The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Iyabo Obasanjo scripts even more stridently

    Iyabo Obasanjo scripts even more stridently

    While Nigerians were still grappling with the damning and highly censorious content of Chief Obasanjo’s letter to President Jonathan, a letter that seemed to capture the mood of the country, especially in its dismissive characterisation of the president as dangerous, dishonourable and incompetent, the former president’s daughter, Iyabo, a Ph.D. holder, also wrote her own very damning letter to her father. In the letter published by the Vanguard newspaper last week, Dr Obasanjo described her father as manipulative and hypocritical. Though she stressed that the timing of the letter was not designed to benefit Dr Jonathan in his deathly struggle with Chief Obasanjo, nor meant to exculpate the president on account of the moral incompetence of his traducer, it was clear she timed it to wound and undermine her father most tellingly and at his most vulnerable moment.

    It is, however, doubtful whether Dr Obasanjo’s almost regicidal letter could lessen the impact of Chief Obasanjo’s fiery denunciation of the president. The country, it seems, has made up its mind to separate the content of Chief Obasanjo’s letter from his person, no matter how repulsive many commentators feel his character is. Everyone is used to Chief Obasanjo’s obnoxiousness, they say, and he can be very sanctimonious and foul-mouthed, but that does not in any way undermine the integrity of his observations about Dr Jonathan. It can, however, not be denied that Dr Obasanjo’s letter was timed to receive the most attention and inflict the most damage.

    I read the letter very closely, just as I read that of her father very closely. As the main piece above shows, I refuse to be swayed by the almost universal sentiment to separate the content of Chief Obasanjo’s letter from his person. But I also insist that while his person remains eternally offensive, the content of his letter, other than the few unsubstantiated allegations that require no comment, are germane and his conclusions about the person and competence of Dr Jonathan not misplaced at all. While it is also important to deflate Chief Obasanjo’s air of self-importance, I have argued in the main piece that it is also urgent to denounce Dr Jonathan and compel him, as democratically as possible, to forswear further interest in the presidency.

    Both from his letter to the president and his daughter’s letter, Chief Obasanjo comes out incomparably damaged, while his daughter surprisingly shows more sensibleness, passion, compassion and patience. Though her withering letter appears to lack propriety, and indeed even violates African culture, she comes out smelling of roses. It seems to me that the unusual letter offers the most definitive insight into the frenzied mind of Chief Obasanjo, blows up the blowsy delusions that have harried him since his youth, shows in bold relief the demons that tormented him in his public life, and explains why and how he failed so disastrously as president and head of state.

    Dr Obasanjo’s letter is even more definitive than its tone and content reveal. It is now clear that Chief Obasanjo’s family is sadly dysfunctional. Not only can the family not be put together again, it is hard to see any reconciliation taking place now or in the future. The injury is deep on all sides. And for a man who does not have too much time left to make any fundamental amends, nor demonstrates the capacity to appreciate the gravity of the crisis he faces at home, he seems destined to take the confusion and bitterness in his family to the grave. But he elected to live that way, and is, alas, fated to exit the same way.

  • Nigeria’s many managers

    Nigeria’s many managers

    Impatience of some Nigerians over the ASUU strike shows the incurable minimalist in us 

    Nigeria is blessed with managers, many managers. Indeed, she has a surfeit of them that she can even export to other nations that are not so blessed. The only issue is that such nations must be ready to look for solution to the problem associated with too many managers. Too many managers are like too many cooks: they spoil the broth. As a matter of fact, Nigeria is the way she is as a result of the problem of the too many managers.

    It is so serious that almost everyone in the country has perfected the art of ‘managing’, such that you start wondering whether companies need the services of managing directors. If you greet some people and ask them: ‘how are things’, they will simply tell you: ‘we are managing’. There are numerous other examples that space would not permit me to cite. Another common one is when the husband gives money for the family’s upkeep to the wife and she complains as women are won’t to do that it is not enough, he tells her to ‘manage’. Meanwhile, the same husband who is asking madam in the house to manage is busy spoiling the concubine/s with money.

    Sadly, this is the story of our dear country, Nigeria. We see and smell affluence all over the people who were asking the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to go and ‘manage’ at a point during their just ended strike. The same people who are adding to our yoke by raising tariffs on cars and rice are the same people buying bullet-proof cars for themselves at highly inflated costs. Yet, they say there is no money to fund education adequately. In other words, ASUU should go and ‘manage’. What a bundle of contradictions!

    This is my first piece since the ASUU members began their strike on July 1, and deliberately so. The strike ended on Tuesday. Indeed, inspiration for this write-up came from the discussion between a colleague of mine and one of the people who read his piece on the ASUU strike about three weeks ago. The reader had told my colleague that now that the Federal Government had offered the university teachers something, they should at least ‘go and manage’ that. Needless to say that my colleague was visibly angry. Indeed, every rational person who knows the value of education and who also knows that it is not that the government does not have the means to make the education sector better but is hampered by several leakages which bother essentially on corruption, should.

    Almost immediately, I remembered also the story of Major Adewale Ademoyega, who was detained after the Civil War. At a point, the food in the prison got exhausted or something, and when he approached the prison warder for what to eat, the warder told him to ‘manage’. The answer became so monotonous and meaningless to Ademoyega who got irritated at a point and told the warder that he was ready to ‘manage’ whatever was available, but at least there must be something on offer. But in a situation where nothing was available, ‘what would I manage’? The warder replied in the usual manner, ‘oga, just go and manage’! That was in the 1970s. The fact that some people were asking ASUU to ‘go and manage’ in the midst of plenty, and in this age, shows that many of us are incurable minimalists.

    When the lecturers began the strike, it was clear that it was going to be a long one. The issues could not be expected to be resolved immediately, given the antecedents. But hardly did anyone know that it would last for more than five months. But that was good because whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

    There must have been some hidden costs of the strike, no doubt, because when students who are supposed to be in school are not, and for so long, without being on holiday, anything could have happened. As the saying goes, ‘an idle hand is the Devil’s workshop’. Aside from these hidden costs, social and otherwise, we know that the strike led to the sack of the minister of education who was in charge when the strike started, as if she was the issue. Perhaps the greatest cost we know of is the death of that erudite scholar, Prof Festus Iyayi, who died on the way to Kano for a meeting related to the struggle.

    Sad as this was, we may be killing several other Iyayis silently if nothing is done to change the face of university education in Nigeria. A situation where some people, simply because they are politicians, would flaunt ill-gotten wealth and be living in the midst of plenty whereas universities are underfunded should not be allowed to continue forever. Otherwise, we would be inculcating the wrong values in our youths. So much money is being stolen in this country because many people are not asking for their rights. If every Nigerian keeps asking for what his due to him or her, politicians and their friends who are making the country bleed profusely would have little to steal.

    One may pity those who talk of ASUU ‘managing’ whatever the government has given it if only they belong to the new generation of Nigerians who were not privileged to know what some of our universities looked like years back, but not those who knew the citadels of learning when they were universities properly so-called. I recall with nostalgia, the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos where I had my first degree; how we used to see the glass windows and doors in the department ‘sweat’, as it were, from the effects of the ultra-cold air conditioners in the department. I recall the same of the law faculty in the university and a few other departments and faculties there, most of which are today a shadow of what they used to be. It was like that all over the place; and, instead of the government addressing the serious issue of infrastructural deficit on the campuses, it kept on establishing more glorified secondary schools that it calls universities.

