The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Two men of Africa

    Two men of Africa

    Heroes come too rarely yet pass so quickly

    If only the plow fields of human endeavor obeyed the rules governing physical objects. The sun rises and sets. Day turns to night to return to day once more. We literally set our clocks by this constant rhythm. Such is not the case in the affairs of man. The passage of a person of greatness does not guarantee another shall rise in his stead. The only certainty accompanying the passage man is that the man shall be forever gone. Who may fill the vacuum is a matter of hope and conjecture, not of certitude. Sometimes light is replaced by light, sometime by darkness. Sometimes it is replaced by nothing at all.

    Nelson Mandela lies in the hospital. He has been in this position many times in recent years. Although eventually discharged, each convalescence weakened him, meaning the next visit would come quicker than the one it followed. Slowly, the decline has brought us to the current point. This time something seems different. Something funereal lingers.

    The media pictures the situation as Mandela clinging to life. This is false. It is not Mandela holding to life. It is us desperately clinging to Mandela. We refuse to let him go. We are too frightened to allow him to be mortal even at this frail point in his life. We have turned him into a monument and seek to once more confine him in this edifice we have created of him. He is more legend than human; we subconsciously hope the greatness of his past will somehow redeem our future missteps.

    Debate whether the family should allow him to pass quietly or deploy the finest medical practitioners to keep him alive, even in a reduced state, misses the point. You don’t allow this rare individual to pass quietly into history. The family is emotionally and morally obligated to fight like soldiers to keep him with us as long as possible. As painful as this slow walk to the exit may seem, they have no other alternative. They must fight for him as he had fought for all of us. To some, this struggle is futile because no one cheats Death. Yet, for that very reason they must struggle against the impossible. In so doing, they give a fitting tribute to their beloved.

    No public figure in the past fifty years has ever personified the best aspirations of a nation and mankind than Mandela. Usually, when the world proclaims a man “the father of his nation,” we sheepishly glance about because we the statement to be hyperbole. When that term is applied to Mandela, it is not an exaggeration. It is an understatement.

    History records that Nelson Mandela became president of the South Africa on 1994. This is factually true but inaccurate. In a more profound way, Madiba was destined to become president of non-apartheid, democratic South Africa the moment he was sentenced to Robben Island. On that isolated rock, Mandela found his better self. Thrust into a predicament that would have embittered most personalities and warped many minds, Mandela managed to groom himself for the great task at hand. He is that rare figure who can have a daily encounter with inhumanity yet emerge the better for it.

    His foes sent Mandela to prison so that they might be rid of him. Instead, they had enrolled him in a unique school of governance and tolerance. Being that school’s valedictorian, Mandela would be the only plausible choice to lead South Africa from a cruel, rigid night into a hopeful but uncertain dawn. As such, his captives were more complicit in dismantling their racist state than they care to admit. Time and time again, upon the submerged stones of condign irony, human progress traverses the waters and tides of backwardness to reach a safer place on a more placid shore.

    Not since President Lincoln steered America through its moment of truth, the Civil War, has a single person carried a nation on his back as had Nelson Mandela when he ferried South Africa from racial cataclysm to a better, if still imperfect, future. For America, an assassin’s bullet took Lincoln from the scene as the nation turned from war to the tasks of reconciliation and reconstruction. Because of Lincoln’s absence, reconstruction did not take place as it should have. After Lincoln’s interment, no hero arose to continue in his footsteps. At a critical juncture, the nation was placed in the custody of leaders of lesser mettle and more selfish interests. Post-war reconstruction and the integration of former slaves into society were impaired. It took another century of pain and struggle for Blacks to attain a status unfettered by legalized racial discrimination.

    Mandela’s historic task was as steep as Lincoln’s, in some ways similar, in some ways different. The latter had to prevent a divided nation from splintering apart over the issue of race. He had to begin integrating the newly freed minority into a wounded but healing nation. On the other hand, Mandela had to keep a tense nation from sliding into violent insurrection. Presiding over the transfer of political power from a brutal minority regime, he had to assure this powerful minority that its legitimate interests would be protected. He also had to assure the suppressed majority that a new reality had truly been set forth. Yet he asked this majority to exercise patience in not pressing too hard, too fast for radical socio-economic change.

    His primary task was to keep intact the new architecture of power. He had to prove Black leadership was sufficiently disciplined and sane to effectively govern the nation without grounding its relatively sophisticated, if grossly unequal, political economy. Keeping the nation intact and creating a political culture of tolerance and compromise are the obelisks marking the accomplishments of this man.

    It would have been too much to ask even this remarkable man to have overseen the needed reconfiguration of South Africa’s political economy. The black majority still wallows in depravation and cut itself on poverty. Many townships are nothing but aliases for ghettoes; they teem with the young, wretched and disenfranchised. If the current situation persists, the previous racial apartheid will transform into a socio-economic apartheid, pitting white and black elites against the pedestrian bulk. On the surface, things have changed because racial discrimination has been restrained. However, it will still be apartheid. As such, it will blight the nation and the people will eventually reject its imposition. Whether this is done with reason and in peace or with the rush and sweep of a violent, desperate hand depends on the political leadership. Thus far, those who have come after Mandela look much smaller than the work fate has given them.

    To his credit, Mandel laid the foundation for this difficult work. The impending tragedy of South Africa is that it was not Mandela’s historic mission to do this work yet he might be the only one at present who could. This is one reason the people cling to his life as if it is their own. While the reformative task is rarely discussed in public because it disturbs the myth of racial harmony, most South Africans realize they must soon confront this truth lest it confront them at a moment and in conditions less benign than what now exist.

    However, they are unsure they can do the difficult job in a way that will not undo the good work already achieved. They hold to Mandela in the futile hope that as long as he lives, things can remain peacefully as they are. As long as he is here, they feel the nation will not have to confront this historic imperative or that somehow he will guide them pass the rough thicket as he has done before. One cannot blame them for this belief. Any people in their position would reason the same way even if it amounts to reasoning against reason itself.

    Against this backdrop, President Obama begins his visit to three African nations. That President Obama, America’s first Black president, now visits South Africa as its first Black president begins to fade is a poignant moment. Some hope it is more than coincidence. Like the physical world’s abhorrence of a vacuum, somehow Mandela may pass the mantle of greatness to Obama. This would be nice for it has the ingredients of epic legend. Even though their precise histories and cultures differ greatly, the two nations are kindred in that both grappled with long-standing white-against-black legalized discrimination.

    In becoming the first Black American president, Obama’s rise was more meteoric and much less taxing than what Mandela endured. Compared to Mandela harsh odyssey, Obama waltzed into the White House. Yet, in some ways, Obama’s task was tougher. He was a minority candidate in a nation where the majority still gazes in suspicion at dark skin. In the end, Mandela had numbers supporting him. Obama had good fortune and the political dexterity of a masterful campaigner. Yet, campaigning is different than governance. Excellent campaigning elevates a man to a position of responsibility. Ability, character and statesmanship will determine whether he becomes a hero or a cipher.

    As Africa prepares itself for the departure of a genuine hero, it welcomes a Black leader who must decide whether he works for posterity or for the interests of the powerful. At the beginning of his presidency, I predicted President Obama would change American policy toward Africa, giving it a more enlightened hue. I was half right. He changed American policy. It got smaller, except for the one aspect that did not need to expand. America’s military presence in Africa has grown under this President while its humanitarian and diplomatic engagement has atrophied.

    His approach to Africa does not suffer an intellectual deficient. His problem remains psychological. Toward all things Black, he maintains a public indifference. That he is Black is no secret. It is part of his calling card and appeal. Yet, because he recoils from the thought of being accused of racial favoritism by conservative political elements in America, he purposely shortchanges those who support him the most. It is a strange phenomenon. In his defense, some will say he copies Mandela by assuring American Whites a Black man can manage the nation efficiently. Superficially, there is similarity but the vast differences of both nations make the comparison a thin one. In South Africa, the bulk of the political system was given in one fell swoop to a Black majority. The question then became would the majority push their once brutal overlords into the sea in an eruption of harsh justice and retribution. Mandela answered “no.” The masses endorsed him.

    With decent future leadership, he knew demographics favored the people over the long term. He did not need to push things. Time and prudence would do what political rashness could not.

    Obama is still a minority political figure. Although President, he does not control the political system. It controls him. Black Americans are as peripheral as ever; their plight worsens by the year. Time works against them. There is no real possibility of them supplanting the preferred position of the White population. Black America does not need time. It needs emergency help of the fist order. Those Whites who warn of a Black uprising know their warning to be counterfeit. Their reward is notoriety, and access to that ready and large constituency of racists. These antics fit into the tradition of America’s racial politics. They are also intended to frighten Obama. Thus far, they have been more successful at scaring the man than progressives, black and white, have been in emboldening him.

