The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Baga: Satellite evidence turns army logic on its head

    Theoretically speaking, no one is certain that the death toll from the clash between the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) and Boko Haram insurgents in Baga, Borno State is as high as locals say or as low as the military authorities swear. But whether the 36 dead declared by the Army or the 185 dead asserted by the locals, the circumstances of the clash and the furore that followed it indicate that something deeply troubling happened in that community. Following the outcry that greeted the high death toll and the thousands of houses allegedly burnt during the nearly two-day operation, the military quickly empaneled a team of officers to investigate the clash. Its report was not substantially different from the initial account given by the commanders of the Baga operation. They insisted there were fewer than 1000 houses in Baga, thereby questioning the account of locals who said more than 2000 houses were deliberately torched by the rampaging soldiers.

    Nigerians met the military investigation reports with deep cynicism. Senator Maina Ma’aji Lawan, whose constituency includes Baga, has denounced the military statistics as an infernal lie. He swore that a massacre occurred in the town. He also suggested that in fact much of the town was sacked, not in fighting, but in reprisal. There are a few other teams of investigators empowered to look into the clash. They are expected to give less colourful and more believable accounts. But meanwhile, a US-based rights group, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), has unexpectedly supplied satellite images of the destroyed town before and after the clash, thus proving that a huge swath of the town was indeed sacked and burnt. It further analysed that the conflagration could not have been triggered by small arms and light weapons, as speculated by the military.

    The military authorities are yet to reply to this new evidence. But it is fast dawning on everyone that in the face of modern science, there is no hiding place for anyone or atrocity. If the HRW satellite images stand, and there is no reason they should not, the officers who endorsed the military report may have imperiled their integrity and commission. They and President Goodluck Jonathan who was quick to embrace the report will be surprised to know that even in Africa things are changing, and the atrocities connived at in the past have become anathema.

    The National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria (NHRC) will also be investigating the clash. But it has implausibly and precipitately cautioned that the Baga incident should not be politicised. Absolute nonsense. Of course, no one is politicising the massacre. The fact is that everyone is too shocked by the scale of killings that it smacks of gross insensitivity and even snobbery for the government and the NHRC to suggest someone might be politicising the issue. Let us hope that the NHRC’s hasty caution does not prejudice the outcome of its report. As for the president and the military, they seem quite desperate to downplay the incident. But even if 36 were killed, it still amounts to crime against humanity if the victims were defenceless civilians instead of armed militants. Surely, the government and the military can tell the difference.

  • Dame Patience states her case

    “We wish to say for the umpteenth time that the land matter had been taken out of context in the public domain, to create an impression that Dame Patience tried to take over a land previously allocated to Hajia Turai. The fact of the matter is that this was not the case, as we have consistently explained. The land, as clarified by former FCT Minister, Aliyu Moddibo Umar, in the Daily Trust edition of Thursday, August 2, 2012, was originally allocated to the African First Ladies Peace Mission during the tenure of Hajia Turai Yar’Adua, as President of the Peace Mission in 2008.

    “By some curious circumstances, which have been explained by the FCT Administration, the piece of land was re-allocated to Hajia Turai Yar’Adua’s NGO (WAYEF), under another plot number. It is this anomaly, considered an administrative error, which the FCT had tried to rectify.

    “Let it be known that the FCT took what it considered a legitimate course of action to rectify the error, which Hajia Turai challenged in court, having turned down several efforts to get her NGO another piece of land.

    “Our office had repeatedly stated that the land, which had been subject of litigation, was between the FCT Administration and Hajia Turai Yar’adua’s NGO, and neither the African First Ladies Peace Mission, even though it is the original allotee of the land, nor Dame Patience Jonathan, who is the sitting President of the continental body, was joined in the suit.

    “For purposes of emphasis, we wish to reiterate that the land in question was first allocated to the African First Ladies Peace Mission, according to records available to us, during the tenure of Hajia Turai Yar’Adua as President of the Mission. If in leaving office she had decided to depart with the land, the FCT HAS TAKEN APPROPRIATE LOGICAL ACTION to retrieve the said plot for the ORIGINAL allotee and purpose.”

    “To this extent, we wish to state categorically that the judgment referred to in the media was not against the person of Dame Patience Jonathan, and we will like the public and well-meaning Nigerians to put the matter in its proper perspective for the purpose of accurate record and common good.”

  • Not Enough Inflation

    Ever since the financial crisis struck, and the Federal Reserve began “printing money” in an attempt to contain the damage, there have been dire warnings about inflation — and not just from the Ron Paul/Glenn Beck types.

    Thus, in 2009, the influential conservative monetary economist Allan Meltzer warned that we would soon become “inflation nation.” In 2010, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development urged the Fed to raise interest rates to head off inflation risks (even though its own models showed no such risk). In 2011, Representative Paul Ryan, then the newly installed chairman of the House Budget Committee, raked Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, over the coals, warning of looming inflation and intoning solemnly that it was a terrible thing to “debase” the dollar.

    And now, sure enough, the Fed really is worried about inflation. You see, it’s getting too low.

    Before I get to the trouble with low inflation, however, let’s talk about what we should have learned so far.

    It’s not hard to see where inflation fears were coming from. In its efforts to prop up the economy, the Fed has bought more than $2 trillion of stuff — private debts, housing agency debts, government bonds. It has paid for these purchases by crediting funds to the reserves of private banks, which isn’t exactly printing money, but is close enough for government work. Here comes hyperinflation!

    Or, actually, not. From the beginning, it was or at least should have been obvious that the financial crisis had plunged us into a “liquidity trap,” a situation in which many people figure that they might just as well sit on cash. America spent most of the 1930s in a liquidity trap; Japan has been in one since the mid-1990s. And we’re in one now.

    Economists who had studied such traps — a group that included Ben Bernanke and, well, me — knew that some of the usual rules of economics are in abeyance as long as the trap lasts. Budget deficits, for example, don’t drive up interest rates; printing money isn’t inflationary; slashing government spending has really destructive effects on incomes and employment.

    The usual suspects dismissed all this analysis; it was “liquidity claptrap,” declared Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute. But that was four years ago, and the liquidity trappers seem to have been right, after all.