    Shouldn’t we be bothered that we can only know when our children gain admission into the universities; we have no idea of when they will finish even though we know the duration of their programmes? Shouldn’t we be bothered that none of our universities is among the first 1,000 in the world? Shouldn’t we be bothered that we keep churning out graduates, many of them unemployable? Yet, people are talking of ‘managing’.

    Now, the same Federal Government that keeps saying there is no money has coughed up something. It may not solve all the problems; at least it is a good beginning. What it means is that if ASUU had not insisted on having it right, the N1.1trn that the government promised to commit to public universities over a five-year period might have ended up in some private pockets or spent on white elephant projects. Your guess is as good as mine, especially with general elections only one year away. People must learn to insist on having their dues. It is when they don’t that some people in government see the money they should have spent for our collective good as free funds that they can steal or spend anyhow. As we jocularly say in my place, ‘ko s’obo mo ni Idanre’ (there are no more fools in Idanre); the last fool there, when last I checked, was using an exotic jeep.

    It is gratifying that ASUU, unlike Major Ademoyega, finally got something to ‘manage’. The union has fought a good fight; its members should however manage what they got well.

  • Conscience is incorruptible and its judgement eternal

    The only tangible manner I ease my mind of tension is to write and scribble down thoughts as they come.

    Injustice stinks and no one wants it heaped on himself or herself which makes those who selfishly supplant justice with injustice/falsehood worse than raw sewage and therefore not worthy of their being, irrespective of what social status they had attained.

    However, thanks to goodness, all humans, irrespective of the unworthiness as humans few have attained, are endowed with Conscience.

    Conscience is the spirit of God alive in every human. At death, it departs the body; which then makes a dead body a conscienceless entity.

    Death is a coward; a faceless coward devoid of any physical substance, though it possesses a dreaded saddening effect, and more horrifyingly it is never cowed.

    Though, a coward, it has dominion over all creations of God who invariably must fall prey to its ambush. Ogochukwu became a victim of that cowardly ambush on 16th October, 2013.

    Conscience is akin to death in some respect, though unlike death is never ‘silent’, and is not a coward. It boldly talks all the time but just to the individual in whom it resides. Conscience is a persistent tormentor, but lacks the attribute of death to ultimately accomplish its mission/objective.

    Conscience is of God while “will power” is human. A being has control over his/her will but not of his/her conscience.

    God gave us “will power” to manage and utilize as we deem appropriate but in His goodness He graciously instilled within each and every human the spirit of caution – conscience to moderate our humanness. A being has control and the ability to manipulate his/her “will power” but not his/her conscience – the will of God in him.

    Unfortunately, human considers it fun when he thinks he has tamed, domesticated and subjected his conscience to the whims and caprices of his “will power”. However, a good and decent person, even within our human perspective, is one whose “will” operates reasonably in tandem with his conscience.

    Everyday of our lives, we are on trial, each person’s conscience, acting as the accuser, prosecutor and score keeper. Conscience is divine, incorruptible and heavenly as it is aware of both our inner, and outward acts and intents. We are dead and worthless the instant the Spirit of God – Conscience departs our corruptible body!

    At death, our final judgement is equally instant, as conscience at its departure instantaneously collates our pluses and minuses.

    At Island Maternity Hospital, Victoria Island, Lagos, where my angel, Ogochukwumelum gave up the ghost in the afternoon of 16th October 2013, one of the senior doctors that attended to her – while in the process of breaking the “Nsugbe Coconut” – the letting out of unpleasant information, expressed disgust at the negligence and lack of professionalism that did my daughter in, at the hospital that brought her to them. And dutifully insisted on an autopsy, which I then imagined was to assist the medical profession checkmate the growing and alarming lack of professionalism, impunity and ‘I don-care’ disposition currently soiling the nation’s health care delivery system.

    It later, after the fact, dawned on me that his insistence was to fulfil State Government’s required righteousness that an autopsy must be carried out when death results within 48 hours after admission. The intent of that requirement is definitely noble, but the phenomenon currently known as “Nigerian factor” makes nonsense of all things noble.

    I write this with streams of tears running down both cheeks simply because I very much believe that the possibility existed that Ogo would still have been around doing her Ogo things only if some humans she unfortunately surrendered her destiny to had behaved, and acted conscientiously – the way and manner God meant for them to act and behalf.

    I mourn, and in ever flowing tears not simply because I lost a daughter but because of the way, manner and circumstances that lost manifested. The grief is that it could still happen to someone else, as undoubtedly it had happened to countless Nigerians before October 16, 2013.

    My heart ache because I believe very strongly that Ogo died an avoidable death.

    Why was my daughter from whom the Doctor had earlier that evening removed two bundles of fibroid mass physically bundled at about 2am, not in an ambulance but in the doctor’s private car, dripping blood like a sacrificial offering from County Hospital in Ogba not to any of the hospitals in Ikeja – the State Capital where Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and many other notable hospitals are located but to Lagos Island Maternity Hospital, several kilometres away? Why?

    Please can anyone of my country men and women console me with an answer? Is it possible that the doctor has a god-father or a protector who reigns supreme at Lagos Island Maternity Hospital?

    The answer, Nigeria, is blowing as usual in the wind. But our all knowing Father definitely knows. Incidentally the content of the ‘Nsugbe Coconut’ also revealed that my daughter made it to Island Maternity with 6% blood content, while her womb was filled to the brim with free blood. Probably a good percentage of the over 10 pints of blood administered to her during, and post operation ended up in her womb cavity. It also revealed that her internal organs notably her kidneys were messed up; all in the course of removing fibroids.

    I am bleeding with grief and disappointment but I can’t tell where all that blood is draining into, probably into my chest cavity.

    Ogo, my darling, you are not Christ, though a committed believer, I am sure that the blood that they made you freely let out would touch a good number of hearts. That alone would mean it was not let out in vain, but probably for a cause.

    At this point in time, my mind is relatively at peace. I have forgiven and the tears will soon dry up but my memory, sorrow and disappointment may never end. So God please help!

    Nigeria, our dear country, needs to be born again and be the country it was meant to be, where truth and justice are not just mere rhetoric but shall ever reign supreme.

     

    Dr Chizea, a structural engineer and writer, lives in Lagos.