    As America’s first Black president, Obama has to be concerned with the dynamics of stupid racism; however, he errors in elevating those dynamics to the position of high policy. These are base sentiments that he must treat as real but also as the base things they are. In effect, he must seek a better balance between assuaging the unfounded but deep fears of racism with meeting the legitimate, suppressed aspirations of minority America and with Africa.

    He did not strike this balance in this current Africa trip. The visit has a travelogue quality about it. He is not visiting Africa as a policy imperative as much as he is going to popular tourist destinations.

    Had he wanted a truly landmark Africa visit ushering in a breakthrough American policy, there are other nations he could have visited. Libya was not on the itinerary. America warred to oust the strongman, claiming the fight was to liberate the people. Now, the place is a maelstrom. Democracy and prosperity are not readily had. It seems western concern stopped at removing Qaddafi and has not continued toward the welfare of the people. Day by day, more Libyans reminisce about Qaddafi. If things continue as they are, some people will disinter the man’s bones, figuring his ghost will be a better leader than the current group hoisted upon them.

    The President could have focused on the Congo. This nation is vital to the true development of the continent. But many interests converge to keep it the prostrate, sick man of Africa. UN military deployments in the country are too small to end the anomie. Congo’s smaller neighbors are close American allies. These nations fear becoming Congo’s satellites should the nation rise from the pit. Thus, they keep it submerged. To control this large nation, they must keep it poor and fractured. In exchange for maintaining this negative political power, these American allies forfeit the economic well-being of the entire region.

    Without the Congo as the driving force, the regional economy cannot grow beyond its smaller self. However, this does not stop these nations from conniving with western corporations to confiscate the Congo’s immense mineral wealth for a pittance, again leaving the nation poor and supine. Thus, the peace arrangement sponsored by America which effectively leaves these neighbors in control of the eastern Congo’s fate is artifice. They will continue to bleed the nation. Still, what is good for these smaller states is inimical for Africa as a whole.

    Due to the lack of courage and statesmanship, the smaller game takes precedent over the large objective. President Obama also could have visited the continent’s most populous nation, Nigeria, with its myriad potential and challenges. But the nation is too complex for the superficiality that describes this tour.

    In the end, it is good President Obama came to Africa at this time when all eyes are focused South Africa and its father, Nelson Mandela. Somewhere deep in his soul there must part of this son of Africa that would like to learn the deeper lessons of Mandela’s greatness and not just finish his presidency as an establishment, mainstream American politician in chocolate face. The great gift of Mandela was to convince the majority not to exert itself against a minority that had wronged it. Will Obama attempt to convince the American majority to treat more equitably the minority it has aggrieved? Will he actually lead the western world to give a better economic deal to the African continent the West has brusquely exploited? If he can muster the courage, he may still be the hero all hoped for. If not, then we must hang on to Mandela as long as possible because we will surely miss him when his time to depart eventually falls due.

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  • Visa bond: Before casting the first stone

    Visa bond: Before casting the first stone

    Nigerian leaders should fix their country instead of blaming Britain for protecting its own interest

    Last Sunday, I had taken on Mr David Cameron, the British Prime Minister on this same page when he said that Britain plans to consult with its Nigerian counterpart to ensure that the anti same-sex bill passed by the National Assembly does not become law. I had said then that Mr Cameron and Britain should not turn Nigeria into Sodom and Gomorrah; and that we have values that run counter to what the Britons want us to embrace. In short, I had referred to them as interlopers. Then, I did not know I would have a return match this early.

    But here I am, and so soon, taking sides with the Britons today. Reports that Britain is planning a scheme that will force visitors from 18 years and above from Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Ghana whose nationals are deemed to pose a “high risk” of immigration abuse, to provide a cash bond of three thousand pound sterling ($4,600; 3,500 euros) (about N750,000) before they can enter Britain have sent the Nigerian elite throwing brickbats at the British authorities. The scheme, according to The Sunday Times newspaper which broke the news, will take effect in November and covers a six-month visit visa. The weekly paper said the move by Home Secretary Theresa May is designed to show that Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party is serious about cutting immigration and abuses of the system. Cameron wants annual net migration down below 100,000 by 2015.

    May was quoted as saying that “This is the next step in making sure our immigration system is more selective, bringing down net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands while still welcoming the brightest and the best to Britain”. She added: “In the long run we’re interested in a system of bonds that deters overstaying and recovers costs if a foreign national has used our public services.” A Home Office official said the six countries highlighted were those with “the most significant risk of abuse”. Now, this is something that is still in the works; and many of our elites are already losing sleep. They cannot even wait for the policy to take off before taking on the British authorities.

    Well, unlike my position last week, that I did not see how our rejection of same-sex marriage could have affected Britain to make that country’s prime minister see in that decision a need to seek a change of position by the Federal Government, today, I say unambiguously that Britain is right in taking whatever measures it deems fit to protect its interest. If we do not know what our interest is, not to talk of how to protect it, we should not blame another country that is fastidious about its. As a matter of fact, my position is strengthened every minute by the fact that none of those who have criticised the proposed scheme has adduced any genuine reason why Cameron should not restrict the number of people coming into Britain, despite that country’s own serious economic challenges. Even the Federal Government that has also threatened to retaliate measure-for-measure has not given any convincing reason on how the proposed measure will affect it or affect Nigerians. The best everyone criticising the British has said is that the proposed measure is ‘discriminatory’. For God’ s sake, what does that mean? I don’t know how something that is only ‘discriminatory’ can jeopardise the interest of Nigerians or that of their government. It is a say-nothing reason that we are adducing.

    If you ask how many people are in a particular street anywhere here, it is unlikely you’ll get anything close to the appropriate number. This has been the way we run our own lives; unfortunately, this is not how things are done in better organised countries. At any time, they want to know how many people enter their country and how many people leave, at least for the purposes of planning. Here, we plan in a vacuum and because we fail to plan, or because we plan blindly, we keep experiencing a situation whereby we march forward to the past. Do we want Britain to become the way we are? A jungle where everything goes?

    If you like, you may brand me an unpatriotic citizen for taking this position; I have no apologies for that. But, before those who might want to cast the first stone at me do, they should sincerely ask themselves whether we would have been where we are today if successive governments in the country had been patriotic. When I was a child, I had relatives who travelled to Britain then and they never went with the intention of staying there permanently. They either went to study or they went on holiday; and they were always eager to return to Nigeria. I remember some of our musicians sang about the cold in London and about how and why our students who went there must face their studies in spite of the cold. One of such songs was ‘Ilu Oyinbo dara, ore mi o dun pupo’, etc.,(UK is good, my friend it is a sweet place, etc). Sweet as the UK was then, our people never went there with the intention of staying. As a matter of fact, even if they wanted to stay put there, there was another song to remind them about home, sweet home, where there is never a place like (Ile o labo sinmi oko)’.

    So, what is it that is now making Nigerians flee from their country to go stay and die abroad? In the good old days that I am talking about, the University of Ibadan, for instance, was recognised as a standard university worldwide. Our most sought-after universities can no longer find space among the first 1,600 in the world, according to the January 2012 report of Webometrics, a world tertiary education ranking institutions organisation, Those who ran the universities and other institutions aground are the ones now shouting that Britain should not ‘discriminate’ against Nigerians, even when that country has made it clear that Nigeria is one of the countries with. “the most significant risk of abuse” of British immigration laws. And this is a thing we all know.

    If you are in doubt, listen to Ambassador Patrick Olusola Onadipe, Deputy Chief of Mission in the Nigerian Embassy in China: “But I hope we will not be overwhelmed because a lot of Nigerians coming here have no business here, if I have to be very frank. This is because when they come they are misinformed.

    “A lot of them probably think they will get jobs here. But when they get here, there is no job. So, they don’t want to return home.

    “Less than 10 per cent of them have visible means of income; others don’t. So, they resort to anti-social activities, like pushing drugs, doing 419, yahoo-yahoo, Internet fraud, armed robbery, rape and even murder.” That is straight from the horse’s mouth and that is the way it is all over the world. Nigerian prostitutes are now hot cakes in Russia. That is how bad things have gone in the country.

    Rather than wish other countries should descend to our depth, we should aspire to their heights. If Nigeria feels sufficiently strong about the proposed British measure, it should reciprocate measure-for-measure when it takes off because I do not think the British should back down on this since it touches on their very soul. Let the legislators crying foul legislate truly for good governance; let the judiciary adjudicate professionally and let the government govern responsibly, such that 16 would not be greater than 19 in a simple arithmetic. When we all do our bit, Nigerians would find little cause to travel abroad in search of greener pasture. And whatever the British do with their immigration laws would not be our headache.

