The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Who are the Yoruba people? (part 1)

    The Yoruba people of South-Western Nigeria are a nationality of approximately 50 million people, the vast majority of whom are concentrated primarily within Nigeria, but who are also spread throughout the entire world. They constitute probably the largest percentage of Africans that live in the Diaspora and they have made their own extraordinary contributions in virtually every field of human endeavour throughout the ages. Descendants of the Yoruba and indeed various ancient derivatives and forms of the Yoruba language can be found and are spoken in places like Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, the United States of America and various other parts of the western world. Today first, second and even third generation Yoruba’s have settled down and spread all over the world and are amongst the best and most sought-after lawyers, nuclear scientists, doctors, industrialists, academics, writers, poets, play writes, clerics, theologians, artists, film producers, historians and intellectuals throughout the world. Wherever they go they tend to flourish and excel.

    This is nothing new and indeed has always been the case. The first Nigerian to be called to the Bar was a Yoruba man by the name of Sapara Williams who was called to the English Bar and started practicing as a lawyer in 1879. Yet Sapara Williams was not a flash in the pan or a one time wonder. Other Yoruba men followed in his footsteps in quick succession and were called to the English Bar shortly after he was. For example, after him came Joseph Edgarton Shyngle who was called in 1888, then came Gabriel Hugh Savage who was called in 1891, then came Rotimi Alade who was called in 1892, then came Kitoye Ajasa (whose original name was Edmund Macaulay) who was called in 1893, then came Arthur Joseph Eugene Bucknor who was called in 1894 and then came Eric Olaolu Moore who was called in 1903. Ironically, Sapara Williams was not the first Nigerian lawyer though he was the first to be called to the English Bar. In those days you did not have to be called to the Bar to practice law and the first Nigerian lawyer that practiced without being called to the Bar was a Yoruba man by the name of William Henry Savage. He was described as a ‘’self-taught and practicing lawyer’’ and he was a registered Notary Public in England as far back as1821. These were indeed the greats and every single one of them was a Yoruba man.

    My friend and brother, the respected Mr. Akin Ajose-Adeogun, who is a historian by calling and a lawyer by profession, is a man for whom I have tremendous respect. I have often described him as the ‘’living oracle of Nigerian history’’ simply because he has a photographic memory, a knack for detail, first class sources and has read more books on Nigerian history than anyone that I have ever met before in my life. Akin has an extraordinary mind, he is a living genius and I have often urged him to write a book. You can ask him anything about anyone or any event in any part of our country, since or before independence, and he will give you names, dates and the sequence of events immediately and without any recourse to notes, books or sources. After he has given you the information he will then cite his sources and tell you which books to go and read in order to confirm what he is saying. I have learnt so much from him that I must publically acknowledge the fact that I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. He once told me something that I found very interesting and that reflected the semi god-like status that our earliest lawyers, including some of the names that I mentioned earlier, enjoyed amongst the people. These men were not only reverred but they were also admired by all, including members of the British intelligentsia, legal fraternity and elites. Akin told me that many years ago in the mid-80’s Sir Adetokunboh Ademola, who himself was one of the legal greats, who was called to the English Bar in 1934, who was the third Nigerian to be appointed as a magistrate in 1938, who was the third Nigerian to be appointed as a High Court judge in 1948 and who was the first Nigerian to be appointed Chief Justice of the Federation in 1958 said the following words to him. He said, ‘’when you saw the way that the earliest Nigerian lawyers conducted themselves in court and argued their cases you would have been filled with pride and you would have wanted to become a lawyer yourself. Members of the public used to fill the court rooms to the brink and sometimes even the forecourts and passages just to watch these great men perform and enjoy their brilliance and oratory. They spoke the Queens English and they knew the law inside out. It is not like that today’’. This is a resounding testimony from an illustrious Nigerian and it speaks eloquently about where the Yoruba, as a people, are coming from and the stock and quality of minds that they are made of.

    Yet the dynamism of the Yoruba and their innovations and ‘’firsts’’ did not stop there. It went into numerous other spheres of human endeavour quite apart from the law. Permit me to cite just two examples. The first lies within the field of medicine. Dr. Nathaniel King was the first Nigerian to become a medical practitioner. He graduated from Edinburgh University in 1876 and he was a Creole of Yoruba origin. Next came Dr. Oguntola Sapara who was the second Nigerian to become a medical practitioner and who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1884. He was followed by Dr. John Randle who graduated from Durham University in 1891, then Dr. Orisadipe Obasa who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1892, then Dr. Akinwande Savage who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1900, then Dr. Curtis Adeniyi-Jones who graduated from Durham University in 1901. Others like Dr. Oyejola who graduated in 1905, Dr. Kubolaje Faderin, Dr. Sesi Akapo and Dr. Magnus Macaulay who all graduated in 1912, Dr. Moyses Joao Da Rocha who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1913 and many others followed after that.

    The second example lies within the ranks of the clergy. The first African Anglican Bishop and the first man to translate the Holy Bible and Book of Common Prayer to any African language (outside of Ethiopia) was a Yoruba ex-slave who gave his life to Christ, won his freedom and rose up to become one of the greatest and most respected clerics and leaders that the African continent has ever known by the name of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther. Unknown to many, his original name was Rev. John Raban but he changed it in his early years. Crowther got his first degree at the famous Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leonne (which at that time was part of Durham University). He was ordained an Anglican Bishop in 1864 and in that same year he was awarded a Doctorate degree from Oxford University.

    This extraordinary man, who was blessed by God with an exceptionally brilliant mind, was, as far as I am concerned, one of the greatest Africans that ever lived. He not only translated the Holy Bible and the Book of Common Prayer to Yoruba (an extremely difficult, complicated and painstaking venture which he began in 1843 and which he completed in 1888) but he also codified a number of other Christian books and he translated them into the Igbo and Nupe languages. He was literally the pillar and foundation of the Anglican Church in West Africa. Throughout his adult, life he courageously stood up and fought for the rights and the dignity of the African and he, more than anyone else, was responsible for the spread, influence and power of the Christian faith in Nigeria in the late 19th century. He was also the maternal grandfather of the great nationalist, Herbert Macauly, who, together with Nnamdi Azikiwe, founded the political party known as the NCNC in 1944. Crowther was also the father-in-law of Rev. Thomas Babington Macaulay who founded the Christian Missionary Society Grammar School (CMS Grammar School) in 1859 in what was then the Lagos Colony. CMS Grammar School was the epitomy of excellence and a citadel of great learning in those days. It was also the oldest secondary school in Nigeria and the main source of African clergymen and administrators in the Lagos Colony. It is not surprising that it was the son-in-law of the great Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther that founded such a school and that it was his grandson that founded one the greatest political parties that the African continent has ever known. This is another first for the Yoruba.

    Yet who are these people and where did they come from? What is their origin and what is their source of strength? What were their migratory patterns over the last 30,000 and more years, and how did they end up in Ile-Ife? What is their connection to the Middle East, to the Arabs of Mecca and Medina, to the ancient Egyptians and to the Nubians of the Sudan? What makes them so special and so peculiar all at the same time? What makes their religious set-up so complicated and so profund, and what allows each of the great monotheic faiths of Christianity and Islam together with the traditional religions to flourish and excel amongst the very same people at the same time? Why are the Yoruba so accommodating of outsiders and what is responsible for their liberal disposition when it comes to their dealings with people from other cultures, other faiths and other nationalities? Why is it that so many Yoruba families have mixed ancestral bloodlines that go back hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of years with so many different nationalities from outside Yorubaland and indeed from outside Nigeria, including the Bahians of Brazil, the Haitians and Cubans of Port Au Prince and Havana, the Creoles of Freetown (Sierra Leonne), the Ga’s of Accra (Ghana), the tribes of Dahomey (Benin Republic), the Edo, the Bini, the Itsekiri and other tribes from the old Mid-Western region of Southern Nigeria and the Nupe, the Hausa, the Fulani, the Shuwa Arab and the Kanuri from the North? What is the cultural and spiritual affinity of the yoruba with the people of the old Northern region and the people of the old Mid-Western Region and why are the people from those two regions and those from the South-West collectively referred to as the’Sudanese Nigerians’? Some of these questions may never be answered but in the sequel to this essay we will attempt to at least view and analyse the Yoruba from a historical perspective and this may explain why they are what they undoubtedly are- ‘’primus inter pares’’, the first amongst equals.