  • Obasanjo as Jonathan’s nemesis: moral ambiguity and cynicism in lieu of genuine reform

    Obasanjo as Jonathan’s nemesis: moral ambiguity and cynicism in lieu of genuine reform

    Farewell Remorse! All Good to me is lost; Evil be thou my Good!
    Satan, in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book 4

    First a confession: it was not Milton’s Satan in Book 4 of Paradise Lost that first came to my mind after I had read, word by word, sentence by sentence, the entirety of Obasanjo’s recent explosive letter to Goodluck Jonathan; it was Tartuffe, the eponymous protagonist of Moliere’s classic play of that title, Tartuffe. Long before this latest salvo of raging moral fireworks from Obasanjo to Jonathan, I had always thought of OBJ as the ultimate embodiment of “Tartuffian” super-hypocritical moral unctuousness in contemporary Nigerian, African and world politics. For those who have not read Moliere’s play, Tartuffe is a holy, pious man who secretly craves all the things that he preaches relentlessly against – until he is finally tricked into exposing his true self and the fires of passion and desire that he masks under his unctuous moral sternness. But even after he is completely exposed, to the end Tartuffe clings to his holy mien, his mask of unwavering piety. The moral of this parable of gargantuan Tartuffian hypocrisy? Nothing, absolutely nothing that you do – or can do – will ever shame the Tartuffes of this life, this world into owning up to their moral weaknesses and venal foibles. This is Obasanjo, ineluctably and quintessentially the Grand Tartuffe of this day and age.

    As many commentators have remarked, with the exception of one or two important things that I will briefly engage later in this piece, Obasanjo is guilty, ten times guilty, of many of the extreme moral lapses and dire political failures that he pointed out and berated in Jonathan. Corruption around the presidency stinking to the high heavens? Didn’t Atiku Abubakar, in his very bitter quarrel with Obasanjo that was waged on the pages of the nation’s daily newspapers in 2006 reveal how wide, deep and unconscionable the corruption in Obasanjo’s presidency was? Being a man of honour and trustworthiness in not staying in office beyond your allotted and foresworn time? Didn’t Obasanjo nearly empty out the national treasury in bribes to members of the National Assembly and other ‘politicos’ in the so-called “Third Term” bid to unconstitutionally and immorally perpetuate himself in office? Turning the ruling party, the PDP, into an immoral and cynical instrument of the President and his selfish and self-centered wishes and desires at the risk of wrecking the ship of state and the polity? Isn’t this what Obasanjo did and perfected after he had removed Audu Ogbeh as the Party Chairman of the PDP? And in spite of all these things, hasn’t Obasanjo, in and out of office, regularly taken it upon himself to lecture the nation and the African continent on political morality and legal and constitutional probity? Hasn’t he gone round many African nations as an election monitor after he and Maurice Iwu had conducted the two worst election rigging debacles in Nigerian political history? Let us not mince words here, compatriots: Obasanjo is Tartuffe in an ersatz, modern-day Nigerian political incarnation!

    All the same, compatriots, it was not Moliere’s Tartuffe but Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost that first came to my mind when I read Obasanjo’s letter to Jonathan and confronted the sheer enormity of his charges against the sitting President. I must explain here that Milton’s Satan is of course not the Satan of contemporary Nigerian Pentecostal demonology, an endlessly evil avatar without a shred of awareness of the good that he had once experienced and lived as God’s beloved lieutenant in Heaven. This Satan of the brotherhood and sisterhood of Nigerian Pentecostal prayer warriors is without any moral ambiguity, any contradictions of spirit and Being; therefore, he is absolutely outside the realm of the human, the ordinary, the familiar. By contrast, Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost has known goodness; and he has never lost sight of the fact that he had been on the right hand side of God, right beside that incandescent and omniscient rectitude. Indeed, he retains a keen knowledge of that earlier state. This is why, in that ironic inversion that is perhaps the most widely quoted passage from Milton’s Paradise Lost – Evil, be thou my Good – Satan is still measuring himself and his projects in a discourse of the good. This makes him very human and incidentally, as virtually all Milton scholars have said again and again, the most engaging of all the characters in Milton’s classic epic poem on good and evil.

    This is the kind of very human, very ordinary “Satan” that has occupied Aso Rock Villa since 1999. The stench of superabundant evil in every known form coming from the Villa has been overwhelming and correspondingly, life has been a veritable hell on earth for the vast majority of our peoples in every part of the land. But it is not a demon but a very ordinary person who has been in charge of the miasmic rot and decay. That is what first came to my mind after I had finished reading Obasanjo’s epic letter to Jonathan: Evil, be thou my Good! All the three occupants of that highest of the high in the throne of political power and prestige in our country have been very religious-minded men, and with great ostentation too! First Obasanjo, then Yar’ Adua and now Jonathan, they never ceased talking about God, goodness, prayerfulness, even as the impunity of their moral cynicism grew into a bottomless bog threatening to drown the whole nation. On the evidence provided in Obasanjo’s letter to Jonathan, we are now at the very brink of that bottomless moral sinkhole. In other words, Jonathan has carried the project of “evil, be thou my good” to its ultimate limit beyond which lies the specter of national catastrophe.

    Earlier in this discussion, I drew attention to some charges that Obasanjo makes against Jonathan that separates the present incumbent of Aso Rock Villa from the other two previous occupants of the highest office in the land since 1999. Two of these are worthy of our special attention. First is an extreme and indeed extremist clannishness and divisiveness that no Nigerian ruler has ever either openly promoted or condoned in his supporters and henchmen. I think no one but the hardiest of Jonathan’s supporters will dispute the veracity of this charge. Secondly and far more concretely and specifically, Obasanjo has charged Jonathan with a project, a plan allegedly already being executed, to train about a thousand hit men or killers to go after those whose names have already been compiled in a watch list, this in preparation for or the run-up to the 2015 elections. Is this a frivolous and baseless charge? That is the question, compatriots.

    In the unspoken and perhaps unspeakable undercurrents of Obasanjo’s letter to Jonathan, I find the traumatizing anxieties of a very frightened man. His supporters will think and assert that the fear is for Nigeria, for what may happen to our country after Jonathan might have carried his policies and plans to their logical and practical conclusion. There seems to be a small iota of truth in this view of OBJ’s letter. But the real fear, the bracingly traumatizing anxiety that I see in the undercurrents of the letter is located elsewhere and this is in Obasanjo’s complete conflation of the historic fate of PDP, whatever that might be, with the fate of Nigeria, as if what may or will happen to the ruling party will also happen to the country.

    Before our very eyes, the PDP is imploding and doing so relentlessly. Now, Obasanjo has every reason to be fearful of the breakup, the end of the PDP which, as he sees it, Jonathan is haplessly and foolishly doing everything that he can to bring to its grand, ruinous finale. But as to whether the implosion, the breakup of the PDP will also spell unmitigated disaster for Nigeria, this is a moot point, not an inevitable conclusion. For me, it is remarkable that in a long, rambling letter that cried out against terribly evil things that are wrong in the Presidency and the ruling party, there is not a single suggestion, or a train of thought on how to deep, meaningful reform in our country’s elite politics. For instance, Obasanjo never even remotely addresses the all-important question of why the ruling party is so prone to complete subordination to the will, the whims and caprices of whoever it is that occupies the seat of power at Aso Rock, so much so that even as the President’s actions and policies are destroying the Party, nothing in the institutional, collective life of the Party can save it from the madness and folly of the President. And to be completely frank, I winced in enjoyment, not in pain, as I read again and again in Obasanjo’s letter to Jonathan his whinnying, helpless plea to Jonathan, as the ONLY person who has the power, to save the PDP from a looming, self-destructive implosion. Who among us had ever imagined that we could see Obasanjo as a whinny, whimpering supplicant to a political operator that he himself helped to create!

