but these will manifest as the conference gets underway.

The opposition to the conference is quite sizeable and vigorous, encompassing many interest groups and the main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Their opposition is hinged on the nearness of the conference – clearly an afterthought to the Jonathan presidency – to the elections of 2014 and 2015. Too many political events will be taking place this year for a weighty conference designed supposedly to end all conferences to receive adequate attention. In addition, reports of past conferences, which had received copious attention and active involvement of pressure groups, have been ignored without explanation. Moreover, the National Assembly is itself undertaking major constitutional amendments; so, why another exercise?

But all these arguments have not swayed President Jonathan. He is determined to push through his effort to organise a fresh national conference. He is not interested in a new constitution and, alas, he has set the customary no-go areas for his own conference, but Nigeria’s unduly optimistic pressure groups are willing to give it a shot. More critically, the president has refused to be decisive on key issues capable of undermining the conference. He says conference decisions will be by consensus, but failing that, by 75 percent majority. What if neither general consensus nor 75 percent majority can be reached? And rather than determine the legal and legislative underpinnings for the conference’s decisions, the president has pushed that difficult, if not impossible, responsibility to the conference itself.

However, the booby trap is that, as he acknowledged before now, the conference decisions will be incorporated into the existing constitution. But there is already a modality for constitutional amendment, which no external force other than the legislature can tamper with. The president, however, knowingly and deceptively tries to take advantage of the ongoing constitutional amendment process expected to end by June. He obviously hopes that some of the conference decisions will find their way into the final work of the legislature. Failing that, but without saying so, he expects the conference delegates and the rest of Nigeria to put pressure on the legislature to do what some of Jonathan’s ministers sarcastically describe as the needful.

If the perverted nomination process enunciated by the government does not convince proponents of national conference that President Jonathan is playing ducks and drakes with the feelings of the country, and the unresolved and contentious issues surrounding the actual conference itself do not raise suspicion as to the president’s motives, then Nigerians must be indescribably inured to danger and to common sense. For instance, anticipating the fact that opposition states would decline nominating delegates, the president has accumulated the obscene power to carry out that responsibility on their behalf. If past conferences undertaken in fairly congenial atmospheres failed to see the light of day, what do we expect from a conference being hastily, if not feverishly, undertaken in an atmosphere of doubts, confusion, suspicion and sheer political chicanery and malevolence?

By every indication, President Jonathan is both unreflective on the conference and mischievous in his politics. The desire to restructure the country has unfortunately lured many Nigerians into embracing the president’s half measures and into ignoring the many booby traps he and his cynical aides have strewn all over the path. Since he assumed office, Dr Jonathan has not been able to fix anything tangible. Yet, he does not think it presumptuous that he is attempting to fix a weighty and elegantly nuanced matter as the restructuring of the country, when he has been unable to fix the plainest and most elementary of Nigeria’s problems, say roads or electricity.

February 2, 2014
Is Nigeria sleepwalking into military-type rule?

It is hard not to think that Nigeria is walking, half conscious of implications of her move, into a military model of governance.

Just as the military governments used to do, leaders in a post-military polity are appear inured to linking any criticism or dissent to lack of unity. Military dictators used to premise their coming to power and staying in it on fighting corruption and keeping the country united. Even now, almost sixteen years after the exit of military autocracy, political and cultural leaders have almost turned national unity into a bogey. From former President Olusegun Obasanjo to current President Jonathan, governors from various political parties, and all manners of traditional and religious leaders, the theme of every speech has become how to protect and promote national unity. Everybody thinks and talks as if Nigeria has disintegrated or is disintegrating. This attitude, if not checked, can be dangerous to democracy in the country. Average Nigerians need to be allowed for now to believe they live in a country that is not at war. Fear mongering is capable of encouraging autocracy and diminishing democratic thinking and practice.

This obsession with the discourse of uniformity in preference to the discourse of plurality of perspective is now being imported frantically by those in leadership positions into the realm of what should be a market of ideas. Only recently, the APC directed its members in the national assembly to frustrate passing of bills and budgets proposed by the ruling party in order to get the president to respond to festering political paralysis in Rivers State. Almost without thinking about the nuances of separation of powers in both parliamentary and presidential systems of democratic governance, political and cultural leaders started to shout foul, asking the APC to disown its directive to its members in the national legislature. In which country is separation of powers designed to ensure that the legislature is always friendly to the executive? The system by design calls for contentiousness between these two bodies, should the need arise for disputatiousness.