  • Big for nothing? Nanometers to the rescue! – A lay, secular sermon in a light mood

    Big for nothing? Nanometers to the rescue! – A lay, secular sermon in a light mood

    Esu threw a rock yesterday; it kills a bird today/Esu throws a rock today; it killed a bird yesterday/ Esu sleeps in the courtyard; it is too small for him; Esu sleeps in the bedroom; it is still too small for him; Esu sleeps inside a palm kernel; now he has space large enough for him to sleep in!

    From the praise chants to Esu, the Yoruba trickster god Nano: a combining form with the meaning “very small, minute” used in the formation of compound words, e.g. nanoplankton. In the names of units of measure, it has the specific sense “one billionth”, e.g. nanosecond, nanometer, nanotechnology.

    Dictionary.com (online)

     

     

    If my memory is not playing tricks on me, one of the words that had a deep and exceptional fascination for me when I was a child in primary school was the Yoruba word, ‘firi!’ (Yes, with the exclamation mark). Roughly translated, it means something that happens, something that flashes by in the twinkling of an eye. More expansively, firi! (please think of it only with the exclamation mark, compatriot) means something that is so brief, so instantaneously transient that it is gone even before you have perceived it, even before its presence has registered in your mind, leaving only the trace of its passage. Firi! Oh word and concept that filled my youthful imagination with wonder! In my imagination, in my mind’s eye, you opened up vistas for which, at that very tender age, I had no words and no speech! That is until about five decades later, when I encountered the word, the concept “nano”, especially as compounded with those units of space and time, meters and seconds to give us nanoseconds and nanometers. In nanometers especially, I at last found a scientific, technological correlation to firi! But more on this later in this lay, secular, iwalesin “sermon”. First, we must talk about that other phrase in the title of this piece, that term of abuse, “big for nothing”, that I remember now also in the reflected light of a particular use that we had for it in my youth.

    In Nigerian pidgin, “big for nothing”, as we all know, stands for huge size or number without sense, without discernment and sometimes without compunction. In my youth, boys who were corporeally and vertically challenged by being much smaller than their age were the special prey or target of bullies who invariably tended to be physically much bigger than their years. For the small boys, the ultimate putdown for their gigantic tormentors was, yes, “big for nothing”! Of course, this was usually shouted from the presumed safety of considerable distance between the abused child and the bully. I remember also that in my school’s football team that we called the “First Eleven”, the positions of full backs, right and left, were usually reserved for the biggest boys in the school. The thinking behind this, I suppose, was that you needed size, combined with cunning, to counter the nimble-footed strikers of opposing teams. On the whole, the calculation worked, sometimes so much so that some full backs who were as big as our teachers had legendary renown as terrors to all strikers, nimble-footed or not. But sometimes, the thing did not work and then one encountered the incredible spectacle of a swift but pint-sized centre forward running circles around a full back the size of a giant. I remember in particular one big fellow with the nickname of “Akanmu Jaji” who had size but not – shall we say – a lot of grey matter inside his occiput. As a result of this, we could not dispense with his renown as a right full back, but neither could we be indifferent to the fact that, with his lack of discernment, he could as much cause our “First Eleven” penalties as save it from almost certain goals by the jitteriness that took control of strikers when he approached them. For this reason, though we all thought of him as “big for nothing”, this was whispered only among us; no one dared to say it to his hearing! [Akanmu Jaji, this is all coming back to me from memory of things that happened more than a half century ago. If you are still alive and happen to be reading this piece, please know that I was not one of those who called you “big for nothing” behind your back!)

    If, so far in this “sermon” I have given the impression that “big for nothing” is a malaise that comes from nature, let me quickly and emphatically assert that this is not the case at all. Whether one is big, medium or small, in height or girth, has no inherent connection at all to being brainy, resourceful or humane. What is at issue here is the extremely fatuous notion that the bigger a thing or a country is the better, together with the associated belief that with size and numbers come superior endowments or status. And on this account, which country in the world is more benighted than our own country in the association of size and numbers with inherent worth? Which nation, definitely on the African continent but also perhaps in the whole world, is more smitten by this ideology, this false consciousness that equates size with status than our beloved country, Nigeria? If, compatriots, you feel that this observation, this claim is an exaggeration, an expression of the habit of seeing nothing good in Nigeria that is itself a very Nigerian habit, than I ask you to please carefully consider the following few observations that I have randomly selected from a myriad of commonplace realities in our national public life.

    First, there is the widespread belief among Nigerians from every part of the country that because we are the most populous nation on our continent we are, or have a manifest destiny as the “giant of Africa” no matter how foolishly and wastefully we use our national wealth. Secondly, there is the regularly bruited boast of the ruling party, the PDP, that it is the largest ruling party in Africa, as if that claim can rid the party of the odium, the colossal scandal of the abysmal level of its misrule in every single one of its three presidential administrations since 1999. Thirdly, what of the claims of Nollywood directors, producers and actors that the Nigerian video film industry produces more films annually than any other national film industry in the world, not excluding Hollywood and Bollywood, the national film industries of the United States and India respectively? No one has done independent research to validate this claim, but even if it is factually or literally true, does this erase the fact that we produce more trashy products, more extremely poorly made and distributed video films than any other country in the world? Finally, what of the fact that with the President and the Executive Governors of our thirty-six states we have more major and mini heads of state than any other country in the world with the possible exception of the United States? And yet what good has this done the country? Has it not in fact made us the country with one of the very highest administrative cost of governance in the world? And are these not all indications or expressions of “big for nothing” writ large and inscribed into the very lineaments of our national psyche? To put this in the plainest form possible, hasn’t the obsession with size and numbers become a fetish that we tend to see as a magical or divine protection against all the things that are terribly wrong with our present way of life?

    If my observations and reflections so far in this piece point to the simple ethical and spiritual proposition that big and numerous are not necessarily or inherently good, I would like to say that this is definitely part of my purpose in this piece. So also is the corollary proposition that oftentimes, small and minute will do as well if not more than big and numerous. But this “sermon” has far more important or substantial things to explore than such undoubtedly beneficial moral and psychological truths. This leads us to the enormously important world of ideas, practices and technologies connected with nanofabrication whose central place in the productive and communicative processes of contemporary global civilisation is absolutely not in question.

    I have two and only two purposes in bringing this discourse on nanofabrication to bear on this lay “sermon” on our national obsession with size and numbers. One is this: Compatriots, please pay attention to nanofabrication; it is central to many of the things we take for granted in the contemporary global civilisation of which we are a part, things that we ignore or pay scant attention to only at our cost. This is the second of my two objectives in this piece: In one way or another, the ideational and practical applications of nanofabrication have always been with us, with our humans species; if this is the case, we are only returning to some of the best and most positive aspects of our heritage as humans when we turn our attention, our curiosity to nanofabrication.

    Is one billionth of a second or of a meter thinkable, not to talk of being practicable? I confess that with only the evidence that I can collect or sense or even intuit with my five senses, the answer to this question is a ringing, categorical no! If you, dear reader, can think of not a billionth, not even a millionth but a thousandth of a second or a meter, I can’t. But then here is the core of this conundrum: there are now so-called super-colliding super-computers that can measure and calibrate at the rate or speed of one billionth of a second or meter. Not only this, there are now thousands of devices and practical applications in everyday life that give concrete proof to this dizzying idea and claim of the measurement of space and time in infinitesimally minute but phenomenally efficient quantities.