    And it’s worth mentioning another issue on which the inflation non-worriers have been vindicated: how to measure inflation trends. The Fed relies on a measure that excludes food and energy prices, which fluctuate widely from month to month. Many commentators ridiculed this focus on “core” inflation, especially in early 2011, when rising food and energy prices briefly sent “headline” inflation above 4 percent even as the core stayed low. But, sure enough, inflation came back down.

    So all those inflation fears were wrong, and those who fanned those fears proved, in case you were wondering, that their economic doctrine is completely wrong — not that any of them will ever admit such a thing.

    And, at this point, inflation — at barely above 1 percent by the Fed’s favored measure — is dangerously low.

    Why is low inflation a problem? One answer is that it discourages borrowing and spending and encourages sitting on cash. Since our biggest economic problem is an overall lack of demand, falling inflation makes that problem worse.

    Low inflation also makes it harder to pay down debt, worsening the private-sector debt troubles that are a main reason overall demand is too low.

    So why is inflation falling? The answer is the economy’s persistent weakness, which keeps workers from bargaining for higher wages and forces many businesses to cut prices. And if you think about it for a minute, you realize that this is a vicious circle, in which a weak economy leads to too-low inflation, which perpetuates the economy’s weakness.

    And this brings us to a broader point: the utter folly of not acting to boost the economy, now.

    Whenever anyone talks about the need for more stimulus, monetary and fiscal, to reduce unemployment, the response from people who imagine themselves wise is always that we should focus on the long run, not on short-run fixes. The truth, however, is that by failing to deal with our short-run mess, we’re turning it into a long-run, chronic economic malaise.

    I wrote recently about how, by allowing long-term unemployment to persist, we’re creating a permanent class of unemployed Americans. The problem of too-low inflation is very different in detail, but similar in its implications: here, too, by letting short-run economic problems fester we’re setting ourselves up for a long-run, perhaps permanent, pattern of economic failure.

    The point is that we are failing miserably in responding to our economic challenge — and we will be paying for that failure for many years to come.

     

    Culled from New York Times

  • No infrastructures, no hardware? Don’t worry, software will sustain you! (2)

    No infrastructures, no hardware? Don’t worry, software will sustain you! (2)

    Compatriots, you can text all you want, own as many handsets as your job or your fancy impels you, and hold multiple phone conversations as either a habit you can’t help or actually find fulfilling, but if your nation, your region of the world does not have the infrastructures necessary for modern life, software will not sustain you! As a matter of fact, in such a state of profound disjunction between hardware and software in modern civilisation, you will in all likelihood be condemned to live out the time allotted to you on this earth in a more or less permanent state of anxiety, insecurity and, worst of all, the replacement of reality and the hard, unbearable facts of life with delusions. And this will be your lot, your “fate” whether you are rich or poor, a person of substance or a member of the multitudes of the disenfranchised and marginalised. Is this an exaggeration, an overstatement? Well, let us examine the contention carefully through some very concrete and very well known experiences that virtually all Nigerians share in common in this software civilisation of the new millennium.

    One of the most seemingly trite but nonetheless immensely frustrating of these experiences is the one captured by the well known legend of “network error” that bedevils attempts to make phone connections in our country, an occurrence that happens at all times without rhyme or reason. In my line of work, I travel a lot in our continent and around the world. I don’t know about the experience of any person reading this piece who also happens to be a constant traveler, but I can state unequivocally that I have never encountered “network error” in any other country in Africa or the world at large. Perhaps worse than “network error” is the more sepulchral “the telephone number you are trying to call does not exist!” After my initial shock of hearing this “non-existence” ascribed repeatedly over two weeks to a number that I call fairly regularly, I had no recourse left than to turn the experience into a psychologically compensatory joke. In the joke which happened when I called the number of a person sitting right beside me only to be informed that the number belonged to the virtual world of nonexistence. It so happened that this “joke” was enacted between me and a sibling who had just been discharged from hospital after a bout with a very serious medical emergency. With this on my mind, I told my brother that he could at least take comfort in the fact that it was his phone number and not himself that was said not to exist!

    I readily concede the fact that these are vexatious but for the most not dire, not life threatening misadventures with poor and unreliable GSM services in our country. But from these particular cases, let us we move to indubitably more ominous experiences. And so I ask: Can we ever be able to get an accurate assessment of how much is lost in revenue and peace of mind through the constant breakdown in internet access in private and public, personal and commercial activities due to either power outage or the overload and collapse of the local or national bandwidth? I have lost count of the number of times when I have gone to my bank only to be told that “the network is down” and I have to wait or even come back later. I have lost count – and my capacity to be outraged – of the number of times when the modems for internet access through my laptop have either worked at the speed of a chameleon or a tortoise or, worse still, completely failed to get me connection for days and weeks. [You might say that the cybercafés are there, but they also are not immune to these same problems, apart from the fact that I work on and with my laptop at all hours of the day and night] And need I add that in my experience, these extremely frustrating and wasteful expressions of IT backwardness and inefficiency in access and the provision of other services are worse in our country than most of the other places I have visited in Africa and other parts of the world?

    We might well ask why these things are so bad in Nigeria. And indeed, this question is often posed in our newspapers and radio and television commentaries in our country. In my experience, two standard answers or explanations are often proffered. One is this: the number of subscribers to IT access and services in our country has far outstripped or overtaken the installed infrastructural capacity of the providers and the resulting overload can never be resolved until the gap between demand and capacity is rectified. The second reason is related to the first and it is this: like consumers of all other services in Nigeria, subscribers to GSM services and IT access do not enjoy adequate enforcement of legislation and guidelines protecting the rights of consumers and their advocates.

    These explanations are of course factually correct and things might indeed get better if the problems they highlight are addressed and resolved. But there is a third answer or explanation that is not articulated enough or is expressed rather tepidly and it is this: The vexations and frustrations that we experience with GSM and IT services are related to other endemic problems like power outages that drive up production costs in Nigeria and cripple productive economic activities; roads and other physical infrastructures that are not only vastly inadequate but also constitute death traps for all, rich and poor; and hospitals and clinics that are unsanitary, unsafe and poorly maintained. I suggest that it is this particular explanation that leads us to the heart of the matter in this series concerning modern life and civilisation and the historic connections – or disjuncture – between the infrastructure and software of production and consumption, both for what is essential for bare life and what is an excess, a “supplement” that makes life richer and more fulfilling. Let me explain with regard to what I think of as Nigeria’s rather unique and negatively exemplary experience of the disjuncture between infrastructure and software in modern civilisation.