  • Being the butt of the world’s joke is nothing to laugh at

    Once again, dear reader, we have come to that point on our road on this page when we must ask ourselves three necessary questions: where are we coming from, where are we going, and where on earth please can one get the cheapest fish to buy? I am dead serious on this. The doctors have told us perpetually till they are hoarse of voice and mind (mostly mind) that the older we get, the more we should scamper around to eat fish rather than meat. I mean, how on earth anyone can recommend fish over meat just to prolong his life a few miserable years beats me. What exactly is the point of cutting out sweet cakes, beef, pounded yam, jelly, syrup, caramel, eba, etc. when those are the very stuff that life is made of, when you can get them that is? I guess the doctors know a few things the rest of us don’t but I know someone who decided to cut those things off even before the doctors reached him, and I swear laughter went out of his hard palate when those things walked off his plate. I sincerely hope you see the connection somewhere there. So, for now, I am still squaring up, chinning up, flexing down and jigging around in preparation for the D-day: the day of the Fish.

    There is one day that has come though: the day of the joke. Tomorrow, July 1, is World Jokes Day. Now, I don’t know what that is supposed to mean. Are we supposed to sit around on that day telling jokes? Is it that we should celebrate jokes as nature’s way of compensating for the massive pain built into our world, or to celebrate the jokester as the one with the hardest job of all? Come on, he has to make us laugh against our human nature and better sense, when we know better than to laugh in the face of so much provocation.

    My Encarta defines the word ‘joke’ as a funny story, a cause of amusement or something that is inadequate. I know I have regaled you on end with funny stories on this column, and I dare anybody to say that those stories were not funny. (Silence). I thought so. Thank you for your great silence; it will be recorded as a plus for you in heaven (Blessed are the silent when confronted by threats…).

    I do love funny stories, and I will go to great lengths to get them just for you: I listen when people talk, I buy good stories for free, and even if I have to make them up sometimes, what matters it? The important thing is that you my reader gets served with a tantalising dish of funny stuff each week to help you swallow Jonathan’s weekly diet of bitter pills. Poor man; I know he does not mean to be mean to us, giving us all these bitter pills, but what can he do, when we have given him this funny farm of a country to run?! Either him, you or me, but one of us must run amok, and am I glad it’s not me.

    There is no end of the things capable of making us all run amok in this country. When you consider that armed robbers are better armed and possibly more resilient than the police system here, it’s enough to make you hold your hair and go running round and round the room in circles. When you remember that this country exports crude oil in millions and millions of barrels but imports refined oil in spite of the fact that there are enough refineries to fill up Christopher Columbus and Sinbad’s ships ten thousand times each day for ever, you just want to scream. Yep, we have our eyes right behind our heads all right. Then, when you remember that we live in a country where the states are governed by people who are under the tight leash of their godfathers, you know the joke is on us the governed, literally, because it gives them a huge laugh.

    Honestly though, writing funny stories and being surrounded by so many things that cause endless amusement are nothing compared to some things being laughably inadequate. I have said it before and I dare to repeat it now but our national intelligence is laughably inadequate. It explains many things really. Let’s begin with our national focus. It can only be lack of intelligence that constantly tells us as a nation not to focus our attention on building a better country for our tomorrow but to fritter our today away in our own frivolous living.

    Just imagine. Our transport system is a joke; there is none, just us as a people making do as much as we can. So, we have trailers doing the work of aeroplanes and trains, cars doing the work of trains and cars, trains doing the work of cars, motorcycles doing the work of buses, and buses doing the work of bicycles and … I hope you are as confused as I am cause there’s no making it out. Let me do my Italian imitation: But- er, you already know– er, it is all one big- er joke- er around here. When I go out, I hop on anything that comes to hand, err to foot, err to… whatever.

    If you think our transport system is a joke, take a look at the electricity system. It is a huger joke (pardon the bad language) because we have national leaders whose sense of humour has taken the strange turn of making us all buy the generator sets they import into the country to make themselves rich. So, so clownish. There are ringside seats in this comedic club but they are occupied by actors who are enjoying the show, while the spectators are up there on the stage writhing in the pain of deprivation – no electricity in the morning, noon or night.

    As if that were not enough, we have leaders, men and women, doing the dance macabre in front of the nation as they gorge themselves to the eyeballs on national funds. But that’s funny, because you see, I am confident that what they think they have got all tucked away into their stomachs and noses and eyes, the doctors will soon be culling out. Someone said once that Egyptian and Indian hospitals are filled with serving Nigerian leaders who have quietly gone underground for one illness or the other. That is so sad. Do we have to wait for this kind of nonsense before we come to our real sense? There is our own Mandela there whose focus in life has been to give into the system, not take out of it, and see how old he is. More importantly, with so much clout in the world, the man is in a national hospital in SA, not in a hospi-tel in Saudi Arabia, America, Germany, India or Egypt frittering away more of the nation’s funds. He is not making his nation the butt of the world’s joke. No, that’s the job of Nigerians, to be the butt of the world’s joke.

    Unfortunately for us, we cannot afford to sit around telling jokes on World Jokes Day. We can only afford to sit and mope on our singular misfortune of being forced to take part in this Dance of Clowns. It’s an opera. No, it does not end in a pun like all good jokes; it ends in an enigma. Like all endings, however, changes can be made, provided we see through the tunnel and quickly make amends.

  • On post-military party disorder

    On post-military party disorder

    Is the party over? It is necessary and even mandatory in the light of the current ruptures and eruptions in the dominant party structure in post-military Nigeria to take a closer look at the military origins of party formation in the post-military Fourth Republic. This is with a view to determining the origins of the current crisis of party formation in contemporary Nigerian politics and the possible ways out of the historic gridlock.

    To be sure, this exercise has little or nothing to do with whether Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the embattled chairman of the PDP, survives the throne of bayonets. Whatever his tragic illusions of grandeur, Tukur is a mere epiphenomenon in a consuming and engrossing dance of the political forest. If he is able to see himself as he truly is, or the situation as it really is, then there would be no need for what is known as dramatic irony.

    Like President Jonathan, Tukur himself is a a product of a determinate historical process which must eventually unravel before our very eyes. The fate of the nation is far more important than the fate of two individuals however important or self-important. It is this process and the political occlusions as they violently unfurl that must be of concern to patriotic Nigerians.

    Just as individuals suffer from what is known as post traumatic stress disorder, so do societies. Nigeria suffers and has continued to suffer from the stress and traumatic disorder of post-military rule. If the worst afflicted is the ruling party, the other party formations also suffer from the stress and roiling contradictions to a lesser degree.

    A dispassionate analysis of the crisis must also take on board the current efforts of opposition parties, spearheaded by the ACN and the CPC, to form a broad-based alliance against the ruling party. The opposition must take more than a passing interest in developments in other African countries and the mixed results so far.

    Whereas in Guinea, Senegal and the Benin Republic, the stitching together of various and seemingly incompatible political tendencies succeeded in upending the status quo and inaugurating a new social order, in Zimbabwe it led to an abominable compromise and tense power-sharing while in Kenya it eventuated in civil war and near genocide. The last presidential election in Kenya merely showcased the bitter ethnic divisions in the nation.

    In Zimbabwe, the old wizard of Harare still continues to rule the roost even as the opposition has become a butt of joke and bitter derision. By the time the wily and obdurate Robert Mugabe was done with it, the opposition had lost so much ground and prestige that at the moment it is no longer in a position to mount a challenge in the name of freedom and democracy.. With the scion of Karamoja Odinga Oginga still sulking and with the son of Jomo Kenyatta a presidential fugitive from international justice, Kenya remains a seething volcano.

    There are many who believe in retrospect that Nigeria would have been spared its current post-military trauma had the old opposition coalition that fought the military junta to a standstill remained steadfast in its insistence that nothing good could come out of a post-military Nigeria without a major restructuring and reconfiguration of its top-heavy and lopsided political structure.

    By jettisoning its original demand for a national conference before meaningful elections could be held, the opposition fell for a military sucker punch which made it a willing tool and accomplice in a power game for which it was particularly ill-suited and ill-equipped. The old masters simply overran and overpowered it. The result is a military ordained party in perpetual power with all its democracy threatening toxic side effects.

    The hardnosed and hard-headed pragmatists dismiss this rosy view as touching in its idyllic naivete. One, it ignores the realities on ground. Second, it overlooks the balance of power even as the military shambled away in disorderly and disorganised retreat having exhausted its political and historic possibilities. It was not the civilian agitators that got rid of General Sani Abacha. It was the military themselves. It was not the NADECO insurgents that summarily eliminated Abiola. It was the culmination of the original move to clear the political deck of its human cobwebs.

    NADECO and its allies merely panicked and pressurised the military establishment to come up with a fresh initiative. In other words, the departing military still retained the initiative. Hobbled by struggle-fatigue, riven by internal divisions and dissensions and with its international source of funding about to dramatically evaporate since the global donor community were aware of its limits and limitations, the opposition could only meekly comply.

