The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Jonathan infuriates Northeast the more

    Jonathan infuriates Northeast the more

    Given the central position the Northeast occupies in Nigeria’s insecurity map, it was expected that once the crown settled over his ears, President Goodluck Jonathan would dash to the region unsettled by Boko Haram insurgency to pacify it, or at least meet minds with stakeholders to devise a way out of the seething cauldron. He did nothing of such, preferring apparently to live in denial of the problem and its horrendous effects. He had wearied himself sending condolences to the dead and dying, and issuing ‘strongly-worded statements’ promising to ‘bring to book’ those instigating the killings in the affected states. It got to a point that even words seemed to fail. Then, finally, he appeared to resign himself only to ruminative contemplation of the scale and scope of the killings, waiting for the day in which both the killers and the killed in the Boko Haram states would exhaust themselves and foreswear both violence and victimhood.

    But just when living in denial seemed the perfect strategy for the president to engage the Northeast drama, out came nine ‘meddlesome’ and ‘politicking’ All Progressives Congress (APC) governors embarking on a daring and timely visit to the hot spots of the Boko Haram insurgency. The visit, which came amidst bomb explosions, was conducted with some defiant pageantry. The governors strolled through Maiduguri’s main square and market, waved to crowds of beleaguered north easterners who thought the rest of the country had forgotten about them, and issued mocking statements deploring presidential paralysis in the face of crippling insecurity. Cut to the quick, the presidency replied with unexampled insolence, equally denouncing the governors it claimed had specialised in enunciating policies and actions that were nothing but caviar to the general. It was clear that for the presidency, and given the intensity of the fight in the Northeast, discretion was the better part of valour.

    And so, after almost two years of issuing boring press releases and tepid, repetitive condolences, the president finally stirred himself and visited Borno and Yobe States, the epicentres of the Boko Haram insurgency. The APC governors had, according to a columnist with this newspaper, stolen the president’s thunder, but not to visit the region at all would have been even more provocative and indefensible than the poor judgement of visiting after the nine governors prompted a rethink of presidential tactics. For two days last week, therefore, the president shuffled around the two states, promising nothing and getting no commitments in return. If his recent manoeuvres within the ruling party, which led to the enthronement of dinosaurs like Chief Tony Anenih, presaged his interest in 2015, his utterances during his Northeast visit all but indicated he had given up on that entire region. The region had given him the worst headache, such that some of his aides and Niger Delta supporters believed an ethnic conspiracy was afoot to deny him the ‘enjoyment’ of his presidency. If the headache graduated from secret plots to open loathing, the president probably reasoned, it was merely a reflection of the region’s violent character.

    Jonathan’s visit was expected to trump the visit of the nine APC governors in financial and material succour, soothing words, empathy, and peace initiatives. He needed to speak peaceably with them. Instead, perhaps because of the said sour relationship between the president and the region, Jonathan unapologetically exchanged diatribe with the zone’s elders. There were no peace initiatives, and there was scant empathy. Indeed, he left the region so infuriated by his brusque remarks and dismissive, if not sardonic, characterisation of their requests that the states’ elders would have preferred he didn’t come. On the real reason the Borno Elders asked for the withdrawal of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) from Borno and Yobe streets, which is connected with the alleged indiscriminate reprisal killings by soldiers, the president feigned ignorance. All the president deigned to say (See Box) was this: “Let me be very frank, because the analogy that oh, when one soldier is killed the soldiers come and kill scores of people, we have always been admonishing that. We always tell the soldiers to conduct themselves because they are doing internal security job that ordinarily soldiers are supposed not to be involved in.” What about promising investigation into the actions of soldiers who breached the rules of engagement? Nothing. How about sparing a thought and a modicum of human feeling for those extra-judicially murdered? Also, nothing. Sadly – and the president should know better – he seemed to have given the JTF carte blanche to rewrite the rules of engagement. He gave the impression that he felt more for soldiers who died in combat than civilians caught in the crossfire, as if one was any less a Nigerian than the other. Worse, he appallingly and scornfully downplayed the allegation that JTF carried out unlawful killings.

    More humiliating to the elders was the president’s direct response to the request for JTF’s withdrawal from Borno State. He incredulously wanted the elders to indemnify him against any loss of life once the JTF was withdrawn. The president puts it very inelegantly in his convoluted lexical fashion: “If the elders agree now to come and sign agreement with me that I should move out all the JTF, but if anybody dies in Borno State, I will hold them responsible. I will sign and I will move, and I will do it. If somebody dies, yes, I will take you. I am going to remove the JTF, but come and sign and I will remove the JTF and you guarantee the safety of life and property of individuals. When you do that today, as I am going, the JTF will start moving to their barracks. But you must guarantee, if anything happens to anybody, that you must be held responsible.” Not only did the president imply that the elders had the power to guarantee peace, he also gave the impression that he could cavalierly withdraw security agents from Borno simply because a few elders gave their word. Were this the way the world fought crime and governed their people, anarchy would have since taken over.

    Perhaps the most ominous statement the president made was his reaction to the killing of security agents. Why and how he thought anybody believed he celebrated the death of a security agent by showing restraint is hard to fathom. This is what he had to say on the subject: “I have given the directive to security services, I don’t want to hear that one soldier is killed in the Niger Delta; I don’t want to hear that one security officer is killed in the South East kidnapping; I don’t want to hear that one soldier is killed in Borno State or any part of this country. I cannot preside over this country as a president and my security officers are killed. This people leave their families, stay on the roads and the bush so that we will sleep and I will not want to hear that one of them is killed. We will not allow it and I will not celebrate death of one security officer anywhere in this country…We will not, and I repeat, will not accommodate it.”

    Now, Borno Elders probably understand why the president delayed his visit. He was obviously too angry to visit before now; and the visit when it finally came was to read the riot act, not only to the Boko Haram states, but to any other state where security agents are killed. His priority is, by implication, to guarantee the lives of security agents. So, now, will the president begin applying the Odi method perfected by Chief Olusgeun Obasanjo, and which he himself condemned as ineffective? If anyone still holds out hope that Jonathan has the depth and judgement to rule a complex nation, especially one facing dire ethnic and religious challenges, I offer to the optimist the president’s view on the consequences of killing security agents. And if anyone thinks we are not in even deeper trouble than we imagine, I offer the same presidential remark as an example. Let every community in the country beware; even their deviants cannot afford to bite a soldier, protest against police tyranny, or fight a security official to the death.

    After the president’s visit, Borno and other states oppressed by Boko Haram terror now know where they stand. They stand alone; and the peace overtures they faintly hoped the president would bring, consequent upon the salutary visit of the APC governors, has become a chimera. Dr Jonathan has all but abdicated his responsibility as a president. He thinks that that responsibility lies with the people and leaders of the states groaning under Boko Haram terror. He probably believes that if the elders tell the fundamentalists to sheathe their swords, the militants would instantly do so. Nigeria would be a paradise the day a few elders had such sweeping moral and political force to command obedience from the populace. What is indeed clear from the president’s visit is that he has absolutely no idea left on how to solve the Boko Haram menace. Worse, he has served notice that state application of terror as a response to fundamentalist terror would henceforth serve as effective deterrence. God help Nigeria as Jonathan embraces Lord Lugard’s Indirect Rule and prepares the ground for fascism.

    Considering all these troubling things, it is tempting to ask who the president’s advisers are, and what kind of advice they give him. In fact, more appropriately, we should ask who Jonathan really is; what his mind is made of; and whether in 2011 we didn’t after all buy a pig in a poke.

     

  • Kalu can try again

    Kalu can try again

    The former governor should not lose hope in his quest for a degree 

    People who have university degrees may not value them until they see other people far better than them struggling to have the same degrees that they have taken for granted. Those familiar with the major news headlines in the past week must have known where I am going. It’s the issue of the degree awarded the former Governor of Abia State, Uzor Orji Kalu by the Abia State University (ABSU), Uturu, in the state, which the university has now revoked. Kalu, as governor, did not require any degree to become governor in Nigeria. Those who drafted our constitution noted our peculiar circumstances as a country, hence their bringing the qualification for our high offices to such rock-bottom level. Don’t ask me to expatiate because I won’t, for the same peculiar circumstances. No thanks to those who made our constitution, all that is required for governors and even the president is a School Certificate or its equivalent (whatever that means, and I guess that is also there due to our peculiar circumstances). So, possession of a degree is only an added advantage. And, maybe in the light of our experience, an added disadvantage!