    In virtually every region and country in the world, the infrastructures and institutions that we now take for granted as part of modern living grew out of two separate but intimately connected processes. One is the diversion of hundreds of millions of people, on a continuing and seemingly perpetual basis, away from farming and rural communities to towns and cities where the diverted communities join an ever growing actual and potential work force. The other, separate but related process or phenomenon is the growth of cities, megacities and metropolitan conurbations that are vaster than anything the world had ever known. Virtually all the infrastructures and institutions that we now consider vital to life as we live and experience it as part of a complex and sustainable modernity grew as both a response to and a motive force for these two processes: safe, motorable roads, highways and rail systems; factories of both heavy and light machinery and equipment; regular and sustained power generation and supply; access to clean, potable water and its sources; facilities for health care delivery and public and private sanitation that must forever be well maintained; and institutions for instruction, research and innovation that must not only keep the generality of the present generation educated and well informed but must also reproduce future generations of informed and enlightened human beings. Of all the countries in Africa and perhaps in the rest of developing world, Nigeria surpasses all others in the scale of these twin processes of diversion of populations from the rural to the urban and the growth of large towns, cities and conurbations. At the same time, Nigeria is unbeatable in the inadequacy of the infrastructures and institutions necessary to cope with the two processes.

    The story of how what I have in this series been calling the “software” components of modern life came to connect with the fundamental infrastructures and institutions of modernity is a fascinating and complex tale. In all honesty and humility, I confess that it is a tale I am still trying to understand as fully as I think necessary. For this reason, I shall only be scratching the surfaces of this subject in this series. This entails only the briefest detailing of, in my own opinion, two of the more spectacular and by now indispensable dimensions of this new software civilisation. Here is the first one: “machines” and technologies that can, through preprogrammed apps, “think”, calculate and calibrate for us; that can probe the innermost recesses of the body and its internal organs for us; that can clone living tissues and organisms; and yet these “machines” are so infinitesimally small that they are measured in nanoseconds and nanometers which are one billionth of a second and a meter respectively. Here is the second one: the collection, storage, retrieval, reconfiguration and transmission across the length and breadth of the whole world of infinitely vast amounts of data and information through text, pictures and abstract, non-literal images collected on microchips that are much smaller than the eye of a needle. Needless to say, other than as consumers, Nigeria and most of the other developing countries of the world, at least now and for the immediately foreseeable future, have little to contribute to the production of these wondrous “machines” of the software revolution.

    But things are not as hopeless as they might seem from the current state of things. At any rate, the very last impression I wish the reader to take from the reflections in this series is hopelessness. If the achievements of the software revolution seem so far from our reach, this is not the case with the infrastructures of modernity. These can be put in place in less than a decade. And once that happens, we can enter into another phase of history in which we might become significant players in the software revolution. At any rate, I believe that the only thing stopping us from a fully realised infrastructural modernity is the scale and impunity with which our oil wealth is stolen and wasted. Behind that, of course, is the fact that looting and wastefulness on such a colossal scale is possible only because an extractive, offshore political economy on which a parasitic rentier state has been erected like a behemoth holds us hostage and we seem unable to think our way beyond it, to see our way past it. In this respect, I would like to say that above every other consideration, what I would like any reader of this series to take away is a profound contempt for what the present administration and those before it call either “FSS 2020” or “Vision 2020”. What does this mean? It means that by the year 2020 Nigerian would have become one of the 20 biggest economies in the world. How delusional can a ruling class and/or party be? We are at least half a century behind in the installation of the infrastructures of modernity. And we are light years away from the software revolution. So compatriots, the next time your receive “network error” from your GSM provider and the next time you go to visit a friend or a relative in a hospital and you see the state of the things there, think of “Vision 2020” and separate yourself from the delusion, the fraudulent imposture of those who are looting us dry and mortgaging the future of our children and their children to bankruptcy in a land awash with petronaira and petrodollars. Go on texting, compatriots, but with the usual psychologically cleansing frivolities associated with texting, send out messages of hope and resilience that come from being not mere consumers but also potential producers in our global software civilisation.

     

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Must the country’s unity kill its citizens?

    Must the country’s unity kill its citizens?

    Unity discourse in our country is becoming absurd. Recently, the media carried a news story about the federal government’s instruction to Lagos State to shelve its desire to install 10,000 solar-powered CCTV devices in Lagos State, to deter criminal acts that grow by the day in a state that has in the last six years been more crime-resistant than other states in the federation. The reason for the federal government to prevent the government of Lagos State from making efforts to secure life and property in the state is that the federal government has the intention or plan to install CCTV cameras in major cities of the country. The result almost four years after announcement of Lagos State’s plan to install CCTV cameras in the state is that neither the federal government nor the government of Lagos has done so.

    The promise by the National Assembly may not be enough to assure Nigerians that the union does not need the sovereign national conference that citizens have been calling for since the annulment of the 1993 presidential election. The attitude of the federal government to the security of the parts as the basis for the security of the whole remains hostile to what Daniel Defoe once characterised as Union of Affection, in contradistinction to the principle of Union of Policy. The attitude of those in charge of the federal government in the post-military era is as worrisome as it was during the era of military dictatorships.

    Under the guise of integration of the country, successions of military dictators created policies which robbed the states of powers to carry out basic responsibilities required of states in a federal union. Such erosion of federalism got to a head in the 1999 Constitution which General Olusegun Obasanjo recently described as representing the apogee of efforts by the military to integrate the country. It is the 1999 Constitution, like all other military-authored constitutions since 1979 and decrees since the suspension of the 1963 Republican Constitution, which killed the tradition of multi-level policing in the country.

    It appears that it is the preference of military dictators and their civilian apologists in the post-military era that must have given the federal government the audacity to stop Lagos State from deploying modern technologies to protect citizens and their property. Even at that, it is clear that the federal government is not as much after good governance of the country as it is in search of total control of the states. Knowing that federal political appointees and civil servants are well travelled and very conversant with latest security architecture and techniques in other countries, there is no other way to interpret the federal government’s attempt to stop Lagos State from spending its own resources to enhance security of the 18 million residents of the state.

    This is not the first time that the federal government would prevent states from enhancing the survival of their citizens. When Yoruba states indicated their wish to fix the Lagos-Ibadan highway, the federal government rejected the offer, on the ground that it is only the federal government that has the responsibility to repair and rebuild federal roads. Thousands of citizens from all parts of the country must have died from accidents on the bad road since the federal government’s rejection of offers from Yoruba states through which the Lagos-Ibadan highway passes.