    For want of space, I will in this discussion give only one example, partly because it bears direct relevance to my profession as an academic and partly because I have never stopped being simply dazzled by it. This is it: In my travels around the world in connection with my work, I carry with me a mini laptop computer that weighs less than five pounds; in the little carrying case that comes with this mini laptop are small pouches into which I place flash drives each of which has a dimension of about two inches weighing a few ounces. And yet, and yet again, with this extremely compact baggage of mini laptop and flash discs, I carry with me books and monographs of hundreds of thousands of pages. In other words, anywhere I am in the world, I have nearly everything I need to keep on working without the need for checking out books and journals from the local library.

    I think of the wondrous fascination with the word, the idea of firi! (always with the exclamation mark, remember compatriot) in my childhood. I think of the lines of the first epigraph to this essay and the beautifully poetic enigma of Esu’s abrogation of simple, literal and linear conceptions of time and the paradox of his finding the most ample room for his being only in the tiniest of spaces. I see in these two prefigurations of nanofabrication. “Big for nothing”, your day of reckoning has come! Let all our rulers, all our political parties, all our emergency contractors, all our corrupt public officeholders hearken to these good tidings and take note!

     

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Now, the good women of the west

    While evil lurks in the corner dark, mysterious and as elusive as Bigfoot, goodness radiates its celestial beam and heavenly rays on a beleaguered society. It was Bertolt Brecht, the great German playwright and radical intellectual, who once wrote a play titled, The Good Woman of Setzuan. It was about Shen Te, a good woman, who tries to survive in a harsh and unforgiving society brimming with evil people. Like all revolutionary art, the play is a little bit idealised. But that is the only way to nudge humanity towards a higher telos.

    We can report that there are good women of the west as well. The torrent of tears washing down the Ekiti Hills for the late Deputy Governor of Ekiti State and political heroine, our own Funmi Adunni Olayinka, have hardly subsided when another very good woman, Modupe Adeola Adelabu, was nominated to step into her shoes. There seems to be no end to the supply of good and heroic women from the Ekiti hilly homestead.

    It was a political master stroke on the part of the governor, combining sound judgment with political dexterity and calculated to reap maximum political dividends without ruffling any geopolitical feather. Judging from the universal acclamation abroad and the joyous felicitations of the folksy Ekiti people at home, it would appear that Kayode Fayemi knows not just the art of war but the art of politics as well.

    A princess of the old Ewi dynasty of Ado Ekiti, Dupe Adelabu combines royal charms and nobility of purpose with granite character and a sense of unflinching loyalty hewn out of the rocks of Ekiti. On behalf of the class of 75 at Ife and all those turbulent and rascally boys, Snooper congratulates Her Excellency on a most deserved elevation.

    As a petulant pest, Snooper used to wonder in those halcyon days at Ife why the class with its many beautiful damsels had become such a rich poaching ground for the new military and intellectual aristocracy. There was the aristocratic, reserved but unfailingly polite Omowale Sutherland who married the future General Alani Akinrinade.

    There was the bookish and ever serious Josephine (now doctor) Aliu who married the future Admiral Mike Okhai Akhigbe. There was the elegant and formidably self-assured Victoria Yogha who married the future General David Mark, And there was the charming regal Dupe Adedugbe who married the late Deji Adelabu, the dapper and ever fastidiously attired prince of Ijero, who became the university librarian at Obafemi Awolowo University.

    And while we are still talking about the good women of the west, it does appear as if the ACN. has an inexhaustible supply of these gems, judging by the quality of the women the party has sent forth for higher responsibility. As a progressive and forward looking organisation, the party should now walk its talk and send one of these outstanding women to the gubernatorial mansion come 2015 or sooner thereafter. The west should blaze the trail again. It is time to produce the first female executive governor of the Fourth Republic. Here is wishing our good friend, Professor Dupe Adelabu, a happy tenure.

     

    Next Week: A Review of Ambassador Fafowora’s memoirs.

  • Oga Dele Falegan: The colossus at 80

    ‘The thorough man knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment to ends’.

    – Andrew Carnegie

     

    Chief Dele Falegan’s life has been divinely choreographed

     

    Not a few would wonder as to how this toddler can address Baba Falegan, 80 years plus two days today, as oga, an appellation normally applicable to those older only by some light years .The reason is simple: I am privileged to have shared Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti – UP SCHOOL! -with the baffday ‘boy’, and it so happens that THE SCHOOL has patented that appellation for all those older, whether ancient or modern, and Baba happens to be ancient while I am modern.

    Encomiums would pour ceaselessly at the formal celebration on Friday, 10 May, 2013, as Baba turns 80 and all will gather to celebrate a man whose entire life has been dedicated to service to humanity. In recognition of this, the Ekiti state governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, ever so appreciative of integrity, has requested his party leaders and brother governors to please join him in celebrating Baba, who continues to avail the state of his prodigious expertise and experience in Economics and Banking. He is, incidentally, the Chairman of the State Sure-P Committee.

    Chief Dele Falegan may be thorough, he may have deployed unremitting attention to all he ever did and he just might have programmed his life the best he can but without a scintilla of doubt, his life has been divinely choreographed. Witness the following, for instance, and see the uniqueness of figure 3: Born in 1933, baptized in ’43 and confirmed in ’53 he attended the IMF Training School, Washington D.C, in ’63 and was with the World Bank IFC in ’83. In 1993, he authored his second book on the Nigerian Foreign Exchange mechanism and in 2003, mooted the idea of a group buying an organ for the Emmanuel Church, Ado-Ekiti. Two days ago, on Friday, 10 May 2013, as he turned 80, the Holy Spirit led him to singlehandedly donate, a N20 Million Pipe Organ to the Cathedral Church of Emmanuel, Ado-Ekiti thus fulfilling that which he had proposed to a group ten years earlier

    That he is this passionate about a pipe organ cannot surprise anybody who knows Baba well. Born and raised in an Anglican home, it was compulsory for him, as a young boy, to attend all church events which in those days bore strict adherence to the church calendar. His greatest interest was, however, in singing having been picked to join the choir in 1944 by Baba E. S. Ajibade, a very powerful soloist. He has never looked back since.

    I have been spectacularly blessed to be mentored by some of the most illustrious of Ado-Ekiti sons, both as teachers and as life- long mentors. They include Chief Fajana, my primary school teacher, Professor Banji Akintoye who taught me both at Christ’s School and at the University, Chief Alex Olu Ajayi and Chief (Dr) JGO Adegbite under who, with late Chief S.J Okudu, I learnt all I ever knew about Higher Education Administration and the Prince, Juli Adelusi Faluyi who remains my constant source of encouragement and admonition.

    Add the celebrant to this list and you would have captured about half the men and women the good Lord has used in shaping me. But Chief Falegan caught me darn early; he, the tall, elegant and sartorial top Economist at the Central Bank of Nigeria in the mid-60’s, and I , the young, dashing bank clerk at the Bank of West Africa Ltd.

    But boy, didn’t he send me errands on Apapa Road!

    I have thus been privileged, for nearly half a century, to learn at Baba’s feet and both he and Mummy, his graceful better half, have taken my wife and I so passionately that he, in fact, calls me – to my shame – more than I call him and the first thing he will say in Ekiti is: oni ayiye ni si ko? – The good one is who I want to greet o.