    Kalu had already become a governor the time he sought admission into the university to pursue a Bachelor’s in Government and Public Administration. Apparently, the former governor still felt something was missing in him without the degree, having crashed out of the University of Maiduguri, and he thought of a way to make up for this and found ABSU the best place to meet that aspiration. Before we knew what was happening, the then governor had been offered admission into the same university in which he was the Visitor. Whoever advised Kalu along that line obviously did not reckon with the backlash, which, trust Nigerians, came in torrents. I remember vividly then that there was uproar about the immorality in what the governor had done. Not a few wondered how he intended to cope with his tight schedule as governor and that of a full time student of ABSU. But Kalu, like many other public figures in Nigeria did not care a hoot about the criticisms. What mattered to him then was that Kalu had gone back to school and would soon become a graduate.

    If Kalu’s intention was to upgrade his credential, it is something that is perfectly okay by me. What I find objectionable was his choice of university to realise that ambition. If he had followed due process and met all the criteria set for admission and graduation, and, above all, if he had not attended the university at a time he was its Visitor, that could have been good public relations for the institution. It could have enhanced its image.

    The university, no doubt, has to share in the blame. There are questions to ask. First, was there no senate in ABSU when Kalu applied to be a student there? Did the senate also not see that Kalu did not meet the criteria for the award of the degree then? I hate to ask the third question because it might be absolutely unnecessary. And that is why it took the university this long to realise these alleged irregularities. The answer to that is simple; the university, like any other institution, can revoke a degree anytime it is discovered that it was improperly awarded. In other words, it is not time bound. Concerning the issue of whether the university authorities at the time the former governor was admitted into the university did not see these lapses, we must be frank with ourselves, there are only a few academics who can look a sitting governor in the face and tell him that he cannot be admitted into a university because he has not met the criteria for admission. It seems the days of such rascally dons are over. Or that the sitting governor cannot graduate, for the same reason. Chances are such academics who do not know how to blend wisdom with courage would be shoved aside; not only by Kalu but by many of our governors who rule as if they are some imperial majesties. As a matter of fact, some of such lecturer’s colleagues would have been struggling for his place before the ink which the governor would have used in authorising his sack dried up. It is that bad. The point I am stressing is that our institutions are too weak. Where they are strong, Kalu himself would not have got the temerity to seek admission into that university at that time. That is why I would want to caution that we do not overstretch this aspect for obvious reasons.

    But if we insist that the university should be punished for taking Kalu and awarding him its degree in spite of these shortcomings, no problem. But we have to, as they say in my place, first drive away the thief before telling the owner of the stolen property that he too did not secure his property well. It is therefore to Kalu that we should turn and ensure that he stops parading himself as a graduate of ABSU, at least for now, since the university has acknowledged that the degree was improperly awarded.

    The former governor has threatened that his lawyers will reply at the appropriate time. But while Kalu’s lawyers are still perusing the books and statutes to know which to nail ABSU with in order to get back their client’s degree, I know as a layman that no court can force a university to award a degree that the beneficiary is not due for. The best that can be done in this matter is for the court to declare the process leading to the decision to revoke the certificate faulty because the university did not give Kalu the benefit of fair hearing; at least that is the impression one got from the story.

    I am not oblivious of the fact that it is possible Kalu is now a victim of political victimisation, probably by the same person he assisted to be governor. But that is the way most of them behave; we cannot tell how many people Kalu himself might have done that to as governor. So, it is a case of what goes around comes around. That is why I do not think we should overstretch this aspect too. We should rather look at the larger picture of whether the former governor is guilty as charged by the university authorities. The integrity of the degrees and certificates issued by that institution should be our main concern as against whether someone is being victimised. If the ‘victimisation’ is just, that is, if it is not without basis, so be it.

    If Kalu still wants to be a graduate, he should return to school properly and do it right, now that he is no longer governor. This time, he should ensure that his transcript carries the letter-head of the University of Maiduguri from where he dropped out; he should ensure too that he meets the admission requirements as well as the requirements of attendance of classes.He should also ensure that he matriculates with his fellow ‘Jambites’. His case with ABSU is almost a lost cause because all the gods in Okija Shrine swearing that he did not influence (as a sitting governor) his admission into ABSU, or the award of his degree, will impress no one. The best option for him is to return to school to prove his detractors wrong. ‘Kalu goes to school again’! How about that?

  • The destructive triad of mediocrity-corruption-inequality in Nigeria: reflections (2)

    The destructive triad of mediocrity-corruption-inequality in Nigeria: reflections (2)

    Edumare to da Rabi olobi lo da Rabi alaso [God that created Rabi, the poor seller of kola nuts, is the same deity that created Rabi, the rich cloth merchant] A Yoruba adage on the “natural” or divine basis of earthly inequality

    There is perhaps no better point on which to start this concluding part of this series on the intimate, determining links between mediocrity, corruption and inequality in our country than the statistical fact that the median age for Nigeria is now generally regarded to be 19. From this we can deduce the fact that by an overwhelming majority, the current population profile of the country is dominated by young people. In my own projection from these facts, I estimate that close to 70% of Nigerians are below the age of 30. From this observation I wish to extrapolate two important observations to start the discussion in this concluding piece. The first observation concerns what the older generations are telling the youthful generations while the second observation concerns what the older folks are not telling their younger compatriots on the following historically regressive fact: how merit and excellence existed in the past, only to be ultimately overcome by a relentless and seemingly unending descent into the pervasive mediocrity of the present period. As I hope to show, these two observations each of which seems so different, so contradictory to the other, are in reality two sides of the same coin.

    First, then, let us examine the first observation, expressed in an emphatic assertion that might seem only too obvious to most Nigerians over the age of fifty, but is probably somewhat mythical to the generality of Nigerians under the age of forty: This country once had secondary schools and universities that were excellent institutions of learning; it had high standards of public sanitation in the large towns and cities; and it had Public Works Departments (PWDs) that built and maintained roads and highways of quality and durability. Up to this very moment of writing this article, the old Ibadan-Ijebu Ode road still stands as a monument to the kind of sturdy roadworthiness in road construction and maintenance that we once knew and enjoyed in this country. I say this with the authority of one who himself sometimes participates, at every opportune moment, in ritual expressions of nostalgia and sentimentality about the Kings, Queens and Government Colleges and Schools of the past; the UCI and UI of the past; the levels and standards of competence in learning that was commonplace in the past by the time you had gone through secondary school.

    In the past – so goes the standard narrative – there were first, second and third tier institutions of learning, the first tier setting the tone, the standards of merit and distinction for the second and third tiers. Now there is a single tier or, even worse, there are no tiers at all as all distinction and distinctiveness have vanished and if you want a sound education for your children, you must send them outside the country, “outside” here including neighboring African countries. A vast expansion of education at all levels to reach as many of our children as possible has historically taken place in the last few decades and all things considered, this was a good thing, as much for the country as for the children involved and their families. However – and this is the big caveat for the voices of nostalgia and sentimentality among the older generation of Nigerians for the lost golden age of the past – it was not inevitable that all merit and distinction should have been wiped out; what could or should have taken place is that merit and distinction should have been kept in sight and protected as a benchmark for emulation by the hundreds of thousands of new schools that had to relax their standards to take in as many of our children as possible.

    Though it reeks a lot of mawkish sentimentality and elitist paternalism, this narrative is not without some merits. For it is a historical fact that in many regions and nations of the world, the two seemingly parallel lines of, on the one hand, sustaining high standards of instruction and learning and, on the other hand, democratizing education to reach the children of the poor and the economically and socially marginalized, have been successfully pursued. We can cite a few examples of such regions and nations: Britain and the Scandinavian countries in Western Europe; Cuba and Brazil in the Americas. But this does not happen automatically; and it is not achieved easily, without social, cultural and political struggles to simultaneously pursue democratization and maintain high standards of merit and excellence. This is what is routinely left unmentioned and unexamined by those among my generation of Nigerians who pine for the lost glories of the past in our country when, even as a developing country in the global South, we had excellent institutions of learning, high standards of public sanitation and competent management of our public utilities and facilities.

