The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Only truth will set us free

Relief returned to the country as First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan’s plane touched down in Abuja last week. Moments before she stepped off the aircraft, her hands went up in the air, a broad smile flashing across her dark-goggled face. It felt good to be back after what she called her “trial time.” That trial took over a month to conquer. And it was, crucially, about health. On the one hand, she was relieved and happy; on the other, she was quite sad and concerned. She expressed those contrasting emotions almost in equal measure. Waxing spiritual, in fact, quoting the Bible, Mrs Jonathan just about blessed those who prayed for her. As for those who spread uncomfortable tales about her during her ordeal, the First Lady had a word of caution, to put it mildly. They will do well to remember that God’s plans are different from man’s, she told the tale bearers, some impertinently reminding their audience that not all First Couples going into Aso Rock came out intact. Some thought and speculated that she had gone for either a face job or tummy tuck.

I subscribe to the Dame’s admonition because life is too precious to be made light of, especially when it is in any danger. Besides, man’s best efforts to declare who will live or die, often fall flat simply because he is so miserably unqualified to venture into that field. Doctors, for instance, have given up on their patients, only for the condemned to bounce back to life.

Still, it is quite easy to understand why Mrs Jonathan’s health status excited the tale bearers. There is so much secrecy surrounding leaders and their spouses in this country. We know pretty little about those whose business it is to mind our business. And where information is scare, speculation thrives. Where truth is nonexistent, lies fill the vacuum. We have experienced this all too often and paid very dearly for it. Our leaders across the tiers of government, as well as elected or selected ones, steal away to foreign lands, claiming to be on vacation, whereas they went in search of answers to their health questions. They are entitled to their privacy, of course, but at some point and to some extent, individual privacies must be surrendered to the public. For public officers are, after all, public property, as it were, being sustained by taxpayers.

In the days of President Olusegun Obasanjo, it was after the unfortunate death in 2005 of his wife Stella at the hands of an incompetent doctor in Spain that Nigerians learnt the First Lady had gone for a tummy job. The physician was later jailed for placing a tube in the wrong place, his licence suspended for a time. His last high profile patient was just weeks away from her 60th birthday.

In President Umaru Yar’Adua’s era, things worsened in this regard. When the president’s health seemed to fail and the people desired to know the truth, the issue of squash and how he could play it almost nonstop, popped up. When the president disappeared from view entirely, his handlers said everything was just fine. When it finally became public knowledge that Yar’Adua was rushed to a Saudi hospital and that he might be there for a while. His minders said all was still well with his administrative obligations, and that he could indeed preside over the affairs of the country from any part of the world. Then, one fateful night, when much of the country had gone to bed, his caretakers smuggled him back, still doing their best to sustain the lies they had been serving up. One day we heard the Commander-in-Chief was ascending and descending the staircase; another day we were told he recognized his mother. One day it was all over.

All the secrecy and lies were unnecessary. They reduced the number one man to an object of manipulation. This was unfortunate. His handlers also gave Nigeria away as a lying country but, more crucially, they made infirmity look like something of which to be eternally ashamed, whereas everyone knows that people, including presidents, nurse one disease or another, some even doing so through life.

Yar’Adua’s protectors either neglected or more ignorant of the fact that leaders are never judged by their health profiles, but by their records. Tumours have been extracted from presidential insides, and the executive patients returned to duty. Commanders-in-Chief have had their diseased hearts attended to. One president administered one of the most powerful countries in the world from a wheelchair, and at a time of great crisis.

The First Lady’s health concerns brought back the pains of the past. For one, her well being is of interest to the entire nation by virtue of her position. Enshrouding the whole “trial” period in secrecy, kept much needed information from Nigerians to whom she is a mother. No one knew exactly where she was or what was happening to her and how she was coping with it. Even those disposed to prayer may have been starved of precise prayer points. A vital point in all this is that this sort of secrecy alienates leaders from their people. And consequently, as in the case of the First Lady, scarcity of information put the rumour mill and tale bearers to work, bringing a whole lot of distraction to the country and it’s people.