    Another of the highlights of the celebrations will be the unveiling of his magnum opus –MY YESTER YEARS – his Autobiography. An author of no mean repute, Chief Falegan had to be prevailed upon, especially by Mummy and I , to put pen to paper. Why, the reader may ask? Baba’s most distinguishing characteristic is candour –the ability to say it exactly as it is – whether at work or in communal affairs. Knowing how wicked the ‘soul of man’ is, he was being careful not to recall some sensitive issues where his seemingly hard views, most often the road finally taken, were always first met with serious altercations. We prevailed because he agreed with us that truth will always thump falsity. And let me claim some bragging rights here: I was privileged to be one of the three persons who edited the book. We had to be that number because he will simply tolerate no mistakes; whether of spelling or syntax. He is that meticulous.

    Chief Falegan was born, the 6th of 20 siblings into the Fatufede warrior family of Ado –Ekiti on 10 May 1933. His father, Chief Daniel Falegan, a big time yam farmer, was a disciplinarian and a lover of Education. He attended Emmanuel School, and Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, which he says was so named on 10th September, 1936, by Sir Bourdilion, then Nigeria’s Governor-General, on a visit to Ondo Province. Baba would later obtain his first degree in Economics at the Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone, and a Master’s in the same discipline from the University of Oregon U.S.A.

    He joined the Central Bank of Nigeria on July 1, 1961 and by sheer hard work, quickly distinguished himself so much that to his pleasant surprise, he became, in February 1963, the first staff of the Bank to be sent to the IMF Institute in Washington DC to train on monetary policy.

    He will be twice lucky as he was, in 1965, again sponsored to the University of Oregon, USA, for a two-year Master’s programme in Economics. He was, this time around, accompanied by his wife, Olufunke, and his one-year old son, Oludare. It was there he had his near fatal operation for pneumonia which cost him the lower lobe of his right lung and to the glory of God he has survived on one and a half lungs since 1967.

    At the Central Bank he saw bare faced ethnicity at play. However, the attempt, by Dr Clement Isong, to make his kinsman supersede Chief Falegan as Director of Research was thwarted only an hour before the deed when the Finance Minister, his former boss, Mr A. E Ekukinam, came in to inform Dr Isong of his removal from office as CBN governor once more confirming God’s benevolence on the life of the celebrant. He would later be seconded to the Nigerian Mortgage Bank as its pioneer Managing Director. Again it was by the grace of God that he overcame the ethnic-motivated intrigues in this new place that he had no qualms, whatever, in describing his time there, in his autobiography, as MY THREE WASTED YEARS.

    Baba has always, and continues to touch life. Suffice it to mention the case of three of his junior staff who all had grade 1 in their school certificate examination. Because he was a tough act to follow, many of his department’s staff usually seek transfer to others but he just would not approve of these three whom he insisted would not leave the department until they got admission to universities. The three are today, Professor Bode Leigh, former Vice Chancellor, Lagos State University, Dr. Aderungboye, former General Manager, Okitipupa Oil Palm Company and Mrs. Ajoke Oluwasanmi, a retired Permanent Secretary of the Ekiti Public Service commission.

    Chief Falegan has served on various boards and consulted for various national and international agencies. Amongst these are: Standard, now First Bank, NISER and the Ondo State Economic Advisory Council, 1976-1979. He served on the Working Party on the establishment of the West African Clearing House and that on the establishment of African Centre for Monetary Studies, Dakar, among many others.

    A prolific writer and commentator on national affairs, Chief Falegan is the Atoye of Ado-Ekiti.

  • Of books, bookworms and illiteracy

    Congratulations government; you are now presiding over one of the brightest illiterate societies in the world

     

    I read of someone saying during the week that if the poor in Nigeria benefit from a Nigerian government’s policy, it is completely accidental, or something to that effect. I’m sure you and I agree with that statement, if you know what it means. On my part, I interpret it to mean first and foremost that Nigerians (both government and people) have ways of conceiving ideas that benefit only a small number of people, say the government’s men (and women too). So, in this country, the uniform of, say the police or traffic wardens, is changed for some government relative’s sake; and even the president’s diet is changed so that someone close enough can make the supplies.

    Don’t let us take this interpretation thing further, or else I might begin to think the statement may also mean that the roads you and I have been travelling on have not been meant for us but since we are such good thieves that the government cannot get rid of… and worse, even the education you and I have received so far have not really been aimed at us but we somehow stood in the way. Really, government’s policies have never been directed at improving the lot of the poor; everything it has done has been for itself. Talk of anyone being self-serving.

    You know of course that the converse will also hold true: that everything the government has failed to do has also been for its own benefit. Take the failure to revive and develop the railways, for instance. That is one colossal failure for which the government needs to cover its face in deep and great shame. The wonderful thing is that I can never for the life of me fathom out the benefit it is deriving from that failure when many nations in the world are being sustained by such social services. All I know is that one of the greatest benefits of modern living is still the train, and it is being denied us the poor in this country. But we are not here to repeat ourselves today; let’s leave that for a rainy day.

    Oh yes, I remember, the rainy days are here again. How do I know? Oh, because I can see various governments scampering around trying to fix leaky potholes and blocked drainages. You thought I would say because I can hear the rains falling down, down this way? No, I can’t say that because most times when it’s raining, I am too busy wading through flooded roads. When I’m not on the road, however, I pick something up and read. That is how I have come to read so many things: newspapers, comics, drug literatures, books, dog’s ticks (sorry, that’s counting), stars… I would willingly have read the dog’s liver (just to know the signs of the times) but the dog refused to oblige me. Yeah, that’s what bookworms do: read anything that comes to hand. That’s why the dog now runs away when he sees my hands coming.

    Bookworms, goes my Encarta, are enthusiastic readers; people who love reading. The good news is that I am not alone. Indeed, I pale into insignificance when I consider a friend of mine who says he can out-read a reader. Now, that is something. Just mention any title in the classics, he’s at home. Even bestseller lists do not go past his doorstep. And he lives in Nigeria. Once, I teased him that I quite believed if he lived in Britain, he would have been one of those who would camp all night in front of some bookshop just to be able to get a copy of a Harry Potter book. He said he got someone to do that for him. I rested my case, but not before I was struck by two things.

    One, I reflected on the rise and rise of Harry Potter and why it has not happened here. To begin with, the book publishing industry in Nigeria is suffering from a grave disease inflicted on it by the government. All over the world, it has been known that revolutions in literacy and information can be accelerated only through making books and newspapers cheap and affordable. I remember being sent to buy newspapers for three pence when I was young. That was some big money then, but I believe that it made news and information to be within the reach of more people than it is now at a whopping one hundred and fifty Naira – daily feeding money for many people now.

    Somewhere in the seventies, the trend of information affordability failed and I believe it was entirely the government’s fault: first it introduced SAP, and then it raised importation duties on printing materials. Book and news industries practically crumbled under the weight of the government’s wickedness. So, dear reader, even though Harry Potter is possible here, it will not come in a long while because publishing houses are more interested in fighting for survival than in aesthetics or altruism. Now they work very closely with schools’ curricula.

    Unfortunately, those among us who can really afford to finance publishing houses that would not be too desperate for survival are not ready to do so. They are the people who have had easy access to the government’s money. Those are more inclined to quickly take that loot abroad where they hope it cannot be traced rather than invest it in something so trite as making the economy grow. After all, it is not their responsibility to help people improve in their reading and thinking habits; let other people do that. Truly, only a foolish rich `un will keep his stolen money lying around long enough for detectives to find or for banks to give as soft loans to publishers.

    The second thing that struck me was that the government might have deliberately been trying to keep the literacy level down, much the same way you would keep the noise level down in the house. If I didn’t know the government better then, I would have said it was trying to stifle the people from seeking knowledge, wisdom, information and understanding. Perhaps it was; and well has it succeeded. Congratulations government; you are now presiding over one of the brightest illiterate societies in the world, and you did it all by yourself.

