The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Royal Rugby in Rivers

    Royal Rugby in Rivers

    God bless Patrick White, wherever the old contrarian chose to relocate to after his earthly sojourn. It was the great Australian novelist and 1973 Nobel laureate in Literature who once famously described rugby as a game of thugs writhing in mud. It was an unfriendly dig at the English Upper Class. Rugby, with its echoes of manliness and muscular menace, its refined violence and Public School pabulum, is a game very dear to the English upper crust. Unlike football, you can take rugby out of England but you cannot take the Englishness out of rugby.

    There is rugby and there is rugby. It appears that the old Australian curmudgeon spoke too soon. He should have watched the royal mud show in Rivers, Nigeria. Something new always comes out of Africa. Perhaps due to the peculiar prehistoric configuration and wiring of the Blackman’s brains, it is easy to convert tragedy to comedy. In a life marked by unremitting adversity and misfortune, laughter is the best medicine and superior political therapy. The alternative is sure suicide This is why after spiritual mountebanks, professional comedians and other comic clowns are among the highest paid Nigerians.

    Hip, hip, hurray! Welcome dear readers to the land of hippos and hipsters. It is called Hippotamia. It is a muddy swamp teeming with manatees, mermaids, mangrove mongoose, mammy waters, ocean going marsupials and other more menacing amphibious mammals. Here when thugs writhe in mud, they are engaged in political rugby which is a game more deadly and dangerous than the original. You can take the wrestling away from the mud wrestler but you cannot take away the mud. And when mud is thrown real hard, some of it is bound to stick.

    In political rugby, the rule of engagement is that there is no rule of engagement and the golden mean is that there should be no golden mean. It is a free for all affray in which no weapon is too sacred or too profane to be pressed info urgent battle. The end will justify the mean. A legislative mace here, an official canister there to register the official presence of the cooperative and officiating police. If the law cannot be enforced, lawlessness must be enforced, leaving in the trail of anarchy broken limbs, bludgeoned heads and the inevitable overseas treatment.

    It is a mystery as to why this murderous mud wrangling commands the attention of the stellar literati. Perhaps there is a muckraker in all of us. Like Patrick White, his illustrious predecessor, Wole Soyinka, the 1986 Nobel laureate, has also waded into the muddy eddy. It will be recalled that the Nobel laureate authored a play titled The Swamp Dwellers. From the vintage muddy observatory, Soyinka has now noted with characteristic caustic candour that you can take a hippopotamus out of the mud but you cannot take the mud out of the hippopotamus. It was a Soyinkaesque display of wit at its most lapidary and lacerating.

    But if the Nobel laureate thought that he had all the rugby ring to himself, he must be profoundly mistaken. There was a huge mud slide and the swamp dwellers rose in fury as if stung by a swamp scorpion. Even the hippotame—or hippodame—weighed in with characteristic robustness. Not one to take a direct shot lying low, the mother of all mermaids was overheard saying: “Yeye Yoruba man with him wuruwuru wig. If him get oblokos make him come near me with him yeye grammar. I go piss for him mouth.”

    This was just a preliminary skirmish before the main tournament. The prize for perjury goes to internet mudslingers and other habitués of what Soyinka himself may describe as the murky madrassa of cybercreeps. Surveying the muddy melee from a safe distance snooper captured one of the alliterate writhers on Sahara asking Soyinka to go back to school to complete his PhD if he must talk. Now, now, now, asking a Nobel laureate in literature for his PhD is like asking Albert Einstein to go and fix his dodgy mathematics before he could pronounce. This is swamp-speak at its most glorious. It could get nastier.

    All of which must tell us that it is a dangerous river to cross in Rivers State. The crisis in that state and its nuclear fallout are the most potent threat to the democratic process that we have seen so far. If care is not taken the entire process may slide down the muddy swamp. It is very curious that the crisis is unfurling in the presidential backyard, so to speak. Will a man set fire to his own backyard just to secure a political advantage? Jonathan must urgently review his strategy for remaining in office beyond 2015. It does not seem to be working for now.

    To be sure, the ethnicization of presidential struggle is not a novel phenomenon in Nigeria. It is a symptom of a deeper and more fundamental malaise: the zero sum politics and winner takes all mindset of our political elite. It is a reflection of the fact that in Nigeria, power is sought not for national development but for primitive accumulation. This is the classic disease of a retarded political class. But as William Inge noted, a man can build for himself a throne of bayonets, whether he will be able to sit on it is another matter. Social cannibalism always leads to the real thing.

    Although Jonathan is not the original brand owner, it should be noted that it is under his watch that the ethnicization of presidential politics has assumed its most dangerous and nation-threatening form. To be fair, this is partly due to the peculiar circumstances of his political ascendancy. He was the president from nowhere. Even the most riotous and raucous of his Ijaw hegemonists ought to have been taken by surprise at what seemed a divine and miraculous intervention in our body politic. What we have today is a siege mentality among Jonathan’s ethnic promoters. For a hitherto minority group to insist on hanging on to the presidency at all cost without the evidence of sterling performance or even elementary competence is going to be a bridge too far.

    Politics is still a game of numbers. Having secured a pan-Nigerian mandate which was fraught and tense as it was revealing of the polarization of the country along regional, religious and economic lines, Jonathan ought to have commenced a process of national healing that would have led to a solid national consensus. It is only in this atmosphere that national transformation can thrive and blossom. But the past three years have seen Mr President at his most polarizing and divisive best. Even his original enablers have fled, ominously watching from the sidelines which way the mud slide will go.

    In three years, Jonathan has succeeded in alienating critical and crucial stakeholders. The dominant tendencies in the two major hegemonic blocs appear to have distanced themselves from him, leaving him with his core ethnic supporters and the traditional carrion feeders from the east. A situation in which four northern governors would visit the presidential backyard only to be stoned and mobbed bespeaks a gathering political hysteria which does not bode well for democracy. Let us not tempt fate.

    Now let us get this very clear. All this would not have mattered were Jonathan to be in the process of constructing a novel and revolutionary society which involves the smashing of old altars and political shrines. But Jonathan is anything but a revolutionary. He is a traditional politician relying on traditional wheeling and dealing. Yet elementary political common sense ought to have told him that you cannot alienate vital and significant interest groups in a nation and hope to reign or rule in peace.

    Jonathan should take a historic cue. The august rumblings and ominous quietude from Nigeria’s traditional centres of power should tell their own story. This past week, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the military henchman who birthed the Fourth Republic, rumbled from his Minna summit. The normally sedate and temperate Abubakar does not speak often or out of turn. But he noted tersely that the Royal Rugby in Rivers State is the gravest threat so far to democracy and the survival of the Fourth Republic. He must know what we don’t know. Even in Hippotamia too much frozen mud can lead to hypothermia.

  • Okon ambushes General Alabi Isama

    To the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and its commodious Hall for the launch of General Godwin Alabi Isama’s much heralded war memoir with the inevitable Okon Francis Okon in tow. Never in living memory has this iconic hall been filled to this bursting capacity. The huge crowd spilled to the adjoining terrain with men and women of timber and caliber crouching to get a look in. Alabi Isama is a crowd puller any day. The boyishly affable and amazingly well-preserved former warlord has the rogue charms of a brilliant salesman. The clarity of his exposition was matched by the veracity of overwhelming details. The elephant has a long memory indeed.

    It was the day the dominated discourse of the civil war finally overtook the dominant narrative, leaving in its trail besmirched reputations and exploded myths of suspect heroism . A lie can travel for twenty years but it takes the truth only a few minutes to overtake it. In the end, perhaps nothing can match Brigadier Hillary Njoku’s description of the Nigerian civil war as a tragedy without heroes. Akinrinade, one of its most cerebral and measured products, has put it down to the fact that the civil war solved nothing and resolved little.

    Like bicentennial egunguns, many of the old warriors of yore graced the occasion. Now shorn of power and prestige, there was something quaint and antique about these war veterans. Yet they evinced the aura of nobility and true professionalism. Officers and gentlemen, these aging soldiers represented the finest breed of the old Nigerian military caste. In the brave new world of recent coup mongers, they all looked like magnificent anachronisms.