Mrs Jonathan was disturbed that the “bad people,” to borrow a term from her arrival response, went as far as mentioning a certain hospital in Germany. She dismissed the claim, as she denied going for plastic surgery or stomach operation. All were denials and denials but she may be right and all the rumour mongers wrong. Still, the First Lady failed to set the records straight. She neither named the ailment for which she was flown overseas, nor disclosed the hospital where she was attended to. She desires respect and support, and rightly so, but it is equally imperative that she does not starve her people of information.

Still, the First Lady should not be singled out for blame. Why? It is not a personal failing. Hoarding information from the public is a national pastime. See how difficult it is to make freedom of information easy. Everyone keeps what they should give out. It is hard knowing how much our leaders earn, how much they pay in tax, how much they get to lead or how much they spend leading. It is difficult to get the truth.

But that is the basis of leadership. We need the truth. Our leaders need to open up more. They need to admit where they have failed. Only truth will set us free.

October 21, 2012
Achebe: Some things are better left unsaid – A rejoinder

Any deep thinking person who had followed up on the reactions of some Nigerians to Chinua Achebe’s latest book, There was a Country, would easily come to a conclusion that ethnic bigotry has remained the fundamental problem this country is yet to sincerely engage. The unintellectual and jingoistic dismissal of Achebe’s book by many a Yoruba Nigerian was as disappointing as it was laughably sad. Prominent among these sentimentalist criticisms of Achebe’s book was the one written by Mr. Idowu Akinlotan.

Mr Akinlotan’s grouse with Achebe’s book is what he calls the “author’s unrepentant and undisguised partisanship.” He writes thus: “After reading the Guardian (London) excerpt of the book, I concluded this was a book he [Achebe] should not have written, for sometimes, the merit of a book is compromised by just one page, one paragraph, even one sentence. …Achebe should have left unsaid many of the things he wrote in the book. His reputation as a world-renowned writer was already secure, having written one of the 50 most influential books of all time. Why did he feel impelled to write this [fated] book, one which doubtless reinforces the suspicion many hold about his private and public animosities?”

Interestingly, Mr Akinlotan had earlier informed the reader of his column that he had not read the book and would refrain from doing a review of the book. What do we call what he has written above: a pre-review, the type that comes with presumptions, assumptions and illogical judgements perhaps? The sharp-witted columnist was quick to “conclude” that Achebe’s memoir will be of little “value” and perhaps should be disregarded. Achebe’s only crime in the excerpt is that he dared accuse Chief Obafemi Awolowo of genocidal intents against the Igbo through his blockade policies that led to the deaths of many Igbo civilians during the Civil War. Most Yoruba in Nigeria are often quick to throw reason and caution into the air to defend the person and deeds of Awolowo.

Mr. Akinlotan should have waited to read the book before jabbering. In this same book which Awolowo only got about two paragraphs of deserved criticisms that seem to have upset some Yoruba to frenzy, the likes of Ojukwu and Gowon have pages of criticisms on the egotistical roles they played during the Nigerian Civil War. But the typical “unreading” Nigerian who becomes an authority on hearsay would like Palladium shout abuses only to realise they have misjudged their target.