In the parliamentary system used until the coming of the military in 1966, it was periodic contentious relationship between members of the opposition and the party in power that sharpened debates, improved conception and implementation of policies, and even prevented the ruling party from taking decisions that could have been injurious to the sovereignty of the country. Awolowo’s Action Group government benefited immensely from overt disagreement with the NCNC opposition members from Adelabu to TOS Benson. Even the government of Tafawa Balewa was saved from signing a defence treaty that would have yielded the country’s sovereignty to former colonial overlords in the talked-to-death Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact. The position of opposition party members saved the country at that time. Even in the days of the first experiment with presidential system, the periodically adversarial relationship between the NPN and the UPN drew attention to the signs of economic collapse that the president and his then minister of economic planning were trying to hide from the citizenry.

In what ways is the effort of the APC to ensure that democracy is not destroyed in Rivers State on the altar of winner-takes-all politics different from attempts by opposition party members to rein in ruling parties in other countries? Even in the United States, the Republican Party has not failed to use this checking and balancing aspect of American presidential system to shut down the government under the leadership of Barack Obama, yet the country did not need to run to the gods to beg them to save America’s unity. Currently, in Ukraine, the opposition party is challenging the government’s oppressive acts with the support of ordinary citizens, yet nobody is worrying about the unity of the country. Political paralysis in Rivers State portends serious problems for democracy everywhere else in Nigeria. The crisis in Rivers State may not be at the instance of President Jonathan. There is little doubt that the molestation of the elected government of the state has the hands of those in the service of those in power. Is the commissioner of police in Rivers State responsible to the governor or the president?

Nigerians that are already calling for the heads of APC leaders for stalling the passing of the 2014 budget need to pay more attention to the risks involved in democratic rule, especially the system of separation of powers. There is even nothing wrong with PDP men and women of conscience in the legislature to disagree openly with the ruling party by joining forces with the opposition if they perceive that direct or indirect actions of the ruling party diminish democratic rule in any part of the country. People who are afraid that democracy will come to an end if opposition party members employ their legislative tools to resist the manifestation of tyranny, such as has been evident in the behaviour of the commissioner of police in Rivers State since the face-off between Governor Amaechi and President Jonathan, are crying wolves unnecessarily. Nigerians who feel uneasy and scared that democracy is being threatened because opposition legislators are invoking their constitutional powers must remember that it was even members of Obasanjo’s ruling party that shot down the tenure elongation bid. For the legislature to keep the executive on its toes and nudge him in the direction of needed compromise is part of the rule of the game of democratic rule.

The thinking that Nigeria is not fully democratic yet but only in transition to democracy should not be used to silence or demobilise the opposition party. It is only recently that the sitting governor of Rivers State, the state that has been under siege for months, acquired membership of the APC. It must be remembered that the APC had been calling for fairness, equity, and justice in the handling of the political crisis in Rivers State, long before Amaechi crossed the carpet to the APC from the PDP or the new-PDP. Those that are around when dissidents are being hounded had better spoken up. Otherwise it could be their turn to be hounded when the lust for absolute power so demands. APC may not be a perfect party, like all other human constructions, but the party is not doing anything undemocratic by attempting to shock the presidency back into consciousness and reminding the ruling party that impunity anywhere in Nigeria is impunity everywhere in the country.

Those who were in the country in the 1960s when federal power failed to prevent avoidable political crisis in Western Nigeria cannot but remember how many opportunities Nigeria had lost because the crisis in Western region was allowed to fester by those in federal power. Citizens who were of age when federal power under General Sani Abacha was used to terrorise sections of the country would not want their parents to go back to the barricades over political disagreements that can still be brought under control.

Whichever political parties or individuals have the courage to warn of a long stick that can poke the eyes of Nigeria need not be demonised. Condoning impunity at the hands of folks in the service of those in power may be tantamount to agreeing to sacrifice the testis of the father in order to assure the survival of his sons. Such attitude includes the risk of bringing destruction to the entire family. Power in every democracy has a limit; Nigeria should not be an exception. The culture of occluding threats to stability belongs to autocratic rule. Our leaders and political pundits need to come to terms with the dynamics of pluralism in a democracy: it requires readiness to listen to the other side, in order to keep the place safe for struggle for power by all parties.

February 2, 2014
IBB’s phantom letter

But last week was not all about phantom video; it was also a week of phantom letter. Of course Nigerians are familiar with the word ‘phantom’. It was very popular during the military era, when military officers could be executed or put in life jail over phantom coup. Interestingly, the man purported to have written the phantom letter was also an active participant in that era when ‘phantom’ became a household name in the country. I am talking about no other person than General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, better known as IBB. Some say he is a self-styled president; others yet call him ‘the evil genius’. The gap-toothed general was said to have dispatched a bombshell to President Goodluck Jonathan, on the worrisome state-of-the-nation, last week.