    When military dictators in the past prevented Lagos State from establishing intra-city rail system as a means of mass transportation within Lagos, citizens blamed this on poor judgment from dictators that had no mandate from citizens. When Obasanjo rejected offers from Oodua Investment to build a fast rail system between Ibadan and Lagos, citizens shrugged it off as evidence of Obasanjo’s loyalty to his military culture of preventing any part of the country from providing services that are not available in other parts of the country, all in the name of even development and national unity.

    It is an irony that the federal government under the leadership of a civilian elected by citizens is behaving in a way that is reminiscent of military heads of states. How does the provision of 10,000 CCTV cameras in Lagos State derogate from the country’s unity or the powers of the federal government? Why would the federal government prefer to provide a service that a state has the power to provide? Is the federal government’s purse overflowing with funds to the extent that it must look for projects to underwrite? And if so, must such funds be spent on providing the same service that a state is ready to use its own funds to provide?

    Furthermore, it is an irony that, at a time the federal government is apparently over stretchedin its effort to fight different sources of insecurity, the same federal government would stop a state from assisting it to fight the various sources of insecurity in the country: Boko Haram terrorists, professional and ritual kidnappers, and Niger Delta militants, in addition to daily rise in incidence of other crimes in all parts of the country. It is also ironical that a government that lives on the promise of transformation appears hobbled by the country’s tradition of subordinating states under the federal government.

    If it is true, as some media pundits have posited, that the federal government’s order to Lagos State with respect to deployment of CCTV cameras in the state is political, this is in bad taste and an illustration of primitive political attitude to multiparty politics in a federation. In the days of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the government of Western Nigeria provided several services that were not available in other regions of the country. Yet doing this neither broke the country’s unity nor derogated from the power of the federal government: free primary education, television service, building of Olympic-size stadium in Ibadan, etc. If anything, such services encouraged other regions to imitate Western Nigeria. The result was that progress in parts of the country translated into progress for the whole of the country.

    Without doubt, the 1999 Constitution, nicknamed by Obasanjo as the instrument of the country’s integration, has given too much power to the federal government. Any president who fails to wield the big stick given to him or her by the current constitution to subordinate states or make them appear as junior partners in a federation stands the risk of being called weak. But any attempt by the federal government or its representative to frustrate states that are spending their hard-earned resources to show interest in the welfare and wellbeing of citizens is likely to be seen by most citizens as wicked and insensitive.

    The federal government should not have to be told that many citizens are being kidnapped in Lagos every day. It also cannot be oblivious of the rising crime statistics in Lagos in recent times, despite strenuous efforts by the Lagos State government to invest a lot of its resources on beefing up security in the state. There is no other state in the federation that is more attractive to policemen and women than Lagos. This is because of the incentives in terms of equipment and other support given by the state government to law enforcement officers in the state.

    Over half of the security efforts in most countries today is achieved with the help of modern technology, particularly collection of intelligence that can prevent crime and detect criminals. The decision of the government in Lagos to deploy 10,000 surveillance cameras is applying best global practices in the use of technology to secure life and property to the security situation in the state. It will be bad politics if the federal government prevents the state government from doing everything possible to secure life and property in the state, on the excuse that whatever the federal government has a hand in cannot benefit from input from state governments.

    Apostles of strong federal government and weak or weakened state governments must realise that their vision is more likely to make the call for sovereign national conference to re-structure the union unquenchable.

     

  • Champagne champions

    Champagne champions

    Nigeria, as this paper noted in an editorial last week, is indeed a huge theatre of the absurd. Or, how else do you explain our being the second largest champagne market, globally? Is it not strange that in a country where poverty is the hallmark of millions of faces, we still could find space for champagne to the point that we are number two among nations that consume it?

    Of course to get to this position, the country coughs up N41billion to finance the importation of this luxury; thanks to Euromonitor International which made the revelation. According to it, between 2006 and 2011, we achieved a compound annual growth of 22 percent in champagne consumption. Indeed, total champagne consumption reached 752,879 bottles (75cl) in 2011, higher than consumption in Russia and Mexico; therefore, placing Nigeria among the top 20 champagne markets in the world. Meanwhile, our Minister of National Planning, Dr Shamsudeen Usman has just told us that our dream (pipe dream?) of attaining one of the best 20 economies in the world by 2020 is no longer attainable.

    According to the Euromonitor International data, in 2010, Nigeria consumed about 593,000 bottles, the highest in Africa. The closest to this figure was South Africa’s 384,000 bottles. Like Nigeria, South Africa is another emerging market for luxury goods.

    “Nigerian champagne consum-ption is quite big,” says Charles Armand de Belenet, global marketing and communications director, at Pernod’s GH Mumm and Perrier Jouet Champagne brands, saying “we are building our network here and it is one of the most attractive places for us at the moment.” Mind you, manufacturing ventures are leaving Nigeria in droves; Michelin has gone, Dunlop has left, almost all the textile industries have become history. But champagne producers can find space to build network here?

    It is only the European markets that might have been taking by surprise that Nigeria could rank that high in global champagne consumption. As a matter of fact, Nigeria was not on their minds for the period 2011-2016. Countries like France (which tops the list), followed by United Kingdom, Brazil and China as well as the United States and the upbeat Australian market were the ones listed. “However, what did come as a surprise was Nigeria’s second place in these global rankings,” says Spiros Malandrakis, senior alcoholic drinks analyst at Euromonitor International, in a keynote presentation at the 2012 Champagne Assembly held in London.

    Obviously, they did not reckon with the proclivity of the Nigerian rich for ostentatious lifestyle; but Nigerians would not have been surprised by the findings because they know their rich like they do the lines on their palms. Rose champagne is sold for N77, 000, while Demi-set brand is N55, 000 per bottle. Krug and Crystal brands fall among the most expensive, with a bottle going for N165, 000 and N275, 000, respectively. But this is chicken change to many Nigerian rich, (never mind that minimum wage is about N18, 000 per month) most with inexplicable sources of the wealth they flaunt.

    The good news is that knowing our rich for what they are, the demand for such luxury can only rise; backward never. Whatever negative things our rich do, they try to excel. So, the champagne thing is just a confirmation of this.