Ethnicity blinds us! I felt my sensibilities assaulted when I read Mr. Akinlotan’s rationalisations of war crimes. All wars have moral question marks on them and I am yet to see a just war. But in his defence of Awolowo, Mr. Akinlotan struggles in vain to rationalise the moral questions he himself found as problems in the excerpt from Achebe’s book. For one, he sees nothing wrong in having millions of Igbo civilians killed in a war the Federal forces claimed was a “police action” intended to keep the country together. Starvation for the columnist suddenly becomes a lofty weapon of war without any “diabolical” intent. Mr. Akinlotan sees nothing morally wicked in a rehabilitation and reconciliation process that saw the Federal Government give £20 to Igbos wanting to convert their Biafran currency back into the Nigerian pounds irrespective of whatever amount of money they had deposited into the banks. Nor did Akinlotan say anything about the policy of indigenisation which at the instigation of Chief Awolowo the Federal Government introduced after the war to further deplete the economic base of the Igbo who mostly relied on the commerce of imported second-hand wares to survive. For the columnist, to maintain the saintly and heroic qualities most Yoruba have constructed and attributed to Awolowo, the aggrieved Igbo and other minority groups in Nigeria must be hushed to silence. Awolowo’s villainous roles during the war, for him, are at best mere “guesswork” and cannot be validated by any form of historical reflection. Suddenly, Ojukwu and Azikiwe have become canonised for their villainies too, all to ensure that Awo’s false reputations are not stained. Not until we come together as a people to acknowledge the heroic as well as villainous deeds of our so-called past heroes, not until we come to terms with the fact that we are not happy with one another, that we are living a lie, we will remain in the doldrums.

For a columnist who is known for his deft analyses of socio-political and historical happenings in Nigeria and beyond to lose his sense of moderation and restraint in discrediting a book he knows nothing about simply because few lines supposedly put Awo (his tribal hero) in a bad light means that ethnicity should be the first of the problems we must engage should we want to be a country. For Akinlotan, the few lines Achebe penned, justified and historically valid indictments on Awolowo’s roles during the war, necessarily mar his book. And since, for him, Achebe lacks the intellectual acumen to interpret human motives and actions, not minding the fact that he (Achebe) has written one of the “50 most influential books of all times,” we should dismiss the old writer as “paranoid”. But let’s humour Mr. Akinlotan a bit since he is a master of human motives: How does one explain that a federal troop that mostly consisted of Northerners, who had earlier carried out a genocidal butchery of the Igbo, would now engage the Igbo in a brotherly and humane war? Or that the great Awolowo whose undisguised ethnic politics and sentiments would be so humane in prosecuting a war against a people whose political representatives proved to stand between him and his ambitions of ruling the country? Why is it so difficult for many Yoruba to accept faults in Awo? Does Palladium expect Achebe to praise Awo for initiating a harsh policy that led to the deaths of his tribesmen?

If after 40 years Achebe still manifests “a disturbing streak of extreme traumatisation” as Mr. Akinlotan would have us believe, it only means that the scars of the war are anything but healed. It means that many more Achebes and other vicarious victims of the war are still pining in the injustices done to them by their fellow compatriots. It means that we are yet to become a country. Palladium believes Achebe has written the book for fame. He writes: “[Achebe’s] reputation as a world-renowned writer was already secure, having written one of the 50 most influential books of all time. Why did he feel impelled to write this [fated] book, one which doubtless reinforces the suspicion many hold about his private and public animosities?” It is only people of little minds and meagre ambitions that will think that a man in the twilight of his life, a man who has won all the fames deserving of his name, would release a book at 81 for fame and reputation. Achebe must remain silent in the face of historical injustice simply because he wants to keep his reputation intact. If Achebe had only blamed Ojukwu or Gowon, the Yoruba critics may not have been enraged this much. But now, his genius is challenged for daring to accuse Awo of genocide.

Mr. Akinlotan must understand that Achebe was only trying to call the attention of the country to the massive injustice it has done to some of its citizens. It is a cautionary book which in my own opinion seeks to draw our attention to the fact that a man who chooses to forget where the rain has begun to beat him will never know when and where it stops. Why do we shy away from our history and yet hope to progress? For Palladium to dismiss Achebe’s call for the Civil War to be included in the teaching curriculum of schools in Nigeria is sad. For us to grow as a nation, we have to be more cautious and tolerant of others’ feelings and opinions. We have to be fair and courageous enough to see faults and strengths alike in the people we uphold as heroes and villains. Nothing should be “left unsaid” if truly we desire reconciliation and progress.