    I was treated, once again, to the self-righteous ranting of a Tartuffe in OBJ’s letter to Jonathan. But we have cause to be deeply worried. As the payer warriors like to remind us tirelessly, Satan is alive and doing his best to wreck millions of lives in our land. But it not the Satan that they conjure up to strike fear and terror in the gullible that we must worry about. It is Milton’s Satan with his chilling mantra that we have every cause to be deeply worried about: Evil, be thou my Good! For this “Satan” may be far more numerous in the PDP than in any other party, but his incarnation exists aplenty in the other political parties too. We must not be complacent about what it will take to bring about genuine moral and institutional reform in elite politics in our country.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • I didn’t like the way the turkey looked at me; but, in the Spirit of the Season, I’m now ready to forgive

    ‘Tis the season of love and forgiveness, so I have decided not to seek revenge against PHCN (dead or alive), Okada riders, taxi drivers or GSM providers

    As the year wore on and the yuletide season approached, I found myself doing a mental reconnoitre of some of my relatives’ and friends’ houses, particularly those whom I knew kept a chicken coop or two. Visiting a particular one, I found a coop with chickens old and big enough for the pot, to my mind, but since they were clucking freely around in complete defiance of all logic and knowledge, I refrained from educating them on the approaching season, or of their rights for that matter. So, I simply marked one down for a ‘due date’. Turning, I espied some turkeys quietly observing me. I returned the regard but I saw that they looked at me with something closely resembling malice. I really did not like that look. However, I did not let that stop me from marking one of them for another ‘due date’, look or no look. It’s Christmas after all, the season to love and forgive all.

    Honestly, if it were not for the season, there are many corporate bodies and institutions and manufacturers and people that I had determined not to ever forgive; well, until the critical hour at least. You know that hour, don’t you? Since I like to think that that hour is still a long way off, I was quite prepared to carry my grievances like a cross, was I not? I don’t know about you, but lately, I have found myself going around with a permanent scowl till my brows are literally meeting at the centre of my face. The reason is simple; there are so many problems and annoyances and more annoyances that accost me daily in this country till I feel I am either targeted or I am the only one really alive and the rest of you are just figments of my imagination. Just listen to my list and see if you can sympathise enough to offer me your own yuletide chicken.

    Let’s look at our GSM providers and the way they have been relating with me lately. I have found that anytime I reload my phone with what I regard as a whopping lot of cash and I do not quickly sign up for one or other of their infernal ‘packages’, I quickly lose all of my money. Honestly, I never knew it was possible to get robbed via one’s phone until I joined the group. Seriously, I am holding the phone, looking at it and I am getting robbed! And the world expects me to be placidly forgiving? No sir, someone’s got to pay `cause I didn’t even want to own a phone in the first place! Actually, the story of how I came to own a phone is for another day.

    And have you noticed how enticing all new phones look when you are just purchasing them? They all look so beautiful at the point of purchase that it never occurs to you to ask what their faults are. How can anything looking so fine have any fault, you think? So no, it never occurs to you, until you start to use them. Then, one after the other, the faults begin to pop out like rabbits from a hat. Your newly purchased beauty is either discharging all its power as soon as you start your conversation or else dying out on you at the most critical point of the conversation when you are about to be told who did it. Don’t ask me what, I don’t know either; the blessed battery has gone dead. Or else, it is erasing names from its storage, or even blanking out all together!

    Then there are the Nigerian institutions. Throughout this year, I can count on my fingers the number of watts or even slivers of light I received from the electricity company. When the company was very busy not giving me light, it decided to blow what few equipment I had in the house. Well done, sirs; but I assure you the elephant has a long memory. Then there is the water corporation that did not give me a drop of water but was kind enough to distribute hefty bills. That kindness will also not be forgotten, even if you are.

    I don’t know what our unnecessarily segmented Nigerian security arms are doing on the roads, but one thing I know, they are not keeping us secure. There are still unaccompanied learner-drivers endangering theirs and everyone else’s lives on the roads; there are still women and men drivers who perpetually and ignorantly place children in the front seats of cars while driving as if they were on the highway to hell; there are still Okada riders who pick up fares consisting of pregnant women with children on their backs and in their arms and you ask what are they holding onto for support… and the list goes on. But what are your road-security outfits doing? They are holding me up to seize my own two-week only expired papers; they are catching me talking on the phone in a stalled traffic and making me part with some money… Right now, I am all fist and fury I assure you.

    Now, I am sure you will agree that your taxi and Okada transport services are anything but services. They are two different institutions against which you cannot win any argument, except in a law court. Sure, occasionally, I find myself in a taxi but that happens when all else has failed. For me to take an Okada ride is right now not on the cards. I took it only once in a city that offered no other type of public transport and I think both the rider and myself came away from the experience vowing never again: he would never take me again, and I would never ride on it again. Perhaps that was why one of them removed the rear guard of my car one night in retaliation. Now, you understand my grievance.

    My list can go on and on, but what’s the use; it only makes me grumpier and grumpier. To lessen the scowl, I resolved sometime last week to liven up my life by purchasing one item or the other. You know that kind of comfort purchase; you don’t really need it but you sort of hope that it would bring that miracle of healing. I know, I know, one could try being kind to others by giving out rather than purchasing an unneeded item. I’m talking about after wards now. As I was saying, there I had packed my car neatly, even if I did say so myself, only to come back from my purchase and find it had been crashed into by a taxi driver. Believe me, if I was sure I would get Jonathan’s amnesty, I might have tried my hands at murder. Since I knew Jonathan had his own hands full dealing with Obj.’s letters to Aso Rock, and my application for amnesty might not reach his eyes before the yuletide, I refrained myself.

    More importantly, ‘tis the season of love and forgiveness, so I have decided not to seek revenge against my tormentors. Instead, I have decided to give them all a general amnesty. This means I quite forgive PHCN (dead or alive), water corporation, road maintenance company, etc. I will also forgive my dog for not barking, Okada riders and taxi drivers for aiming at my bumpers, GSM providers for making off with my money in broad day light, and the turkey for looking at me maliciously. That way, maybe, I can frustrate them into doing some good for others and spreading the cheer around. Have a very cheery and merry Christmas!

  • Is PDP dead or dying?

    Is PDP dead or dying?

    PDP has no redeeming feature

    It will be a self-fulfilling prophecy; one that has long been expected, if the PDP does not come out of its current stupor alive. Without a scintilla of doubt, the party has been many times lucky because in decent societies, any party like it would long have become history. Nothing proves the veracity of its cluelessness more than the combination of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent, self- serving, 18- page letter to the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, and the legislative tsunami which hit the party when 37 of its members in the House of Representatives decamped to the rival All Progressives Congress, effectively putting the government party in opposition in that hallowed chamber. The move, according to the legislators was as a result of the division in the party, consequent upon the formation of the new PDP, the decampment of five governors from the ruling party and, in tandem with the provisions of the constitution. I described Obasanjo’s letter to President Jonathan as self- serving because it is nothing more than the result of frustrations arising from his seeming inability to install a third Nigerian president in the person of the Jigawa state governor, Sule Lamido

    The letter, bristling with rampant denunciations and allegations of, albeit undeniable, massive corruption, ineptitude and crass cronyism against the Jonathan government, could hardly have been improved upon by the opposition the way it hammered both Jonathan, and his government. Obasanjo was so unsparing, he had no qualms in alleging that the country may very soon go back to the murderous days of the goggled one and to bring this poignantly home to Nigerians, a smart Obasanjo posited a causal relationship between it, and the allegedly arranged discharge of Abacha’s former Chief Security Officer in a case of being an accessory to the assassination of Kudirat, wife of Chief M K O Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the historic June 12, 1993 election, adding that Mustapha was escorted back to his native North like a rock star.