Coming barely a few months after former President Olusegun Obasanjo wrote a stinker to President Jonathan, one would have started wondering what the retired generals wanted. When Obasanjo wrote his own letter, they said he did because President Jonathan has sidelined him in the scheme of things. So, what would have been the motivation for IBB to write such a short but sharp letter to the President? Could it be that he too wants to be remembered for one favour or the other? But, just as I was wondering why the new service chiefs could not begin their assignment by taking their retired boss to task for writing a letter he is not supposed to write (or, put in official jargon, for inciting Nigerians against the hard-working government), the general denied ever writing such a letter.

General Babangida might not have known the import of his denial; but I put it to him that it has denied the media huge revenue. Imagine the headlines: IBB to Jonathan: do something now’; or even at simply ‘IBB writes Jonathan’, there would have been no unsold for many newspapers that day. As a matter of fact, till today, newspaper owners would still have been smiling to the banks while editors would be jubilating that they at least have a respite from sweating to get good stories to sell their papers. Honestly, this denial spoilt the day for some people. You may not get what I mean now; maybe you will when ‘the column that never was’ is eventually released.

Well, denial or no denial, the new National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Adamu Muazu met with IBB on Friday. If it was a coincidence, it must be an exceptional one indeed. Perhaps it pays to be an ‘evil genius’!

February 2, 2014
Talakawa in the richest country in the world: reflections on Obama’s State of the Union Speech 2014 (1)

Irinajo lawa yi o, ori gbe wa dele/Irinajo lawa yi o, ori gbe wa dele
[We are journeying far from home, fate, lead us safely home/We are in a foreign land, fate, see us safely home]

A traditional Yoruba song of travellers

Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A, in the grip of a winter that is one of the most severe in recent memory. It is bitterly cold. The cold is made even more bracing by the fact that I have just come back from home where I spent most of December 2013 and the first twenty-four days of January 2014. Moreover, January at home had been unseasonably warm for where one had expected the chastening but bearable cold of the harmattan, it had been day after day of too much heat, too much warmth. From that to this: from unseasonable warmth to excessive cold. As I walk to my first class of the new semester, I can feel the steely chill of the cold in my bones. But for the fact that I have to earn my keep and go and teach my class, I would have stayed indoors in my apartment ensconced within the comfort of its centrally heated warmth.

My first class of the new term goes very well. I am lucky to have students who are bright, eager and endlessly curious. The class is the first meeting of a course on the literary and cultural production of Africa’s diasporas in Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean. I tell the students that we will read the works of old and young, dead and living master novelists like Alejo Carpentier, Toni Morrison and Chimamanda Adichie and watch the films of classic filmmakers like Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Julie Dash and Euzhan Palcy. I tell them that the African presence in the world encountered through the artists and writers of the African diaspora is a field of imagination and accomplishment in the face of tragedy and trauma. I tell them through the works of these diasporic writers, artists and intellectuals, Africa is in the world and the world is in Africa. I tell them that the homeland that is Africa has extended itself into homes away from home in every continent, every region in the world. As I tell my students these things, one part of my mind is aware of the fact that the words are meant as much for me as for my young audience. You are away from home, I am telling myself, but home is not too far away.

For the two hours of the duration of the class, I completely forget the bitterness of the cold and my unquenchable longing for the home that I have just left in Nigeria with its climactic and human warmth. But as soon as the class is over and I am in my office dealing with my accumulated unanswered emails, the yearning for home comes back with the force of hurricane winds. It is only a little after 5 o’clock and it is already dark. Soon, I shall have to walk through the bitter cold to get to my apartment. And when I get there, I shall be alone. I have friends in Cambridge and my children and my partner are easily reachable by phone, so I am not exactly bereft of human company. But I have just left Oke-Bola, Ibadan and the Ogunbiyis in Victoria Island; Cambridge is and feels like a world apart from these homely places I have just left. With these thoughts, the words of the song that serves as the epigraph for this essay begin to buzz and resound in my head as if my head is an echo chamber. “Irinajo lawa yi o, ori gbe wa dele”.

After an early supper, I turn on the TV to watch the live broadcast of Obama’s State of the Union Speech for 2014. It is a masterful speech. Recent polls show that public opinion of Obama as president is at its lowest since 2008 when he assumed office as the most powerful politician in the world. It is perhaps on account of this dour fact that Obama put everything he could muster in the arts of oratory and rhetoric into this speech. Time after time in the slightly more than one hour that it took to deliver the speech, his audience rose to give him loud, cheering and prolonged ovation. And quite remarkably, in some instances, the ovation was joined by Obama’s arch-enemies, Tea Party Republicans.