    It was not cut in the mould of an ANC which had the cohesion, the capacity and the superior organisational ability to wage a long-distance struggle. In any case, the strength and disposition of the enemy often crystallises the strength and disposition of the adversary. Unlike the apartheid monstrosity which had the ideological solidity, the political clarity and institutionalised memory about the kind of society it was creating, the Nigerian military never came up with a set of coherent ideas about a new type of society with the military as its arrowhead beyond its reliance on sheer brute force.

    Both the Babangida and the Abacha Transition Programmes were exercises in sustained brutal duplicity unleavened by neither redeeming vision nor intellectual sagacity. Once the vice grip of each on the levers of power and brute force was prised apart, it was easy for either to briskly unravel.

    But what the military echelons lacked in intellectual sophistication and ideological subtlety, they made up for in raw political cunning. Despite its loss of prestige and authority and the sudden death of its leader, the military after Abacha remained the dominant political party in the nation. Babangida, Abacha and Abubakar to a lesser extent knew the Nigerian political class and had them solidly within their rifle sight, so to say.

    It is useful to recall that in his maiden broadcast to the nation, General Abubakar had pledged to continue with the Abacha Transition Programme. It was a remarkable howler. But the Minna-born soldier quickly changed his mind once the master puppeteer behind the veil ticked him off. Without Abacha’s savage repression, his transition programme was dead on arrival. So were the league of elected charlatans.

    But you cannot bequeath what you don’t have. What the military was looking for were not visionary idealists or transformative leaders who could take Nigeria to the next level but politically correct journeymen sworn to protect the status quo. People who could be relied upon to indemnify the retreating army against loss and loss of face. It is to be noted that it was not NADECO leaders who began immediately crisscrossing the country to identify and plot with the pair of safe hands but members of the old military aristocracy.

    Thus was born the PDP and by extension the Obasanjo presidency as a protective shield for the retreating military and as a grand cartel for the protection and furtherance of the interests of the monied plutocracy thrown up by military rule as well as the old oligarchy. It is to be noted that 20 years earlier, the NPN was born in chillingly similar circumstances and very much for the same purpose.

    It is to be noted that in the run up to the presidential election of 1999, General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma famously noted that that although the Yoruba people had been asked to produce the next king, they could not be kingmakers in their own cause, Thus a strange king was procured for the Yoruba people even as the king lost in his own ward. Twenty years earlier, Obasanjo himself as military head of state had even more famously observed that the best person would not always win a contest.

    In contrast, when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was told about the ambition of a former military ruler of the old west to join the partisan political fray, the old man had tersely responded that while he was not interested in probing the military as an institution, individual members who chose to join partisan politics would have their background subjected to searching scrutiny. Obasanjo would have chuckled to himself. The old man still didn’t get it. It was the shortest and sharpest political suicide note in Nigerian history.

    So it is then that we are faced with the conundrum of a party which was not founded on the premises of national development or rapid transformation but on the platform of sheer racketeering and privilege pimping. Can the PDP give what it doesn’t have? Can it take Nigeria to the next level? While the PDP must be commended for its policy of demilitarisation through cooptation, it has also re-militarised the polity through its politics of harsh regimentation and its garrison mentality.

    This is what is currently playing out with seismic reverberations across the length and breadth of the country. It is not a revolutionary upheaval but the volcanic implosion of a party that has come face to face with the fatal contradictions of its origins, roots and foundation in military autocracy and the transformative, politically redemptive yearnings of most Nigerians.

    The nation-threatening explosions will go on for quite some time until the PDP is put out of its misery by a pan-Nigerian ensemble. Obasanjo who drove away the original founders has himself been driven to the outer margins of the party. This last week, in a futile show of sterile impotence, the party’s South West caucus endorsed Jonathan’s re-election bid without the former president’s input. It doesn’t get more bitterly ironic. And it is morning yet on the day of traumatic transition from military despotism to true democracy. It didn’t start raining yesterday.

  • The Ikogosi graduate summer school:

    Fayemi introduces another paradigm shift in education

    Post the PDP locust years, 2003-2010 in the entire Southwest, but more poignantly in Ekiti, we can, with more than considerable justification, thank God as the Holy Writ enjoins us in 1 PETER 2: 9: ‘But ye are a chosen generation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light’.

    When, between 2007 -2010, Ekitis rooted for Dr Kayode Fayemi and swore to stick by him whatever the odds; when men, both within the state and outside it were playing god; when then President Obasanjo believed he could turn daylight to darkness, we were counting on nothing more than the almighty God and the young man’s democratic pedigree, his good moral upbringing, his well-known erudition and scholarship, the fact that we know this one is in good political company and will never lie to us and, indeed, that which we knew of his exertions in the cause of democracy and human rights. Even when ‘Mama’ was suborned, by the powers that be, to eat up her Christian conscience and ran, Awol, from her duty post in Ado-Ekiti, we stood firm just like we did as Fayemi and his illustrious Deputy, our own late MOREMI, Mrs Funmi Olayinka, went all through the judicial acrobatics and shenanigans a thoroughly misbegotten Nigerian judiciary could manufacture. Ekiti stood ramrod behind Fayemi until when The Nation’s highly perceptive columnist, Dele Agekameh called ‘Fayemi’s Final Triumph’, in his column of Wednesday, June19, 2013. That was at the Supreme Court on May 31, 2013.

    Now, there can be no going back as we see every stratum of the Ekiti society endorsing him, asking him to continue the good work even the blind can see -4 More Years for JKF – they say -Just Keeping the Faith. Fayemi’s good work is seen in every nook and cranny of the state. That, he ensured simply by deriving his government’s annual budgets bottom up. How?

    The governor, ahead of his budget preparations, goes on a state-wide tour of the Local Government areas during which the peoples’ immediate and preferred projects are presented to him by the people themselves. And, in clear contradistinction to our friends of the other party, Fayemi will let the constituents know that all the projects cannot be accommodated in a single budget, and that what could not be taken immediately will be included in the next. That way, there is no single Ekiti community that can claim not to have felt the government’s presence.

    I am happy; even ecstatic. Last week, it was: ‘Aregbesola waohs them’, during the past week it was a woman of real conscience, Mrs Bose Adedibu, widow of the late strongman of Ibadan politics, Papa Lamidi Adedibu, who could not , like other PDP members in the state, continue to live in denial, celebrating the Oyo state governor, Abiola Ajimobi for his great strides. Said Mrs Adedibu: ‘I remember vividly that at that time, the people of Oyo state lived in perpetual fear of insecurity. But now, everywhere is peaceful and people are going about their business without fear or molestation’. That was aside her good words for the governor in other areas and we do hope she will help drum that to our Accord friends.

    Like his Oyo state counterpart, Fashola continues to dazzle, now building institutions that will immortalize him , just like Ibikunle Amosun and Adams Oshiomhole continue to receive rave reviews of their sterling performance. This is what I call being in a good political company; one that does not deceive the people.

    And this is where Governor Kayode Fayemi and the Ikogosi Graduate Summer School initiative comes in. Just like the Lagos state governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, once said: ‘The buildings will come down in 20 or 30 years time. It is the institutions and the policies underlying them that will remain and once those policies are there, whoever is there in future can erect other buildings’. Fayemi has by the IGSS programme once again demonstrated that building institutions is the fulcrum of his administration, thereby erecting for himself, imperishability. This man will be remembered and celebrated long after many an Ekiti state governor had been forgotten. Of that, I haven’t a scintilla of doubt.

    What then is the Ikogosi Graduate Summer School?

    From his first day in office, Fayemi has agonised over the state of our education, at all levels in the country, but more pointedly, in Ekiti. He has been tortured to no end, for instance, about the loss of the culture of inquiry and moderation that the university represents in other climes, about journal articles that are everything but scholarly; to publications that are driven solely by quest for promotion and so add nothing to real knowledge as well as to the menace that VCs without CVs represent to the university system. Of course, says he, there are VC’s that are still eminently worthy of that name. I should know these concerns of his because I served on his Education Committed – one of his first set of committees – established very early in the administration to interrogate all the issues accounting for collapsed education in Ekiti. The IGSS is another building block to re-mediate that albatross. The IGSS is a bold move to turn Nigeria’s endemic brain drain to brain gain. In the words of the two co-coordinating directors of the programme, the suave and seminal Drs Wale Adebanwi and Ebenezer Obadare: ‘higher education has, from the period of the regime of structural adjustment, suffered so much depreciation from which it is yet to recover. A glaring consequence of this is brain drain with Nigeria now exporting what it so desperately needs, namely, it’s human resources and mental capital. This hemorrhaging of human resources, they assert, has in turn led to the loss of high quality manpower in our universities. The IGSS is therefore designed to provide access to highly-trained and accomplished Nigerian academics abroad to interact with graduate students in Nigeria alongside the home-based but no less accomplished and highly-trained scholars thus leading to the blending of global and local scholarship of the highest standards for the benefits of graduate students, first, of Ekiti origin. It will give the students an opportunity to access free and fine grain mentoring from foreign-based scholars in addition to local supervision which will constantly expose them to world-class research as well as engage them with ongoing global discourses not only about their particular disciplines, but also the place of Africa in the world’.