    That Nigerians are bright and intelligent, there is no doubt. Just look at the array of their activities: ‘419’ scams, intractable Boko Haram and Niger Delta insurgencies, ‘Yahoo Boys” scams, kidnapping businesses, and yes, more 419 scams. These are the efforts of brains put to work. True, these organs are now run by graduates and undergraduates but they were not started by graduates. You see, a dysfunctional society like ours where everything is upside down would sooner than later cause a malfunction of the brain even in the strong breeds.

    The present low level of literacy in Nigeria is causing havoc in every way. People are dying every day because they really do not know the difference between uniforms in healthcare institutions. I hear that general hospital attendants have been known to divert patients to their own home dispensaries because the patients do not know any better. Believe me, a nation’s economic and political survival has everything to do with the amount of knowledge and literacy its citizens have between them. If you don’t believe me, just look at the farming business in Nigeria today: how many mechanised farms can you count? Well, there’s mine, and mine, and mine; that’s all.

    Seriously, there is a strong connection between the government’s ‘Vision 2020202020’ or whatever name it goes by, the development of books and reducing the level of illiteracy in the country. That connection is political will. If the government wants a literate Nigeria by 2020, it will be done.

     

  • Jonathan for life!

    Jonathan for life!

    Dokubo is a minimalist; our president deserves more than second term

     

    Do you want peace or war”? That was the tactless question asked in a crisis situation by the principal of the federal school where I did my two-year Advance Level programme years back. Of course, trust students; the answer was predictable. It was a tumultuous “Yes, we want war; we want war”. And, in no time, the school was literally on fire. Policemen were called in and before the end of the day, the school was closed down and the students sent home.

    I recalled this incident as a result of the threat by former militant, Asari Dokubo, to the effect that willy-nilly, Nigerians must return President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 if they want peace in the country. If they do otherwise, then, the militants in the Niger Delta who are presently on sabbatical would be forced to return to the creeks. “The day Goodluck is no longer the President; all of us who are on sabbatical will come back. There will be no peace not only in the Niger Delta but everywhere. If they say it is an empty boast, let them wait and see,” said Dokubo, who as leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) coordinated a campaign of violence in the oil producing areas. Dokubo spoke just a week after President Jonathan’s adviser on amnesty, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, was reported to have said in the United States that chaos would set in unless Jonathan was re-elected. Kuku has said he was misquoted though. Dokubo said he was reiterating Kuku’s prediction of “dire consequences” if the President is not re-elected in 2015. He even sounded a note of warning to our Senate to perish the thought of introducing a six-year single term for president, which would preclude Jonathan from running in 2015.

    We owe Dokubo a world of gratitude for giving us the option of choosing between peace and war, instead of taking us by surprise. I can assure him that the rats at home have heard and would communicate the message to the ones in the bush. Unlike those of us in the federal school then, Nigerians are not students; they are peace-loving people, a thing many of their leaders have often exploited to their (Nigerians’) disadvantage. With Dokubo waving both the stick and the carrot (the stick should they fail to return Jonathan for a second term, and the carrot should they return the president come 2015), I know Nigerians will opt for the carrot. Indeed, that is what they should do if they like themselves and if they are not to show themselves as ingrates. What else do you do for a president who has remained true to character, a man who has served the country diligently and meritoriously in so short a period, thus confirming the aphorism that it is not how long but how well? Indeed, I doubt if any right-thinking Nigerian would oppose life presidency for our amiable and able president.

    What is particularly painful is that many people who have criticised Dokubo have not even given any serious thought to his reasons. When we examine these, we would see that at some point, Dokubo was making sense. Remember that expression and the person who popularised it after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election by Ibrahim Babangida? First, Dokubo has told us something we never knew; that Nigeria is at peace today not because of amnesty granted former Niger Delta militants by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua but because President Jonathan, a ‘son of the soil’, is President. In the light of this ‘revelation’, one should be wondering what nexus exists between Dokubo and Kuku and, by extension, why the latter is still being paid from the public till if a militant kingpin is now telling us that he has sheathed his swords not because of amnesty but because Jonathan is one of their own. And, in case such people have forgotten, he reminded them that he rejected amnesty because he is not a criminal. So, those touting the amnesty programme as having succeeded had better have a rethink.

    Second, Dokubo said Jonathan is holding the post for the Niger Delta region and that the region, like other regions that have had a shot at the presidency, is entitled to eight years. Are you wondering where performance is in all these? Please stop wondering, for Dokubo reinforced his point by stating that Jonathan has performed better than previous governments. Again, can you fault him? Even if it is a case of the country of the blind where the one-eyed man is king, Dokubo has floored those who see the Jonathan presidency as incompetent. More fundamentally, Dokubo’s conclusion is pardonable when we remember our class on selective exposure, selective perception and selective retention, meaning you see only what you want to see, interpret it the way it suits you and also decide whether to retain it in your memory or delete it. Even a local saying in my place has it that what is facing someone is backing someone else. So, on all fronts, including street and local wisdom, Dokubo is right: Jonathan’s government is better than previous ( I guess, PDP) governments!

    As a matter of fact, I have even heard some people are wondering whether it was the same Dokubo who only a few months back, criticised Jonathan’s government and doubted his re-election in 2015 unless he removed some elements from his government, that has changed position, when the president has not carried out any such reorganisation that would have weeded out the irritants and pollutants. “The President has allowed himself to be imprisoned by some greedy individuals. His goodwill will soon go and that will affect his second term chances,” he had said. Well, that is a fact of life; no condition is permanent. Life itself is dynamic. What is perceived to be black today can suddenly turn to white tomorrow in the face of fresh ‘developments’. If you like you might begin to link Dokubo’s volte-face to the billion naira contracts that the Jonathan government gave him; that, as former President Olusegun Obasanjo said, ‘na yo toro’ (that is your business).

    Still on contracts, I hear the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) too is gearing up for a piece of the action. There are reported rumblings in the ‘OOdua house’, with one factional leader allegedly threatening to throw out the other. When such threats are made, we should know what is speaking. Two things normally cause friction between two good old friends – women and money. In the Oodua case, women cannot be an issue because there is more than enough to go round. It has to be money then because, one, it is the root of all evil and second, it is one thing that is hardly enough. No matter how rich people already are, they still want more money.

    But who will blame Oodua for quickly keying into this lucrative and ‘legitimate industry’ in Nigeria? All you need to qualify for the windfall is ability to cause chaos, render the security agencies ineffective and sustain it for a long time, and you are in business. Levels will suddenly change and your statement of account will cease to be a source of sorrow and disappointment to you. Indeed, once you hit it big in that ‘sector’ which is fast gaining ascendancy in the Jonathan era, it is the bank managing directors who have to catch cold whenever you sneeze.

    It is in the light of all these that I want to set the ball of congratulations rolling for President Jonathan in advance, for his well deserved victory in the 2015 elections. With his kinsman, Dokubo, a former but not tired militant declaring war if the president is not re-elected in the election, the coast is as good as clear for President Jonathan to start preparing his acceptance speech for the Dokubo assured victory. The gods of this era have spoken. Militants, terrorists now rule the waves.

  • Before we become a failed state

    Some years ago, I was one of the speakers at a seminar by Journalism students of the Lagos State University on Nigerian being a failed state or not.

    After checking all definitions of a failed state, I argued vehemently that it was not right to describe our dear country as a failed state. Yes, we could be failing in many respects, but I did not agree with other speakers that we have reached the point where we could be categorised along countries like Somalia and others.

    So much has happened since then that though I am still not persuaded that we can be regarded as a failed state, I have no doubt that our chances of becoming one before long is much higher .

    The events of the last one week which forced President Goodluck Jonathan to abort his state visit to Namibia are indications of how close we are to slipping into a state of anarchy, beginning from some parts of the country where the Boko Haram insurgents and other groups have taken the laws into their hands.

    While the controversy of the actual number of persons killed in Baga, Borno State during the clash by the military and the Boko Haram suspects was yet to be resolved, gunmen struck in Bama leaving at least 47 persons dead.