Two of the three loudest and most prolonged ovations came when Obama asked for equal pay for women and men and when he declared that in the face of inaction from Congress, he was raising the minimum wage for contractors for federal patronage to 10 dollars and ten cents per hour by executive order. These two declarations were based on the central theme of the speech, this being inequality as marked by the growing chasm between the rich and the poor in the richest nation on the planet. Indeed, as I listened to Obama’s speech with its unrelenting emphasis on the tragedy and shame of great and widening circles of poverty in America, it was as if I was back at home in Nigeria. With a rude awakening near the end of Obama’s speech, I realised that the talakawa and the almajaris are also here in their tens of millions in the very heartland of global capitalism. I am far away from home; but I am not that far away because beneath the impressive, indeed stunning physical, infrastructural and material development of America, the fundamental social and existential crises and dilemmas are like the ones I am all too familiar with in my homeland.

Without going into details of comparative statistical data in which there are indeed great differences between America as the richest nation on the planet and Nigeria as one of the poorest countries in the world, I would nonetheless argue that there are indeed striking similarities in the incidence and experience of poverty in the two countries. First of all, there is the general, indeed almost universal feeling in both countries that not only is there a great gap between the haves and the have-nots but also that this gap is widening. Secondly, there is also the fact that in spite of the widening circles of poverty, wealth exists in great quantities in both countries: Nigeria is awash with petrodollars and petronaira; and of course, America is home to the almighty dollar, the currency of choice for exchange between the currencies of all the other countries and economies of the world. Thirdly, there is the fact that the burden of rising and deepening poverty in both countries is falling too much on the young, including the highly educated young. Fourthly, there is the widespread phenomenon of the working poor as a social and economic category distinct and separable from the jobless, non-working poor. Indeed, in Nigerian parlance, I would call the former the talakawa of America and the latter the almajaris of the U.S.A. Finally, there is the fact of the great and depressing complacency of the political class, of the ruling elites in the face of the deepening chasm between the few who are very rich and the teeming multitudes of the poor.

The Honourable Abike Dabiri-Erewa was present on the high table when I gave a public lecture at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos on July 13, 2013. On any index of ideological progressivism, Abike Dabiri-Erewa must be one of the most progressive and enlightened members of the Nigerian National Assembly. As one of the respondents to my lecture, she gave a short commentary in which she strongly identified with most of my observations and the observations of others at the lecture calling for social justice and equality of opportunities for Nigerians of all groups and classes. Then because in my lecture I had identified the jumbo salaries and allowances that members of our National Assembly are being paid from our national coffers as one of the leading structural causes of inequality and poverty in Nigeria, a large segment of the audience began to loudly demand that Honourable Dabiri-Erewa tell the audience exactly how much each “honourable” in Nigeria is paid. When she didn’t seem to be forthcoming, the loud demand became a chant, a din, a clamor for the truth. But to the end, she stood her ground and refused to divulge that closely guarded secret of our parliamentarians.

This whole essay is based on Obama’s 2014 State of the Union speech in which he not only spoke forcefully and eloquently on poverty and inequality in America but also identified their causes and probable remedies. This indicates a marked contrast with the scenario I have just described of the response of one of the most progressive and enlightened members of our National Assembly to the demand that she break ranks with the cult of secrecy that surrounds the legalised looting of our national coffers by our parliamentarians. In other words, Obama stands before a combined meeting of both houses of American lawmakers and speaks frankly and forcefully urging the lawmakers to join him in attacking the scourges of inequality and poverty thereby showing a stark difference with our own lawmakers in Nigeria. Given this fact, is it valid to talk of a complacency of political elites in both countries, the U.S.A. and Nigeria? Are the social and ethical landscapes surrounding the talakawa and the almajaris of America and Nigeria the same? My response to these questions is an unequivocal yes, in spite of the apparent differences. In next week’s concluding essay in the series, I shall start from this premise hoping to show that the inevitable great climactic differences should not obscure the common sources, the linkages between inequality and poverty in our world.