    As soon as we reached the premises, it was clear that Okon was going to constitute himself into a nuisance and security menace. The mad boy had already begun mumbling some disjointed and clearly seditious nonsense. Snooper felt a chill down the spine as he whipped the boy into line with a severe frown. But as soon as we entered the hall, the crazy boy broke loose and began his customary hell raising.

    “And wey dem Black Scorpion sef, abi na all dem Yoruba dane gun hunters dem take me come meet?” the mad boy yelled.

    “Okon, they will shoot you here like a rat and nothing will happen,” snooper screamed at the mad boy.

    “Oga nobody fit shoot Okon. We no dey dem military rule again,” the mad boy retorted.

    “Okay we’ll see,” snooper rumbled ominously. But the crazy boy refused to be intimidated.

    “And wey dem baba and him gbetugbetu, abi dat one be shakabula soldier sef?” Okon began. “And wey all dem Efik generals, abi dem Yoruba and Fulani people don throw tire for dem like dem kaput General Dan Achibong again?”

    “Okon, another word from you and I will hand you over to the police” snooper growled at the mad boy. This seemed to have quietened him down a bit. But only for the moment. Okon’s eyes suddenly lighted on a sternly serene and sedate General TY Danjuma as he began officiating. “Kai kai, ogbologbo soldier” himself, Okon moaned. Then the devil took possession of the mad boy.

    “Danjuma,” he suddenly called out to the great warrior with the severe frown. “Wey dem Bianca, abi no be him marry dem fine fine Ibo girl sef? He be like if dem dey call dat one Ikenga of Nnewi and him don kaput” Okon noted with a malignant smirk.

    It was at this point that a security operative walked up to us with a worried look.

    “Who is this man?” he asked snooper.

    “Ha, Okon was batman to General Alabi during the war” snooper submitted. But the mad boy immediately put his heavy boot in. “Abi if I no be batman who dey catch bat for am no be lizard and man flesh him dey chop for Obubra?”

    “I see,” the security man said with quiet glee and walked away. It was at this point that snooper decided to apply the final solution by offering the crazy boy some sleeping tablets disguised as trebor mints. He immediately fell into a heavy slumber snoring like ten bandits put together. But when the august and royal looking Brigadier Daramola was asked to come to the microphone, Okon rumbled.

    Ha Baba rere, I beg greet dem Olu and dem Funso for me. I sabi dem for Kaduna when man be vulcaniser for Ngwar Rimi,” the crazy boy intoned. By the time the widow of the heroic Colonel Etuk was narrating her tale of woes and the husband’s lapse into terminal depression and death, Okon was back on his feet.

    “You see why we say dis na yeye country? Efik man good for war but him no good for oyel block, abi?” Then he would lapse into Efik, condoling and consoling the relic of the war hero.” Ein, ein, eyen ekami, eyen eka mi”

    It was time to leave and it has been a great and good day for General Alabi Isama. Snooper had accosted the old war hero to find out where the cocktail was holding. Long accustomed to military camouflage and deception, the wily one pointed in a direction which suggested that he was deliberately and strategically wrong footing the milling lubbers and social lunchers. But Okon caught the drift.

    “Alabi!” the mad boy called out to the vanishing general with disarming familiarity. “Which kind cock dey get tail? Abi dat one na dem Ilorin abami cock? Go tell dat to dem American marines”. Even the American marines would be proud of Alabi Isama’s war exploits.

  • Post-mortem of a trial: Racism lives

    Post-mortem of a trial: Racism lives

    We walk blindly, moving forward into the past

    This is my second column about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. The case is the stuff of drama. In short order, a movie will come of it. Zimmerman will write a book and shall be the temporary saint of the White conservative lecture circuit before slipping into a paranoid, forced anonymity. What will not happen is Travyon’s family seeing him again, except for the image he left in the corridors of their memories or the photographs they keep.

    However, I haven’t returned to this matter because of the individual trauma involved. I hold to this case because of its wider social and political consequences.

    Racism lives. This means the Black race remains endangered although not sufficiently alert to the trouble at hand. The trouble is not that of extermination or physical slavery as centuries ago. The danger is that of a sense of crippling inferiority. This sense is perceived and acted on but no longer formally acknowledged by either side of the racial divide characterizing Black people’s historic relationship with mostly White America and Western Europe.

    Because of the power differential that has existed for half a millennium, the two races view each other differently. To put it mildly, Blacks generally respect Whites but that respect is not reciprocated in equal portion. Each race stereotypes the other. The stereotypes Blacks hold of Whites are, to a large degree, authored by Whites. Therefore, the stereotypes are generally positive. Even the few negative biases amount to critiques that Whites have taken to the extreme what otherwise would be a virtue. Thus, the spirit of exploration becomes one of aggression, conquest, and colonialism. The belief in the primacy of science and technology to improve our material wellbeing becomes unbridled. It turns into the malpractice of distorting our environment and endangering our wellbeing through the very technologic and economic processes once touted as harbingers of a benign future. Any trouble with Whites it is not because they are bad but sometimes they are too much of a good thing.

    Stereotypes affixed to the Black race trend in the opposite direction. While Whites may overload on a fine thing, Blacks are characterized by multiple depravity. Our affluence lies in our nothingness. Almost every dysfunctional, criminal attribute known to man is viewed as our quiddity. While Whites are presumed the best, we are adjudged the worst even before evidence is adduced.

    Intellectually, most people know theses stereotypes are minatory and inaccurate. However, psychology often trumps intellect. After quickly acknowledging the mistakes of this line of thought, people turn back to the wrong ideas in order to embrace them. They find it is easier to live within the comfortable bounds of wrongful convention than to live outside of comfort yet be right.

    The trial of George Zimmerman must be viewed through this perspective if it is to be viewed with perception. Zimmerman is White and Martin was Black. The former killed the latter under questionable circumstances. In America, the clash of White and Black is rarely coincidental. It is a function of a history of racial animus and of the stereotypes that animus has brewed over generations.

    However, the prosecutors, the defense team, and the jury — all of whom were White — all claimed the case had nothing to do with race. While these people may have been in the courtroom, they did not understand the trial or their role in it if they honestly believed their disavowals. For them to say race played no role is worse than disingenuous. They engage in a most dangerous form of chicanery. They lied knowing it was a lie but feeling in their gut that the lie was better than the truth. They dare not admit Zimmerman’s racism because they believed in what he did. They supported it not because of the governing laws on the books but because of the subconscious racism that governs their perspective of the world and that raises the hair on their backs whenever they see a Black person in a situation or position they do not associate with blackness.

    For them to admit Zimmerman’s prejudice would be to admit then try to discard their own. They have no reason to attempt such a thing. Their racism is a comfortable garment worn so long and that fits so smugly that they don’t notice it. It is part of them; it is them. To remove their prejudice would be tantamount to amputating a limb. They see no benefit in undergoing the painful operation for a dead black boy.

    For them, the lie that was the verdict worked because it returned the world to its proper balance. Zimmerman walked free, acquitted of killing an unarmed Black teenager. Confined forever to his grave, Martin was deemed culpable in his own homicide. Because of his race, the murdered was considered his own de facto killer. In effect, the jury decided the young man killed himself, that he basically committed the social equivalent of suicide, just because he did not bow to Zimmerman’s command.

    Zimmerman was not cloaked with legal authority to command anyone to do anything. However, the jury believed Martin’s status as a Black teenager automatically relegated him to a status were he should have obeyed Zimmerman or face the consequences of a real but unspoken law that has shaped the contours of American and world history for centuries. Perhaps the young man was not fully cognizant of his actions. Resisting Zimmerman’s encroachment into the quiet enjoyment of his personal space, the boy rebelled against the great weight of history.