    This point leads me to the observation I made earlier in the present discussion to the effect that in what is both said and left unsaid about the rise of a pervasive, galloping mediocrity in our country, we have not two contradictory observations but two sides of the same coin. Metaphorically speaking, this is the coin of an individual and collective elitism that has been remarkably and unconscionably blind to the past, present and changing sources and nature of its elitism in our country. For the last time in this column, I wish to make an allusion to Achebe’s new book, There Was A Country, in order to illustrate this contention by making symbolic use of Achebe’s anecdotes and references in the book to his car, a Jaguar.

    Now, Odia Ofeimun’s commentary on Achebe’s new book has, like the book itself, been much-discussed. It is a very angry, very bitter commentary. [By the way, I should add that strictly on the political aspects of Achebe’s book, it is also a very perspicacious commentary] One little detail in Ofeimun’s commentary that has been ignored is the deliberately wicked and withering references that the poet and essayist makes to Achebe’s Jaguar. Here was a man, Ofeimun says, who not only had a Jaguar while the masses of ordinary people in Biafra had nothing but their “footwagen”, but he also apparently had regular supply of fuel for his very upscale car. Ofeimun’s point in this is that Achebe in war-torn Biafra was a privileged member of the ruling class that did not remotely suffer as much as the masses of ordinary people did in the young secessionist republic. This point is incontrovertible, but this is not what I wish to emphasize here. In Biafra, Achebe belonged to the inner caucus of the political and ideological leadership responsible for the war effort, responsible in effect for winning the war. Throughout history members of such an inner caucus in the context of war have always enjoyed privileges that the general population sorely lack. This is both an evident fact of history and a complex issue of political morality. But it is not my main point in this discussion. Rather, the larger comment I wish to make is that for me, Achebe’s Jaguar symbolizes the general and widespread presumptions of an elite – in Nigeria and Biafra – that completely took its privileges for granted, so much so that it was totally complacent about those privileges. What does this mean?

    The general profile, the commonplace worldview was that if you went to one of the best schools and did well, you had a right to the kind of life symbolized in the possession of a car like the Jaguar: an automatically available good job; a house maintained at public or company expense; paid annual leaves that could be parlayed for handsome bonuses on top of your good salary; and excellent future prospects for your children. Up to the time that I went to Ibadan in the late 60s, this worldview and the good life that both perpetuated and justified it were still considered the inalienable components of an entitlement, indeed a birthright that the nation, the world owed us. But this has disappeared completely from the social calibrations of elite identity in our country and with it has gone the meritocratic values on which it was based.

    Meritocracy has always coexisted extremely uneasily with genuine democratization, the extension of educational, economic, cultural and social rights and amenities enjoyed by the few to the rest of the population. And throughout modern history, members of the elite have always been very wary, very suspicious of the masses rising to overthrow systems and practices of excellence. Where and when social capital like education and the provision of good health services, clean, potable water and good facilities for recreation and leisure have been extended to the poor and the marginalized, there has always been an outcry of disastrous fall in standards all around. Those who want to see how deep this sentiment goes in the minds and psyches of the elites of the West and other parts of the world might want to take a look at the classic book on the subject, this being The Revolt of the Masses published in 1930 by the Spanish liberal philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset.

    In conclusion, I offer a few summative reflections. First, the “democratization” of educational opportunities and cultural and social amenities to the masses of Nigerians that oil wealth made possible is not the main or real culprit in the collapse of merit and excellence in the public affairs of our country. Rather than this, what we should begin to explore is the historic fact that meritocracy, whether of the liberal and benign kind or the conservative and reactionary variety, never stood the slightest chance of survival in our country once merit and excellence ceased to carry any weight in who was rich, powerful, and influential in Nigeria and who was not. My favorite illustration for this claim is the incontrovertible fact that not a single one of all the governments in our country, federal, state or local, needs to actually produce or generate the revenue on which it depends. When you don’t have to produce what you spend, value ceases to have any real significance in what you do or don’t do.

    Secondly, while the sharing of oil revenues is supposed to take care of everything, it is in actuality the principal mechanism for the creation and perpetuation of the vast chasm that separates our elites from the talakawa, the masses. Thirdly, the “democratization” that has been going on since oil wealth replaced surplus extraction from export crops as the motive force of our national political economy is a completely sham and fraudulent democratization. Everyone, every Nigerian ultimately suffers from the reign of mediocrity, but the poor and the marginalized far more than the rich and the powerful. In other words, social inequality of the colossal kind that exists in our country at the present time is a rich breeding ground for mediocrity. Please compatriots, never speak about how poor, how inferior and how mediocre things are in virtually all areas of our public affairs without linking this valid complaint, this national pastime in lamentation for the lost glorious past with the struggle for equality and justice in our country.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Yoruba marginalisation: To what effect? (4)

    Yoruba marginalisation: To what effect? (4)

    Eight years of Obasanjo was long enough to fix the Lagos-Ibadan highway and to de-regulate establishment of railway.

    The conclusion of last week’s piece asserts that Jonathan is largely a product of primitive geopolitical pressure or ethnic rivalry that pits the North against the South or the Southsouth/Southeast against the Southwest. It adds that the appropriation of the nation’s resources by the federal government and the geopolitical pressure by leaders of large or small ethnic groups with federal executive power on ethnic groups with small legislative strength have to be addressed by patriotic citizens and organisations, if Nigeria is to achieve its potential as Africa’s most populous state.

    President Jonathan’s marginalisation of the Yoruba region is, as we said in the first piece on this topic, a continuation and exaggeration of a political culture that has been in the country since the reign of military dictators. What is unique about Jonathan’s brand is that he combines both direct and indirect exclusion of the Yoruba region in a dare-devil manner that even military regimes found too risky to practice. Military regimes chose to marginalise the southern regions in a subtle way that justified such disempowerment on the basis of national unity that is driven by the policy of even development. Apparently, the government of Jonathan vengefully neglects the Yoruba region for voting for him in 2011, while voting for a more progressive party in state executive and legislative elections, an enigmatic show of the region’s political plurality and a sign of undependability for believers in one-party rule.

    What is important to know for those who truly believe in building a modern multiethnic nation that is committed to national development is that Jonathan may not be the last president that will continue a political tradition started by the military. Unless some super-human politicians or extraordinary individuals emerge with the commitment to modernise the entire country, the average politician is not likely to be any better than Jonathan in terms of using access to federal power to improve the lot of his own nationality or region and to erect obstacles in the path of other regions.

    It is in the character of a unitary constitution and mode of governance in a multinational state for those in charge of central power to use it to bring advantages to the section of wielders of central power, more so when such government is managed by persons of average emotional intelligence. It is not fortuitous that it was under successions of military government superintended by generals from the North that the country’s federal constitution was distorted; the revenue allocation formula was abolished and replaced by donation of resources of regions to the federal government for re-distribution to states and local governments created largely for the purpose of revenue mobilization and allocation. Revenue from petroleum and gas and all manners of sales tax are collected into a central pool and distributed to states and local governments from the centre, leaving most of the resources under the control of those managing the federal government.

    In a way, President Jonathan, ruling under the aegis of a party created and nurtured by past military rulers, is continuing a tradition initiated by military rulers, a tradition that was also practiced during Obasanjo’s presidency. Eight years of Obasanjo was long enough to fix the Lagos-Ibadan highway and to de-regulate establishment of railway. None of these may happen under Jonathan or any other PDP government, unless the PDP changes its ideology from the sharing of national cake to the baking of cakes, or from parasitic to productive economy.

    Yoruba leaders and organisations that are justifiably depressed by neglect of their region may be running on an empty tank if they throw their energy in the direction of appealing to President Jonathan to stop his government from creating and reinforcing policies that disempower the Yoruba. What is required is a commitment on the part of Yoruba cultural leaders and organisations to the cause of re-federalisation of Nigeria.