    For its un-redeemable woes on Nigeria, PDP’s death, long heralded, will be completely unsung as Nigeria would be much better without that monster, which its members forever deceive themselves describing as the largest party in Africa, clustering our political space. Under the PDP, elections in Nigeria became a ‘do or die’ affair, worse than any in any other part of the world, security of life and property became a chimera as full scale insurgency war erupted in its North-Eastern part, oil thefts increased exponentially in spite of the many sweet heart, multi-billion naira contracts to ex-militants, at least one of who had since established a university in a neighbouring country; ministers became untouchable champions of corruption just as Mr President increasingly became an ethnic jingoist with his rehabilitated Ijaw militants pouring invectives on distinguished Nigerians, at will, and unchecked.

    Jon Campbell, a Senior Research Fellow at the American Council on Foreign Relations and Former Ambassador to Nigeria, wrote recently in his new book Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink that popular alienation and a fragmented establishment have contributed to Nigeria becoming one of the most violent countries in the world. –No thanks to the PDP, and in particular, its first President turned letter writer, Olusegun Obasanjo. PDP had, from the very beginning, been nothing but a curse on the developmental trajectory of the Nigerian state as it governed essentially through indescribable corruption which became highly accentuated by its rentier philosophy of government. For instance, one of its top chieftains, indeed a former Chairman of the party, whose son was fingered in the oil subsidy scam in an agency of government which he chaired, has since been gifted another high ranking appointment thus demonstrating the amoral nature of both party and government.

    Under the PDP, flawed elections in 2003, 2007, and 2011 completely undermined government’s credibility and further aggravated Nigeria’s conflicts: social, political and economic such that today, not just Boko Haram, kidnappers, armed robbers but pirates operating in its territorial waters have all combined to ensure that’ the federal government has failed to provide basic security for its citizens as well as lost its monopoly on violence, two basic attributes of a sovereign state.”

    Thus, a country that ordinarily should have been the lodestar of the African continent, facilitating continent –wide stability, fostering economic cooperation and leading the way in tackling Africa’s key health challenges, has itself become one of the continent’s most urgent challenges as PDP has landed it squarely on the edge of state failure.

    But history teaches us that PDP will not like to die alone. Indeed, its leaders would rather wish that the entire country collapses with it. This is the clear and present danger the dying party presents each and every Nigerian, nay the entire world since the international community, as in other flashpoint areas, may have to pay a steep price for Nigerian state failure, and its consequent humanitarian calamity

    Indeed, a comatose PDP will become lethal, and will do just about anything to rig the elections coming up in Ekiti and Osun states, since the dying party would like to pretend it is alive. This is why Nigerians have to be alive to the antics of not just the federal government, the PDP and its colony of client-parties like Labour, APGA, Accord and SDP, but in particular, the inappropriately named INEC, which recently showed its bloodied hands again in the Anambra governorship election. Even where you could still vouch for Prof Jega’s personal integrity, I have no doubt whatever that he has since been swallowed up by the humongous agency and has thereby lost control of its thousands of mostly temporary staff who could therefore do as they please at elections. This is the more reason why, to forestall the machinations of the PDP, especially in the South West, where it had long been dispatched to political Siberia, we must, with a fine tooth comb, peruse the voters’ register which INEC traditionally helps to sex up, padding it with hundreds of thousands of fictitious names.

    PDP has, since 1999, been the dominant political party in Nigeria. Its failure therefore to emerge outside the cretinism of its respective leaders has had tremendous disadvantages for Nigeria. Since political parties are critical to democratic sustainability, the overall poverty of the PDP, either in its corporate form, or seen from the perspective of its self-seeking leaders, has meant that it has been a great minus for Nigeria. Though it may seem an exaggeration, PDP in my view, has no redeeming feature as everything Nigerians love to admire, adore and celebrate have been completely bastardised.

    I have no doubt that the decampment of about 22 senators from it to the APC; will be the icing on the cake as it will serve as the final nail on the coffin the octopoidal, but effete, PDP.

  • Biological coup for King Lear

    Some fathers do have ‘em indeed. It does appear as if William Shakespeare, the great bard of Stratford on Avon, has decided to spend Christmas in Nigeria. And while we are still on the subject of fathers and their daughters, it is meet to report that there are fathers and there are fathers just as there are daughters and there are daughters. All this tatalosque verbiage can be reduced to a neat mathematical formula of elegant severity: like father like daughter.

    Put in another way, a mamba cannot father a mouse. The genetic prison is the most implacable incarceration camp for humanity. We inherit most of our character traits. Until astute genetic engineering removes unwholesome traits from individuals at source, many will be stuck with the unpalatable manifestations of remote ancestry.

    As Euripides, the great Greek playwright, has noted: call no man lucky until the moment he has taken his luck to the grave. Or as the Yoruba will put it, nothing on earth can make unfair privileges and unearned distinctions survive for long. No matter how long it takes for the Egungun season to end, the children of its chief priest will eventually join other plebeian children in the queue to buy akara.

    There seems to be terminal trouble in the house of old King Lear. Remember the half-crazed Shakespearean king who put his family and entire kingdom in acute jeopardy by his own foolhardiness? Old tricks often boomerang when new kids appear on the block. The current trouble was started by the old king himself. Despite the bullying and blustering, many had long suspected him to be of a politically unsound mind. Drunk with habitual delusion of grandeur, he had made a bold move on the political chessboard to disown and politically castrate his own anointed political son and successor. The gambit worked very well. All hell was let loose. To flee was not an option, but to fight is an equally dangerous proposition since the old king knows where all the bodies are buried and the weaponry too.

    But help came dramatically from an unexpected source. Aided by dangerous proximity, it was at this point that the favourite daughter, obviously bitter and resentful, chose to lob a grenade into the palace. Greater hell has been let loose. The old king was pinned down by massive sniper fire, while the other people search for a final solution. Now, is this pure political coincidence, or some chilling revenge plot that bears all the hallmark of the old devil himself? Like the old past master, and obviously with equally vindictive relish, the younger one seems to have chosen the moment, time and place with the exacting precision of a vengeance-contorted soul. Destiny doesn’t get more genetically determined.

    Out of the dark and sinister plots of private revenge coinciding with public vengeance may yet come the noble seeds of national emancipation. This is one of the brutal paradoxes of human history. It may be too late in the day to save the new king. The Woods of Great Birnam may have already appeared on the barren fringes of Dunsinane. Snooper is not a soothsayer, but peeping into the political horoscope, it seems that this time around, the old king himself may not escape lightly. Whatever its portents for the nation, a classic biological coup appears to be unfolding in the Palace of Pauper Patriots.

  • A season of self-fulfilling prophecies?