• Anyaduba is a graduate student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife

October 14, 2012
Happy Birthday, dear ol’ girl! (part 2)

There is so much madness in the land

One giant Mental Institution, that’s our Nigeria!

Did you hear the one about a mentally unstable man who was released from an institution for good behaviour? Well, his doctors felt he was sufficiently healed to be let into the society so he got out and went on the streets. Two hours later, he was back at the institution. What was the problem? He said that while he stood by the road side, he saw a man wearing thick glasses riding a commercial motorcycle and carrying a pregnant woman who had a child on her back, and another one who carried three passengers on his motor cycle. He also saw a taxi driver who had carried seven passengers in his four-seat vehicle and a policeman who only laughed and collected some money from him. Then he thought, ‘the people out there in the world are all madder than me, and I am the one committed!’ So, to avoid being contaminated, he went back.

This last week, I listened in on a radio programme celebrating World Mental Health day. And I thought, ah, mental health! That is the inability of the mind to distinguish between what is socially acceptable and what is not. For example, since most husbands have not been able to distinguish between what is domestically acceptable (such as leaving all their month’s pay in the pockets of their pants for their wives to find) from what is not (such as leaving those pants on the kitchen table), we can assume that their mental health is challenged. There’s someone else whose mental health is challenged: my dog. For reasons best known to him, he thinks barking is beneath him. Do what you like, he just won’t bark. To harass visitors therefore, he simply, err, licks their feet. Grrr! That dog is so in need of a specialist.

Obviously, then, anyone whose mental health is challenged needs help. I can count the people who need help. All taxi drivers need help. All Lagos bus drivers need help. All okada riders need help. Believe me, all husbands need help. How else can you classify a husband who sells his wife for a sum of money if not someone in need of help? No, that happened in literature. But I know one who nearly sold his wife because she was costing him too much to feed. Really, what constitutes mental health is a matter of perspective. After all, I once drove the car into one of the walls of the house. No, no one pushed me; I just thought the road extended there. Of course, need you ask? Those around me went, ‘But, were you mad?!’

So, like everyone else, I interpreted the mental health day to mean the day we pause in our respective tasks, think for a moment about any mad person we know, say a little prayer for them, and then move on to choose what we are going to have for dinner. Not so, explained the resource person, it means the day we examine our mind and clear it of debris such as excessive love of money, excessive hatred of our noisy neighbour and too many death wishes such as driving the car at one hundred and forty kilometres an hour on Nigeria’s rough roads. Or, we can just use the day to think about those who appear well on the surface but are really sick beneath, like Nigeria.

Reader, pause awhile and say a prayer for Nigeria for we have, by our behaviour, converted it into a mental institution. Seriously. The poor thing thinks it is well but it is really, really sick. Just think about the antics of her citizens. Where else in the world can you find a people so cheerfully bizarre, yet uncompromisingly devilish? Where else can you find a people so nice and yet so wicked to each other all at once? I say, where else can you find a people so artful at biting each other and so equally artful at blowing palliative air to soothe the pain? Where else but in this your good ol’ country can you find people perpetually screaming at each other ‘You hit my car, are you mad?! You beat my son, are you mad?! You stole my prayer, are you mad?! You stole my future, are you mad?! You stole all the meat in the pot, you this stupid child, are you mad?!!!

When we think of the fact that what peoples the walls of this country is a veritable mix of schizophrenics, psychosomatics, psychopaths, sociopaths, sociogoths and psychogoths (if you know what those are cause I don’t), repressed and depressed joy killers, quarter-mad, half-mad and fully-mad individuals, and all in need of specialists, then we know we need to tread a little. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the Lagos traffic and transport system. That is pure madness. Whoever contrived that system should be hung up for the world to behold as the example of a mad man. Or, you might look at Abuja driving. For exercise, drive to and from Abuja and you will see what I mean. Clearly, every driver along that route needs a specialist. The ones inside the city itself appear to be beyond redemption, so the government appears to have left them alone to finish one another off. When they finish getting rid of one another, to the last one of them, then we can claim the city back from madness. Right now, it is on the brink.