    But make no mistake about it; it is not only the rich that drink like fish here. As you know, for every drink that the white man brought, we have our local equivalents. So, while our rich go for expensive brands like champagne, the not-so-rich also go for red wines, beer and stout, the same way the (so-called) poor also comfort themselves with ogogoro, burukutu, kanin kanin, our local brews that have been given all manner of names like te nle ana (get disgraced in your in-law’s place), etc. The rich drink champagne to show they are up there; but the poor are probably drinking in order to put their sorrow behind them. In other words, they drink and relax when all else has failed. Of course, as the ‘happiest people on earth’ that we are, we can afford to drink away our sorrows. That is why our breweries keep posting billions in profit annually. This is indication that their products are still selling in spite of the objections by some of our religions, particularly Christianity and Islam which believe it is ‘haram’ (sinful) to take alcoholic drinks.

    Indeed, that reminds me of something I almost forgot; it will be interesting to see the champagne consumption pattern across the regions. This is necessary in view of the widespread belief that few people consume alcoholic drinks in the northern part of the country. It will also be interesting to see if the Boko Haram kingpins drink champagne as well or whether, like Western education, champagne is also sinful. I recall that many years ago when I was on national service in Yola, then Gongola State, many big men who came for some of my youth corps female colleagues drank (alcoholic drinks) like fish. But they had a way of disguising what they were drinking because the drinks were poured from kettles similar to the ones they used to pray. The research into this matter must be thorough because I do not want anyone to call dog monkey for me. What I am saying is that I do not want to be told that what the big people in the north drink is non-alcoholic champagne because those who drink champagne do so not just as status symbol but also for the effect of its alcoholic content. What else could have been the attraction in procuring dizziness if not to make one dizzy?

    But I am still wondering why the adverts have not started pouring in congratulating our president for this feat that is happening in his time. Could it be that those to place the adverts are waiting for us to clinch the first position? But that is only a matter of time; France will soon lose that position to its rightful owner, Nigeria. Then it’ll be ours for keeps. Nigerian Big Men (and Women) hate being beaten in such contest.

    I hope someday, someone would do a survey again (the Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi compiled something like that before his death, but we need an update all the same) on Nigerian leaders’ trips abroad, whether in the quest for foreign investors (in a country where there is no power and security cannot be guaranteed), or for medical tourism or, worse still, for money laundering, I have no doubt again that Nigeria will retain its first position.

    On a last note, please join me in dancing to this song by one of our musicians of old:

    Ma mu ‘ti laye nbi (2ce)

    Bo ya won ki mu lorun,

    Ma mu ti laye nbi

    Bo ya won ki mu lorun,

    Ma muti laye nbi.

     

    Which other song could be more befitting for a country having its eyes on the trophy as the largest consumer of champagne than this which translates: ‘I will drink in this world, whether they don’t drink in heaven, I will drink on planet earth!’ Congrats in advance, Nigeria, champagne champions

     

  • Southwest: Resurrectionists, co-consiprators need to learn from our history

    Southwest: Resurrectionists, co-consiprators need to learn from our history

    For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, (or the Yoruba Nation) but their own belly; and by fair words and good speeches deceive the hearts of the simple”- Romans 16: 18

    Unlike those years of the locust when the Southwest found itself, wily nilly, under the yoke of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, a new vision for progress and development is emerging in Yorubaland. Our homeland strategy is being properly-structured and coordinated. Our development process is being institutionalised and an economic governance model is already in the works to accompany a well-defined political system. We have now clearly defined our goals, our priorities and our timelines. We are in the process of building the critical stakeholder inclusion and inclusiveness that is required for all these hard work to succeed. And to ensure that all these efforts are not aborted by the mandarins of a clueless PDP, we must ensure that a fit and proper leadership character prevails, as now, to direct the affairs of our land. I have quoted above, mutatis mutandis, the invigorating speech by Dipo Famakinwa on Regional Integration at the Oodua Foundation conference which held, April 26-27, 2013, in Delaware, U.S.A.

    With the negativity of the PDP years of decrepit infrastructure, run down school system and general insecurity in the Southwest already etched in our medullar oblongata, the Yoruba must give their all to fight back these revisionists so we can say again in one voice: never again!.

    And my teacher came handy again at the Delaware Conference. My teacher, Professor Banji Akintoye, the evergreen griot, at whose feet I studied in two different institutions of learning, was there to remind the race, and tell the world, from where the Yoruba is coming from and one can only hope that on reading his masterly address, the resurrectionists and revisionists amongst us will rethink their slavish assignments and permit a continuation of the present regime of peace and development in Yoruba land.

    In reminding us of our enviable pedigree, the author of the must- read 452 page ‘A History Of The Yoruba People’, must have had in mind the conspirators: these modern day ‘troublers of Israel’ who think nothing of once again railroading the Yoruba nation into another era of servitude like they did in 2003 with dire consequences to our well-being.

    We quote at some length from the address:

    ‘The responsibilities of today’s leaders of the Yoruba Nation are truly heavy. The Yoruba Nation that we were born into, and that we are called to guide, is one of the most important nationalities on the African continent. At 40 million in population, we are one of the three largest nationalities in Nigeria and in Black Africa. In population, we are about 24% of the population of Nigeria, a country of about 300 nationalities, with a total population of 165 million. But our importance in Nigeria does not end with our population weight. We stand in the forefront of Nigeria, and even of Africa, in educational development and literacy.

    According to some unofficial estimates, the Yoruba, though only 24% of Nigeria’s population, account for about 52% of all Nigerians who hold university degrees. By the 1860s, many Yoruba parents were already sending their children for higher education in Europe. By the 1870s, a considerable literate professional class had emerged – of doctors, lawyers, engineers, surveyors, journalists, etc. No other people in what later became British-ruled Nigeria produced a university graduate until the middle of the 1930s. By the 1950s, we became the first people in Africa to establish a Free Primary Education Programme.

    In comparison with the countries of the world, the Yoruba Nation is, in population, bigger than many of the richest and most influential countries of the Western world – a little bigger than Canada, about as big as Spain and about four times as big as Sweden. In Africa, besides Nigeria, only three countries – Egypt, Ethiopia, and Congo (Kinshasa) have bigger population.

    At about 105,000 square miles (168 square kilometers), it is bigger than the United Kingdom and over nine times the size of Belgium just as there are sizeble populations of the Yoruba in Benin Republic, Togo ,Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Bahamas, Suriname and the United States.

    Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Yoruba Nation has consistently belonged in the front line of modernisation on the African continent – in education, scholarship, literature, art, commerce, industries, entertainments, etc. Some gems of indigenous Yoruba thought and philosophy have been classified by UNESCO as significant parts of the “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” and it has made impressive contributions to scholarship in the sciences, the humanities and the arts, and produced the first African recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature’.

    Now, that is the huge Yoruba nation some otherwise respected elders and their over ambitious young acolytes are now working assiduously to turn over to a party in which even a Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, statesman, Yoruba’s foremost politician alive, former President and one time Alpha and Omega of the same party, is being routinely turned inside out with his group being daily decapitated by Chairman Tukur and ‘the Ogas at the top’ even as ‘Mr Fix it’ is being unerringly promoted and celebrated. And to imagine that these ‘elders’ would have to subsume both their resurrected party and the one anachronistically being called a mega party would have to subsume their identities under fringe parties like Labour or Accord simply because they are too ashamed to actually join PDP.

    Now under the lead of a good friend of mine, a party organisation freak, Jonathan is being assisted to encircle Yoruba land in a pincer-like arrangement, recruiting old men we once relied upon to hoist the chequered race in its historic place. Now they are having in Afenifere individuals Chief Awolowo would not have touched with the longest pole just like a caricature of the Avatar’s party is supposedly being resurrected by those without Awo’ rigour or honesty.

    The other, a man of integrity no doubt, but who had abandoned his loyal troops some twelve or so years ago now claims to be at the head of a so-called mega party none of which amalgamating party has a single Councillor anywhere in the country. How more anachronistic can a party name get! Interestingly, the big man took about his most loyal supporter to a serving governor for a contract over a year ago. My friend is still waiting. Such relevance!

    Happily, the Yoruba know their leaders just as they know those who are angling over nothing but security contracts and, probably oil blocks. They know only too well those who are no longer capable of winning their own wards. With all due respect, they have since become what my dear aburo perspicaciously calls yesterday men. But their recruiters and patrons are well aware of these facts since all they need are muscle men to destabilize the Southwest. Their primary assignment is to ‘uproot the tree and its branches’, recreate a Boko-Haram -like situation in the West, and make the 2015 election impossible. That, they believe, will be enough to take the wind out of the sail of the APC, among whose leaders is the man they love to hate -Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

    It still would have been tolerable if that were all. But the conspiratorial, clueless party, through sundry surrogates, old and young, is now aggressively recruiting some of our respected young men from the progressive camp, who apparently cannot see the irrationality of their being gubernatorial candidates on a platform as odious in the Southwest as the PDP. It will be nice to remind them again of the current trials of the Obasanjo group and what a state governor, Rotimi Amaechi is being made to go through in that party. The Yoruba, in their collective wisdom say when the front man runs into a ditch, those coming behind should learn appropriate lessons. They wont say we did not warn them when the chickens come home to roost, as they sure would.

    It can be restated again, in conclusion, that what is heartening is the fact that the Yoruba, unlike many others, can very easily differentiate between the ongoing massive, multi-sectoral developmental strides in the region and the developmental aridity of the PDP years when even the road leading to Ota could not be completed in eight years.

    Our people have said, and will surely vote: Never again to governmental cretinism.

  • Rambling through the rumpus

    Rambling through the rumpus

    A peep into King Jonathan’s Mines

    There is no situation so utterly bleak and despondent that it doesn’t leave room for a ray of hope, and a window of opportunity. In other words, there is some hope in hopelessness. It could be the hope of the hopeless, or the optimism of the totally defeated. This is usually the last defence of the defenceless. Allah de, they collectively sigh. Or as the Yoruba will put it, there is nothing that has a beginning that does not have an ending.

    This too will pass, they chorus in unison. There is no condition so hard that it doesn’t in the end lend itself to certain ameliorative possibilities. Ko so oun tole ti ki ro, they caution. Radical philosophers believe that this corrupt optimism is a potent formula for a comprehensive paralysis of the revolutionary will.

    It is a shabby complicity with an unjust and decadent status quo. The meek have never, and will never, inherit the earth, they thunder. In his classic, Literature and Revolution, Leon Trotsky raves: “At any rate, we shall no longer accept tragedy in which God gives orders and man meekly submits.” How about that as a sizzling sampler from one of the greatest revolutionists ever?

    The iconic Marxist intellectual warrior was as clear-eyed as he was clear in his mind about what needed to be done. But some nuggets of hope are there, all the same in the most appalling of circumstances. Imagine how life would be in contemporary Nigeria without some measure of hope! This would amount to what Kafka—may the good Lord bless his tortured soul— called a life of unadulterated unhappiness.

    It was such a life of undiluted and unmitigated joylessness that the great German-Jewish writer promised his future wife. The wise woman promptly broke off the engagement, and Franz Kafka lived and died a bachelor and a model celibate. Like Gregor Samsa, his hero and fictional alter ego, Kafka would make do with posters of buxom and voluptuous ladies in his bedroom.

    And still talking about Franz Kafka, it will be recalled that he was a master of automatic writing in all its dream-like quality. It was a kind of writing that flows with the majestic assurance of a sleep walker. It is so certain about the uncertainty of life that it challenges you to think otherwise. It is called the naturalisation of the unnatural. Life itself is one grand dream. As Kafka himself famously puts it, actual reality is unrealistic.

    Fellow Nigerians—to use the language of ancient coupists, (By the way when are we going to put those chaps on trial for treason?)——, this column is reporting itself to you this morning. There is no intellectual weapon this column has not employed to untangle the Nigerian condition. We have tried logical writing. We have tried the formal and forbidding format of the scholarly treatise. We have employed the arcane lingo and terse rigour of the political scientist. We have philosophised. We have fictionalised. We have blended fantasy with fact, which is the hallmark of what is known as New Journalism in America. Even our houseboy has become an iconic Domestic Secretary.

    There is no further point in confronting illogic with logic. Illogicality has its own strange and compelling logic. It is not amenable to sound reasoning. You cannot erase an ugly reality with beautiful writing. The negation of a negation can only proceed through negation. This morning, this column employs the virtues of automatic writing. It is a chaotic survey of a chaotic mess. It is a peep into King Jonathan’s mines from forty thousand feet above the sea level. It is quite a dizzying view.