    The programme which has an inaugural 50 Ekiti graduate students spread over the liberal arts, social sciences, law, education, banking and finance, and that rallying ground and crucible of diverse disciplines – Africa Studies – kicked off on Monday, 16 June, 2013, to a wondrous keynote address delivered by my friend of many decades, the world acclaimed poet and teacher, Professor Niyi Osundare, on what he titled: THE SPIRIT OF IKOGOSI and there could be no better way of ending this article than by quoting Niyi at some length on what the government of Dr Kayode Fayemi has made of Ikogosi Warm Springs in its single-minded determination to make Ekiti the tourist’s destination of choice.

    Wrote Professor Osundare: ‘Consider the very location of the Ikogosi Graduate Summer ‘School’. Ikogosi. A place of near-Edenic serenity tucked away in the awesome flanks of Ekiti hills, made popular by the differing temperatures of its springs. Until recently, Ikogosi was nothing more than a promissory mantra in political campaigns and recurring decimal in the arithmetic of annual state budgets. Half-executed projects littered its landscape. Giant mosquitoes and dragon-like reptiles played host even in the most executive of its executive suites. Government after government extolled its potential as a tourist money garnerer, but fell tragically short of taking adequate care of the goose that was expected to lay the golden egg. But as we look round today, a terrific difference arrests our gaze: gleaming access roads, enticing swimming pools, cozy chalets, capacious multi-purpose halls, spacious amphitheatre (with dramatic intimations of the famous Christ’s School Quadrangle), wood-terraced tour walks, etc. A world-class golf course is rearing to tee off into existence to the pastoral astonishment of a sleepy Ekiti terrain, etc. A world-class golf course is even teeing into existence much to the pastoral astonishment of a sleepy Ekiti terrain. There is every indication that Ikogosi is beckoning to the world; the tourist naira rain is about to fall.’

    My last word though: those packaging Ikogosi Tourist Resort for the world should go no further than Osundare’s keynote address to carve its profile from the Advert nuggets he gave, pro bono.

    Without a doubt, God is good to us in Ekiti state.

  • Impact-driven journalism

    Impact-driven journalism

    The first ever Impact Journalism Day- a unique project involving 20 leading newspapers across the world publishing dedicated sections packed with creative solutions to global issues on the same day- was marked on Saturday.

    The project, initiated by Sparknews in collaboration with media partners, seeks to kick start change in the way we think of news and newspapers. It promotes reporting of the best, smartest initiatives, with the hope of inspiring others to replicate, innovate and communicate the ideas to others.

    The Nation is proud to be one of the media partners for the project, which I consider very thoughtful considering the need for the media to more than ever before seek to make more impact in the lives of their audience.

    With the global economic crisis, many are in search of solutions to the various challenges they have to cope with. Living has become tougher in not only underdeveloped nations but also in developing and developed nations. Unemployment is on the rise, poverty is growing, more diseases are emerging, environmental degradation is worsening and terrorism is spreading worldwide among others problems.

    In the midst of the bleak situation, readers as Christian de Boisredon, founder of Sparknews rightly puts it, are hungry for stories with a difference. He says they want “stories that bring hope and concrete solutions, at both local and global level. They are looking for signs of change they can identify with. Change that will make them think…and act”.

    The media undoubtedly has immense capacity to influence their audience and have been doing so through fulfilling its educating, informing and entertaining functions. It’s difficult to imagine life without the mass media, which beyond the traditional print and electronic medium now include the online platforms.

    We really live in troubled times in which the media should be interested in helping to provide solutions. We have to move from just telling stories and highlighting problems to providing concrete solutions. Journalism for journalism sake cannot serve the present generation of readers who have found themselves in desperate situations requiring urgent ideas about how to survive.

    With the media not been immune from the economic crisis, the temptation for the media will be to be more ‘business like’ and focus on issues that could sell their papers and not salient issues their readers want to read about. While media owners should be concerned about their survival they must now fail in their social responsibility to the readers.

    Journalism must impact on the lives of the people or else it will become irrelevant. Journalists must make a conscious effort to identify the challenges in their community and contribute to solving them.

    Journalists should be concerned about the positive impact of their work through feedbacks from their audience.

    Readers need hope to believe that tomorrow will come. They need to be inspired to know that they can overcome whatever challenges they are going through presently. They need to be encouraged to maximize their potentials.

    With the world now being truly a global village, thanks to the Internet, there is the opportunity to seek and share solutions to global issues. The Impact Journalism Day should serve as a reminder for journalists to make the world a better place through their publications.

     

  • Doing it gay or straight

    British PM  should respect Nigerians’ rights on same-sex marriage

    British Prime Minister David Cameron will definitely be going off limit if he makes good his promise to meet with Nigerian authorities with a view to making them rethink the National Assembly’s position on same-sex marriage. Yes, countries can try to sway one another over certain policies or programmes that they consider inimical to their citizens or their countries, or better still, to global peace and harmony. That is part of what diplomacy is all about. And, of course, many nations have taken advantage of this vehicle to ‘talk’ to one another for their individual benefits. It is usually when diplomacy has failed that nations resort to war.

    But Prime Minister Cameron’s issue with a Nigerian legislation that is still in the works (or inchoate as we’ve come to know such since the days when Lagos State tried to create local governments a few years back), is puzzling. The National Assembly has prescribed 14 years imprisonment for same-sex marriage offenders. Those who witness, aid or abet such unions as well as those who operate gay clubs and societies, and engage in public displays of same-sex affection would be punishable by as many as 10 years jail. The House of Representatives passed the bill on May 30 while the Senate passed a similar bill in November 2011. But for the fact that President Goodluck Jonathan has not assented to the bill to give it the force of law, Mr Cameron’s proposed ‘consultations’ with the Nigerian authorities would have been belated.

    We have long anticipated that signing the bill into law may draw the displeasure of the U.S. and European Union countries that are generally critical of the suppression of gay rights in Africa, so, Mr Cameron’s planned ‘consultations’ on the issue should be understood from this context. But, as we say here, wetin concern agbero with overload? I wonder how this is an issue that these foreign countries should poke their nose into. How does Nigeria’s refusal to legalise same-sex marriage affect Mr Cameron or British citizens, or the citizens of any EU nation for that matter?

    No doubt, even as we speak, homosexuality is going on in some parts of the country and it has been like that for years; but it is not a national problem. As a matter of fact, I hear it is prevalent among some of our rich people, and some have even rumoured that they use it for different kinds of rituals or fetish purposes; not for pleasure as is the case abroad. But we have not made any issue out of it all the same. One, it is not rampant; and second, it appears it has been going on among consenting persons. This is how far we can go on the matter and to this extent, those who engage in homosexuality in Nigeria also have some right; it is not as if they cannot do it at all; what we are saying is that we do not want to see them do it. And I think the rest of us who feel this way should also have our rights protected.

    Honestly, apart from the fact that none of the two dominant religions in the country sanctions the act, it is disgusting. How does a man start caressing another man before the act? I can’t imagine how repulsive it would be for a man to be touched suggestively by another man; or for a lady to be touched in a similar manner by another female. Let’s even forget religion, the point is that homosexuality is unnatural. Maybe that is why it is common in the US and in the European countries. Most of the things we see in those places, including human beings, are not the way they were at creation. Take Michael Jackson of blessed memory, for instance.

    Sorry, if I am being somewhat obscene; it is inevitable; same-sex marriage itself is obscene, ab initio. In Nigeria, nay Africa, when you see a lady with pointed boobs, you can be sure what you are seeing is for real. In climes where Mr Cameron and others fighting for legalisation of same-sex marriage come from, chances are those things had been tampered with and whatever seems to be pointed there is only a caricature of the original. As usual, the whites have a way of giving those things some highfalutin names to make them attractive. For example, cosmetic surgical procedure for reducing the size of large breasts is fancifully called mammoplasty. In Nigeria, we knew little of tummy tuck until a few years back.

    The point I am making is that if permissiveness (or is it over-permissiveness?) has made America and Europe to disconnect from Mother Nature, thus making them to gladly embrace homosexuality, they are the ones that need to return to source; not the other way round. Nigeria is blessed with beautiful ladies of all shades and sizes; and for real. The same goes for handsome men. These may be in short supply in Britain because most of their ladies look one kind and this may explain why some of their men prefer hanging out with our girls that are in hot demand all over Europe. It is when men, as lovers of variety, cannot have access to such beauty of beauties that they start thinking of hanging out with men like them, and vice versa.