    He might have thought this was a simple one-on-one confrontation. When race is involved nothing is simple and cast in isolation. Everything is tied to history and touched with larger meaning. Superficially, Trayvon was felled by a single bullet. In a more profound sense, this unwitting rebel was interred by the weight of a lopsided, unfair history; his actions were deemed improper by the legal system of a society that had already adjudged him guilty of some wrong by reason of his very existence. To be a young Black man is to be a criminal in waiting. According to the system, Trayvon got what he deserved and Zimmerman was unduly victimized for doing his civic duty containing this human form of the Black Plague.

    Most White Americans support the verdict exonerating the gun-toting Zimmerman; it accords with their racist perceptions of justice. They proclaim race did not play a role in the case. To admit that race was a factor is to confess to a problem. Why would they utter such a confession when the outcome was the desired one, as in the days of old before Blacks acquired civil rights?

    Most Blacks are appalled at the verdict; they sense its ugly ramification because they will bear its lethal brunt in the years to come. The nation is slowly but perceptibly returning to its former self where the door of justice was open to Whites but shuttered to Blacks. What the verdict says is that a Black person peacefully walking the street can be accosted by a White intermeddler. Unless there are objective witnesses around, the intermeddler can have his way with the Black person. The Black will be blamed for whatever happens to him. The verdict is an open invitation for White vigilantes to descend on any solitary black man who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The woods of southern states are littered with the corpses of Black men killed this way in years past. We come full circle back to this danger that made many Black men run home before sundown less he be caught, never to be seen above ground again.

    In a way, those who say race did not play a role in the case are right. To say it played a role is such an understatement as to be a lie. Race did not play a role in the case: Race was the case.

    Without the Black/ White divide, there would not have been a fatal confrontation. If Martin had been a White teen, Zimmerman would not have pursued him. However, based on the belief that some Black criminals had committed robberies in the area, Zimmerman concluded Martin was one of them. According to Zimmerman, the boy was walking too slowly. Who said there is nothing new under the sun? Low and behold, there is a new rule. A Black person can now be found guilty for walking below the limit permissible for him. In Travyon’s case, the penalty for this seemingly minor infraction was his very life.

    Twenty years ago, Zimmerman’s actions would have been known by its truer name: racial prejudice. Today, it is called justifiable pragmatism and deemed a civic service.

    In a certain sense, the verdict was foretold at the point that the prosecution team was picked. Prosecution lawyers made a jumble of the case because their hearts were not in it. They wanted Zimmerman to walk free. Their efforts were lame ones of merely going through the motions. The prosecutors knew their lives and status in the White community would be at risk if they sent Zimmerman to prison. The local White community wanted Zimmerman off and the prosecutors did what they could to oblige their neighbor’s wishes.

    As such, they were not prosecutors; they were like underpaid actors performing a secondary role just so the play could go on. After all, why risk their status? Travyon was dead. Nothing they did would bring him back. A vigorous prosecution would just make them pariahs in the community. Thus they behaved like the prosecutors in the Old South over fifty years ago when criminal cases were first being brought against Whites for violence against blacks. They tripped and fumbled through the case so that Zimmerman could walk and they could receive the silent, implied tribute of a community happy that the Black menace had received its just comeuppance. The clock always ticks but sometimes, sometimes, its hands move backward to return us to a past that never should have been.

    Enter into the fray President Obama. Immediately after the verdict, he issued a terse, anodyne statement that the jury verdict stands and must be respected. He is consistent in that his usual knee-jerk reaction to first assuage White conservatives was not placed out-of-joint by the case. However, Black and youth frustration has been mounting against him and the overall turn of events and issues in the nation. People have taken to the streets in protests. The nation is one incident away from a riot in a major city.

    Apprehended by the prospect of a race riot and being almost screamed at by a Black community waiting for him to show a little soul in office, the President issues a better still incomplete statement July 19. In that attempt, he tried to thread the needle to douse the frustration of the Black community without upsetting the satisfaction of the White at the verdict. For him, the attempt was a painful one in which he tried so hard to find the right words that he did not say all he needed to say. Historians of the moment will enjoy the irony of a Black president fidgeting to contain African American anger.

    He eloquently mentioned some poignant but relatively petty instances of racism he and other Black high-brows have suffered. He did this because he was not really speaking to the nation. This address was to Black people in particular. The subliminal message was that he was one of us and thus we should not go too far with the protests and demonstrations less we make his job harder. He was pleading, “give a brother a break!” Most people will be taken in by his tact but a growing number no longer see him as a brother. They will not relent to give him any break. They will see this as moment when the Black community just might emerge from protracted stupor to fight to keep the little it has. If that means the man in the White House must experience a bit of sweat under the collar, so be it. His salary is sufficient to take his apparel to a good dry cleaner.

    In the end, he ran into a wall of his own making. While trying to explain the social and political ramifications of the case, President Obama maundered haltingly at moments. He knew what he should say but he could not bring himself to uttering the word that needed to be said repeatedly. He dared not use the word “racism” too often. Instead he spoke of this harsh, flinty reality in soft euphemisms like “historic incidents and antecedents.” Give the rest of the brothers a break, Mr. President! If you can’t say racism is alive, real and killing people, then you have not lived up to the moment and to the unique responsibility you have chosen by commanding the desk in the Oval Office. You remain a standard politician, a man who is black but ill at ease with being a black man.

    It is not that you are bad but that you have sidestepped the higher purpose of your mission because fulfilling that purpose comes with political price you deem too costly to bear. You want everyone to love you. In the end, everyone will remember you by half, as an elaborate incompletion.

    On one level, the case is a simple criminal trial in Florida. On another level, it is universal warning. Racism is not only afoot, it is armed and claiming ground lost in recent decades. This affects not only Black America but Blacks everywhere. Zimmerman shot Travyon because the boy decided to be his own person and stand his ground. This is a metaphor with larger political and economic significance. As they strive to define themselves and stand their ground, Black people and nations will be accosted. The very prejudice that excused Zimmerman’s behavior now fuels increasingly overbearing and paternalistic Western economic and political policies toward Africa. Leaders of those African nations that tow the line, doing sheepishly as instructed, will get a pat on the head. Their people, however, will be asked to sup on the ash and dust of their poverty. Those people and nations that seek to stand will have a tough time of it. Yet, dignity and justice are worth the fight. In the years to come, we shall see of what material we are made. We shall see if we lower our heads and bury our dignity because we eschew the fight. Or will we have the courage of that solitary teenager who stood his ground because he had done nothing wrong except seek to find his way home.

     

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  • Prof. O. O. Akinkugbe: Hurray! my boss, my hero is 80

    Prof. O. O. Akinkugbe: Hurray! my boss, my hero is 80

    There is so much impunity and unseriousness  demonstrated by our leaders

    My hero for life! Congratulations, sir. I was privileged my life path crossed Prof’s at a beautiful point in my life. I was young, bright and had only a few years back left the university. On the decision of the University of Ibadan Council, I guess under the chairmanship of the inimitable Sir Samuel Manuwa, the University Registrar, another of my few heroes, the late Chief Sam Okudu, reached out for me – to him a total unknown- but then an Administrative Assistant to my numero uno educational hero, Professor H. A Oluwasanmi, Vice Chancellor, University of Ife, and off, I dashed to Ibadan, to go drive the humongous 25th anniversary celebrations of that great institution – a roaring success dampened only that very night of 17 November 1973, during the 7 pm network news by a very bad and discourteous Obasanjo directing the retirement of the Vice-Chancellor, the iconic, ever impeccably dressed medical scholar, Prof Oritshejolomi Thomas, who was his chief host a few hours back.