    Does anybody remember Sir Henry Rider Haggard? He was a writer of magical yarns predominantly set in ancient Africa. It was as colourful as it was enthralling in all its savage splendour. There was a hint of upper class snobbism and racism about these engaging fables. But the portraits are haunting and unforgettable, and they are crafted with considerable sympathy for the noble savage. Snooper’s favourite is King Solomon’s Mines. Snooper’s favourite character was a fellow called Umslopogaas, a gigantic and heroic Zulu warrior who could fell an elephant with a single blow.

    It is strange and weird that at this particular point, Nigeria should come to resemble a King Solomon’s Mines where all kinds of chancers and prospectors collide in a bid for a piece of the action. There are unimaginable riches in the mines, but it is only for the strong and valiant. The weak and the poor have no chance. Diamonds are not for everybody. It is therefore entirely conceivable if the poor and the weak should go hungry in the midst of stupendous and unimaginable wealth.

    This is precisely where King Jonathan’s mines become a land mine of sorts. The poor will not go hungry for long. They are already eyeing the rich with intent. Given the intensive rate of exploration and dwindling global prospects, the mine itself cannot be lucrative for much longer. Having failed to make hay while the mines lasted, the Nigerian political elite must brace themselves to bear the brunt of the masses who will eventually fall upon them with relish and gusto.

    Let’s face our condition squarely. There is no point in quibbling or equivocating at this point. It is either a political elite is deserving or undeserving. Human history is littered with undeserving political elites of the past. They have been consigned to the trashcan of history where they rightly belong. When this fate eventually becomes the lot of the contemporary Nigerian elite, they must not bemoan their lot.

    It is a bleak and deeply unoptimistic situation, but this is ironically where utter hopelessness begins to emit rays of hope. The Jonathan presidency is a historic watershed for Nigeria. It is inconceivable that the nation can fall deeper into the morass of incompetence and sheer cluelessness. The structural disfigurement of Nigeria and whoever is in control of human destiny have used Jonathan to complete the chastisement of the Nigerian ruling class.

    It is either the pan-Nigerian critical mass arrives at this point in time or Nigeria will slip into ungovernable anarchy before terminal fracturing. But let us explain why there is some hope in hopelessness. At the last count, each component of Nigeria’s major ethnic nationalities have taken their turn at the colonial torture wrack that is Nigeria.

    Twice, the Yoruba have been whipped into line, during the “we tie” uprising and the June 12, 1993 annulment imbroglio. The Igbo have had their own brutal comeuppance during the civil war and what they perceive to be subsequent political and economic marginalisation. The Niger Delta populace has been savaged by a cruel and uncaring military/feudal complex.

    Hitherto, it used to be thought that the machinery of oppression and internal colonisation in modern Nigeria was solely and firmly in the hands of the Northern feudal oligarchy and their military enforcers. But that illusion of power is now firmly rested. It has taken two civilian administrations to dispel that arrogance of power.

    First, Obasanjo humbled the Northern power masters by beating them at their own game of political manipulation and electoral chicanery. Now Jonathan has humiliated them by calling their military and religious bluff even while pretending to fumble. The lesson to be learnt from all this is that no ethnic elite has a monopoly of the game of sinister subjugation and domination of other groups. The modern Nigerian presidency is an imperial Roman tyranny and an equal opportunity terror machine which does not recognise original ownership.

    So it is then that at this important political conjuncture, there are crucial lessons to be learnt. A wise political elite must learn how to cut its losses. At this point, there are two options before the Nigerian political class. They can continue with the old ethnic game. In which case, a fresh round of appearance before the torture machine is mandatory. In this particular case, it will start with the Ijaw political elite since they are the current ruling hegemony. Political ascendancy has its steep prices.

    Jonathan and the Ijaw political elite are in a far more delicate political situation than they can imagine. It is either they allow Nigerians to determine their electoral destiny or they face a possible showdown from other ethnic groups. The Russian roulette and Round Robin of ethnic victimisation will commence all over again. If Jonathan continues to alienate critical stakeholders in the Nigerian project, there is every possibility that his tenure will end in tragedy.

    Either way, the Jonathan presidency is an important watershed for Nigeria. The fourth Republic began on a note of placating and mollifying the Yoruba. After that, Obasanjo decided to throw a poisoned sop at his feudal friends and tormentors. The Jonathan presidency is largely seen as an attempt to placate the angry Niger Delta populace. At this point in time, even a political fool ought to know that it is the angry Nigerian masses that will have to be placated at the next poll.

    As this was being concluded, the weary eyes lighted on Michela Wrong’s appraisal of the recently concluded elections in Kenya in the current edition of The Spectator magazine. Her conclusions are as shattering as they are sobering and they bear quoting at length.

    {The deployment of modern electronic gadgets} “…cannot replace a society’s generalised buy into the democratic process. The reason political parties rig elections so enthusiastically in many African countries is because winner-takes-all systems of government and imperial presidencies make the rewards so enormous and punish failure so severely. Now fixing that is a lot harder.”

    Never has a Ms Wrong been more right. Appropriately too, it was at this point that the plane began its final descent into King Jonathan’s mines.

  • Boko Haram: Forgiveness, amnesty or appeasement?

    The whole issue of Boko Haram needs not be viewed purely from its religious angle. The current debate on amnesty or no amnesty mirrors the deception with which this deadly phenomenon has been treated by the political leadership. A mishandling of the issue of amnesty for Boko Haram has the potential of threatening the unity and peace of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This is very worrisome to me as someone who loves and wishes to live in a peaceful, strong, united and prosperous Nigeria. Our lives and the future of Nigeria should not be mortgaged for political votes in the lure to service the ambition of politicians. Violence in any guise must never be glorified either by government, ethnic militias, Muslims or Christians.

    Jesus Christ the suffering servant and sovereign Lord modeled forgiveness to the undeserving. In that regard, extending forgiveness to Boko Haram in spite of all the atrocities they have committed against Nigerians whether Christians or Muslims should never be in doubt. This is what the bible teaches Christians to practice. Boko Haram’s reckless and senseless attacks on places of worship and killing thousands of innocent lives should never be sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. Forgiveness and Appeasement are not the same.