Biodun Jeyifo

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

February 2, 2014
For a violence -free election in Ekiti

Fayemi has more than demonstrated his preference for peace and I have heard him say on more than one occasion that any violence in the state is an embarrassment to his government

In making public his decision to heed the yearnings of every strata of the Ekiti citizenry both at home and abroad, Dr Kayode Fayemi, the organisation’s man that he is, waited until the release of the election’s timetable by the Independent National Electoral Commission to declare as follows: “Following the groundswell of support by leaders and members of our party as well as the generality of Ekiti people from all the nooks and crannies of Ekiti State and in the Diaspora, it is with a profound sense of gratitude and responsibility that I today accept the calls by our people to seek re-election for a second term in office. You have made the calls, and today I have opted to act in deference to those sacred calls by throwing my hat into the ring for a free and fair contestation for the exalted office for a second term.” And justifying his decision further, he said “Our people can faithfully testify that together the Collective Rescue Mission we promised at the outset of our first term in office has crystallised. Indeed our people can testify to how we have rescued Ekiti State from the years of locusts and returned our dear state to the path of respectability, stability and development. Our people can affirm that we have kept faith with the Roadmap to Ekiti Recovery – our 8-points agenda. Every stratum of Ekiti State can see our footprints on those key sectors we promised to touch. My readiness to heed your calls today is therefore a demonstration of our collective commitment to continue the good work we have begun.”

In confirmation of the above, I could not continue my: ‘FAYEMI’S QUIET REVOLUTION IN EKITI’ series beyond the governor’s second anniversary because enumerating his diverse, multi-sectoral and state-wide accomplishments – of which every city, town, village and community in the state benefited – will take nothing less than a whole book; not even a whole edition of this newspaper will be adequate.

It will be recalled that aside the endorsement by the leadership of the APC in the geo-political zone, as represented by Chief Bisi Akande, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Akinrogun Segun Osoba and Otunba Niyi Adebayo, various interest groups, including women, youth, artisans as well as leaders and members of the party in all the 16 local government areas of the state have endorsed and called on Governor Fayemi to seek re-election for a second term so as to continue the recovery and restoration work he had begun in the state.

In addition to promising a ‘focused and edifying’ campaign, and as has become the norm with him, he pleaded with his co-contestants to eschew violence and make the campaign issues-based. That it could be issues-based, however, is hardly possible since the opposition have nothing to show; not even the PDP whose seven years in charge have been dubbed the LOCUST YEARS, not to talk of parties without a scintilla of governorship experience. Apart from guaranteeing peace and security for all, a peaceful campaign would enable the good people of the state vote judiciously for the candidate who, in their collective wisdom, best aggregates their interests. This emphasis on security by the governor could never have come as a surprise, given that he is a security scholar and expert; one who has served severally as consultant to not only regional organisations, but also to Heads of State. He demonstrated his concern for security of life and property to an extent that for the first three years of his administration, Ekiti State ranked, indisputably, amongst the most secure and peaceful states in the country. Those three years, however, coincided with when some of our politicians have not received their Abuja briefs. The minute that happened, it became common place to have pockets of violence, especially whenever Honourable Opeyemi Bamidele came calling. The Hon member, formerly of the A C N, is now of the Labour party on whose ticket, it would appear, Abuja has pencilled him down as the candidate.

Following former President Obasanjo’s letter to the president in which the latter was excoriated for his penchant for preferring other party’s candidates, it would appear that Abuja has scaled down its scheme of wanting to see Hon Bamidele emerge governor to that of his being a mere spoiler.

This article is essentially a plea for a peaceful conduct of the campaigns and election as canvassed by Governor Fayemi. On his part, Fayemi has more than demonstrated his preference for peace and I have heard him say on more than one occasion that any violence in the state is an embarrassment to his government. Between 2007 and 2010 when he was going from one tribunal to another, and Ekiti people were hurting terribly from the feral rigging and the shambolic treatment Obasanjo put them through and when they were, indeed, ready to fight, this governor’s ringing plea was that victory for him was not worth the life of a single Ekiti. That was at a time he had no constitutional responsibility, sworn to at his installation, for guaranteeing the security of lives and property in the state. Viewed from that background, it is crystal clear Fayemi can neither order nor encourage violence.

One can, therefore, reasonably narrow down possible sources of insecurity to the PDP and the Labour Party.

Traditionally boisterous, in the certitude that they are above the law since Abuja will always protect them, the PDP could very well be a reasonable suspect. But truth be told, the party has been reasonably quiescent in the state as their aspirants go about their individual campaigns. This is, however, no clean bill of health for a party we know has a history of real crudity. And we do know that Labour is nothing other than PDP with a coincidence of interest.

This, unfortunately, cannot be said of the Labour Party. If morning shows the day, then the state may have to expect some considerable level of violence. In the first place, Hon Bamidele has a lot to prove to both Akure and Abuja. Presumably, Akure was driven initially more by the need to have associates in the Southwest with which to tantalise and con Abuja than to ascertain his claims of popularity. Hon Bamidele is my House Rep, but apart from the fact that he cannot win an election in the constituency, federal or state, I do not know a singe local government area where he can boast 30 percent support. There were obviously no due diligence checks on Hon Bamidele’s claims of state -wide support and it mattered nothing to Akure and Abuja that at no time, and at no party level, did he indicate his ambition to contest before he shipped out. If this is a lie, Hon Bamidele should please publish for Nigerians to see, a facsimile copy of such communication. For any serious person to claim he left a party because he was disallowed from pursuing his legitimate ambition in the party, there should, at least, be an expression of such intent to a recognised party organ.