When we think of the mad things we have done to this country, then we would agree that it is all but hanging on a thread, or just hanging. And it all began when we stood the country on its head, much like when you stand logic on its head. Again, pause a while and let us go over the facts together. Is it not in this country that people who have been convicted or are under suspicion are also ‘elected’ into political office? Is it not in this country that people who say they are trying to salvage the country’s economy ask to be paid in foreign currencies? Don’t these things boggle your mind? They do mine.

Sadly, it is also in this country that people go out to kill in the name of God and still preach that that God, in whose name they have killed others, stands for love. Hmm. Strange love. Anyway, this is also the country that houses the highest number of people who steal from the government so that they and their children will never be poor again. Yet another kind of strange love. So, with so much strange love going around, are you surprised that there is so much madness in the land, and we are all ensconced in this giant mental institution?

The World Mental Health day came and went without too many people noticing it. Perhaps, those who did were the only sane ones among us. I dare say the rest of us were too busy displaying our mental instability to notice. So it comes down to this. The mental health of this country is in your hands. Stop screaming at others; stop driving recklessly; stop embezzling recklessly; stop killing in the name of God, and begin now to take care of yourself and others in this mental institution. Who knows, if we begin to behave ourselves we might be let off, and be allowed to join the comity of sane nations soon, real soon.

October 14, 2012
Vice presidential debate: Obama gets a temporary balm

•Political Campaigns can be distilled to the practice of turning your lies into truth and your opponent’s truth into lies.

Last week may have been President Obama’s most painful as a politician. After a brittle debate performance, his election campaign fell into a tailspin. Voters abandoned him as if he were leprosy stricken. The noticeable lead enjoyed over his opponent was erased simply due to one uninspiring performance. In one national poll, Obama suffered over a ten percentage point dip, going from a six-seven point lead to a five-point arrearage. After the debate, a greater number of people opined that Governor Romney would more skillfully handle the economy than the president could. His electoral advantage among women evaporated as had much of his “likeability” advantage over his opponent. The implausible suddenly loomed real: he could lose.

Never before had one debate so altered the political landscape. For one so confident in his ability to communicate and also as sensitive as Obama, this unexpected rejection by a large segment of the electorate must have been numbing blow, the political equivalent of a concussion. President Obama had built his political strategy on a surplus of goodwill among the electorate. He entered the debate cockily assured all he needed was to make a passive appearance devoid of monumental error and all go well for him. When the crunch came, his vaunted goodwill with the public deserted him like a freeloader leaving a party once the punchbowl had gone dry and the hors d’oeuvres were finished. What he thought was a rock-solid political asset proved to be shifting sand.

Although the president’s debate outing was tedious, it did not warrant such a public reaction. An unnamed force was in operation. Obama’s diminution in the polls was half his fault. The other half was attributable to the voter’s biased perception of the debate. A reasonable hypothesis is that at least 90 percent of those who have turned toward Romney in the debate’s aftermath are white, independent moderates. Obama’s performance finally gave them a defensible excuse to do what their biased hearts had wanted them to do: ditch the president. Prior to the debate, Obama seemed visibly better than Romney. Yet, these people remained undecided or only begrudgingly for Obama because Romney had not achieved the minimum threshold he needed to be considered a credible alternative. Romney had gone too far right and was forever stumbling during this course of this conservative migration. Still, these voters held out for the slightest excuse to kick Obama down the stairs. When Romney veered back to center and away from the Republican extreme and Obama stammered through the debate, the desired excuse had finally presented itself. With this, many whites happily flocked Romney’s way; supporting him felt more in keeping with the traditional order of things. It was a restoration.