    Prof Akinkugbe, who was Chairman of the Ceremonials Committee and with whom I worked directly in those harrowing months, would later request that the registrar redeploy me to his office – Dean’s Office, College of Medicine. Such was the synergy between boss and his boy that I would be one of the very first he encouraged to respond to adverts for recruitment into the University College, Ilorin, to which he had just been appointed Principal (V C) and to which I subsequently went, as its first Senior Assistant Registrar (Academic) and functioned, first, as the Faculty Officer to the three inaugural Faculties of Arts, Science and Education. I learnt a lot at the feet of my oga (boss) and it was my distinct pleasure to see him more regularly in the last 12 months and as dapper as ever: first at the wedding of the daughter of my dear brother, Bayo Jimoh, the highly perspicacious Group Managing Director of the O’dua Investment Co Ltd, then at the beautiful 50th anniversary of the great-read Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile -Ife, where his Government College Ibadan classmate, Ambassador (Dr) Christopher Kolade, gave the anniversary lecture and thirdly, at the epochal inauguration of his other GCI classmate, the Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, as the inaugural winner of the Awo Prize for Leadership, an event that truly showed Dr Tokunbo-Awolowo Dosumu as a true daughter of her illustrious father, the redoubtable Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Prof looked radiant and was as jovial as ever. He cracked jokes with Bayo Jimoh and I and patted me on the back, saying, ‘Femi, those were the days’. Sir, you have more than earned your stripes. Long may you live in glorious health, in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

    It’s Ekiti Panupo again

    There is so much impunity and unseriousness demonstrated by our leaders

    For far too many times, I have indicated in this column that nothing of worth passes in this polity without it being properly interrogated on the ekitipanupo web portal – an Ekiti intellectual roundtable with members numbering in thousands – where we meticulously critique or criticise, at times with mutual sabre rattling, even harsh words depending upon where you belong on the political spectrum, policies of governments: federal, state, local and even foreign, as well as those of agencies of government, and most times, conclude by proffering solutions/proposals, as may be appropriate, for the way forward.

    This past week was no exception as our matriarch on the forum, our 80-year-plus-one -old, Mama Adebimpe Okunade, omo Orinkinran, Oye, a scholar and world- renowned teacher of nursing, who I first met when I was an Assistant Registrar in the Dean’s Office, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan in ’73, weighed in as follows on some issues about which Nigerians have become thoroughly disillusioned.

    Happy reading:

    PHCN and other matters

    My question for you Dr. Adu: (Biodun Adu, a UK-based O&G Consultant is my friend and classmate at The School -Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti). Help me to understand that when you woke up this morning, you mean you went straight to your television screen? I guess that was why you saw the “miracle”! You had electricity supply: that explains why you can afford the luxury of watching TV in the morning.

    On a more serious note ‘Biodun, just this morning, the PHCN, formerly known as ECN, NEPA et cetera (the conglomerate in charge of darkness in Nigeria and through which billions of naira usually evaporate) announced to hapless Nigerians that it will continue to increase electricity tariff with or without electricity! There was an increase only last year!

    Impunity you will call that?

    Even though, Mr. President announced to the whole world from far away USA via the CNN recently that electricity supply has improved in Nigeria, compatriots are still anxiously waiting to see the improvement.

    Abiodun, Nigeria is a place where money is extorted by governments from citizens for services NOT rendered! Examples include forcing us to pay for darkness instead of light. Paying road tax/vehicle license fees while the roads damage your car and ruin your body joints and cause you body aches.

    The latest extortion is that we are forced to change number plates of our motor vehicles throughout the country with a deadline of September 30, 2013. Despite protests, the obnoxious policy stays! Even though the National Assembly informed us that the cost per vehicle is N10, 500.00 what is extorted from us ranges from N24, 500.00 to N27, 000.00!

    My dear, what is more painful in all this is that we are so helpless! As if these were not enough, salt is constantly being rubbed on our open wounds by the wife of Mr. President who talks and behaves without decorum. There is no one to call her to order!

    Impunity is the name of the game here. Have you ever heard/experienced arrogance of power in its crudest form? Come home and see things for yourself.

    I can assure you that despite the perilous times, most Nigerians guard jealously their sense of love, humility, kindness, peace, and other virtues seen in decent societies, mama concluded with her trade mark: ‘PEACE AND LOVE’.

    Rewarding work

    At last, our National Assembly members should be ashamed of themselves. What have Nigerians not done to make their representatives volunteer a word about what they cream off poor Nigerians monthly/quarterly/annually? Mum has been the word. Now it is all out in the open. Maybe not in cold figures but the world at large now knows that in a country where not less than two thirds of the population live below the poverty line, its so-called representatives lead the world in how much they earn, almost for doing nothing.

    Who exactly will take Nigerians out of this savagery?

    It can only be Nigerians themselves, through concerted effort. No one else. And any political party that seriously wants our votes come 2015 must let Nigerians know how it intends to bring these unearned earnings down from the mount Olympus where it presently perches.

    Please come with me as you read the following being the result of a recent study in the United Kingdom:

    The following figures, the result of a recent research in the UK, confirm this ignoble position of our National Assembly legislators.

    Figures represent: Nigeria, 189.5; Kenya, 74.5; Ghana , 46.5; Indonesia, 65.8; South Africa, 104; Brazil, 154; Thailand, 43.8; India, 11.2; Italy, 182; Bangladesh, 4; Israel, 114.8; Hongkong, 130.7; U.S, 174; Japan, 149.7; Singapore, 154; Australia, 201.2; Canada, 154; Germany, 119.5; Britain, 105.4; France, 85.9; Sweden, 99.3 and Norway 138.

    If our National Legislators are men and women of conscience, they will appreciate that nothing under the sun entitles them to what they take home monthly for a job that can very well be done on part time basis. Nigerians must rise like one man and ensure that legislators’ pay, including their stupendous allowances, which in the first place were never approved by the appropriate agency of government, becomes a campaign issue, come 2015.

  • Freedom of Information Act and Dictatorship of Corruption and Mediocrity (2)

    Freedom of Information Act and Dictatorship of Corruption and Mediocrity (2)

    For our third and final case, we must go all the way back to 1984 when Nigeria was still in the grip of the irruption of military dictatorships into political governance, an irruption whose end seemed to be nowhere in sight. The case in point is the Buhari-Idiagbon Decree No 4 of 1984, unquestionably the most notorious of all military decrees ever promulgated in Nigeria. That Decree has a special bearing on all that I have said so far concerning the challenge of the dictatorship of corruption and mediocrity to the Freedom of Information Act. This is partly because in military rule, dictatorship manifests itself directly and autocratically; it has no need to deviously manifest itself through corruption. Also, you simply cannot talk of a Freedom of information Act in the African dictatorships of the 1970s through the 1990s when the very first thing that goes with the inception of any military dictatorship is the Constitution itself, together with all the rights that derive from it. Moreover, African military dictatorships are notoriously very paranoid, to the extent that many military dictators at the time actually went so far as to promulgate decrees banning rumors, as if any human society has ever existed in which there can be no rumour-mongering as an inevitable part of social existence. At any rate, the Buhari-Idiagbon Decree No 4 of 1984 took this axiomatic and quixotic paranoia of African military dictatorships to a new level when it explicitly stated that you must not and cannot publish anything to embarrass military leaders and their support corps of civil service officials even if what you publish is true.

    It is important to state here that like the two other cases I have already mentioned in this lecture, this infamous decree against truth also had its origins in the phenomenon of endemic corruption in our country. This is because the decree came on the heels of allegations of the disappearance of N2.8 billion naira from the coffers of a federal ministry that had been under the headship of Buhari in a previous military administration. Allegedly, Buhari had been deeply embarrassed by this report and when he himself carried out a successful coup, he promulgated Decree No 4 to deal with those sections of the press that had been most vocal about the alleged missing N.2.8 billion naira.

    From these three separate cases, we can see that there is a common of corruption. However, unlike the corruption that we saw in both the oil subsidy scam and the Obasanjo and Atiku feud that paraded itself in broad daylight, the alleged corruption in the case of Buhari’s military dictatorship was hidden, subterranean. Everyone knew it was there and abundantly so; but you could not talk openly about it; you could not even engage in rumours about it. In Buhari’s Decree No 4 of 1984, this veil of silence and secrecy on corruption was made sublime in its impunity and brazenness: the decree stated without the slightest equivocation that even if true, any allegation of corruption could not be published because it would embarrass the military government and its loyal civil servants. This observation leads us to the next stage of this lecture, the stage in which we now directly engage the crucial issue of a dictatorship that is not military, not exercised through the gun but through the complex mediations of corruption and mediocrity of the highest order.