    It is instructive to know that in the few years that there was federalism in the country, no region complained about marginalisation. Leaders from the North focused on the region’s comparative advantage to develop the region. So did the East use its own regional resources to create an enabling environment for its own residents to compete effectively with the Southwest, which in those days was the most endowed in terms of natural and human resources. This is why the Yoruba region was able to sustain its development projects without having to whine because someone in charge of the federal government had chosen to keep resources away from it.

    How many of the states in the Yoruba region today can do without manna coming to it from revenues appropriated from the Niger Delta into the central purse in Abuja? Marginalisation did not start with Jonathan. It started from a fiscal policy that collects revenue from the states into a central purse to be allocated to states by political parties and government leaders in charge of the central purse. Marginalisation of the Yoruba region is not only about SURE-P’s isolation of three Yoruba states from projected rail lines that are to cover the rest of the country; it includes having a constitution that prevents the Yoruba region or any other region that so wishes to establish rail transportation for its citizens.

    Political and cultural leaders that are unhappy about Yoruba exclusion under President Jonathan should not derail their argument by getting involved in puerile political thinking. Merger of political parties has nothing to do with a political structure and system that is designed to give political and economic advantage to some sections of the country at the expense of others. If anything, a political situation that pits APC against PDP may be able to move the country out of the culture of sectional dominance than can be readily imagined. A merger of parties that have expressed preference for functional federalism is more likely to avoid neglect of sections of the country than a party that prides itself as the only party committed to the present political structure that promotes direct and indirect marginalisation of the Yoruba region.

    Similarly, bemoaning the absence of good leadership rather than the absence of good structure is capable of prolonging the struggle against marginalisation. In the period between 1954 and 1966, the leaders of the three regions had different personalities. But the existence of freedom of each region to develop according to its preferred values and in its own pace resulted in a competitive federal system that brought the best out of the three regions and increased the country’s productivity. The bold and right action against marginalisation of the Yoruba is for leaders of thought in the region to separate their partisan political interests from the larger interest of Yoruba civilisation by agreeing to join cultural and economic forces to struggle for restoration of federalism in the country. It is important for the Yoruba region or any other region to know that whether it is APC or PDP that is in power in a truly federal Nigeria, no section of the country will be pushed to become a cry-baby, such as the Yoruba is fast becoming during the era of President Jonathan.

  • Did you or did you not?

    Did you or did you not?

    Did Jonathan sign any pact on one term? 

    No one needs to be told that the race for 2015 has begun. Sometime ago, some strange campaign posters appeared in Abuja, the federal capital territory, canvassing a second term for President Goodluck Jonathan. The Presidency disowned them. Of course that was the logical thing to do, especially for a government that has been in power for close to two years and has so little to show for it. But that is the way they have been running Nigeria. May be President Jonathan has been somewhat charitable not to have come out with his intention to contest for a second term earlier because of the too many troubles that his administration has had to contend with, chief of which is the security question. Most other elected officials – president, governors and all, used to begin campaign a little after their first year in office.

    But the allegation by Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, to the effect that the President had an agreement with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors not to stay beyond one term in office is like an objective question which requires a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. However, we have not heard a convincing answer. Rather, the otherwise innocuous statement by Governor Aliyu has led to unanticipated reactions within the ruling party.

    We, the people, may not know yet if there was such an agreement; but what we know is that someone is telling lies or is being economical with the truth. It is either such a pact exists or it does not. The implication now, lends credence to the fact that this country has been in the firm grips of Judases. If people cannot be truthful over little things, how then can we continue to trust such people with our future?

    I am not necessarily saying he did; but I remember that one of the very first things that President Jonathan did was to fly a kite on a seven-year single term mandate for the president and governors in 2011, two months after his swearing in. The President was said to be concerned about the acrimony generated by reelection after four years. Secondly, he had earlier told the Save Nigeria Group that he considered four years too short for any leader to make any meaningful impact. Jonathan had said then though, that he did not intend to benefit from the arrangement. But Nigerians who had travelled that road several times saw through the shenanigans and rejected it outright.

    What the Presidency needs as defence on this issue is brandish good governance instead of harassing people who brought the alleged pact into remembrance. Unfortunately, the PDP has failed to give good governance in about 14 years. That is why the party’s big wigs are jittery and that is why we are having all these scheming and rumblings in the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF). Even if President Jonathan signed a pact with the PDP governors not to serve beyond a term in office, that will become null and void if he is adjudged to have done well by the time the 2015 elections come. Again, even if the President admits to signing such an agreement and on his honour announces his intention to leave the stage in 2015, it is Nigerians who will insist that he stays on to ‘complete the good works that he has started. ‘ It is because the party knows that Nigerians are now more aware of its failure and the widespread corruption that the party has legitimised that it is now turning the whole thing into ‘rofo rofo’ fight. Again, unfortunately, this would lead the PDP nowhere. The party has fooled the people almost all of the time and it is not likely it would get away with that again.

    PDP itself seems to have realised this and that is why it has brought expiring people who should be tending to their grandchildren at home to come and ‘fix’ things for it come 2015. But the party would be hugely disappointed that Nigerians would resoundingly reject it in 2015 if it fails to improve on its record, in a way that the ‘Fixer’ himself would be too dazed to fix anything.

    But what is happening in the PDP should surprise no one. Many people had predicted that it was only a matter of time for the party to implode. I guess that prophecy is about coming to pass. The party itself has acknowledged that it harbours more Judases than genuine disciples. Even ‘baby’ Christians know that Judas Iscariot, the only Judas among Jesus’ 12 disciples, was one too many. Now that the ruling party has confirmed that it has more Judases in its fold than genuine disciples, we do not need to look too far for why this country has been like this, especially since 1999. The problem now is that we do not know which of the factions is the authentic Judas’ faction, because, for every original, there is always a fake. We saw that in Moses vs. the Egyptian magicians.

    Instead of telling Nigerians that ‘yes’, the President signed a pact, or ‘no’ the President did nothing of such; governors were summoned to watch the video recording of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State who allegedly ‘disparaged’ the President. It’s like watching of video has become a pastime in our seat of power. We remember how a general was shown in one such video in the military era prostrating for another general when caught in the quagmire of a coup. The fretting general, a learned man for that matter, did not know when he mistook ‘masterminder’ for mastermind! A case of when a hunter of humans sneezes, that of elephants catches cold?

    All said, we all know that for Nigeria to make progress, PDP must speak in incoherent tunes. Unless the party breaks, we cannot move forward. If it could happen in Ogun State in 2011, it can happen again and again. We should pray ceaselessly for a repeat of the Tower of Babel crisis in the PDP. For those who are getting worried about a budding dictator, they are only worried over nothing. God has always fixed every such dictator in this country; they either retraced their step or they got consumed like the greedy fly that follows dead bodies to the grave. That is why I will never lose sleep over dictatorship, budding or full blown.

    Only last week, I said Mrs. Patience Jonathan must have wrestled seriously with death to be alive after nine operations within one month since no one in her shoes would succumb simply because Mr. Death sneezed. In the same vein, for ill, Nigeria’s presidency is just too powerful. That is why the President would summon governors and they would run to Abuja; their tails between their legs. That is why the President could threaten to castrate state governments financially and he would get away with it. Some have argued that many governors tremble at the President’s feet not because they do not know their rights but because their hands are soiled and the President has the dossier to do them in if they fail to fall in line. No one wields such enormous powers and capitulates on the basis of a pact condemning him (as it were) to one term. It takes more than honour to admit that such a pact exists, not after tasting the mudun mudun (sweet things) in government at that level. If ever such a pact existed, I guess it was done at a time of ignorance.

  • Turmoil in Governors’ Forum

    Turmoil in Governors’ Forum

    After the vicious cut and thrust of the past 10 days in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), few within and without the association now expect it to remain the same, either as influential as it was before, or as cohesive as it had hoped when it was founded. It may be premature to write it off, considering that the convulsion tearing it apart is essentially trivial and limited to disagreements within the ruling party, but in the long run it is really hard to see it retaining the kind of relevance that thrust it to the forefront of national politics. Indeed, with the creation of the Peoples Democratic Party Governors’ Forum (PDP-GF), after the Governor Amaechi-led NGF refused to yield to the entreaties of the President Goodluck Jonathan government, it will take some doing to bring the governors back to the sort of unity they were accustomed to. For in fracturing, the governors did not just go their separate ways, they went about it acrimoniously using words that neither dignified their offices nor showed the kind of character many naively thought inhered in state executive mansions.