    Extending forgiveness to these killers is what my faith teaches me to do as a true believer and follower of Jesus Christ. Therefore the real concern for me is the current camouflage of appeasement disguised as amnesty and currently being contemplated for members of Boko Haram. What we have are killers who appear unrepentant. Pursuing amnesty without addressing the plight of the victims of Boko Haram attacks remains a dangerous political journey. Did Boko Haram ask for amnesty? So far based on the information available in the public domain, they have not asked for amnesty. In fact they have declared publickly that it is they who should grant the Nigerian Government amnesty and not the other way around. I have serious doubts with this step now being taken by the Federal Government. I fear the present move may be predicated on political exigency rather than seeking a genuine end to the on-going killings. I see a government lacking genuine convictions based on their past actions in addressing this violence.

    The government’s track record in addressing major crises and flash points of conflicts in Nigeria lacks focus and seriousness and frankly provides no convincing proof that the present move will produce the desired results. I sincerely hope that I will be proven wrong. There needs to be more determination on government’s part to end the Boko Haram crisis and other issues of insecurity like armed robbery and rampant kidnappings.

    The current political talk show and grand standing on amnesty or no amnesty for Boko Haram appears more as a dress rehearsal towards 2015. The issue of amnesty will surely become a political talking point ahead of the coming national elections in 2015. It is unfortunate and the Church must not allow herself to be deceived. The Church and the nation must never allow themselves to be sacrificed under a visionless leadership. We all desire to see an end to the Boko Haram crisis and Christians are committed in working towards this goal but we need a dependable government to realise this dream. Those who have orchestrated the grand call to government to grant amnesty to Boko Haram led by the Sultan of Sokoto have continued to shock Nigerians. Yet they have offered no credible approach to addressing the plight of the many victims of Boko Haram’s targeted attacks. Compensating them must not be seen as an act of favour but a duty the government needs to carry which may even be belated at this point. Ignoring the thousands who lost their lives and the properties destroyed which is running into billions of naira is deceit on display in the name of false benevolence.

    So what are we talking about? Why should the proponents of amnesty urge the government on the path of seeking fake solutions to a serious problem? This inadvertently may indirectly be sowing dangerous seeds for breeding and birthing more violent groups in future. If this turns out to be the case, it will sadly be condemning Nigerians to an endless circle of violence. This is systemic and institutionalized corruption as well as endemic injustice to those who feel marginalised by greedy politicians and unprincipled religious leaders who have sold their conscience.

    What is the guarantee that granting amnesty will bring an end to the current violence inspired by Boko Haram, who have in fact rejected any such offer in their initial reaction. What rigid conditions will Boko Haram set before “accepting” this offer of amnesty? What if they insist on Sharia law implementation as they had originally stated on 1st January 2012 when they issued a three day ultimatum asking all Christians to leave Northern Nigeria, including those who are indigenous in the area or those living in their ancestral homelands? Will the President of Nigeria ascent to such a demand?

    Will the Nigerian people go for this religious blackmail? Is it wise to embark on a journey to nowhere all in the name of politics? Certain normal procedures that should pre-cede amnesty have not been followed. Just as President (former) Olusegun Obasanjo could not wish away Sharia, instead of facing the problem headlong in 2000, he thought it could just ‘go away,’ similarly, President Jonathan Goodluck cannot just wish away the consequences posed by the Boko Haram violence without an intentional commitment to seek a just means of addressing it.

    It is a known fact world over that a government sets the tone of what she wants to see in society. A government that is decisively against violence will show it and vice versa. Christians will never succumb to the intimidation to impose Sharia rule over Northern Nigeria and not to talk of this all over Nigeria. Sharia clamor in a secular Nigeria represents a crazy manipulation of religion for political adventurism.

    May God protect His people and uphold His name as well as cause His love and glory to reign in Nigeria. Boko Haram does not have the final say neither the government of Nigeria but God Almighty. By God, Nigeria will rise again to be the nation on earth God intended her to become our many needless internal contradictions notwithstanding.

     

    Rev. Para-Mallam writes from Jos.

  • The winds from Wilmington

    And while we are still on the subject of the post-colonial state in Nigeria and its serial delinquency, it is meet to report that snooper spent last weekend in the sleepy and somnolent town of Wilmington in the suburban state of Delaware in America. It was to listen in at a well-attended summit on the fate and future of Nigeria organised by the Oodua Foundation, a Yoruba Thinktank based in the US.

    The president of the foundation is Adeniran Adeboye, a distinguished professor of Mathematics at Howard University. Snooper’s kinsman is a famous blend of eccentricity and analytical brilliance, but that is a subject for another day.

    To say that Nigeria is in ferment is an understatement. Nigeria is in a state of utter commotion and combustibility with each of its major ethnic components laying a siege on the state. In the north, there is a combination of economic, political and religious revolt against the state. From the east, the emergent Igbo mercantile class, the medium scale economic powerhouse of the nation, are in revolt against the laggard indolence and feudal sloth of the post-colonial state. It does not matter to them if this anarchic mercantilist outrage leads to a full blown social cannibalism.

    From the Niger Delta, it is obvious that the dominant political faction are bent on having it their own way even if Nigeria disintegrates in the process. From the Yoruba nation, it is obvious that its intellectual elite have laid a siege on the nation mercilessly and relentlessly exposing its murderous hollowness and utter inadequacies for the civilised world to behold. Something will have to give eventually.

    The stage for the Wilmington retreat was set by two powerful keynote speeches, one in absentia by General Alani Akinrinade, the thoughtful and cerebral former Army chieftain, and the other by emeritus Professor Banji Akintoye, a notable historian and star university orator in his prime. His completely grey eminence dazzled the swooning audience with his usual repertoire of folklore and deep grasp of historical dynamics. It was a rare glimpse of the old magical circle that surrounded the fabled Obafemi Awolowo.

    Thereafter, speaker after speaker rose in fury and venom to denounce the Nigerian post-colonial state and its historic iniquities. It would seem that the Yoruba political and intellectual elite are particularly angry with the Nigerian state for hobbling the march of the Yoruba nation to full modernity. Its agents have murdered some of its best and brightest children. It has aborted the legitimate aspiration of the Yoruba race for self-actualisation. It may well be that Chief Awolowo overreached himself in trying bring modernity to a nation that was not ready.

    The communiqué at the end of the two day confab reflects the growing concern and unease about the state of the nation and how to plot a way out of the cruel logjam and historic gridlock. Snooper has been speechless in Delaware and if the winds from Wilmington are to be believed, Nigeria is in very dire straits indeed.