    A season of self-fulfilling prophecies?

    For anyone in the presidency or out of it to shout treason because a political party has called for invocation of a provision in the constitution is worrisome

    Robert Merton in his book,Social Theory and Social Structure, defines self-fulfilling prophecy as a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself. Our country has been experiencing in the last few days an avalanche of self-fulfilling prophecies that should worry citizens with sensitivity to anything that is likely to threaten democracy.

    One such negative depiction of a situation with the danger of turning into a reality is the fear expressed this week by the Chairman of INEC that there may be no election in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa in 2015 as a result of the security challenges in the three states. He said to members of the National Assembly that should the emergency still be in place by the time of the 2015 election, which his commission plans for February, his commission will not be able to organize election in the three states.

    Some are likely to see this announcement as a sign of good planning ahead by INEC and an illustration of a good leader anticipating (or even predicting) developments that can help or hinder his programme. In this respect, INEC is trying to ensure that there are no surprises, should this happen. Such announcement is a good warning to the government that does not want to call a sectional election a national to do everything possible to bring the insurgency in the three states to an end before the current emergency regulation expires.Jega’s logic is clear: Should violence continue in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe, it will be foolhardy to call people out to vote or to put electoral workers in harm’s way on account of holding elections to fulfill one part of the electoral act and of the constitution.

    But the implications of not holding election in three of 36 states to choose a president for the 36 states are important enough for legal and constitutional lawyers to start worrying about. Non-lawyers have started asking questions that indicate they are worried about having election in 33 states to choose a president that is to rule 36 states. Citizens have started thinking aloud: What is the implication of choosing a candidate who is unable to win 25% of votes cast in two-thirdsof 36 states? Does this mean that there will be an emergency modification of the electoral act to base two-thirds of 36 states on 33 states? What happens if a few months later INEC feels safe to hold election in the three states and the voting in these states changes the overall result of the election that will have already put a candidate in place as president? Will holding election in the three states after choosing a president on the basis of 33 states not amount to engineering a bandwagon effect to favour the sitting president elected on the basis of 33 states? Will the three states be disenfranchised until 2019 once they are not able to participate in the voting in 2015? Is the partial emergency in states that are still being run by elected officials and that are even preparing for local government elections to hold in 2014 similar to the states being at war and are thus too dangerous for citizens who still go to mosques and churches to be givenmaxium security protection while voting?There are many more questions that have come from regular readers of this column that cannot be included in this piece because of space constraint.

    As simple as these questions are, they are pointing at factors that can bring more political problems to a country and an electoral commission that were not able to organize a credible election in Anambra that is not under any emergency. People who were prevented from voting in Anambra at the right time and parties that felt cheated or rigged out are more likely than not to see serious danger in the proposal that election may not hold in three states in 2015. The good thing about Jega’s discussion with legislators is that it can serve as an indirect call on the federal government to ensure that no section of the country is treated in 2015 as if it is already excised from Nigeria. According to President Jonathan, emergency regulation came into force in the three states because that section had already started feeling and acting as if it was no longer part of Nigeria. Not holding election in the three states is to give the impression that Nigeria can go forward without them. In other words, the challenge for the federal government is to bring the Boko Haram terrorism to an end within the period of the ongoing emergency. Otherwise, we may be running the risk of having a situation in which a negative view of something becomes part of the character of that thing over time, and, in the process, act in a way to suggest that the three states are no longer part of Nigeria.

    Calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it appears to be part of the season’s negative characterizations. Members of the country’s other major party, the APC, are already being accused of treason for calling on members of the National Assembly to commence a process to impeach President Jonathan. Impeachment is in a presidential system similar to calling for a vote of no confidence in the prime minister in a parliamentary system. Both are part of the checking and balancing devices built into democratic system of government to make treasonable acts by any group—military or civilian unnecessary. Impeachment process is to further strengthen the democratic process, by ensuring that those who have reasons to believe that the president or prime minister is not doing the right thing would not have any reason to engage in an illegal action to save the system from such leaders. Those who call for impeachment do not always have to be right; they also do not always get their way. But the right to call for impeachment is unassailable in a proper democracy.

    For example, attempts were made to impeach President Bill Clinton during his presidency but those who called for and initiated the process lost out, because majority of the legislators did not believe that President Clinton had done anything impeachable. However, invoking this principle helped to further reinforce the presidential system as it made those for and against impeachment happy that the system had been allowed to take its course. Those who wanted Clinton impeached had their say while those who believed that Clinton had not committed any impeachable offence had their way during the voting, and Clinton’s rating even soared after that. It was a win-win situation for democracy.

    For anyone in the presidency or out of it to shout treason because a political party has called for invocation of a provision in the constitution is worrisome. It gives the impression that there are people in the country’s post-military democracy that still harbor the imagination of military dictators. Democracy presupposes the existence of ruling and non-ruling or opposition parties. Opposition parties are allowed in all democracies to convince voters that they had made the wrong choice by putting the incumbent in power, when such parties have reasons to so believe. Opposition parties also have the right to invoke any section of the constitution that they believe can be used to improve governance or jolt the ruling party into consciousness. Equating calls for impeachment process with treasonable act is tantamount to calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it. Our democracy is not likely to develop if members of the ruling group do not want other parties in contest for votes and power to do their own job: ensuring that the ruling party does not take citizens for granted in its policies and performance.

  • Mandela, leadership and Nigeria

    Mandela, leadership and Nigeria

    When Winston Churchill died in 1965, some 112 world leaders or their representatives from around the globe attended his funeral. When Charles de Gaulle died in 1969, and in spite of leaving instruction his burial should be a private ceremony, some 63 leaders brushed aside his request to honour him. By universal acclaim, Nelson Mandela was one of the world’s greatest leaders. About 100 world leaders were at his memorial service last Tuesday. The announcements of their deaths were as equally prosaic and memorable as the great number of dignitaries that attended their burials. Queen Elizabeth II described Sir Winston in the following words: “The whole world is the poorer by the loss of his many-sided genius while the survival of this country and the sister nations of the Commonwealth, in the face of the greatest danger that has ever threatened them, will be a perpetual memorial to his leadership, his vision, and his indomitable courage.” The then prime minister, Harold Wilson, was even more vigorous: “Sir Winston will be mourned all over the world by all who owe so much to him. He is now at peace after a life in which he created history and which will be remembered as long as history is read.”

    But nothing exceeds French President Georges Pompidou’s description of De Gaulle’s death in succinctness and brevity. “General de Gaulle is dead. France is a widow.” And while President Jacob Zuma was also apt on Mandela, saying, “Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father,” perhaps the most memorable would be the US President Barack Obama’s pithy though hardly original tribute to Mandela. “He belongs to the ages,” said the US president. Both in the offer of tributes and the delivery of tributes at the memorial service itself, few could have matched Mr Obama, who by his mere appearance, which the crowd at the stadium looked forward to, and his oratory, simply shone like a gem.

    By universal acclaim, Mr Mandela was one of the world’s greatest leaders. As gleaned from the tributes to the great icon, he showed the way to peace, unity, forgiveness and reconciliation in a world riven by wars and hatred. In the words of Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, “Nelson Mandela was more than one of the greatest leaders of our time. He was one of our greatest teachers. He taught by example, he sacrificed so much, and was willing to give up everything for freedom, equality and justice. His compassion stands out most.” Mr Obama ended his tribute to Mandela last Tuesday asserting that “We will never see his likes again.”