    To enter into this segment of the lecture, please consider the following ironic reversal of normal expectations concerning dictatorships and democracy. On the one hand, we have a military dictatorship that is non-elective, that is indeed totally contemptuous of popular mandate but is nonetheless very paranoid about being embarrassed by any revelation that it is corrupt. But on the other hand, we have an elective, “democratic” government that putatively bases its legitimacy on popular mandates but is completely unembarrassed by any and all allegations of corrupt practices and dealings.

    I would like to suggest that the irony in both cases is more apparent than real. Military dictatorships are characteristically, even extremely paranoid about being shown to be corrupt only because nearly all military coup-makers come into power on the claim that they have come to clean up the mess made by civilian governments, or even by a preceding military autocracy. Of all the governments we have ever had in Nigeria, the Buhari-Idiagbon dictatorship was the most self-righteous, the most fanatical about imposing discipline on Nigeria and Nigerians; for this reason, it absolutely could not stand being embarrassed by the taint of corruption, especially if the allegation happened to be based on truth.

    The irony in an elective, “democratic” government that brazenly washes the dirty linens of its oceans of corruption in the national and global public sphere is likewise a factitious irony with no basis in reality. This is because the presumption of virtually all our ruling class parties since the return to formal democratic rule in 1999 has been, quite simply, that no party, no politician ever wins or, conversely, loses an election on the basis of public exposure of huge sums that the politician or the party has looted from our oil wealth. At a more general level, winning or losing elections has little or nothing to do with your performance in office. You may be as corrupt and as mediocre as the worst politician on the African continent or the world, but that is no disqualification for you to become a member of the National Assembly, the Executive Governor of a State, or the President of the Republic itself – unless, of course you have been caught, tried and jailed.

    I readily accept the fact that not all our politicians are corrupt and mediocre. Indeed, there are a few state governors and public officeholders that are deserving of respect and admiration. But I think that the great majority of our politicians are fundamentally predisposed to being corrupt and mediocre. This is not because they are necessarily or inherently corrupt or mediocre; it just so happens that this is the prevailing order that they know; it is the universe of expectations and values in which they operate. Corruption and mediocrity reign supreme in our country at the present time because that is the game in town; it is the undeclared dictatorship which has apparently found a perfect hiding place in the outward forms and protocols of a formally democratic political order. Permit me to expatiate a little on this observation.

    I think it is safe for me to assume that most of us in this gathering this morning would agree to a proposition which states that an endlessly corrupt electoral system in which massive, blatant and violent rigging plays a central role is the main reason why virtually all our political parties and politicians do not really depend on their performance in office to win elections. Another way of putting this concretely is to say that rather than actually perform well in office and win the respect and the mandate of the people, virtually all of our political parties spend most of their time amassing the war chest that will enable them either to successfully rig elections or, conversely to prevent successful rigging by opposing political parties and politicians. In other words, rigging does not stand alone; it is part of a vastly corrupt and corrupting political party system.

    Because this is a very crucial point in this lecture, I wish to be absolutely clear about what I am asserting or even claiming here. For this reason, I wish to give one very concrete illustration of my claim here that rigging does not stand alone but is part of a vast network of corruption in our political party system. This illustration, I would argue, is one that most adult and politically sophisticated Nigerians know only too well. Thus, I don’t think anyone would seriously contest the fact that as the ruling party with a so-far iron-clad control of the centre, the PDP spends most of its time between election cycles preparing to rig itself back into power with absolutely no relevance to how it has performed in office. By contrast, the other ruling class parties not in control at the centre but in the seats of power in some of the states of the federation spend all their time between electoral cycles amassing the financial means and the strategies with which to prevent the PDP from rigging itself back into power. Nowhere is this whole apparatus of a deeply corrupt and corrupting political order more apparent than in our election tribunals in which, as everyone knows, political parties and politicians who have much more credible claims to having won elections must still bribe very heavily to secure legal redress for having been robbed of their victories through rigging at the polls.

    It is well known that the 2011 oil subsidy mega-scam that ran into more than N2.58 trillion naira had everything to do with the re-election project of the President and the PDP. But even with that dubious help, we shall never get a full measure of the actual sums that go into both rigging and preventing rigging by our ruling class parties. All we can safely say is that rigging and its opposite, rigging-prevention, are but the tip of an iceberg; behind the whole unholy party-electoral edifice in our country is the widespread, defining feeling among the Nigerian political class that the money is there to be looted either to stay in office or to come into power because, for a long time yet, the oil will keep flowing. I will come back to this point at the end of the lecture.

    In case the point I am making here is not yet clear enough, let me spell it out: the rigging of elections, as heinous as it has generally been in our country since the return to civilian rule in 1999, is but one factor among others that make our electoral system and our present political order so spectacularly corrupt and corrupting. This is why, as much as I loathe and condemn the rigging of elections in our country, I do not ascribe what I have in this lecture been calling the dictatorship of corruption and mediocrity to the agency or primacy of rigging; rather, in my view, corruption itself is the agent, the precondition of a dictatorship that is both kleptocratic and plutocratic.

    I have observed that in the Obasanjo-Atiku feud of 2006, both camps made revelations of corruption about each other that should, at the very least, have led to the impeachment of the President and the Vice President. But nothing happened to them and not a single one of their cronies, henchmen and girlfriends that were the beneficiaries of the “loot” from the PTDF was made to pay back a single kobo. Also, nobody has paid back a single kobo out of the N2.58 trillion looted in the oil subsidy mega-scam, a colossal sum that could make the lives of millions of Nigerians better than the horrible conditions they currently have to endure, thanks to this dictatorship of corruption and mediocrity. As a matter of fact, with regard to this particular case of the oil subsidy scam, the whole nation was treated to a comedy of errors and absurdity when the Chairman of that same House of Rep Ad-Hoc Committee on the oil subsidy scam, Hon Farouk Lawan, was caught by a hidden videotape camera receiving hush-money bribe from one of the biggest names among the cabal of real and fake marketers. Hon Lawan has not faced any significant legislative censure for this egregiously corrupt act. All that has “happened” to him is that he is being tried in a court of law in which he is apparently successfully tying up the legal process in a seemingly endless impasse.

    To be continued

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • The real tragedy of victory

    The real tragedy of victory

    Thoughts from Alabi-Isama’s Civil War memoirs

    It is not all the time that book presentations are fascinating. Indeed, they are seen usually as somber occasions for the serious-minded people; which means they are regarded more or less as ‘dry’ events. But not so the presentation of The tragedy of victory – on the spot account of the Nigeria-Biafra War in the Atlantic Theatre by Brigadier-General Godwin Alabi-Isama. In the about three hours that the occasion, held at the Bolaji Akinyemi Auditorium of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) on Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, lasted, there was never a dull moment.

    To start with, it was one that paraded a galaxy of retired military officers and other stars, some of them the best that this country ever produced. These included General Theophilus Danjuma, General Ike Nwachukwu, Gen. Raji Rasaki, Gen Alani Akinrinade, Gen Femi Daramola, Gen Mobolaji Johnson, Prof Wale Omole, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, representative of Emir of Ilorin, General Emmanuel Abisoye, renowned essayist, Prof Adebayo Williams; former Governor of Ogun State Aremo Olusegun Osoba, Lagos State Chief Judge, Justice Ayotunde Phillips, among others. Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon could not make it to the event even though he had promised to if there was a window of opportunity. There were also some traditional rulers in attendance, as well as the Director-General of the NIIA, Prof Bola Akinterinwa.