    For NGF, fame has become a double-edged sword. Founded in 1999, the Forum only became notable when it played prominent role in abating the constitutional crisis triggered by the illness of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. Since then, the body has flexed its muscles on a number of exigent national or party issues including the election of party chairmen, excess crude account, constitutional reform, and electoral reform, among other things. Until now, it had also been fairly stable, with no overt leadership squabbles. So far, too, it has been chaired by five governors, including the long-serving former Governors Abdullahi Adamu and Bukola Saraki of Nasarawa and Kwara States respectively. Before the presidency took the Forum apart using the willing hands of a few governors, in particular, Governors Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom and Ibrahim Shema of Katsina, the public thought governors reasoned more expansively and with admirable depth. Their supposedly copious rationality was thought to be a bulwark against the meddlesomeness of higher powers, including the presidency.

    The reason given by the presidency for undermining the unity of NGF is that the association had become a trade union. According to the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak, “The leadership of Amaechi in that forum has completely gone contrary to what PDP expects a PDP governor to do. The Nigeria Governors’ Forum has really become a trade union. Some elder statesmen have really come out to explain things in that perspective. For instance, about three weeks ago, Prof. Jubril Aminu came out publicly to say the NGF was not supposed to be a trade union. It is supposed to be an association of governors coming together to discuss common challenges in the country, not to hold the country to ransom.”

    While it is true the NGF has been forceful in championing certain causes, even appearing to act as an opposition party to the ruling party, dismissing the Forum as a trade union masks the imperceptible undercurrents in the PDP and in the polity. First, there is a general feeling of dismay that the Jonathan presidency, with its sometimes baffling pronouncements, its mystifyingly uninformed policies, its general lethargy and incompetence, its wastefulness, and its gross inability to inspire the country into innovation and greatness, is unable to rise to the occasion the times demand. The NGF is not inoculated against these frustrations, nor, even if it sympathised with the ruling party, could it pretend to be indifferent to the country’s massive drift towards aimlessness. There is also a limit to how the NGF could promote the interest of the PDP or pull its punches when the ruling party is overreaching itself. After all, the NGF is an umbrella body of 36 governors, not a PDP creation for PDP governors.

    Second, much more than merely reacting to what the presidency described as Amaechi’s boisterousness and opposition politics, one of the chief reasons for the president’s hostility is Poll 2015, an ambition that would be endangered if the NGF consistently wrong-foots the presidency. In addition, presidency officials rightly or wrongly believed Amaechi himself nursed presidential ambition, and was probably using the NGF platform to boost both his leadership credentials and countrywide appeal. Amaechi in fact did not help matters by playing the revolutionary. He had a highly publicised disagreement with the president’s wife in Rivers State in 2010, and openly disagreed with the president on a number of issues including disputed oil wells situated between the borders of Rivers, his state, and Bayelsa, the president’s home state. The Rivers governor in fact began to come across as Amaechi the Just, or even Amaechi the Revolutionary. And if left alone, perhaps, he could, in the secret opinion of the Jonathan presidency, start to come across as Amaechi the Great.

    But having created those heresies and infused them into Amaechi, the PDP leadership and the presidency committed themselves to burning the new wizard at the stakes. It is no small matter that the Rivers governor himself provided the fuel for the lynch mob. He often spoke candidly when circumspection would have been sufficient. He thought aloud instead of silently, though his thoughts were nothing but alarming revolutionary heresies. And he seemed incapable of stopping at simply playing David to the presidency’s Goliath; but must paint by his words, connotatively or denotatively, a Goliath that is clumsy, vacuous and intemperate. Worse, he seemed to enjoy the new role circumstances thrust upon his shoulders, for he was trusted by his colleagues in the Forum, and they knew he was earnest and honest in his utterances and predilections. Everything about Amaechi, however, drove Jonathan and his aides up the wall.

    At any time, there will always be many governors in Nigeria and in the NGF (if it survives) who think rationally and patriotically. They will resist the coercive and corrosive influences of the presidency, and their pride, as well as their natural inclinations, will make them abjure the tendency by the presidency to corral the entire country into one lobotomized whole. Unfortunately, however, there will also be a few governors who think rather obtusely, whose convoluted patriotism is interpreted in terms of the private yearnings of the president, and whose definition of unity and example of duty are rooted in monarchism and focus primarily on a servile relationship between the president and his subjects.

    Last week, in the final hours of the collapse of NGF resolve, it was thought only six or seven governors believed Amaechi led the association improperly or imperially. Suddenly after a meeting with the president on Tuesday, and for reasons reporters only speculated, about 16 governors had been persuaded to vote for partisanship over common sense. Thereafter, Akwa Ibom’s Akpabio exuberantly rationalised the creation of PDP-GF and talked of kicking out the Judases within the PDP governors’ ranks. The PDP national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, also exulted about a new spirit sweeping through the party, which spirit he believed would engender greater things and open a limitless vista of achievements for the party. It wasn’t apparent to both gentlemen that their newfound enthusiasm could in fact be a reflection of puerile politicking or of betrayal of general and party principles, values and virtues.

    It was expected of Tukur, as party chairman, to grandstand unscrupulously before the country in favour of the president, for the president had provoked an earthquake in order to crown and canonise him. On the other hand, the same ingratiation was not expected of Akpabio, for he is legally recognised as chief executive of a state, with rights and immunity vouchsafed to him by the constitution almost as powerfully as the same constitution has done for the president. That he chose to forswear those powers and instead read the politicking in the NGF through the president’s prism was a matter of choice to him. More, however, they were also an indication of a major flaw in his character. By speaking gutsily and with striking imperturbability against Amaechi, Akpabio gave notice of his capacity to listen to his heart rather than his head. That single embrace of the presidency, and the risible justification he lent his action, has probably defined and tarred his politics for all time. It is an action he may not be able to live down.

    The turbulence in the NGF was inevitable. The association was indeed becoming more powerful than even opposition parties, and its leadership, when it was personified by a Saraki or an Amaechi, had bigger halo than both party and national leadership. Its strength and ascendancy were underscored by the corresponding weakness and decline of a mediocre presidency. A clash was, therefore, unavoidable. And such a clash, thankfully, always helps to sharpen contradictions and expose leaders and politicians overrated by their accomplishments rather than rated by their lack of virtue and character. This is why I think that while NGF’s future is in doubt, the dismal future and political retrogression of both Akpabio and Shema are not. All it takes sometimes is just one wrong turn to consign a politician to the dustbin of history.

  • The destructive triad of mediocrity-corruption-inequality in Nigeria: reflections (1)

    The destructive triad of mediocrity-corruption-inequality in Nigeria: reflections (1)

    Mediocrity, noun: the state or quality of being mediocre
    Mediocre, adjective, derogatory: not satisfactory, meager, middling, inferior. Related forms: second-rate; sub-mediocre; super-mediocre Dictionary.com (online) Nations enshrine mediocrity as their modus operandi, and create fertile ground for the rise of tyrants and other base elements of the society by silently assenting to the dismantling of systems of excellence because they do not immediately benefit one specific ethnic, racial, political or special-interest group. That, in my humble opinion, is precisely where Nigeria finds itself today!

    Chinua Achebe, There Was A Country.

    For those who read my reflections on Chinua Achebe’s new book, There Was A Country, that was serialised over the course of five weeks in The Guardian between mid-December 2012 and early January this year, it will come as no surprise for me to say in the present context that I consider Achebe’s engagement of the topic of mediocrity in post-civil war Nigeria in his book one the most important but also most controversial issues raised in that book. It is needless to repeat here in detail what I said on this topic in my reflections on There Was A Country. All I wish to state here is that I was greatly startled and disturbed by Achebe’s oversimplifications in his treatment of this topic in his book.