    Yet another shocking orgy of killing was recorded last Wednesday when about 30 policemen were ambushed and killed by members of a cult militia group known as the Ombatse.

    Apart from the above incidents which have attracted national and international attention, there are several other reported and unreported cases of mindless killings. Kidnappings have also been on the rise nationwide that relatives now pay mind-boggling amounts as ransom with no guarantee that the captive will be released alive.

    The impression one gets from the situation in the country is that the government is no longer able to protect the lives and property of the citizens. Despite assurances of being on top of the situation, the reality on the ground is that the country is gradually becoming a killing field of a kind with all manners of gunmen having a field day.

    Before the recent Lafia incident, 12 policemen were last month killed in Bayelsa by another militia group. If policemen who are supposed to protect the citizens can be easily killed as in the two instances, the level of security leaves much to be desired.

    More groups are likely to be emboldened by the successful attacks on policemen if the real perpetrators of the dastardly acts, and not some innocent persons, are not quickly apprehended and prosecuted.

    More than ever before, the government has to take decisive steps to stem the tide of lawlessness in the country before those who insist that Nigeria is a failed state are proved right.

    President Jonathan must make good his statement while reacting to the Bama attack that the government will not hesitate to crush all brazen affronts to the powers and sovereignty to the Nigerian nation. The time to act is now.

     

    Opemipo Fund

    In The Nation of May 3, the pathetic story of a 16 year- old Opemipo Ogunseye, a senior secondary school student in Lagos was published. The right leg of Ogunseye the aspiring journalist has been amputated after being hit by a reckless driver while waiting in a traffic control stand.

    Opemipo’s guardians are my neighbours in the house I live. She is such a pleasant girl and it’s unfortunate that she has been incapacitated by the accident. She missed writing her West African School Certificate Examination due to the accident.

    She now needs an artificial leg which costs N500,000. Join me and others in raising the required fund.

    Send your contribution to Account Name: Opeyemi Ogunseye, Account No: 0128688664, Sort Code: 058174218. Bank: Guaranty Trust Bank. (GTBank).

     

  • Dokubo, Kuku and the right to be obnoxious

    Dokubo, Kuku and the right to be obnoxious

    Drowned out by the outrage that greeted the atrocities at Baga, and later Bama, many would have missed an insightful contribution to the ongoing national discussion by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in faraway Geneva, Switzerland.

    Speaking as guest of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations last week, Atiku denounced what he called “the militarisation of democracy.” More than one decade after the end of military rule and the advent of constitutional democracy, he said the culture of political intolerance and impunity still pervades the country.

    He talked about how retired military officers, who came to power as politicians brought with them military mindsets, and in the process exacerbated the culture of intolerance and impunity.

    Atiku’s comments are pithy but not exactly novel. What he failed to add was that even civilians who have found themselves in positions of power, as well as their hangers-on, have quickly imbibed the worst character traits of our past military-politicians – turning what we practice in Nigeria into the worst form of ‘garrison democracy.’

    In this variant, orders are orders, and once an edict is issued from on high all lesser mortals are expected to fall in line. In this environment, independent-mindedness counts as treachery of the worst order.

    In addition to being allowed to crush the right to hold an opinion, the guardians of our democracy are also demanding to be allowed to dictate what sort of opinions we should hold. Political correctness is now rampant – so much so that a man has to lose his right to be foolish.

    The whole brouhaha over the comments made by the Special Adviser to the President on Niger-Delta Amnesty Programme, Kingsley Kuku; and retired militant leader, Mujahid Asari Dokubo, underscores how far we have descended.

    Kuku, at a recent meeting with United States officials in Washington, had controversially said: “The peace that currently prevails in the zone (Niger Delta) is largely because Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who is from that same place, is the President of Nigeria. That is the truth. It is only a Jonathan presidency that can guarantee continued peace and energy security in the Niger Delta.”

    Not to be outdone, the voluble Dokubo jumped into the fray with even more incendiary comments. “I want to go on to say that, there will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta but everywhere if Goodluck Jonathan is not president by 2015, except God takes his life, which we don’t pray for.”

    He didn’t stop there. He vowed that unless the incumbent was re-elected in two years, he and other ex-militants who had been “resting” would swiftly return the creeks and their old ways.

    I can understand the “do or die mentality” that runs through the remarks of the likes of Dokubo because he and other one-time Niger Delta militant leaders have seen their lot dramatically transformed under the Jonathan presidency. Today, some of them are sitting over pots of cash “protecting” pipelines and patrolling waterways.

    It doesn’t require a soothsayer to predict that were a Pharoah who never knew Joseph to arise, the stream of cool cash will dry up as some of these dubious contracts will be swiftly cancelled. So it is understandable if Dokubo threatens to rain down fire and brimstone if his meal ticket is snatched away.

    I am certain though that he does not speak for millions in the Niger Delta whose lot has not been bettered under the regime of their “brother” Jonathan. Neither does he represent the millions who want to carry on in peace regardless of whether a particular individual loses or wins the 2015 polls. Statements by former Information Minister, Chief Edwin Clark and the Ijaw National Congress (INC) distancing themselves from the excitable comments of the twosome confirm this.

    For me the statements made by Dokubo and Kuku don’t make sense given the way the Nigerian constitution is rigged. In order to become president you must have strong support all over the country. That is why only broad-based parties ever find their way into power.

    It follows therefore that no matter how passionate some of Jonathan’s Ijaw supporters are they do not have enough AK-47s to hold to the heads of millions of voters in the five other zones of the country to browbeat them into voting for their favoured candidate. Truth be told: if Jonathan loses in 2015 the heavens won’t cave in – not even in Otuoke.

    That is why I amazed at the equally over-the-top reactions from certain Northern leaders and some members of the National Assembly. The House of Representatives quickly asked a committee to probe the comments. The increasingly loquacious Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu, and a couple of others demanded the arrest of Dokubo. Some called for treason trials. For goodness sake!

    As some have rightly pointed out – many people from the north and elsewhere have said even more damnable things and no one has been arrested. The former Kaduna State Governor, Lawal Kaita, and a couple of others threatened in 2010 to make the nation ungovernable if Jonathan muscled his way to the presidency riding roughshod over the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) zoning arrangements.

    There are many who like the late National Security Adviser (NSA), General Owoye Azazi, believed that the rise in the insurgency in the north is intricately tied to the fall-out of the 2011 polls.

    What we need to understand is that in every democracy – even developed Western ones – there will always be people who verge on the extreme or out-rightly inhabit the lunatic fringe in the opinions they hold. If we are to develop our political system we cannot make them align their views with the mainstream by force.

    Rather than getting all excited over the unrealistic positions of one or two individuals, we should be thinking of how to de-militarise our politics and reduce the role of violence in the scheme of things.

    For as long as we continue to reward the violent with things: Boko Haram with amnesty, kidnappers with generous ransom and politicians using thugs with high office – our politics will never be transformed.

    In Nigeria today, the way to get things from the government and society is by violence or the threat of it. The northern insurgents understand this; ex-Niger Delta militants like Dokubo understand this – after all they wrote the manual.

    It is only when those who control the levers of power start to assert themselves in a proper way that extremists will regain their respect for the state and its institutions. But when we cave in to every extremist waving a gun and a threat, all they will have for the state is enduring contempt.

     

  • Looking for security in an insecure world

    Looking for security in an insecure world

    •In the long run, security is not attained by force of arms but by the calmative influence of justice and prosperity.

     

    In America, the Boston Marathon bombing fades from memory. Benghazi is now the roiling tale. Congressional inquiries have been constituted. The media is awash with Republican charges that the Obama Administration has concealed its negligent handling of the consulate attack in Benghazi that left the American Ambassador and three other officials dead. Congressional Republicans huff that the Obama cohort is guilty of such transgressions that make the Watergate cover-up appear to be the epitome of benign transparency and fidelity in governance. These fire-eating conservatives hope this episode will not only serve as Obama’s Watergate but also double as the Waterloo for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential aspirations.