    One of the major participants who ought to have been present but was conspicuously absent was General Olusegun Obasanjo, the author of My Command, a book which was almost torn to shreds by speaker after speaker at the presentation. Some had thought that Chief Obasanjo, for who he is, could spring a surprise by making it to the book presentation even if not invited. But that seemed only remotely possible, given the fireworks that had occurred between him and General Alabi-Isama after the latter had granted an interview to this paper in which he referred to Obasanjo as a ‘blundering general’. Of course, characteristically, Chief Obasanjo fired back; but the harm had been done because the interview had started to put doubts in the minds of many right-thinking Nigerians about some of the claims made by Obasanjo in ‘his command’ before the day of reckoning, which was last Thursday, came.

    Ordinarily, history should be as straightforward as a simple arithmetic or mathematics, especially when, like either, it is not raised to power anything. But ours is a country where people want to place history, including the very ones that we witnessed, upside down. It should be expected in a country where poverty is pervasive and people are ready to do anything for money, especially dirty money. Yes, it is possible, as human beings, to make mistakes in the process of recording some historical accounts, either because of the time lag or because of other reasons. But we must be able to differentiate mistakes of the heart from mistakes of the head. Like when a handshake is going below the elbow, presenting falsehood as gospel truth (which is what Alabi-Isama, General Akinrinade and others at the book presentation accused Obasanjo of), is reprehensible. Although General Obasanjo was literally in the dock on Thursday, he was conspicuously absent to defend himself. But it is good for Nigerians to have this pluralism of accounts on a major event as the country’s Civil War.

    However, the occasion was not just about the stiffness usually associated with book launch. In spite of the seriousness of the issues raised, there were also moments to remember in the lighter mood. For instance, if you thought it was only in the days of the Roman Empire that women (the so-called weaker sex) had serious grip over men, (the so-called stronger sex), you are mistaken; as it was then, so it is even now. Our own General Danjuma revealed that much when he said it was his wife who persuaded him to be at the book presentation. He said, as usual with most well-to-do Nigerians, this time of the year is when they usually travel out and he would have been out of the country, but for his wife who prevailed on him to personally grace the occasion. For people with dirty minds that might still be wondering what is happening, what madam used on ‘oga’ is ‘woman power’; this is quite different from ‘bottom power’. And, in case you are still in the woods, it is women that are outside that use ‘bottom power’, but when used from within, that is ‘woman power’! I used to think such things won’t work on a general as tough as the Danjuma of whom our coup stories sing. For those who were attentive at the book launch, they would also have heard from the horse’s mouth that even in the war front, ‘body no be wood’! As it is in peace times, so it is also in war situations.

    But there were very serious matters that the occasion also brought to the front burner of discourse. The occasion reminded Nigerians about how their money is being wasted to train military officers at home and abroad, only to retire them in their prime. Perhaps those so retired are even lucky because many of their colleagues were killed in or for participating in one coup d’état or the other. General Alabi-Isama was one of those retired prematurely. But, as he was lamenting his own untimely retirement at age 39, General Gowon reminded him that he was not alone, and that Alabi-Isama was much lucky as he (Isama) was only retired but in his (Gowon’s) case, it was double jeopardy. Gowon said he was not only retired prematurely, he ‘was also shoved aside’.

    Perhaps the most touching of the side attractions at the book presentation is the utter neglect that those who had served this country are suffering. The author brought to the event Pa Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi, the man who designed the Nigerian flag. Almost everyone present felt guilty that such a man could be neglected in old age and wondered what sort of country ours is where we leave our true heroes to rot in obscurity while celebrating nonentities. Imagine a man like General Benjamin Adekunle (the ‘Black Scorpion’ as he is fondly called), one of those celebrated in the book. He is bed-ridden and there is little to show that the government is doing enough to get him to live a normal life again.

    This was a man who fought gallantly during the Civil War to preserve the country. If we treat our heroes like this, how do we expect the younger generation to believe in the country? How do we tell them that it pays for them to lay down their lives for the Fatherland? How do we convince them not to dip their hands into the public till when in service, in order to provide for the rainy day when there will be no one to remember them? Well, we can still make amends concerning Adekunle and Pa Akinkunmi and many others who are still alive. Many of their colleagues have died, unsung.

    There is a lot more to say within the about three hours that the event lasted. Suffice it to say that the Civil War, an account of which Alabi-Isama has just given, ended on January 15, 1970, some 43 years ago. Have we learnt any lessons? Speakers at the book presentation do not think so. And I agree with them. That, for me, is the real tragedy of victory.

  • Honour for writers of national anthem

    Honour for writers of national anthem

    Following the recent death of Pa Benedict Odise, widely credited as the composer of the current national anthem, I got a condolence message on his death from Dr Sota Omoigui, a United States-based Nigerian medical practitioner who claimed to be one of the co-authors of the words of the national anthem.

    While paying glowing tributes to the memory of Pa Odiase, he emphasised the distinction between who composed the music of the anthem and those who wrote the words.

    I was particularly touched by the paragraph in the tribute in which he said he had looked forward to the day when the authors of the music and words of the anthem, Arise O Compatriots, would have been brought together at an event. ”Alas death cannot continue to wait forever,” he stated.

    The impression I got from the mail was that while Pa Odiase had gotten all the acclaim and even a national award for composing the music, there have been no recognition for the five writers of the words, Omoigui, John A Ilechukwu, Eme Etim Akpan, B.A.Ogunaike, and P.O.Aderibigbe.

    Their entries were selected from the 1,499 received from the national competition organised by the National Publicity Committee on the Draft Constitution/Return to civilian regime in 1978.

    When I eventually interviewed Omoigui, who said he does not feel cheated for not being acknowledged or rewarded like Pa Odiase, he gave an indication why it is wrong for the government and the media to carry on as if he and his co-authors do not exist or matter.

    ”The origin of the national anthem has been forgotten and that explains why none of the other authors has been acknowledged. All the newspaper reports since the transition of Pa Odiase have described him incorrectly as the composer of the national anthem. History is history, it cannot be altered and we must document it as it is. A nation that forgets its history has no guide to its future, ” Omoigui stated.

    Following the publication of Sota’s interview on June 22, another co-composer, Aderibigbe, who was a 100 level Political Science student at the University of Ibadan when he sent his entry, called at our office recently with his original composition.

    While Sota  did the last two lines of the anthem, Aderibigbe, a former special assistant in the national assembly, wrote lines one, two, five and six.

    In his interview published yesterday in The Nation on Saturday, Aderibigbe recalled how the then military administration failed to pay the honorarium promised after the selection of the five entries.

    “Even the music of the anthem as composed by the late Pa Odiase was sung without us being invited and is regrettable that up till today there has been no acknowledgement.”

    Ogunnaike, another co-author, is now a Professor and Dean of Engineering in University of Delaware in US. According to UDaily, an online publication of the university, Ogunaike left the country before the final selection was made and only learnt from his father that some of his words were incorporated in the anthem. Unlike Aderibigbe, he got N50 prize for his contribution.

    There is no information on the two others for now, but chances are that they are alive and also not happy that their contribution to the anthem has not gotten the acknowledgement it deserves.

    Considering the various national orientation programmes by the successive governments in the country, it should have occurred to someone to search for the authors to share the thoughts that informed the lines they contributed to the national anthem.

    Since the authors are still alive, it’s not too late to host them, may be at a national forum where they will not only speak on the anthem, but will be given the honour they deserved.

  • An economy of mounting agbana and aggravation

    An economy of mounting agbana and aggravation

    There is no better way to describe the economy induced for citizens by government’s incompetence, inefficiency, or nonchalance with respect to governance over the years than to borrow a Yoruba concept, agbana to describe it. Agbana refers to a spiritual state that is generally believed to be induced by others with the sole aim of preventing the victim of the affliction from becoming economically or financially buoyant to the point of being solvent, regardless of the size of the income that flows to the victim. The victim is spiritually manipulated to the point that he spends funds available to him or her in such a way that there would be no surplus to enable him or her do any major investment capable of improving his or her financial position. The goal of inducers of agbana is to frustrate or demoralize the victim, to make him or her incapable of higher financial achievement. Although most people today believe that agbana is a pre-modern concept, but a close look at the poor organization of Nigeria’s infrastructure suggests that the government is an inducer of agbana for the citizenry.