    I was greatly perturbed particularly because in spite of the celebrated elegantly simple and lucid quality of his prose style, Achebe had always striven in his writings to shun stereotypes and simplifications while vigorously exploring the complexities and ambiguities of our history as a once-colonised nation and continent. But in his treatment of the origins and scope of mediocrity in present-day Nigeria in his new book, Achebe oversimplifies and rather distorts things by reducing everything to ethnicity. Nevertheless, he is right about one thing and that is the fact that systems and practices of great merit and excellence did exist once in our country, even though the sheer colossal scope of mediocrity in Nigeria at the present time might indicate otherwise.

    Indeed, on this point, Achebe is echoing many other commentators who have again and again bemoaned the total collapse of the high standards that once existed in education, public sanitation, road building and maintenance and many other aspects of life in our country. It is against this background that in the two-part series in this column beginning today, I am returning to this topic with the intention to explore it way beyond the little that I had to say about it in my review of Achebe’s book. The reason for this, I hope, will become apparent as we proceed with the discussion.

    First, a necessary caveat. Mediocrity is a very delicate subject to write about. Unless he or she is a humorist or a satirist, anyone that writes about the subject cannot escape the uncomfortable feeling that he or she is being patronising or condescending towards those he or she considers mediocre. For the charge, the label of mediocrity is always attached to an individual, a movement, a practice, a group, a nation, or a region of the world and typically, the one making the charge feels ethically and practically at a considerable distance from those targeted. Of course, if the charge pertains to a megalomaniacal individual that is universally known to be a mediocre person falsely posturing as a genius, the matter is quite simple and uncomplicated. But this is not a typical scenario: as far as I know, Olusegun Obasanjo is the only ruler in our political history that left an appalling record of mediocrity as his legacy but nevertheless parades himself to his nation and the world as a statesman who is God’s special gift to Nigeria, Africa and the Black race.

    But there are not too many Obasanjos in Nigeria and Africa. Which is why the more characteristic thing is that anyone writing about mediocrity sooner or later discovers that the phenomenon is full of ambiguous, complex and contradictory aspects that one ignores at one’s peril. At one end of a very wide spectrum, mediocrity can be fairly innocuous, perhaps even benign. But at another end of the spectrum, mediocrity, especially when it becomes aligned with corruption and social inequality on a monumental scale, is life-destroying and nation-wrecking. In other words, mediocrity as a social phenomenon tends to be systemic and structural; its effects and ramifications extend well beyond individuals, either as the target of the charge of mediocrity or as the complainant, the denouncer. For this reason, anyone who writes on the subject need not be coy, sanctimonious or self-righteous since neither accuser nor accused escapes from the effects of the phenomenon. But these are all rather abstract observations. It is time, perhaps, to start us off on the discussion by citing a few well-known or notorious expressions of mediocrity in our country at the present time.

    There is no other name beside mediocrity or more appropriately, super-mediocrity, for the performance of Nigerian secondary school pupils in the school-leaving public examinations whose results serve as the gateway to admission to our tertiary institutions. As far as I am aware, in recent times, the best passing rate has been no higher than 35%. In one particular year about half a decade ago, the passing rate was actually 1.8% – which of course meant that 98.2% failed the exams! I have checked and can report that in no other country in the world have high school students performed consistently as poorly as our secondary school leavers. As a somewhat related phenomenon, there are the loud complaints, the wild charges that we often hear, especially from potential employers, that instruction in our tertiary educational institutions have become so mediocre that the vast majority of our university graduates are unemployable. Connected to this is the fact that while African universities rank lowly among the universities of the world, Nigerian universities rank poorly among African universities. This in effect means that we perhaps have the most under-performing tertiary education system in one of the most under-performing regions of the world!

    Moving away from our educational institutions, what of the legendary scale of the mediocrity of contractors who win contracts to construct and maintain our roads, schools, hospitals, clinics, stadiums, parks, offices and public low-cost housing projects? Is it not the case most times when many of us travel on the roads and highways between towns and villages in all parts of the country, we are haunted by thoughts of how many thousands of lives are lost due to the abysmally shoddy work of our “contractocracy”? And what of the politicians and public officers that award the contracts? Many of them have neither the training nor the inclination to maintain quality control over the work of the contractors. There is no escaping or ignoring what this means and this is the deadly union of mediocrity, power, and corruption. In governance, in the public life of any nation on the planet, there are few things more fatal to the public good than this unholy alliance. We shall have more to say on this point later in the discussion.

    With regard to the topic of our reflections in this piece, we are in a completely different domain in the world of Nollywood video films. As everyone knows, the great majority of these video films are so mediocre, so lacking in even minimal standards of cinematographic quality that it is hard to believe that the screenwriters, producers and directors that produce and market them have any professional expertise in filmmaking. But in this particular instance and in a very peculiar kind of incarnation, the mediocrity that we confront does not kill, at least not in the manner in which very poorly built and maintained roads and highways claim hundreds and thousands of lives. Indeed, a very plausible case could be made for the possibility that most of the consumers of Nollywood video films are not looking for excellence or merit in filmmaking; they are not looking for anything of elevated artistic or intellectual quality; all they are looking for are products that do not tax their minds and their brains, products that serve to offer some relief, some escapism from the great insecurities and soul-deadening tensions of life in our crisis-torn society in the age of Obasanjo, the PDP and the other ruling class parties that either refuse to or are incapable of politically, morally and ideologically distancing themselves from the ruling party. Is mediocrity in Nollywood films thus completely benign? That’s hardly the case, as I hope to demonstrate before the end of this two-part series. For now, let us bring the discussion this week to a conclusion by drawing attention to things that unite all forms and expressions of mediocrity in present-day Nigeria whether they are of the “benign” kind or the destructive, virulent variety.

    It kills me to acknowledge it, and even more so to state it, but we must have the courage to admit that before our very eyes and in the course of less than three generations, mediocrity has become as common to the native soil of Nigeria as the river Niger itself. Here’s another way of saying the same thing: In our country at the present time, mediocrity does not come in small doses, in humble accoutrements; rather, it comes decked out in super-scale proportions, as if it didn’t do so, it would not be properly Nigerian. 98.2% failure rate among high school students taking their final public exams! The most poorly made films on the planet, and made too with total unselfconsciousness! The worst records on the planet in oil spillage and environmental pollution by the oil conglomerates doing business in our country and so far at least, they have gotten away with it and the heavens have not fallen on their uncontrite heads. A completely captive consumer population to whom the poorest services in GSM and internet access in the world are routinely rendered and nothing happens, nothing at all by way of restitution. The list goes on and on and on.

    Why has super-mediocrity taken its most assured and protected habitation on the planet in our country? This will be our starting point in next week’s concluding piece in the series as we argue that there is nothing irreducibly Nigerian in super-mediocrity and that what we confront in the phenomenon is the great and intimate connection that has developed over the course of the last two decades between mediocrity, corruption and social inequality between a tiny minority and the rest of the population in all the regions, geopolitical zones and ethnic communities of the country.

  • The poverty of politics

    This morning, snooper makes a global case for the reaffirmation of politics as a noble profession, perhaps the purest and most selfless calling that humanity has come up with since man first socialised on the plains of Africa. But this is going to be a tall order. Everywhere you turn in the world, politics has suffered a gross devaluation of contents and form.

    It is however when we consider the fact that the current global crisis in all its economic and spiritual complications is fundamentally a political crisis, or a crisis of politics, that we begin to get a sense of how dire things might be. For the first time in about six hundred years, we have a pope resigning as a fall out of poor leadership in the Vatican

    How then did the world get to this sorry pass when old certainties have given way to new uncertainties?. In traditional and advanced societies, the formula for recruiting leadership material and the mechanism for controlling access to the upper echelons of political leadership were as sure as they were surefooted. Catch them young, and get the best and the brightest into the best schools. Every other thing would fall into place.

    If this formula worked in the past, it does not seem to be working very well at the moment. In the western world, particularly its Anglo-American sector, the best institutions have become too narrow, too elitist and too corporatist in their world view to address the issues of inequity and the fundamental disparity of income thrown up ironically by the great material strides these societies have taken.