    Most commentators agree on the qualities that made Mr Mandela to number among the greatest world leaders. They are not wrong. Having stayed in prison for 27 years and refused to compromise on the ideals he lived for and was prepared to die for, as he said during the 1964 Rivonia Trial, and having saved his country from disintegration and reconciled them and moulded them into one of the world’s leading multicultural societies, his greatness appeared complete and unquestionable. While I think his greatness indeed encompassed these facts and many more, as declared by many world leaders, I believe there are other more pertinent reasons for his greatness.

    The most elementary proof that shows that Mr Mandela numbers among the world’s greatest leaders is provided, not by the tributes of world leaders, but by former President Richard Nixon’s observations in his book, Leaders. According to him, “When the curtain goes down on a play, members of the audience file out of the theatre and go home to resume their normal lives. When the curtain comes down on a leader’s career, the very lives of the audience have been changed, and the course of history may have been profoundly altered.” No one doubts that because of Mr Mandela, the lives of his people have been changed and South African history has been altered perhaps for ever. Indeed, every analyst and historian agrees on this. However, I want to focus on three unusual and overlooked factors that explain Mr Mandela’s greatness, for all the fine things said about him merely indicate other deeper, more profound things lying within him.

    First, Mr Mandela, like any other great leader, was specifically equipped for leadership by forces beyond himself, and with a healthy measure of attributes that conduce to great leadership which neither he nor anyone else could fully explain. Thabo Mbeki, Mr Mandela’s successor, is firm, brilliant and blessed with administrative acumen, but he lacks Mandela’s judgement, instinctive love for people bordering on populism, and what some writers have described as the intuitive iconoclasm a liberator needs to challenge the authorities of his day irrespective of the threat to his own life, future and well-being. Mandela had it in abundance, and so did Martin Luther, George Washington, and several others. We can identify these unusual qualities when great leaders exhibit them; but we are unable to account for why one leader has it and another does not. To suggest these attributes are simply idiosyncratic is to beg the question.

    The lofty principles displayed by Mr Mandela, his strength of character, his almost unerring judgement, his implacable will, and his supreme inner confidence are evident. But how did he get to that point? I once suggested in this place that the books a great leader reads might trigger some of these attributes, but even this explanation does not fully account for the presence of leadership attributes in a person. Nor is Shakespeare of any help in Twelfth Night when he said that “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.” In fact, for a leader to be listed among great leaders, he must not only be born with it, he must work (achieve) for it, and then circumstances must conspire to make (thrust upon) him great.

    One of Mr Mandela’s daughters recently made an oblique reference to the second factor accounting for a leader’s greatness. A leader must either cultivate aloofness or be naturally detached from people and circumstances around him, even seeming to be cruel. Makaziwe Mandela, the icon’s oldest surviving child once told the press she was not sure that their father loved them, a feeling she said was shared by the children. According to Dr Makiziwe, politics had fully taken their father’s time, and his letters to them, even while he was in prison, were cold and distant. Even the considerably uxorious letters to Winnie appeared in retrospect to be a means of escape from the harshness and drudgery of prison life.

    De Gaulle was not a romantic, but he showed emotions for his handicapped daughter, Anne who had Down syndrome. Churchill put politics first before his wife, Clementine, but was fond of his children only as a reaction to his own father’s indifference to him. Suleiman the Magnificent thought nothing of the wholesale murder of most of his children to pave way for his successor, Selim II, in 1556, and Stalin, apart from his well-known cruelty to millions of Russians, virtually exterminated his relatives, not to talk of the harsh treatment he meted out to his wives and children. Napoleon virtually abjured the tender things of life, notwithstanding his clumsy on and off relationship with the unfaithful Josephine, his long-term wife and mistress, and Julius Caesar was almost cursory in the way he threw out his wife Pompeia for her indiscrete, not adulterous, relationship with a young patrician, Publius Clodius Pulcher, gifting us the expression “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.” Space will not permit mention of Lincoln whom many parents accused of being insensitive to the slaughter of thousands of their children who served as soldiers during the American civil war. Or of Alexander the Great (356 BC – 323 BC) and Genghis Khan (1162-1227) who pushed their armies to the limit in their quest for glory and amid unexampled human slaughter. Or of Peter the Great (1672-1725) who, as I once indicated here, tortured his son, Alexis, to death for plotting his overthrow.

    But whether detachment or aloofness, these great world leaders brought the two attributes to the service of either empire building or statecraft, or both. Mr Mandela sometimes reflected on his own aloofness, wondering guiltily whether he was not to blame for the troubles and deprivations his wife and children endured. But it was clear his family life was sacrificed for the higher good of liberating South Africa from apartheid. His sacrifices came full circle when he surrendered completely to the struggle, when he declared his preparedness to die, when he gave up his family and attendant pleasures, when he gave up power in 1999 after judging it was the right thing to do, and when he even gave up his own black people in their unstated quest for either some form of revenge or at least some form of reckoning, preferring instead, reconciliation and the establishment of a multicultural society.

    The third reason for Mandela’s greatness must be the historical conjuncture President Nixon wrote about in one of his books. No matter how brilliant and equipped a leader is, the time and place must be right to propel him to great heights. In short, history must conspire in his favour by producing the local and international circumstances to make the liberator or agitator a great man. What if Mr Mandela had been killed a few years into his incarceration? What if his white jailors had behaved with the lack of humaneness Nigerian jailors are accustomed to? Not only would Mr Mandela be dead and stone dead, South Africa itself might probably never have the chance to enjoy the peace and reconciliation only a Mandela could have nurtured after the collapse of apartheid. A leader must meet his moment; not too soon, lest he falter and even fail, or too late, lest he succumb to discouragement or even die unfulfilled. Circumstances met Mr Mandela, and they kept him alive until he fulfilled his destiny. According to President Nixon, there was hardly a great leader he knew who did not have that inscrutable expectation which they called by various names. Some called it luck, others called it hope, and yet others called it destiny. Whatever name it is called, it plays a crucial role in both the emergence of a leader and his promotion into the pantheon of greats.

    It was perhaps the acute awareness of this fact that made President Obama, who by much study understands the essential elements of greatness and power, to conclude that we would never see the likes of Mandela again. Mr Obama knows there is little a leader can do to furnish the conditions under which his greatness would manifest. Lincoln did not create the conditions necessary for the American civil war. But he met it with character, courage and great principles, and anchored all three on a deep and unyielding philosophical conviction about human dignity. Imagine for a moment that Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup of Eighteenth Brumaire in 1799 had failed; imagine if General Hindenburg had had Adolf Hitler shot after the latter’s Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 failed; imagine if Churchill had been killed when he was being captured in 1899 during the Boer War. And would the world have had an Augustus Caesar had his great-uncle Julius Caesar not been assassinated in 44 BC, or, since he was sickly, had he succumbed to the illness that plagued him as a youth before he wormed his way into power?