    The first example of agbana pertains to supply of energy for citizens and even institutions. Companies which manufacture products and in the process require electricity are forced to depend on diesel-powered generators to do so. Whenever such companies find out that they can hardly break even, they migrate to other West African countries. The citizen-rich or average-also requires electricity to live in a modern way. He or she needs light to see in the dark hours, to watch television, to pump water if and when there is water, to iron clothes, etc. Without any visa to migrate to other countries, the typical Nigerian has to buy generators, buy diesel to power the generators, and pay generator repairers, who also need to buy generator repair kits every month, to keep the generators going.

    Furthermore, the middle-class Nigerian needs to buy gadgets that one does not see in other countries: an alarm system to signal availability of electricity; another device that houses various colours of electric bulbs to indicate the presence of electricity on the electric cables that enter the house; another contrivance to indicate that the voltage of the electric current coming into the house is not over the 220 volts for which most of the household items were designed by their overseas manufacturers; inverters to store electricity for later use when the Power Holding Corporation of Nigeria does its hourly power rationing; automatic switch systems to change from public electricity supply system to the generator mode; and, of course, uncountable stabilizers attached to each electric or electronic gadget, from refrigerators to electric kettles. The not so lucky Nigerian has to stay alert to run in and out of his or her room to change from the electric mode to the generator mode, and this can be twenty times a day, depending on the whims of those in charge of distribution of electricity.

    As if this is not enough, any person living in the Nigerian space also needs to pay monthly bills to the PHCN. It does not matter if the citizen enjoys any supply of electricity from PHCN in the month for which he or she is billed. Any surprise that the average Nigerian looks rougher than citizens from neighbouring countries? Those who are broke by the middle of the month ignore the shame that going to work or appearing in public space in clothes that need to be ironed brings, shrugging their shoulders when they notice that people give them critical or querulous looks.

    The typical middle-class Nigerian also buys water from water merchants who dig private boreholes from which they supply water in ‘tankers’ to the financially above-average person. Economically below-average individuals buy their water from labourers who call themselves water vendors. Poor ones carry buckets of water from the neighbourhood water vending centre to his or her room before or after the day’s work.Generally, plates used for serving food at local restaurants are poorly rinsed because of scarcity or the cost of water. Any surprise that there is too much stench in public buses within and between cities? Generally, many citizens do not have enough water to have proper baths that are required in a tropical environment.

    The story is not different for citizens with cellphones today. All service providers in the country serve as inducers of agbana. Citizens buy recharge cards but they are unable to get any benefit from such cards. When they use the cards to make calls, the calls are aborted most of the time, usually leaving the message: “The number you are calling does not exist.” This happens when a wife calls her husband whose number she should know, unless she is insane. When a caller is lucky enough to get through, the transaction is cut midway into a sentence. The story is not over. The telephone service provider on the other side still sends a cryptic message: “The cost for your last call is so and so.” It does not matter if the parties on the line succeed in saying anything to each other. Any surprise that Nigerians are the loudest telephone users in Africa? Telephone users have been conditioned by sub-standard service to shout themselves hoarse, if they are to succeed in making any telephone conversation.

    We are at a point in which our public health experts and social-psychologists need to be encouraged to find out why the average life expectancy in Nigeria is 52, one of the lowest in the world. This short life span may not be caused only by poor nutrition and poor health care. It is more likely to owe so much to the psychological impact of a daily life that is filled with anxiety and frustration that the country’s decrepit infrastructure induces. The oversize temperamental outbursts of the average Nigerian in relation to other citizens in sub-Saharan Africa cannot be due to diet as some thinkers are wont to pontificate. Most West Africans eat more or less the same food: yam, cassava, plantain, and rice that form the staple of most Nigerians. The ubiquitous anger of the average Nigerian must have some connection to the aggravation that haunts the average Nigeria on a da-to-day basis on account of the country’s socio-fugal infrastructure.

    Apart from constitutions, the basic thing that joins citizens to their governments in most parts of the modern world is infrastructure. In Nigeria the government has been more efficient in giving reasons why the infrastructure is bad than it is in providing adequate facilities for citizens to lead a life that is life-affirming. There seems to be very little difference between the quality of public goods provided directly by the government, (such as roads) and services that have been privatized, such as telecommunication. The consequence is that the typical Nigerian is made to pay for services he or she does not enjoy, be it electricity or telephone. The distancebetween the citizen and the government in the country is likely to continue until the government accepts that some of the priorities of citizens must be part of its own priority.

  • Why do criminals enjoy more protection from the law than their victims?

    When the wife of the president begins to talk for the government,
    it can only signify the arrival of chaos.

    Is it just me or have you noticed that immediately someone is a suspect in a crime, he begins to wave his fundamental human rights in everyone’s face. He has rights, he declares, which cannot be violated; he has entitlements, such as access to a lawyer, to decent and humane treatment, and to being addressed with respect, thank you. Above all, he also declares that anything that touches him, let it be so much as a finger, has assaulted him for which the ‘toucher’ must be arraigned, tried and convicted. ‘You saw him, he hit me, you saw him. Put that down in the books, you must!’ Well, if it is not too much for their criminal highnesses, can they please explain to me if they considered the rights and privileges of their victims? I mean, when someone is confronted by a killer, does he go ‘Look, I have fundamental human rights not to be killed, assaulted or maimed. And I certainly have the right to refuse to let you wave that gun in my face.’ Does the assailant listen to that legal plea? Well, does he? If he did, I think crime would practically be none existent, since everyone would be adequately armed – with their constitutional rights to genteel treatment.

    Now, take lawyers. Have you noticed that they are never present at the scenes of crimes to offer their services to the victim? Can you just imagine how much help they might be to a potential victim if they were present to argue for them? I believe they would certainly go, ‘Look, Mr. Assailant, this man, who is my esteemed client, is too young to die; he has children, a good job, and is only minimally selfish. He does not deserve to die at your hands. Let my bills do it.’ Either way, the victim is done for. I think in many cases, a victim would actually choose to die at the hands of his assailants. Some assailants are more polite and godly.

    Don’t get me wrong. I do not hate lawyers; some of my best friends and brothers are lawyers. I also do not hate assailants; they are just mostly misguided. It’s the crime that just gets my goat, and I’m not just talking off my berretta. I once witnessed a people-assailant assault that had me wondering just on whose side the law really rests in this nation. Two young men had broken into a house while the owners were away worshipping their God of a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, they were caught as the house owners returned unexpectedly. Their cries of alarm had people, I mean empathisers who put themselves in their shoes, coming out to deal with the duo. Before you could say ‘hello’, some jungle justice had been administered on them and the duo lay prostrate. The police, such as could get there on time, proceeded to nab everyone who had the temerity to be strutting around that vicinity that day, most of whom had no inkling of what had happened. Now, I ask myself, why pick on the innocent who happened to walk around a little too happily? Where were their fundamental human rights?

    Like everyone else, I have been following the rather quirky and weird events unfolding in the Rivers State as a whole, including the House of Assembly and wondering, just where is the law? If crimes have been committed, such as importing weapons of single or mass destruction into the House as alleged, then there should be some remedial courses. There should have been counsels for both sides before the problems began who would say to the main assailant, ‘Look very well before you leap. This man you are about to attack is in all probability innocent. He has children, brethren who will pray for him, kinsmen who will probably want to kill you in return for trying to deprive them of the place of their son in the House; and a country that will be so flabbergasted by your action they will take the man abroad for treatment and maybe a little enjoyment.’

    Since someone(s) was/were said to have been attacked and blood splattered around, we take it that no counsel was present to provide opening and closing arguments to dissuade their raucous highnesses in the assembly. Yet, no arrests have been made so far. Hmmm, that tells my Sherlock Holmes nose something. It tells me (sniff, sniff) that someone(s) is/are enjoying their fundamental human rights, I tell you, and it is not the victim. That one is being watched closely, even if it is by his doctor.