    In Africa and the Third World, the authentic political elite, the best products of the best institutions. are muscled out by emergent social forces whose reality cannot be ignored. It is a classic case of double jeopardy. You see disaster approaching but you are powerless to do anything about it. As the rot assumes a world-historic dimension, you can only curse your star in impotent fury.

    So it is, then, that everywhere you turn politics as the conduct of human affairs for ameliorative and regenerative purpose has suffered a grim demystification. There is a frantic disavowal of politics and politicians. The mass of humanity holds them in bitter contempt. They are a sick joke, not worthy of any respect or reverence.

    But if politics is a sick and cruel joke, a theatre of clowns and buffoons, why not elect the real thing? All over the world, the people seem to be wising up to this momentous revelation. In Brazil, they have sent up a professional clown to the National Assembly. In the recently concluded Italian election which led to a hung parliament, the party with the biggest gain—twenty five percent of the votes cast—is led by a former comic striptease.

    It doesn’t get more hideously comic than that. Earlier, Indonesia had elected as president a former actor and dancer with predictably tragic result. Emperor Caligula would be smiling in his grave. The great Roman ruler was known to have sent his horse to the Roman Senate in a moment of wild hilarity. The horse-senator did not disappoint.

    If gold can rust, what will iron do? The situation is even more comically tragic in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Nigeria, where governance has dissolved into a horrendous mockery; a permanent theatre of the Absurd with each new day bringing even more outlandish revelations of official shenanigans. How did we get to this sorry pass?

    The tragedy of modern Nigeria is the tragedy of a bankrupt political class which is not politically, intellectually and ideologically equipped to understand and appreciate the grave dimensions of the crisis facing Nigeria and its implication for Africa and the Black person.

    Beginning from the crackdown at King’s College in the forties, it is obvious that the colonial masters were not interested in nurturing an authentic leadership cadre or indigenous political class that would take the Nigeria of their subversive imagination to the next level of self-actualisation. It was clear that they were more interested in a compliant and collaborating indigenous class that would best serve and protect their interest. This is only natural, but it is a short-sighted policy.

    In order to be driven to the next level beyond its conception in the colonial imaginary, Nigeria needed an indigenous political class that is both adversarial and complementary to the colonial world view: complementary in the sense that it cannot lightly wish away the “national” reality on the ground, but adversarial in the sense that it would have to create the nation anew by striking out boldly even against the interest of the colonial masters.

    Given the contemporary poverty of politics and the inability of our ruling elite to understand and situate the multi-dimensional nature of the developmental crisis facing the nation, it is always a thing of joy to sit down with a politician who seems to appreciate the grave nature of the crisis facing the nation.

    It is in the nature of politics to agree to disagree, and whatever his morbid adversaries may put out on the internet, Rauf Aregbesola is not your run of the mill politician. The governor of the state of Osun is a troubling oxymoron: a thinking politician. With his boundless enthusiasm and incredible reserve and reservoir of energy, Aregbesola can wear you out with facts, figures and statistics. His mastery of details and developmental arcana is a tad short of the extraordinary.

    As this column never tires of asserting, the ACN is not a perfect party. It also suffers from the post-traumatic stress disorder of prolonged and protracted military rule. But one good thing Aregbesola and his ACN governor colleagues have done for Nigerian politics is to establish clear benchmarks and templates by which their performance could measured and evaluated by the public and the electorate alike. By so doing, they have brought back ideology into the front burner of political discourse.

    This profound ideologising of politics is both salutary and beneficial. It puts pressure on the other parties, particularly the PDP, to come up with their own ideological parameters. By so doing, it sharpens, clarifies and crystallises the choice for prospective voters. In the history of Nigerian post-independence politics, it is only the progressive parties and their leftwing fellow travellers who have made such templates available to the people. The ruling parties have always believed that ideologies do not matter, which is indeed a bankrupt conservative ideology meant to preserve the status quo.

    In politics, Aregbesola has been helped by his antecedents. His youthful flirtations with communism and his role as a field commander of the foot soldiers during the struggle against the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections have burnt into him certain deep ideals which power his politics.

    From communism, he has taken a deep compassion for the poor and needy, a passion for social justice, and from the June 12 struggle a deep commitment to political justice and unflinching loyalty to living and fallen comrades in arms. When Aregbesola speaks of his foot soldiers who fell during the struggle to reclaim his electoral mandate and of his friend and benefactor, Hassan Olajokun, who was killed in broad daylight on the Ife-Ibadan road, you could see tears welling up in his eyes.

    For a week and a few days, snooper was with Aregbesola on a whirlwind tour of America, testing the canons of his developmental project against adversarial and complementary framework, From Boston through Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh to Howard in Washington, we were there.

    It is often suggested that the fundamental failure of the Black person stems from his chronic lack of capacity to valorise capital. Even if you redistribute the resources of the world equally, in a few years time, the Black person will be penniless once again, cadging and cajoling on the streets. Is there a fundamental deformity of character in the Black person?

    Snooper does not think so, even though the zillions stolen from the public coffers in the last 30 years are enough to transform Nigeria into a modern paradise. Instead, the money goes into vainglorious personal projects and the most obscene of conspicuous consumption. Like a big cunning cat, the west waits to part the fool from his loot, and it has done so relentlessly and remorselessly. If you see a man being pursued by the Egungun masquerade, you will be a fool not to help yourself to his food.

    The problem, it seems, lies in our inability to come up with a matching ethos for modern capitalism. It has been suggested that modern Christianity has certain values which tend to reinforce the very ethos of modern capitalism. Among these are strict monogamy, the deferment of enjoyment and the suppression of wild, irrational yearnings. Even most of our so- called spiritual fathers have not been able to avoid this jollification of the flesh. The throbbing tropics have a way of reclaiming their own.

    The Calvinist ethos with its emphasis on thrift, hardihood and self-abnegation underwrites modern capitalism and its values. To the best of our knowledge, and with all humility, there is no matching indigenous African philosophy, except threadbare expostulations which underwrite indolence and freewheeling prodigality. In African countries which have recorded a measure of success in modern capitalism, particularly Ghana and Botswana, we see a national elite given to thrift and self-restraint.

    In the end, it all boils down to the question of leadership and of a viable political class. The political class as currently constituted can only lead Nigeria along the path of perdition and destruction. Something urgent will have to be done to reclaim this country and its long-suffering people from the suffocating grips of monstrous predators. Without an overarching federal development, stung out of its laggard and thieving dementia by developments elsewhere in the country, even regional integration may ultimately prove a forlorn dream.

    This is why developments in Osun and all the ACN states should concentrate the mind of those interested in the future of Nigeria. The aim of government should be the greatest good of the greatest number. Developmental politics which tries to optimise resources for optimal capacity building and the greatest benefit of the downtrodden should be on the front burner.

    Aregbesola is right to emphasise youth empowerment and the maximisation of human capacity. Osun is known for its prodigious production of human resources. But there are complexities and contradictions on the way. You cannot step into the same river twice. Almost everybody sent abroad by the government of Chief Obafemi Awolowo came back to contribute their quota to the development of the region. If Nigeria remains a post-colonial hell, there is no chance that these youths will return.

    On a personal note, snooper is saddened and depressed by an interesting development. Everywhere that we visited in America, from Boston to Pittsburgh and to Washington , there was at least one person who originated from the ancestral town. From Howard University where the legendary Professor Sunday Adeniran Adeboye conducts mathematical inquiry in addition to occasional internet firefights, to Boston where Segun Adeyemi is Bridge Engineer to Washington where snooper chanced upon the daughters of the late Dr Edward Arowolo, the World Bank supremo who died at the age of forty two and Professor Rufus Adegboye.

    These Nigerians were products of an earlier sterling education. They still retain a sentimental attachment to the home country. But they are not coming back soon, if ever. Nigeria is a nursery bed for valuable plants to be transported to the west. What will be the epitaph for a country that has squandered its money and most valuable children so badly?

  • The joy of the birds, bees and flowers (1)

    The joy of the birds, bees and flowers (1)

    Women say Nigerian men are unemotional, uncaring, blind, brusque, brutish, and unromantic; while men say women are nagging, noisy, infuriating, illogical, irrational and weepy.