    Here, it used to be an abomination for people who were not legally or traditionally married to ‘know’ one another; that is gone because we’ve imbibed the wrong values. And that was something done between a male and a female. To now think of man doing it with man and woman doing it with woman! Haba, that is not only abominable, it is repulsive. It is alien to our culture. Is Mr Cameron aware of what they call ethnocentricity? Does it mean that Mr Cameron’s hands are not full to be thinking of such mundane ‘consultations’? If he wants to help his Nigerian counterpart, there are more serious areas of need where he can be useful. We still don’t have light; security remains a serious challenge; there is youth unemployment, etc. We do not need ‘consultations’ on same-sex marriage.

    Anyway, as Nigerian authorities warm up for Mr Cameron’s proposed ‘consultations’, they should be ready to let the British PM know that his country is the one that needs deliverance, not Nigeria, at least as far as same-sex marriage is concerned. Maybe we should even let him come over to have a feel of our hospitality to fully appreciate the point I am making. When he comes over, we should put at his service some of our girls from any of the fattening rooms in Calabar, to let Mr Cameron see what Nature is all about. I have no doubt that his opinion on the matter would no longer be the same by the time he returns to Britain. Or, how would the Britons feel when their Prime Minister returns after the ‘consultations’ to say something like ” em, em, at some point, the Nigerians seem to be making sense”?

    Honestly, thanks, but no thanks, Mr Cameron. We prefer the way we are and Britain should please recognise the fact that we are at liberty to do that. We are more interested in reclaiming our lost innocence; I do not know how legalisation of same-sex marriage can do that for us. If Britons want it gay, we prefer it straight. We don’t want to be part of the impending curse of the danger down below.

     

  • New road-side policing?

    One point arising from the replacement of NPF with FRSC, VIO, and NC men on the roads is the increasing harassment of citizens

    A few months ago, the current Inspector-General of Police did what most Nigerians had considered impossible. He put an end to police roadblocks across the country. At the beginning, most Nigerians did not believe he would have the courage to keep toll-collecting police officers off the highways and intra-city roads. But as soon as it became clear that the no-nonsense IG was ready to fire road-blocking police officers, Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief and praised the IG for his braveness. A few months after this micro revolution, citizens are back to harassment by new groups of uniformed men on highways and city roads.

    Members of the Federal Road Safety Commission appear to have succeeded members of the Nigeria Police Force on road-side duties. FRSC red-capped men and women are now as ubiquitous on all roads between towns as the federal police withdrawn from the road a few months ago. Just like the police before them, FRSC officers stop moving vehicles on the highway and on streets within towns that are clearly not federal roads. Like the NPF men and women, FRSC officers dutifully ask for drivers’ licenses, vehicle registration, insurance papers, fire extinguishers, etc. They even stop and delay drivers whose tail lights are out.

    I rode with a brother recently. He was flagged down on the Lagos-Ibadan highway around noon. After producing every document requested of him by the FRSC men, he was told that the passenger-side rear light “was not working.” My brother responded that this must have just happened and that he would fix it in Ibadan. I expected the FRSC men to give him a warning, but they quickly handed my brother a N2,000 ticket, asking him to turn in his driver’s license. Of course, several mini-buses that were stopped did not experience much delay. They were quick to stretch their hands to the men in red caps. My brother blamed me for refusing to sit at the back. He was right; all the cars with one or two persons at the back were ignored by the officers. I quickly learnt my lesson and chose to sit at the back (at the so-called owner’s corner) on our way back.

    On our way back from Ibadan the same day, we saw another law-enforcing group. These were Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO). Like the FRSC officers we saw in the morning, they too were there to ensure safety on the road. Five or so buses were stopped in front of us. Even though we were not flagged down, I got down out of curiosity to ask one of the bus drivers what the problem was. The VIOs were asking commercial bus drivers the same set of questions that we were asked in the morning by FRSC officers. One of the officers came to ask me for my identity and why I had stopped without being asked to do so. I told him I just wanted to know what they were doing on the highway. He told me with a stern look, “doing our job and please do not block the traffic sir.”

    Even on Ikeja roads, FRSC and VIO are competing for attention or business. It is not uncommon to come across these men and women within half a mile on the same road on the same day in Ikeja, particularly on Olowopopo Avenue and Agidingbi Road. As if the FRSC and VIO are not enough menace on the roads, men of the Nigerian Customs are also stopping moving vehicles on Funsho Williams Avenue, Ibadan-Ife and Sagamu-Ore roads, to name a few. In their own case, Customs men claim to be searching for smuggled goods. They ask drivers to produce their customs papers, even when the vehicles carry proper registration documents. One Customs officer even accused me between Araromi-Obu and J-4 of driving a car that must have been undervalued, saying “the amount paid on the car was rather small.” I assured the officer that I bought the car in Nigeria from someone who had used it in the country for more than two years before I bought it. I was luckier than other road users. The chubby customs officer released my papers.

    One point arising from the replacement of NPF with FRSC, VIO, and NC men on the roads is the increasing harassment of citizens, particularly commercial drivers. It does not make sense to save road users from the menace of one armed force and put them in the jaws of men and women of three other forces. There must be better ways for Customs men to prevent smuggled goods from entering the country. This is why there are ports of entry into the country. Customs officers checking for smuggled goods outside the airport or in places that have no borders with other countries must have ulterior motives.

    Citizens need to be properly educated about the roles of FRSC and VIO. Are they competing agencies? At the beginning, FRSC officers were to enforce speed limit on highways. VIO was principally responsible for ensuring that those who obtain drivers’ licenses are certified to do so. These two agencies now behave like customs men. They wait outside their offices to ascertain that drivers have proper documents. FRSC men no longer enforce speed limit. They are not even properly equipped to do so. There are no radars to ascertain that drivers are driving within speed limit. There are no signs to indicate speed limit from zone to zone. Unlike what obtains in other countries, there is no agency that certifies periodically that vehicles are safe to be put on the road. In other places, vehicles are checked for mechanical fitness and emission control and certificates are issued for passing such inspection. Para-military men and women are not given beats on the highways to do this.

    Withdrawing the black-uniformed federal police from ‘Wetin-u-carry/wey your particulars’ beats that often turned into unofficial toll gates for police offices and the enthusiasm of traffic-related officers that have succeeded the traditional police: FRSC and VIO as road-side police only deepen the lack of democratic policing in our country. The kind of exotic English or crude pidgin (all designed to draw money from the pockets of road users) that federal traffic policemen and women speak does not fail to push the average citizen to say ‘but what kind of country do we live in?’

    My experience on my way to and from the heart of Yorubaland in the two weeks has compelled me to re-publish this piece which had appeared earlier on this page.

     

  • Analog is to a single mirror image as digital is to a hall of mirrors: reflections (1)

    Analog is to a single mirror image as digital is to a hall of mirrors: reflections (1)

    I finally knew that I had to write on this subject of the crushing blow that digital technology has dealt analog technology in our world when, a few weeks ago, the NEPA service vendor for my neighborhood in Oke-Bola, Ibadan, advised me to get a digital meter as a replacement for the old analog meter that I, like all other customers of NEPA, had been using up to the present time. The man more or less sang or chanted hymnal praises in celebration of the superiority of digital technology over the utterly disgraced analog instruments and appliances. But when I asked him to tell me precisely what this superiority and the advantages that came with it were, he did not exactly lose his métier, but beyond very broad generalities, he did become rather imprecise. This sent me into some rather cloudy thoughts concerning what I myself knew and did not know about this presumed universal and relentless epochal shift from analog to digital in virtually all parts of the globe. By the time the NEPA man left, I was convinced that I had to sort out things for myself on this very important subject, especially as the man seemed completely nonplussed when I asked whether with the replacement of my old analog meter with its digital equivalent I could assume either that power generation and supply by NEPA would improve or that I, like other costumers of NEPA, could expect more honesty and transparency in the determination of fees for electricity provided by our hapless national power provider. This piece is the first fruit of the project of self-clarification that began with that encounter with the NEPA vendor.

    We can, I assume, accept that everyone reading this piece has seen his or her own image, her own reflection in a mirror. But I think I am not far off the mark if I suggest that most people reading this piece have never seen reflections of themselves thrown back at them in a hall of mirrors. But what we lack in direct experience we can make up with the exercise of our imagination. Thus, I doubt that anyone reading this piece can have any difficulty at all in envisioning the great, incommensurable difference between seeing oneself as reflected in a single mirror image and seeing the endless duplications of the image of the self that one encounters when one wanders into or is plunged into a hall of mirrors. That difference, that incommensurability between the single mirror image and the vast and vanishing horizon of images and reflections of the self is the metaphor that I deem appropriate to the task of giving a concrete differentiating image between analog and digital technologies. I am not certain that this is the best or the most appropriate metaphor that I could have come up with, but I ask the reader to please bear with me as I tease out the implications of this metaphor for the subject of this piece.