    Checkmated at the ballot box by an American electorate demographically too black and brown (Latino) to for their liking, the Republicans seek to gain through the trapdoor what they could not win through the front. They dream of toppling Obama while amputating the legs of a Clinton candidature years before that horse is brought to the starting gate. What the Republicans now do is tawdry and ethically bankrupt. What they practice is not in the spirit or practical ways of a mature democratic republic. They delude themselves into believing they represent the final line of defense laboring to save America from the great unwashed horde of the dark-skinned people who call themselves Americans but who shall forever be alien and foreign in the hearts of the white conservatism.

    Yet what their abuse of public office for political gains does is to turn American governance into the stuff of which fledgling banana republics are made. So blinded by hatred, they undo that which they purport to save and invite the very calamity against which they purport to fight. Not since the Civil War has a major political party been so spellbound by and attached to an obvious wrong. These racists meanly depict Obama as a monkey in a suit. But, they are the ones who behave as baboons.

    They attack Obama as if he is a bacillus; save for the hue of his skin, he is their own. I care not for his milquetoast policies and his ersatz populist rhetoric rings hollow in my ears; but I defend his right to be as narrow and purblind as they are. The simple but harsh truth about Benghazi is the fate of the vanquished quartet was sealed when the decision was made to overnight in the rough city. In a lawless place, danger assumes governance of the evening. Remaining in Benghazi after the sun had left the city placed these men on a limb. Those who attacked them realized their scant predicament and were all too ready to cut them down.

    By the time the attack commenced, no rescue operation could be had. The victims’ sole means of escape at that point laid in the miraculous. Neither President Obama nor then Secretary Clinton would have been personally involved at this level of operational detail. Neither can be blamed for what happened lest one asserts the proximate cause of the deaths was America’s involvement in the war itself. If that is the charge, then Republicans are likewise guilty because they pursued the war with even greater bloodlust than the Democrats. It is a sad commentary on American political leaders that they will spend more time on Benghazi than examining wrong-footed decision to war against Iraq based on false accusations. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis perished as did thousands of Americans. The war was a lie but their deaths were all too true. To send this vast number to premature graves is the ugliest act thus far committed this century. For humanity’s sake, let’s hope it maintains this evil distinction and that no subsequent event surpasses its malevolence. Sadly, no one will ever be made to answer for this massive wrong. Yet, Republicans are hell bent to see a few Democratic careers interred by Benghazi, which ultimately will be gauged as a salient tragedy but one of insignificant strategic import in the great tide of events. The loss of the four men was tragic. Measures must be taken to avoid the facile repetition of such an easily-perpetuated tragedy. On another level, America must realize this represents the inevitable human costs to be paid for the muscular empire America seems intent on building.

    On the domestic scene, the Boston bombing is also a price America bears for the global situation it helped author. Whether the bombers were formally linked to any known incendiary group is, in some ways, immaterial. The bombers share the worldview of these notorious organizations. They see the world as unjust and believe America is the primary author of that injustice. In a world of over 6 billion people, there will be hundreds of thousands willing to kill because of that belief. Some of these people are Americans or live in America. Again, such is the price of hegemonic empire.

    Responding to the marathon bombings, America will augment budgets for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Already America has spent more on Homeland Security than it did prosecuting World War II. At least, the World War finally ended. The fight Defense and Homeland Security fight has no end. It does not even have a military solution yet Defense and Homeland Security seek to win through force of superior weaponry and gadgets. Once again, technology has been perverted by the vain and arrogant to accomplish a feat for which it is terribly suited.

    The true battlefield of this contest is shaped by politics, economics and governance and not by military hardware. However, those in control never want to hear such things because they ultimately define and measure things in terms of power and might. Thus, they attack problems instead of seeking to first answer them. They clench their fists then fire a bomb. Yet, they act indignantly when some desperate soul detonates a home-made bomb on a crowded street in one of their hallowed cities. What the bomber did was inhumane and the imperialists find solace in calling the bomber a deranged extremist. This description may be apt. Nonetheless, that the bomber is an extremist does not necessarily mean the government he opposes is not extreme in its application of violence in foreign nations.

    The Boston bombings were cruel homicides but, in the minds of their perpetrators and of many people around the world, they were no more misguided and cruel than the drone strikes America visits upon innocent people around the world. As such, the Boston bombings are an outcrop, the blowback, of a global political economy America has done more than any other nation to create. No global system can be perfect because we are fallible in the conception and implementation of all we attempt. There shall always be disagreements and confrontation. Justice is in shorter supply than the situations its application might resolve. As long as there is man, there shall be war and woe. To expect American power to usher in perfect peace asks too much. Moreover, had Germany won World War II or the Soviet Union won the Cold War, the world would be worse than it is. That said, the world is bad enough. Whatever benevolence existed in the initial stages of post-WWII Pax Americana has waned, being steadily replaced by a steely arrogance that knows few answers yet brooks little opposition. Killing bin Laden matters little; the turn of events will produce another.

    I have no want to debate the causes of the violent extremism in much of the world. One point is unassailable. Societies achieving long-term justice and prosperity are more peaceful and their people are less vulnerable to extremist views and to the formation of violent organizations. Among the lessons to be learned from the Boston bombings, this is the most important.

    There is another lesson from Boston germane to our local circumstance. Faced with many security challenges, Nigeria currently debates changes to its internal security/law enforcement architecture. This debate mostly is couched in terms of whether to revive the local police. How the American internal security/law enforcement structure tackled the Boston bombings offers guidance that can benefit Nigeria. In Nigeria, the ongoing debate draws a stark dichotomy between the current federal police and advocates of state police. It is as if Nigeria must select one or the other. Much of the debate is more influenced by a proponent’s political stance on federalism than on what is the most pragmatic solution to our security threats. Those who believe the central government has too much power espouse state police almost to the exclusion of retaining a national law enforcement presence. Those supporting the current federal distribution of power oppose the state police. Most people reach their conclusions not based on what is best for the internal security but upon which tack supports their overall theory of federalism.

    Because protection of life and limb is such an existential purpose of government, we must reverse our thought processes on this vital issue. Development of the nation’s security architecture should not become hostage to political debate. Instead of shaping the security architecture to accord with a prior political notion of federalism, we should first discern the most pragmatic, effective security apparatus. Then, we adjust the federal structure accordingly so as to enable this more efficacious system. This process accords with the viewpoint that government is not an abstraction nor is it the playground of competing factions among the elite. Instead, government is intended to advance the real and tangible interests of the people.

    Viewed against this backdrop, shaping the debate as a choice between state and federal police is a false ultimatum. First, we need not select one over the other. There is ample reason and evidence pointing to the need for both. Second, we should expand the conceptual scope of discourse from “policing” to “law enforcement.” In the aftermath of the Boston event, the American law enforcement machinery ramped into gear. However, this effort did not become the sole property of a federal agency or the state police. Instead, law enforcement at three levels – local, state and federal – joined hands to investigate the crime and apprehend the culprits. Each level of law enforcement has its different skills, expertise and talents. Over the long-run, America has found this division of labor to be most effective.

    Local and state law enforcement bodies are essential because most everyday, mundane crimes are of local impact. Locally-based law enforcement has greater knowledge of the community. This means the law-abiding citizens will have greater confidence and familiarity with local agencies. It also means the agencies will have better knowledge of the criminals and their activities because the local agencies will have greater knowledge of local culture, society and the political economy. Meanwhile, law enforcement at the federal level focuses on those complex crimes that do not respect local boundaries and that might involve vast criminal syndicates spanning several state or even international borders. Thus, while the U.S. does not have a national police force, it has several specialized agencies that tackle specific crimes. For example, DEA battles illicit narcotics. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) deals with cases that have been expressly by statute deemed federal crimes.