Given, therefore, the fact that the honourable member’s umbilical cord is domiciled in a state with contiguity to the Niger Delta, it will not be unreasonable to suggest that Ekiti State may, unwillingly, play the unhappy host to Niger-Delta militants, serving and rehabilitated, since the 2015 interests of both coincide. For the sake of the good people of Ekiti, Hon Bamidele should endeavour to prove me a lie by fighting back any enticement in this respect. There isn’t a single reason why we cannot have a peaceful election in Ekiti especially if we refuse to assist the diabolical plans of those who traditionally love to make Ekiti a hunting ground for the PDP and have, in fact, promised to make ‘an example’ of our dear motherland while protecting theirs hundreds of kilometres away from the burning inferno. Unfortunately, Ekiti PDP members will look askance since, according to ex-chairman Tukur, one of the arrowheads is the one to whom every hungry PDP leader in the Southwest runs.

In the meantime, the good people of Ekiti can only pray for a violence-free election and hope that the Abuja power mongers will fear God and let our votes count.

February 2, 2014
Death by Self: punishable with damnation or what?

Have a hobby to be excited about: it’ll help you get out of bed in the morning

Let me pause a while to thank you all kindly for your continued reactions, by text and/or by calls, to many issues raised on this column. I specifically want to tender my apologies for not being able to take your calls because of lack of free time to do so and also because the injunction that accompanies this column-head has categorically specified SMS ONLY. This means no calls. Yet, many of us persist in calling. I thank you nevertheless. However, there is a call many of us should make to any listening relative or an appropriate body when the urge strikes: the call to say SOS – help me, please; I feel like killing myself. Killing oneself makes one liable before the law of God and man. Sentence: Death by Self Punishable with Damnation.

Perhaps, many people fail to make that call for the simple reason that they do not want to be dissuaded from their intention. This is why suicide is now said to be as many as tens of thousands per year in Nigeria and about a million in the world, claiming higher figures than wars and murder. The Nigerian figure is alarming. What has happened to our communal living style? That life-style used to be the cure-all for all our socio-psychological problems around here because everyone was indeed his/her brother’s keeper. It not only made every member of the larger family a prop for every other person, it also made everyone responsible for everyone else. In that life-style, if you didn’t have anything to eat, you went to the next hut. If you didn’t have enough clothes to wear, you went to the next hut. If you didn’t even have enough words in your mouth, why, you went to the next hut.

More importantly, if you felt your father was too harsh with his words, you did not point the dagger to your stomach. You just went right up the ladder and moved in with the oldest father in the compound. He would then read between the lines and have a quiet word with your father. He would tell him with one side of his mouth not to confuse his frustrations on the farm with instilling discipline in his son/daughter. Did you hear the joke about the young man who had an argument with his father? Well the long and short of it was that the father asked him to leave the house, and the young man refused because he said that was his father’s house and his father could go and claim his own father’s house if he wished, but he was going nowhere. I tell you, there’s nothing headier than the success of sonship.

And if your mother was headstrong and would not listen to you, you did not go on a one-way swim. You simply went shopping in the family: you picked another mother from the myriads flowing around the compound and moved in with her. I did that when I was young until I felt that my mother had sufficiently learnt her lesson. Then I went back home; although I think it was more because I had begun to miss her cooking after a while.

I quite believe that whoever wrote the adage that proclaims ‘If all else fails, eat’ is surely a genius. My dog believes that too, going by the way he pounces on his food. Indeed, when he sees his food approaching, one could get the impression that a drought was coming the next day. His eyes would light up, his nostrils would flare, his slumped shoulders would tauten, tail flipping both ways at once like the propellers of a helicopter (he’s the only dog I know that can do that), and his tongue, that infernal, red tongue would begin to do the flap dance – flipping in and out of his mouth and stretching itself to reach the plate as you are holding it. For him, nothing fails, yet he eats. So, why can’t we for whom everything sometimes fails?

I know, I know, many people are driven to suicide for economic reasons I hear, what with poverty and unemployment an’ all, so where will they get the food to eat? According to many suicide reports, inability to provide for the family has driven many a man to suicide. Another report says that a young man did away with his own life because he could not get a job five years after graduating. Now, that is just sad. No, not the unemployment thing (that’s bad enough, I know) but the dying for it thing. I know it’s nothing to laugh at but you know me: can you imagine stepping up to St. Peter and having to explain that unemployment killed one? That’s a bad excuse, people, bad excuse.