    Now since I am a professor of English and Comparative Literature and not of Electronics or Engineering, the reader must take seriously my humble confession that I do not have expert or clear knowledge of the defining technical processes of analog and digital technologies. Although over the years and decades I have tried to make up for the unhappy fact that in high school I was not among the best students in mathematics and the sciences, I do not have the knowledge and the vocabulary to explain to myself and others what exactly is happening when the physical laws of nature and the universe are deployed or even manipulated in engineering in general or electronics in particular. For instance, I am greatly impressed in learning that in both analog and digital technologies, sound or visual waves are converted to electrical signals so that they can be transmitted and then reconverted at a point of reception into the original waves that had been converted into electrical signals. But please don’t ask me about the finer points of exactly how human or natural sounds and sights are either transmitted into electrical signals in the first place or how, at the point of reception, they metamorphose back into the sounds and sights that we hear and see with our human faculties.

    These highly technical processes require some contextualisation in real life experiences. I did enough of Physics in high school to know that all that we see and hear in this life come to us in invisible waves. From that basic knowledge that is backed by my own natural instincts comes my layman’s appreciation of the fact that the essential thing that distinguishes analog from digital technologies is the fact that the transmission and reception of electrical impulses in the former (analog) are much closer to real time and experience than in the latter (digital). This is because in digital technology sound and visual waves are not only changed to electrical signals that are then transmitted and received as recorded, but they are further electronically “refined” by being converted to codes that can be stored and used later in circumstances completely removed their production or occurrence in nature or human activities. Again, please don’t ask me exactly how electrical signals made from sound and visual waves are transformed into codes in digital technology. I have faith in the “explanation” available in the jargon of the experts in the fields of engineering and electronics that states that the analog signal is a continuous signal close to physical measurements while digital signals are discrete or discontinuous codes generated by digital manipulation. This “faith”, though made possible by the powers of abstract reasoning, is in fact rooted in actual experience. Permit me to explain this claim by reference to two key instruments or appliances of analog and digital technologies, these being tape recorders and computers.

    Both in my professional career and in my personal or social life, I have worked a lot with tape recorders. For this reason, I can affirm that it was a great moment for me when the “tape recorders” that I used stopped being tape recorders and became, quite simply, recorders. This, as we all know, was marked by the fact that the magnetic tapes on which recorded sounds were “captured” were simply discarded and that was the end of it: you no longer needed those highly brittle and eminently degradable tapes to record sound. That phenomenon has now been absorbed into my (and our) stock of common knowledge and experiences that we take for granted, but I can never forget the wonder and elation that I felt the very first time when I recorded sound without using tapes and without having to worry about how and where to store what I had recorded. I can now assert – with some regrets – that if digital recorders had been around when I did the research for my first published book that dealt with the traveling theatre movement of Hubert Ogunde, Duro Ladipo, Kola Ogunmola, Amos Olaiya and the others, I would have been spared hundreds of hours of work and worry having to carefully label and preserve every single magnetic tape that I used.

    Since I have written on the subject several times in this column, my remarks on computers in the context of the move from analog to digital technology and appliances will be brief. I never learned completed the task of learning to type on the old, sturdy and for the most part reliable typewriters, whether Remington or Olivetti. Perhaps it was this previous experience that made me at first resistant to learning and mastering typing on the computer keyboard. But once I discovered that digitalisation made the task of typing not really a “task” but a facility that, in comparison with the typewriter, was endlessly much easier and less cumbersome to operate, I quickly became avid in typing on the computer keyboard and producing my own essays, monographs and books. What used to be a chore that I somewhat resented and left to others to do at great cost to my financial solvency became something in which I found much pleasure and fulfilled aspirations.

    I have focused on these two electronic appliances largely because they are so central to my own personal encounter with the digital revolution, the epochal move from analog to digital technologies. For other people, the “totemic” instrument or appliance might be cell phones in comparison the old large and weighty landline phones. Who among us now leaves his or her house without the cell phone? Who in the past could carry their landline phones with them? Perhaps the clearest and the most ubiquitous sign of the “faith” we all now have in digitalisation as inscribed in the cell phone revolution is the fact that cell phones are now deemed indispensable in all the marketplaces of local, national and global communications. If you lose your cell phone, its replacement is swift and relatively uncomplicated. I do not recollect that anyone I knew had such “faith” in landline phones that were the epitome of analog technologies.

    No reflections on digitalisation and its impact on our country and our world can be complete without mentioning the replacement of analog television sets with their digital equivalents, their digital nemesis. At the most obvious level, the picture and sound values are infinitely better in the latter than in the former, apart from the fact that analog sets tend to be bulkier and weightier. I am not making a plug here for flat screen television sets, though I confess that I am susceptible to the aesthetic allure of their sleekness, their élan. I am alluding more properly to the programming and reception that digital sets make possible beyond anything one could have hoped for or received from analog sets. Here I must confess that it was only with the arrival of digital technology on the scene that television broadcasts in our country looked anything close to what you see in other parts of the world with advanced scientific and technological cultures. This particular observation needs some emphasis: television is one of the great cultural legacies of the last century; in the new millennium, it has become even more decisive in bringing national, continental and global communities closer with regard to programming and reception. Nigerian television programming and reception came of age, perhaps could only have come of age, with the advent of the digital revolution. South Africa is far ahead of Nigeria in continental programming and reception. This, I would argue, has a lot to do with which of the two countries had the infrastructures in place to make the most of the digital revolution.

    My own preferred way of understanding and coming to terms with the digital supersession of analog technology lies in critically unraveling the term “digit” that is the root word for “digital”. I think intensely of the digits and integers that are the codes into which digital technology transforms the electrical signals made from human and natural sounds and sights. Sounds and sights as digits and integers? Doesn’t this abstraction, this extreme technological reification of nature and experience carry with it some risks, some hints of alienation and anomy? Is the hall of mirrors a place of utopic fulfillment and/or a site of the loss of the self in empty, confounding amplitude? In plain language, does the digital revolution, in being so dazzling, so talismanic in its instruments, appliances and effects, not carry with it some risks for us all, individually and collectively? These will be the composite starting point in next week’s concluding essay in the series as we go back to my query to that NEPA services vendor: Will my new digital meter lead to improved services and more fairness and honesty in NEPA billing practices?

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • May the protests continue

    The rich man’s power lies in his secure, vaulted places. The poor man’s power is the street

     

    Before delving into the meat of this article, the Syrian tragedy demands attention. The United States recently joined Europe in publicly stating it would funnel weapons and other war materiel to the fractious rebel coalition. The move was taken because Assad’s forces allegedly had used chemical weapons. This was pretext. In reality, the initiative came because Assad had gained a significant battlefield advantage. Obviously the Syrian rebels could not halt Assad’s ascendance themselves. For the past year, Western nations have secretly aided and equipped the rebels. This level of lethal clandestine help from America and others has become insufficient due to the enhanced Iranian, Iraqi and Hezbollah martial subvention given Assad’s government.

    In a sense, President Obama deserves pity. Publicly, he confidently enounced the geo-political sagacity and moral rectitude of the new policy. Outside the public’s gaze, he must have been hauled toward this decision kicking and screaming.

    The US government ‘finding” of Syrian government use of chemical weapons is suspect. In early May, the UN’s lead investigator in Syria concluded the rebels had deployed the lethal chemical weapon, sarin. She found no evidence of regime use. The US quickly repudiated the report. We now know why.

    The facts uncovered by the UN inquiry do not fit the tale America wants to construct. For America, Assad must be seen as incarnadine evil and the rebels as freedom fighters of the noblest order. Facts contrasting this depiction are tossed aside. Again, American policy is based on a simplistic caricature of a complex, nuanced reality. Again, American arrogance has decided on a course of action before assessing if the facts warrant that action. Once the decision is had, facts become secondary. They are manipulated to support a conclusion that has been reached without their assistance.

    That Assad would order the small-scale deployment of chemical weapons is the masthead of illogic. With the battlefield tilting in his favor, the man had nothing to gain from a tactical deployment of chemical weapons. A cunning survivalist like Assad would not risk such a strategic blunder to gain ephemeral advantage in a relatively minor skirmish. He would not take the gamble providing Western detractors a pretext to escalate their support for the flagging rebel groups. Assad had little to gain from such a noxious display yet much to lose.

    The rebels had much to gain and little to forfeit by spraying chemical weapons then planting the delinquency on Assad’s porch. Pinning the blame on Assad suited rebel interests because it would prompt American action. This may have been the rebel’s most effective military maneuver since gaining the upper hand in the battle of Homs several months ago. It appears that all remains fair in war – even the treachery of gassing one’s own supporters — in order to gain an advantage.

    After President Obama’s prior statement that the regime’s chemical weapons use would materially change American policy, that the regime would be found to have abused the dreadful instruments become inexorable.