    Even with this rough division of labor, there is significant overlap between local and federal officials. When this happens, as in Boston, ad-hoc task forces are formed. Depending on the nature of the criminal problem, such multi-jurisdictional task forces can have indefinite life spans.

    There is no functional reason prohibiting Nigeria from establishing a similar division of labor. It can establish state police to address the vast majority of common crimes. Simultaneously, it can remodel the federal law enforcement structure to create or strengthen existing agencies to address those momentous issues, including but not limited to organized crime, narcotics, terrorism, and human trafficking that are too big and complex for state police to handle.

    Nigeria faces myriad security challenges. These challenges are not the fault of any one person, group or section of the nation. The geneses of these problems reach far back into the past but threaten to stretch far into the future if left unattended. We needn’t point fingers at each other. Better that we spend time pointing out possible solutions. Now is not the moment for stilted debate about the merits of more or less federalism and power distribution between the federal government and the states. While this political debates drags on, our security problems become more acute and biting. This column has been a constant, regular critic of American governance. However, it is wrongheaded not to acknowledge an important instance where America’s methodology may help Nigeria’s future. The division of labor between state and federal law enforcement bodies is one such instance. Here, Nigeria has some important lessons to learn from America. What have you got to lose but your insecurity?

     

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  • Turai/Patience: Embarrassing land battle ends somewhat

    Turai/Patience: Embarrassing land battle ends somewhat

    After more than two years of nasty controversy over the revocation and reallocation of a prime land in Abuja, and an embarrassing court battle between two First Ladies over the same land, an Abuja High Court has resolved the matter, at least for the moment. Though the spokesman of the First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan, said the land battle was between Turai Yar’Adua, widow of the former president, Umaru Yar’Adua, and the Federal Capital City (FCT), everyone knows that the bitter fight was between the two First Ladies. While it is true Dame Patience was not joined in the case when Hajiya Turai headed for the courts, it was widely known that by being the beneficiary of the land reallocation, she was by far the most interested party in the tripartite land dispute. Not only did she defend the reallocation in her scabrous but expansively entertaining style, she left no doubt whatsoever that what she planned to do with the land would summarise her legacy.

    During the presentation of the PDP Women-In-Power 2013 Calendar in February, she had this to say: “The wife of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Maryam, built the National Women Centre while the wife of Gen. Sani Abacha, Maryam, also built the National Hospital. None of them (former First Ladies) left with the buildings. I am not the owner of the AFLPM, and when I leave, I will not take it away. It is not a pet project of anyone.” The land in question is situated in the Central Business District in Abuja. In February 2010, it was allocated to the Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation (WAYEF), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) run by the immediate past First Lady, Hajiya Turai. However, in November 2011 the FCT minister, Bala Mohammed, revoked the allocation and transferred ownership of the land to African First Ladies Peace Mission (AFLPM) now led by Dame Patience. The First Lady had planned to build the headquarters of the AFLPM on the land, and for which the ingratiating FCT controversially budgeted about four billion naira.

    Though Ayo Osinlu, the First Lady’s spokesman, has attempted to present what amounts to a fresh case in the newspapers to sway the public, Justice Peter Affen was emphatic that he gave judgment based on the facts before him. It is, however, possible that some of the facts available to Mr. Osinlu and his bosses were not available to the judge. But that can be explained, as Mr Osinlu himself acknowledged, by the fact that the case was not between Hajiya Turai and Dame Patience; it was between the former First Lady and the FCT. The FCT has indicated interest in appealing the decision. It is entitled to push the matter even up to the Supreme Court, though it is hard to see Affen’s decision being overturned. What the continuation of the case will do, however, is to further prolong Dame Patience’s misery, open the government to more ridicule, and damage the little reputation the President Goodluck Jonathan government pretends to have for taking dispassionate views of issues – as if the Rotimi Amaechi case is not enough refutation.

    When the AFLPM met in July last year in Abuja, the land battle was still unresolved and the budget allocation for the AFLPM was yet to be sorted out. But through the intervention of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, Dame Patience, surrounded by a bevy of other First Ladies, managed to lay the foundation stone for the AFLPM’s permanent secretariat. It takes unusual gusto and indifference to the law and propriety to circumvent legal and administrative objections with such flourish. Dame Patience doubtless has a fighting spirit. If only it could be harnessed for irreproachable causes.

    But the First Lady is not all defiance. She was probably emboldened to fight for the land based on the testimony of former FCT minister, Aliyu Moddibo Umar, who told the Voice of America radio service that the idea for the AFLPM’s permanent secretariat was actually his own, not even Dame Patience’s or Hajiya Turai’s. He had secured the land, prepared a C-of-O for it, and had a structural drawing for the project done, all in 2008. He added that he thought it would be a legacy project for Hajiya Turai. But after he vacated that office, his successor, Senator Adamu Aliero, was said to have reallocated the land to Hajiya Turai’s NGO, an action, Dame Patience insisted, the current FCT minister was trying to correct.

    Thrice the trial judge gave the disputants opportunity to settle the matter out of court, and thrice they spurned the chance to act reasonably. According to Hajiya Turai’s lawyers, the land offered the former First Lady was either too small or it was situated in undeveloped area. In the end, the judge decided that the land should not have been revoked or reallocated. The main problem with the land battle, however, is not whether Hajiya Turai was right, as the law has now affirmed, or whether FCT/Dame Patience was wrong, going by the court decision. The problem is that the two First Ladies opened up the country to ridicule. It is inconceivable that the African First Ladies that attended the foundation laying ceremony of the secretariat last year did not hear or read about the unseemly struggle over the choice land in Abuja. They probably shrugged their shoulders, satisfied that they were not the ones making a mockery of their position or their countries. If Nigerians felt shameless about such matters, it was the least of the problems of the other First ladies.

    The blame for the intractable land dispute should be put squarely at the feet of Jonathan. It was wrong of him to allow the case to fester openly for so long to the point that Nigeria became a spectacle. It is okay for him to affirm his respect for the rule of law, and to accord the law the widest latitude in resolving conflicts, but in this instance, as in nearly all instances, it was better the case had not gone to court at all. Even if Hajiya Turai was wrong, greedy and duplicitous, for the sake of the country’s image and the high esteem many hold the presidency of Nigeria, Jonathan should have insisted the AFLPM looked for another piece of land, whether prime or not. After all, the FCT is still developing and expanding.

    There are times when tenacity is a virtue; but there are also times when it is unhelpful. The disputed land exemplifies tenacity as a vice. Jonathan should have put his foot down to avert the court dispute. He is not only president in fact, he is president in law, and he is supposed to embody the country’s self-esteem and approximate its self-belief. When he acts nobly, it rubs off on everyone; when he acts disreputably, it also tars everyone with the same brush. It is unnerving that that distinction escaped him in the dispute between Dame Patience and Hajiya Turai. How many more such distinctions will escape him before his term is finished?

    Now, the damage is done, and it is incalculable. If Jonathan had made the AFLPM to forgo the land, he could have appropriated to himself and his government a nobility far in excess of what he has exhibited so far or is in fact capable of. But even if he were to win the case on appeal, it could not mitigate the public relations damage the original loss occasioned, for many would see his importunate government as rapacious and vengeful. But if the FCT/government/Patience should lose again, it would be the ultimate humiliation they could not hope to live down. In other words, damned if they win; and damned if they lose.

    The president may again pretend to his usual detachment on this embarrassing legal battle, but the unavoidable fact is that the buck stops at his desk. He can either pick the buck and throw it away in denial, or remove his desk and declare with quixotic relish he had vanquished the phantom, or act with the wisdom expected of his office. What he cannot afford to do is stand still, pretend the nuisance battle is strictly legal, and hope the problem would resolve itself in the near future.