Worse of course is when substance abuse skews one’s senses so much one cannot see straight anymore; not to talk of relationship related problems, workplace related problems, etc. This column is not suggesting that these are not genuine problems. They are, considering they have led people to the point of suicide. However, they constitute no more than the challenges that help an individual to grow and mature. There are always solutions.

I also understand that some bad mental adjustment can drive one to take one’s life. Now, mental adjustments are funny things, aren’t they? At the risk of being labelled unserious, I must admit there is just no universalising them. Take the mental adjustment between the government and us or between a husband and a wife. While the government thinks the people are blind and stupid, the people think the government is crooked and corrupt. While most husbands insist that a house is no more than a place to lay one’s head and dump one’s belongings that are not being used at a particular time, most wives see the house as a piece of art to show and tell others. This is why many women have taken the gun to their husband’s heads for crimes such as walking on a mopped floor with muddy shoes or seeing the furniture as no more than the floor. In one family, a husband and his two sons got together and killed the wife/mother because she insisted that the men should be properly dressed and washed for dinner each day and strictly comply with the dinner hour. Of course, they went to jail for their skewed mental adjustments.

Truth is, mental adjustments are awkward things. They are fed by things we see, hear, think and experience. One never quite gets it right. Obviously, all husbands and all wives are quite skewed. In fact, anyone who is seeing life from the prism of the straight and narrow is very, very skewed. Conclusion? One needs a little bit of mental maladjustment to stay straight in order to have that little bit of madness necessary for sanity. Now, how is this supposed to help our suicide-inclined individual who thinks suicide is the only way out?

Everyone needs to learn that, just as there are many ways to skin a cat, there are many solutions to a problem. However, one cannot see these many other solutions without a healthy mental adjustment. In order to develop this, an individual needs to see things more positively. Having something to be excited about can help. It could be one’s job but it is preferable if it is a HOBBY. This will give the individual a good reason to get out of bed in the morning and aim for a good life. Having someone to share it with is even better but it should not be a condition, unless it’s a spiritual someone. Nevertheless, one should reach out to others if the urge to end it all comes, but please don’t choose SMS ONLY numbers. Get a close relative who cares.

February 2, 2014
2015: Bad omen all round

“The president’s new ministerial list is not a reflection of the managerial competence of the appointees, or of the short time left in the president’s tenure; it is a reflection of the idiosyncratic belligerence of the president himself, his evasive and deceptive patriotism, his intolerable lack of fidelity to truth and lofty ideals.”

Last week’s tit for tat between the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) is a reminder of the biblical story of the altercation between Israel’s King Ahab and the most prominent prophet of the day, Elijah. Responding to Ahab’s spectacular misrule, Elijah had decreed very harsh repercussions on the country, prompting the king to accuse the prophet of troubling Israel. But the prophet simply retorted that on the contrary, Israel was troubled by the king and his household. The outcome of the struggle between the king and the prophet is too well known to require any analysis. Ahab and his family later came to grief.

Comparisons, the English say, are odious. But on Thursday, after the APC gave what amounted to a political ultimatum to President Goodluck Jonathan over his government’s increasing and rampant resort to undemocratic, if not entirely fascist, methods, and the PDP had retorted that the APC was attempting to truncate democracy, it was hard to resist comparing contemporary Nigeria under Jonathan with ancient Israel under Ahab. President Jonathan may not have taken anyone’s vineyard in the direct sense of the word, but he has done much worse by undermining democratic rule in Rivers State, involving himself in oil wells controversy, usurping state powers in favour of the police, and giving the general and depressing impression his sole idea of the presidency is to act and fight in favour of his party, supporters and people. It is difficult to explain why he is not unsettled and deeply nauseated by the brazenness of his methods in Rivers and the openness of the state police commissioner’s partisanship.

The president’s wife, Dame Patience, ever so replete with testimonies of God’s goodness in her life, continually proclaims peace, love and national harmony. But she has been accused of being a puppeteer in the Rivers crisis, with direct links to the state’s commissioner of police, the recalcitrant and fawning Mbu Joseph Mbu. The first lady has done little to refute the allegations of undermining peace and good governance in Rivers State; instead, she has spoken cynically and condescendingly of contributing to the progress of her home state, and has undisguisedly nurtured a hostile attitude towards the elected leaders of that state. Indeed, she speaks peace, and has even christened herself the mother of peace. But she acts war and, in the background, fights it. It is likely that to the very end she will indulge in interminable battles, never retreating, never surrendering.