    After the world discovered the Iraqi war was based on a falsehood, the American government pledged it would not repeat the mistake. Seems an arrogance of power makes for a porous memory. The same type of dubious intelligence has been contrived to support a foregone conclusion in Syria. After all, it seems odd the UN and US can have basically the same information yet reach opposite conclusions regarding chemical weapons usage.

    Powerful interests embedded in the American political and military establishment seek Assad’s ouster. If this means war or near-war, let the slings and arrows fly. He is marked for ouster and these powerful interests are accustomed to hitting their mark.

    Thus, American involvement in Syria will escalate. This means the war shall enter a more violent yet still inconclusive phase. Increased American aid will prevent the rebel’s possible collapse. However, additional weaponry will not decisively change the equation. It shall make for a more lethal stalemate since Assad’s sponsors will respond in kind. The military battle cannot be won until the sponsors of one side cave or, conversely, give such massive, unmatched assistance that the other side’s sponsors find it too costly to compete further. America is the only military capable of lending such unparalleled support.

    President Obama’s announcement is a mistake albeit not of the magnitude of his predecessor’s fabrication of an entire war. America did not author the Syrian civil war. Assad penned this war with his unique script of injustice and suppression. However, America now may stoke the conflict beyond present dimensions. War hawks in America will become frustrated that increased weapons assistance has done little except birth a more violent standoff. They will pressure the President to escalate American involvement.

    Talk of no-fly zones, bombing and aerial support will dominate the policy discourse. In fact, there will be no genuine policy debate. The policy has already been determined by vested interests more permanently ensconced and influential in how the machinery of government grinds than is the current occupant of the White House. The American war factory will increase its assistance to the rebels because that is the nature of war machines. This tragedy will occur without an objective assay of America’s strategic interests or of the risks in catapulting Syria into a bleak unknown. It seems war, too, has reasons that reason shall never know.

    This escalation shall sadly bear President Obama’s name although he reluctantly heads the procession towards war. He may be the head but he is not the lead. Time and time again, to prove he is not effete, he has given the war hawks too much leeway. They have repaid him by cajoling him toward imprudent action. This time, his unwillingness to hold the war factory in check may well cost him and his nation a price heavier than he is wont to pay.

    Today, he gives increased aid to an unruly unreliable agglomeration in an obvious swamp of a martial emprise. Tomorrow, he will be pressured to send American planes into the Syrian airspace to make the battlefield safe for the rebels and rescue American prestige from stagnant misadventure. By his decision, the world moves one fateful step closer to heavy war in a strategic nation where both contestants enjoy support from rival great powers. This may be a short walk to disaster. The recent G-8 meeting concluded these great powers shall work to resolve the crisis. However, the internal politics of these nations augur against such cooperation. The cloud of war stands over Syria. Mars, the god of battle and prince of bloodlust, smiles as he polishes the instruments of war, hoping they shall soon be used in a massive eruption of destruction and death.

    While governments make fools of themselves in Syria, populations across the world are tiring of being fooled by their governments.

    Protests abound in many nations. People take to the streets demanding redress from insensitive governments. Too many people suffer the weight and woe of economic inequality. Social services have been abolished so conservative governments may shift their fiscal deficits to deficits in the life the humble shall live. Wages are cut so the profiteer can achieve his thumping desire of seizing the fat and meat of the land. Jobs that should be had are now lost. Homes that should be places of light and the laughter of happy children and glad parents, are dark and vacant.

    Hope may not be scattered to the four winds but it has been evicted from its dwelling place. When a man and his dreams have been rendered homeless, he has little alternative but to take to the streets. As people realise, when their government professes “to serve” them, that the government actually uses the term in the same manner one does to say the chef has served the roasted lamb. The people are not the ones government calls to dine; they are the dish government gives the privileged to dine upon. The poor and weak are not the guests; they are the meal. Upon realising government has travestied democracy and betrayed their sacred trust, people have a choice. Most accept the sorted deal the strong arm of government thrusts at them. A growing minority has found that their feet may be their most effective voice. They have taken to the streets, marching in protest against arrogant, indifferent government. The people seek to turn the table by giving back to government much of the discomfort government has given them.

    Brazil has been wracked by an entire week of protests. Over one million people have participated. The protests were sparked when an insensitive government increased bus fares by nine percent, in part to fund World Cup construction overruns. Although government rescinded the fare increase, people remain in the streets. They like the taste of protest because they distaste the trajectory of their lives. The fare increase was but a fuse, not the incendiary. The real incendiary was the life struggle too many Brazilians face.

    Corporate media paints an impressive tableau of the Brazilian economic miracle. Denizens of the favelas say they have yet to see, much less experience, such a thing. Thus, they have taken to the streets in search of it. The protests’ intensity belies the myth of a carefree, happy folk. Yes, Brazilians love samba music; their festivities are second to none. But they are people still. It is a rare thing to secure happiness on an empty stomach. Such a thing may be paradise for an ascetic but is hellish for the rest of humankind. Brazilians still need to eat, send their children to school and buy grandma’s medicines so that she may survive, at least, one more day.

    The protesters now assail the decision to host the World Cup. For a nation with a large segment of its population gripped by poverty, hosting such a thing is a false monument of national progress that says “tudo bem” (everything is well) when everything is far from well. Hosting the World Cup amidst biting penury is a costly lark by a political elite too confident in its own power and riches. Estranged from the suffering of the many, this elite has become careless in its treatment of the working class backbone and the lumpen periphery that are the genuine Brazil.

    As much as the common people love football, they would rather the funds be spent on more milk, food, medicine, housing and education, not on stadia and venues only the moneyed can enjoy. The Brazilians have seen what the World Cup did for poor South Africans; Nothing. It lifted their hopes only to crash them in burnt disappointment. For the common South African, the games were an expensive narcotic. The high was costly but transient. The hangover was more permanent. When they awoke from the high, the people discovered they were no better situated than before. The poor can’t afford to pay such a stiff price for a momentary flutter of pride. Average Brazilians know this and many want no part of the foul procession. While the World Cup will hold, it will not do so as an unfettered party. By embarking on this immense frivolity, the Brazilian government inadvertently placed itself on trial. May the protests continue until government acquits itself by returning to working for the people instead of for itself.

    In Ethiopia, thousands recently protested political oppression and the massive displacement of farmers and whole populations by government allied with global agro-business. This took courage. Government in Addis Ababa traditionally has little patience with dissent. It usually descends on protests will the subtlety of a boulder. Perhaps the demise of brilliant but megalomaniacal late president Meles has allowed a crack of freedom in an otherwise stifled political space. Hopefully, the people will have the courage to continue protesting so that they may stake claim to a new democracy in this ancient land. If not, the ancient land will return to something resembling a more medieval structure of society and the repression inherent in such an old political edifice.

    In America, hundreds of Blacks protested before the White House. Slowly, Blacks are recognising they have given the tenant in that House their all while he has given them the shaft. Most observers have concluded President Obama’s Africa policy is weaker than his predecessors. To a large degree, his domestic policy suffers like affliction. Black America is in a worsened state than when the President took office. He has not lifted a finger to stem the hemorrhaging. His special gift to the Black community has been a series of public speeches haranguing them to depart from their stereotypic lethargy and expostulating that they should not expect any special help even if the economic ground is being swept from under them.

    Although it embraced him with a love transcending into adoration, he has turned a cold shoulder to the Black community. The forces of poverty and racism converge on that community to buffet it in manifest ways. Unless something is done, the Black community will plummet into a condition not experienced since the advent of the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s. That this decline accelerates under the watch of the first Black president seems an irony of history. The more the policies and psychology of this administration are weighed, however, the more it seems that things have taken this malign shape by sinister design. As with the military on the war front, the President appears to be enthralled to indifferent, if not regressive, forces regarding domestic policy and its relationship to the Black community. Thus, may the protest grow larger and more potent.

    In conclusion, almost imperceptibly people around the world are realising their governments have strayed too far from their stated purpose. Perhaps the most important protest was the Iranian presidential election. This time, authorities respected the ballot. If they manipulated the result, the authorities knew they could face with a massive protest crippling the regime. They did not want the Arab Spring to migrate into a Persian Summer. Faced with the reality of people power, those in formal authority bowed to the potential of the street and the common person. The West will view this as a sign that Iranians seek general rapprochement and a specific deal on the nuclear faceoff. The West reads too much of its interests into this essentially internal affair. The people voted in this manner because they want a government more responsive to their daily needs.

    The forces of arrogant, mindless conservatism hold sway over too many capitals and nations. This has caused us to live in a world of weakening democracy and growing inequality. These and other protests show people see the challenge and threat before them. Some know action must be taken lest the world fall into an era of where plutocracy, war and inequality rule and the common person becomes uncommonly destitute and bedraggled. Human progress has been won at too high a price for the world to slip back into the bog. May the protests continue.

     

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