    On the other hand, the assailants are also being watched very closely, but it is not by the police, SSS or even any detectives. They are being watched by no other than the occupants of the presidency, not to check their activities but to be sure the script is interpreted correctly by the actors. That leaves the victims in their daze of inglorious bewilderment as there is no counsel to intone on their behalf, ‘My client respectfully asks not to be victimised for no other reason than politics. Any other reason will do.’ Clearly, the victim needs a louder voice, `cause it’s all muffled up right now.

    Not so for the victims of a young man alleged to have been collecting blood from school children somewhere in Agege, Lagos. Presently, the poor victims appear to have a voice. For a change, the young vampire is said to have since come under a watch, but it is the Police watch this time. Hmmm, that also tells my Sherlock Holmes nose something: he does not figure in any political calculations of our President or his wife or somebody. Otherwise, he would have been under a different watch with a different script.

    Yet another young man was said to have been arrested for being a trader in blood. He was involved in collecting blood donors for a hospital and also collecting a handsome commission in the process. Now, that is the coolest business line anyone can think of – just find those good folks whose veins are overflowing with the red stuff, match them with the hospital, sit back and watch the combination sizzle as the bags fill up. So does his bank account. How sick have we ascended in this nation?

    Indeed, these are sad times for us in Nigeria. Here we have a presidency which appears to have run amok because someone who should apply the reins has failed to do so. There is not only silence (interpreted as consent by the way), there is even a silent nodding of the head in the direction of all the commotion coming from Rivers State. While all that is going on, the country is going into deeper ruins. Rome is burning people, and we don’t know if Nero is fiddling, but we know he is not directing a hose or a bucket in the direction of the fire. Electricity supply is getting worse, food is getting so scarce now school children have taken to selling their blood for pittances and all we get is silence.

    The presidency needs to come out now with words of assurance to the over one hundred and twenty something million people in this country who want answers to so many questions. Silence indeed may be golden but it does not ennoble in circumstances such as this. When the wife of the president begins to talk for the government, it can only signify the arrival of chaos, which will result in more victims and will eventually lead to our demanding that counsels be present to brief assailants before crimes are committed.

  • Rivers’ lawless five

    Rivers’ lawless five

    The President should call his goons to order instead of denying things that even angels cannot convince Nigerians about 

    How will former President Olusegun Obasanjo be feeling now, seeing the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency struggling to surpass his (Obasanjo’s) record in infamy? That is the question on the lips of many Nigerians who have been watching the nauseating developments in Rivers State. At the speed the presidency of his estranged political godson is travelling on the highway of impunity, it may beat his (Obasanjo’s) record before the 2015 election. President Jonathan has told us he is not Pharaoh; he said he is not Nebuchadnezzar either; but what he has not told us is who the son of man is. Perhaps he wants us to find out.

    Many of us are yet to know him; the best we can say of him is that he is a president who does not give a damn! At least that came, as they say, from the horse’s mouth. We also know him as a president who exalts figure 16 over and above figure 19. That is also a statement of fact. Till tomorrow, many of the our primary school pupils keep asking their parents and teachers about this jigsaw puzzle because, in their innocence, they want to take anything and everything coming from the president as the gospel truth. Poor kids! They are learning fast; even if it is the wrong values that they are being taught by those who should be transforming the country.

    By now, it is clear that the enemies of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State will stop at nothing to remove him. Many times they had missed the ball and went for the leg. Such was the situation on Tuesday when the state house of assembly was thrown into chaos when five members of the house wanted to impeach the Speaker, Otelemaba Amachree, and 26 others who are Amaechi’s loyalists. The personal intervention of the governor prevented the ‘lawless five’ from concluding their illegal mission.

    One might then ask: why didn’t Amaechi and the majority other lawmakers in the House allow the five members to luxuriate in their illegality and then go to court after to challenge their action? The answer is simple: we must have lost our sense of history to do that. Rashidi Ladoja did that and he regretted it; ditto Ayo Fayose, among others. I guess that must have been the reckoning of the five and their sponsors; unfortunately, again, they miscalculated. By now, the authentic speaker would have become history if they had trod that path; perhaps Amaechi too would have ceased to be governor. He would now be busy assembling a retinue of senior advocates that would fight the matter in court; mind you, not in his capacity as governor again but as ‘Simply Mr’. By the time the case is over, elections would have fallen due. Of course, if you remember the case of the two women that threw up King Solomon as a very wise king, you will also see that Amaechi’s opponents have nothing to lose if the five law breakers had been allowed to have their way; as a matter of fact, they would be profiting from their illegality now. And, you know what? They would have gone to church today to celebrate the ‘impeachment’, with some men of God blessing them too, apparently after being ‘blessed’ to conduct the thanksgiving service. The PDP is notorious for such celebrations and thanksgivings.

    That is what the Obasanjo presidency has taught us; and it is what the Jonathan presidency too wants to bequeath to us as legacy. A chip off the old block, you would say? But when a child has learnt the art of dying, the parents too must master the art of burial. That was what has happened in this case. Both Obasanjo and Jonathan have taught governors whose guts they do not like that they (governors) must get wise before and not after the illegal act. So, we are now having a culture of impunity begetting impunity.

    This is rather unfortunate. And to think that the presidency is being (even if remotely) associated with this makes it the more disheartening. The office of the president is an exalted one. But that office cannot be dignified more than the occupier wants it to be. It is sad that everything happening in the state now had been predicted; that is people want to cause enough chaos to warrant the imposition of a state of emergency in Rivers. This is a reflection of the desperation of people who truly do not give a damn. What is most annoying is the Presidency’s serial denial of involvement in the developments. Perhaps it is apt to let the presidency know that Nigerians feel more and more insulted when such denials are made; and this in turn diminishes the prestige of the presidency.

    Those who have ears and know that they hear with them should listen to the voice of wisdom. The crisis in Rivers State is one (as I have always said since it became a public issue) no one can predict its end. Those who are after the state governor and think they can remove him by hook or crook might all end up rendering themselves jobless and throwing the entire country into crisis, if history is to be our guide. We all know how governors can be removed because it is stated expressly in our constitution, which is the grund norm. Jonathan’s presidency is culpable in this matter because it provided the impetus for the ‘lawless five’ who wanted to impeach a lawful speaker and replace him illegally. They would not have been that emboldened to embark on such a shameful voyage if the president himself had not given his failed candidate in the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) election, Jonah Jang, a heroic welcome after the defeat. If the president said 16 is greater than 19, how come those who see themselves as doing his bidding will not take the joke too far by wanting to impeach their speaker with only five in a 32-member house of assembly?

    This Rivers matter is particularly distressing because the common man cannot reap any tangible benefit from all the troubles being caused in the state. Here was a state where all manner of hoodlums once held sway but Amaechi reined them in. Now, in Port Harcourt, the ancien regime has returned, with people now having to raise their hands on the streets to show they are no criminals. If lives have not been lost yet, it is certain lives will still be lost in the course of this crisis with the audacity of the desperadoes to have their way, backed by the ‘federal might’. How then are they and their sponsors different from the ‘political’ Boko Haram that the government is fighting, because the fight in Rivers is all about political power just like that of the ‘political’ Boko Haram?

    Rivers State is sitting majestically atop enormous resources. The PDP, because of the way it has mishandled the crisis is probably afraid Amaechi might dump the party and is therefore bent on being in charge of the resources, with the 2015 election in view. Whatever PDP spent to prosecute the 2011 election is going to be a child’s play with what it would require to prosecute the 2015 polls. The election that brought President Jonathan in in 2011 was a walk-over; for sure, the next won’t be. That much is clear with the handwriting on the wall.

    But the president must be careful. It is a powerful statement that his side could not muster the simple majority required to win the 36-member NGF election, even though that was none of its business until he joined the fray. How then can a presidential side which lost at the national level hope to make it at the state level? The president should resist the temptation to use brawn where brain would have been sufficient because the result may be catastrophic. The fact that Obasanjo got away with that is no guarantee that President Jonathan will.