It is against this alarming background that the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the APC met in Abuja on Thursday to review the state of the nation, particularly the condition in which the misrule of the Jonathan presidency has diluted the country’s democratic experience and weakened its foundational principles. It was no longer realistic, they said, to tamely endure the battering and buffeting of the ruling party, in Rivers as well as elsewhere. It had become clear, the opposition party said, that both the president whose proselytising tendencies on social and political issues have turned dull and vacuous, and the PDP whose implacable resolve to demolish the tenets of federalism has become all too obvious, merely paid lip service to peace, institution building, economic development and federal principles.

Having made these observations, and having been convinced that the ruling party had no interest whatsoever in conducting peaceful and fair polls in 2015, the APC has decided on a more activist path in pursuing its political objectives. It would block passage of bills, particularly the budget bill, and oppose the confirmation of the president’s men, including the service chiefs. Though it is not exactly clear how it hopes to achieve these delicate and draconian aims, the opposition party is doubtless able to discomfit the PDP in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The PDP has begun to fight back dirtily, as this column guessed it would. And if it is taken into cognisance that the opposition APC is still battling with fractiousness in its ranks, not to talk of the inelegant structural and policy distractions promoted by some of its more obstreperous and domineering state leaders, it seems clear that the auguries are not good at all.

As the APC put it: “Following the forgoing and in view of the joint resolutions of the National Assembly on Rivers State, and other constitutional breaches by the Presidency, the APC hereby directs its members in the National Assembly, to block all legislative proposals, including the 2014 Budget and confirmation of all nominees to military and civilian positions to public offices until the rule of law and constitutionalism are restored in Rivers State in particular, and Nigeria in general.

The NEC of the APC has now resolved that if these acts of impunity and lawlessness continued unabated and the Police persist in being as an enforcement arm of the PDP to the detriment of our members, it will have no alternative but to ask our teeming members all over the country, and especially in Rivers State, to take whatever steps that are necessary to protect their lives and property.”

Unmindful of their party’s unhealthy contributions to the country’s lifelessness, PDP spokesmen have suggested that the APC’s plans to respond forcefully to the ruling party’s misrule were deliberate attempts to truncate democracy, create chaos and cripple the economy. As its wilfully misleading tactics in the National Assembly show, the PDP is expected to embrace the worst forms of realpolitik as the 2015 general elections draw near. The party has ignored the law and the constitution so far in Rivers State, and in the National Assembly, judiciary and in many other states; it will continue to do so eagerly, unconscionably and remorselessly. The secret service and the police have become indistinguishable from Aso Villa general office staff; the president will continue to run the two law enforcement agencies as if they are nothing but appendages of the ruling party.

Going by the ministerial list awaiting confirmation, and in view of the extreme conservatism and pro-Jonathan inclination of the Senate, the president seems to be reinforcing his ‘war cabinet.’ He has the legitimate right to appoint ministers who will be an asset to him, and who could swing votes in his direction, but the appalling reality is that most of the president’s appointees have the same malicious and malignant mindset as Nyesom Wike, the Rivers State-born Minister of State for Education. The president’s new ministerial list is not a reflection of the managerial competence of the appointees, or of the short time left in the president’s tenure; it is a reflection of the idiosyncratic belligerence of the president himself, his evasive and deceptive patriotism, his intolerable lack of fidelity to truth and lofty ideals.

If the APC were to be reluctant to respond in kind to the PDP’s damnable tactics, it could be smothered by the continuing misuse of presidential powers and the mischievous interpretation of the law and the constitution. Nevertheless, the greater burden is on the APC. Unlike the PDP, which has a fairly long and stable tradition upon which to swivel, balance and launch ferocious and overarching attacks, the APC is just starting to accrete its partisan powers, define who it is, locate its strengths as well as recognise its weaknesses, and mould itself into a united and disciplined fighting force. The opposition party, it is clear, is a child born in wartime. It will require perceptive, brilliant and selfless leaders to help it reach adulthood quickly in one piece, not to talk of acquire the strategies and manoeuvres necessary to outfox such an indomitable and relentless foe as the PDP.

In the coming months, the country will find itself trapped between the PDP’s fiery lack of moderation and distorted nationalism at one end, and the APC’s intrepid and fanatical desire to challenge the ruling party, pound for pound, shell for shell at the other end. It would be chimerical to expect the country to fare very well between the two powers, not when the PDP can count on unnumbered and soulless state officials eager to betray every noble cause, including the country, and the APC can count on its Young Turks frazzled by intraparty contentiousness and weaned on harakiri.

January 26, 2014