    This week, reader, we will turn our minds to a higher and more edifying subject: the politics of a woman’s indisposition. What, for instance, can we impute to be the exact value of a woman’s headache? True, many things are usually scampering around a woman’s brain. Perhaps that explains why, whenever I have been rummaging around in my handbag for a very important item, I have come across little note-reminders of things to do about and on the house: ‘paint other half of kitchen wall’, ‘restore order in the garden’, ‘bring in last week’s laundry’, ‘please paint other half of kitchen wall’, ‘resume aerobics class’, ‘cut meat with knife, not nail file’, ‘must definitely paint other half of kitchen wall this year’… The other half of the kitchen wall is still not painted, the garden still looks pretty much as if Adam has had to vacate it in a hurry again, the laundry still spends days waiting for the midnight sun, aerobic classes go on without me… But can that account for all the well-timed headaches women have?

    Let’s see now. A renowned fictional character lists the things that women are said to be: nagging, noisy, agitated, infuriating, illogical, irrational, weepy, wanting to be sent flowers, and forever straightening their hairs instead of the contents of their heads! But I ask you: is it such a bad thing to be sent flowers rather than bills? And do women really nag? The way I see it, women tend to be repetitive, but I think it is mostly because men tend not to hear them, mainly I think, because women tend to be repetitive and so on; but that’s not enough to cause a headache.

    The average woman doesn’t really know what she is about or wants until sometime in her middle ages. That’s when she discovers she has teeth to laugh with. She also discovers sex; or is supposed to. It’s not as if it’s not been there all along. After all, there are the children to show that something must have happened. But what exactly, she will be hard put to explain. Quite often, she has been so pre-occupied with sundry affairs such as indulging her anxieties over children, work and husband that she does not notice the years slide down the hill, pulling her relentlessly along until she is close to collapsing at its foot in a heap! Then she panics and grabs for a bit of self assertion: she ‘invents’ the headache. Ah Ha!! There’s the reason for them infernal things.

    Someone once asked me a very confidential question. Saith he: very often, when I want to be alone with my wife in the evening, she says she has a headache; is she telling the truth? Or is she using headache as an excuse just to avoid me? Frankly speaking, the question threw me, for I never imagined that my own headaches could be invested with such political values that would someday be the subject of some kind of parliamentary inquiry. I get headaches from many things: our African sun; my full sink; my empty purse; PU deadlines that bear down on me like meteorites every week… just name it. I guess no one will ever know the exact value of a woman’s headache. A friend once told me that she had bedtime anxieties. Whenever night-time approached, she would start by moaning about a ‘terrible’ headache, then graduate to lying down ‘for a while’, then ask the children to buy her some Panadol tablets, then ask that all lights in the room where she lay be turned off, and finally the children should not let her hear any noises. After all that, no one would have the heart to ask her for anything.

    Perhaps, these convenient headaches could be due to the fact that most women think that Nigerian men just don’t know the meaning of the word ‘romantic’ and so do not think the trip worth the while. They say Nigerian men are unemotional, uncaring, blind, brusque, brutish, unromantic, dishonest, difficult to please, violent and don’t know how to treat a lady. For one thing, most men think the most romantic moment is when they hand over the month’s housekeeping allowance. For another, they are more likely to wonder what’s got into the woman if she decides to send the children to stay with her sister, leaving just the two of them in the house ‘for a romantic evening’. ‘Are you mad?! You sent my children to stay with that sister of yours who doesn’t know how to cook? What do you want my children to eat this night, bread? If you don’t go and fetch them back this instant, this ground will be higher than you!’ Now, I ask you!

    Perhaps again, these headaches do occur because women are never off duty, unlike the men who have this superb ability to distance themselves from the problems of the home. Sometimes, when the lights are turned down low, and the mood is catholically pure for that romantic joust, the woman is more apt to exclaim: ‘oh look, it’s this part of the ceiling that’s leaking again! I had been wondering where the water was coming from. Wait; let me get a bowl to collect it.’ And off she goes. Or, she might exclaim instead, ‘Ha, Baba Wale, I forgot to tell you that while you were out yesterday, we found a snake in the compound but it escaped into the garage. If you can help us look for it later…’

    Furthermore, many women probably do not obtain the maximum benefit from any romantic venture because of the fact that our culture does not really permit any pampering for women. Rather than be sent flowers for instance, a woman is lucky if she is allowed to ask one question: how many children should she produce in this union? And rather than be dined and wined and wrapped in the gentle hues of candle lights turned down low, she may be given the chance to ask a second question: what sex? For, the wrong one can send her out of the house. Things may not be this bad in some cases, but to African women in general, the joy of the birds, the bees and the flowers is much overrated.

    Generally, culture imparts the idea that women have very few rights, especially in the matter of the birds and the bees. Women believe it and do not act; men believe it and act on it. Unfortunately, education or lack of it, does not really have much to do with this as it happens to ’em all; the illiterate, the halfwit, and the super elite. While women in the first and second categories simply grin and bear it, those in the third have refused to be so helpless. Collectively and all to a woman, they have taken their fate into their hands, gone into a closeted meeting, and have come out with a unified resolve: to have headaches until such a time that their opinions would count. This thus accounts for the lying-ins and the evening-evening Paracetamol!

    Clearly, there is an impasse here that would task even the famed sagacity of our Socrates. Headaches, for one, are difficult to prove or disprove; culture, on the other hand, is difficult to change. So, while the women hold their heads, the men hold their groins. I rather think the women should bring down their hands and demand instead their rights. A Nigerian woman is entitled to maximum romantic considerations; flowers, candle lights and all, or let us all agree that the matter of the birds and the bees is best left to the birds and the bees.

    •A version of this article was first published in 2006 or thereabouts to celebrate women.

  • All Progressives Congress steals Jonathan’s thunder in Maiduguri

    All Progressives Congress steals Jonathan’s thunder in Maiduguri

    It may be too early to begin to speak in superlatives about the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party still in formation but comprising some four political parties determined to challenge the dominance of the PDP. Last Thursday, nine governors and one deputy governor belonging to the four parties in the APC met in Maiduguri, Borno State, the hotbed of Boko Haram fundamentalist violence, for talks on their proposed merger. The meeting, which was third in the series of meetings being held for the special purpose of unification, was successful. The APC probably shifted the venue to Maiduguri because President Goodluck Jonathan was yet to visit the unsettled state. It was a deft political move. In fact, it was a move that stole the thunders of both Jonathan and the PDP.

    The APC governors pressed home their advantage by moving round some parts of the city to soak in the adulation of the wearied but grateful Borno people. They also very significantly donated N200m to succor victims of Boko Haram violence. And with an eye on the main chance, they told the press at the end of their meeting that they came to Maiduguri to show solidarity with the people and to prove that leaders needed to show courage in the face of danger. The message was not lost on Jonathan’s government. Cut to the quick, presidential aides quickly announced that the president had planned to visit the state on March 7, and that the APC leaders merely preempted the president.

    Planning to visit is unfortunately not the same as actually visiting. By meeting in a city wracked by sectarian and socio-economic uprising, APC has indicated it is capable of thinking on its feet. In addition, the party, even before it is registered, is exhibiting the advantages of nurturing another party to shake the PDP out of its complacency. It will no longer be business as usual. Not only is the polity gradually transiting into a two-party system, it is also evident that the race to 2015 has really begun. Many elements favour the APC already, including dominance in critical regions. If the party can overcome its teething problem, get its zoning arrangement right without the constraints that shackle the PDP, and conducts rancor-free primaries to produce credible and popular candidates, it is hard to see them losing the next polls, or winning by a margin that is less than assertive.

    But far beyond whooping for a political party, Nigerians must begin to think less partisan by ensuring that real democracy is enthroned through the availability of credible choices. The way to begin is to defeat the rather incestuous PDP in the coming polls, give a new party with a different set of developmental and socio-political paradigms the opportunity to preside over the country, and let the people have the satisfaction of knowing that waiting in the wings every election year is another beautiful bride in a brilliant, lawful and luxuriant polygamy.