    If President Goodluck Jonathan understood some of these things, he would not have spoken the way he did during last Sunday’s memorial service organised in honour of Mr Mandela, nor would he rule with the spectacular incompetence former President Olusegun Obasanjo has alleged against him. Gen Ibrahim Babangida could of course not be a Mandela, but he stood on the threshold of honour and history in 1993, and failed the test. The sanctimonious Chief Obasanjo had the best opportunity next to Mandela to be an African legend, but he was unfortunately too unknowing to understand what history was telling him in a still small voice during his boisterous eight years as president. See, also, what great chance Gen Yakubu Gowon fluffed in 1973 when he abandoned his transition to civil rule programme. We must acknowledge that once a leader does not have the qualities of greatness in him, in full or half measure, he cannot even begin to climb to the mountaintop, let alone see the Promised Land, or imagine how to get there.

    It is futile to preach to Dr Jonathan the principles and practice of leadership. He does not have it in him; for these things are innate in a leader. More, they are sublime and indefinable values that grate on the nerves and senses of a leader irritated by his own constant misapprehensions. There was nothing anybody could do to discipline or caution Chief Obasanjo as he frittered away the great chance history threw upon his undeserving laps; and there was nothing anyone could have done to make Generals Gowon and Babangida see the future beyond their fateful actions of 1973 and 1993 respectively.

    Once a great leader comes along in Nigeria, Nigerians will know. And they will see in the stars and in the signs of the age indisputable proof. When that happens, they will not fear he would misfire and make irredeemable mistakes, for though he is human, he would have the intellect, intuition and judgement to do what is right at grave moments. When he comes, he will beat the swords of our ethnic and sectarian disagreements into ploughshares of development, and the spears of political mediocrity into pruning hooks of democracy, peace and good governance. He will also cause the arithmetical madness in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) to cease, and the constitutional folly exemplified by the police in Rivers State to come to end. And from Abuja shall come forth the law to govern the people and make crooked places straight.

  • Mandela: And the world stood still

    Mandela: And the world stood still

    Mandela was the leveller as we all became one huge humanity, under God

    ‘Born during World War I, far from the corridors of power, a boy raised herding cattle and tutored by elders of his Thembu tribe – Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator of the 20th century. Like Gandhi, he would lead a resistance movement – a movement that at its start held little prospect of success. Like King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed, and the moral necessity of racial justice. He would endure a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev, and reached the final days of the Cold War. Emerging from prison, without force of arms, he would – like Lincoln – hold his country together when it threatened to break apart. Like America’s founding fathers, he would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations – a commitment to democracy and rule of law ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to step down from power.’ That was President Barak Obama, who, himself made history as America’s first-ever black President, about another man of history; indeed, unarguably one of the greatest men of history, the inimitable Nelson Mandela.

    But President Obama did not stop there in his kaleidoscopic description of Mandela. Going further, he said: ‘It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection – because he could be so full of good humour, even mischief, despite the heavy burdens he carried – that we loved him so. He was not a bust made of marble; he was a man of flesh and blood – a son and husband, a father and a friend. That is why we learned so much from him; that is why we can learn from him still. For nothing he achieved was inevitable. In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness; persistence and faith. He tells us what’s possible not just in the pages of dusty history books, but in our own lives as well.’

    How one hopes the world, especially its leaders, political, who rule the world, and the economic, either those in control of the stupendously rich North or those minding the beggarly South in its death throes, would truly learn from this quintessential human being that ‘we are all bound together in ways that can be invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.’

    If only they will know, that, in the end, deprivations, even wars, will settle nothing.

    While he laid there comatose in hospital those countless months, and members of his family quarrelled, even publicly, the world almost forgot. But here, indeed, was a man who had already become a saint while here on earth, one whose very passing, even the heavens will acknowledge as it opened up during those final hours; a sign that one truly great, passed through the African portals.

    And has the world been literally on a positive binge?

    From all corners of the earth, a hundred serving and former Heads of State, and still counting, it has been elegies, eulogies and testaments galore. The world rose up in one like never before; totally unmindful of statuses. Mandela was the leveller as we all became one huge humanity, under God.

    When shall the world see the like again?

    Mandela’s entire history, from his minor royalty background, to his education and activism, his imprisonment and stay in power as his country’s president, not to forget ‘the Mandela Option’ many a Head of state would rather instigate a civil war than emulate; Mandela’s total persona is a continuing study in how best to live life in the service of another. But he did not teach lessons only by his actions; he left behind words and worries, enough to torment Africa, especially Nigeria, for a whole century after his translation. In this respect, none of his admonitions would ever rank higher than his following message to Nigerians, excerpted from a 2007 interview granted Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed as recently published by saharareporters:

    “YOU know I am not very happy with Nigeria. I have made that very clear on many occasions. Yes, Nigeria stood by us more than any nation, but you let yourselves down, and Africa and the black race very badly. Your leaders have no respect for their people. They believe that their personal interests are the interests of the people. They take people’s resources and turn it into personal wealth. There is a level of poverty in Nigeria that should be unacceptable. I cannot understand why Nigerians are not more angry than they are.

    “What do young Nigerians think about your leaders and their country and Africa? Do you teach them history? Do you have lessons on how your past leaders stood by us and gave us large amounts of money? You know I hear from Angolans and Mozambicans and Zimbabweans how your people opened their hearts and their homes to them. I was in prison then, but we know how your leaders punished western companies who supported Apartheid.

    “What about the corruption and the crimes? Your elections are like wars. Now we hear that you cannot be president in Nigeria unless you are Muslim or Christian. Some people tell me your country may break up. Please don’t let it happen.

    “Let me tell you what I think you need to do. You should encourage leaders to emerge who will not confuse public office with sources of making personal wealth. Corrupt people do not make good leaders. Then you have to spend a lot of your resources for education.

    “Educate children of the poor, so that they can get out of poverty. Poverty does not breed confidence. Only confident people can bring changes. Poor, uneducated people can also bring change, but it will be hijacked by the educated and the wealthy…give young Nigerians good education. Teach them the value of hard work and sacrifice, and discourage them from crimes which are destroying your image as a good people.”

    There can hardly be a better way of concluding this article than with the following tribute to Mandela by Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Governor of Ekiti State: ‘The passing of Nelson Mandela after his prolonged hospitalisation should not be a cause for sadness on any account. We extend our deepest sympathies to his family and offer our prayers for them and for the people of South Africa. But we also recognise that his passing at the ripe old age of 95 is a fitting crown to the rich full life that Madiba lived, playing a starring role in what is surely the 20th century’s most compelling odyssey of human freedom from tyranny. Rather than mourning, Mandela’s transition into glory should be an occasion for celebration and reflection. Firstly, we celebrate the final consummation of a life well spent. The phrase “a life well spent” which is commonly used in obituaries has become an overworked cliché but in the case of Madiba it is not. Rather, it is more than worthily applied to describe a man who expended his energies in the service of humanity, risking everything, his life inclusive, to actualise the ideal of freedom. It is this exemplary life that we have much cause to celebrate.’

    Even, as we revel in the honour and blessing of having lived to witness the life and times of one of history’s most iconic political figures, we must also ponder his luminous legacy. His death closes an epic story of the triumph of the human spirit over injustice and tyranny.