The move away from Obama constituted a form of white flight. It also signaled that he has yet to understand the racial outlook of much of white America. His objective to be one of the guys, to be the great black moderate, continues to elude him for it is a mirage. America has not yet reached the stage where elite black mediocrity will be as richly rewarded as its white counterpart. Obama was elected in 2008 because enough white people saw him as a rare leader, one who was clearly superior to his rival. Unless he proves himself demonstrably superior to Romney, Obama will forfeit the larger slice of the heretofore undecided portion of the electorate. The election could lean in the balance.

Obama’s post-debate conduct did little to stem his decline in the polls. He rationalised his flat debate performance by claiming his mistake was being “too polite” to his opponent. The president remarked that repetitively pointing out Romney’s many untruths might have come across as offensive. This remark was beneath the man and the moment. Taking his rival to task would not have been half as unsettling as President Obama’s passively taking in Romney’s ballooning fabrications. With this post-debate excuse, Obama showed that he was as capable of the brazen lie as Romney had been during the debate. Unless he knew beforehand that Romney would engage in serial prevarication, the president’s excuse defies logic. When confronted by Romney’s first lie, the president could not be sure more untruths would come or how many there might be. At that moment, the question of repeatedly confronting Romney could not have weighed down the president’s mind; he only had sure evidence of the first lie. At that point, he should have confronted his opponent. If he had, this might have disturbed the Republican’s stride, perhaps deterring many of the untruths that were to come.

Some things came to help the president even when he was doing poorly helping himself. Unemployment figures for September showed considerable improvement, dropping from 8.1 to 7.8 per cent. Harangue from conservatives that the jobless figures had been manipulated to promote the president’s reelection served to remind the more thoughtful moderates that the Republican Party had become the garrison of rightist zealots possessed by an ideological perspective at variance with the interests of the middle class. The unemployment numbers and the crass Republican reaction to them stemmed some of the Democratic bleeding.

The most effective curative for what ailed the Democrats was Vice President Biden’s debate performance. Biden was an unlikely hero. Prone to the verbal gaffe, the impromptu Biden is the opposite of his tightly-scripted boss. Months ago, wishful speculation among Democrats worried about the election had Obama replacing Biden with Hillary Clinton. Today, those same Democrats are celebrating that their hopes went unrequited. Biden has something Obama does not. Biden has fight in him. Where Obama is cerebral and emotionally aloof, Biden is a combative, sometimes combustible, man who wears his emotions openly. Obama painstakingly measures his words as if on trial. Biden has the tongue of a carefree raconteur. Obama is a rapier while Biden is a broadsword. Where Obama flinches from confrontation, Biden relishes the hurly burly. Obama views debates as drudgery that he might lose. Biden sees them as a game he can win. Moreover, Biden epitomises Main Street America. Born to a working-class family in a working- class town, Biden talks for the common man. More than Obama because of his race or Romney because of his money, Biden can relate to working class white America. He comes from them and it is the undecided voters within this group who will decide the fate of this election.

Additionally, Biden is as loyal a subordinate as can be found in this day and age. Coming into the debate, he knew he had to rally the Democratic Party. As a result of the drop in the polls following the presidential debate, Democrats were downcast. Their enthusiasm had been doused by gloom. Meanwhile, the Republicans, who were almost ready to mail their concession speech two weeks ago, had renewed vigor. Suddenly, a victory that seemed as distant as a star now appeared close enough to grasp. Biden’s objectives for the debate were two-fold. First, he had to stop his own party’s retreat. Second, he had to expose Republican policy inconsistencies. Biden undertook these tasks with the alacrity of a junk-yard dog gnawing a moist bone.

At the presidential debate, Romney had executed a policy shift of exquisite cynicism. To clinch the Republican nomination, Romney campaigned as a staunch conservative, ceding the moderate ground to Obama. Obama established homestead in this centrist position but failed to erect strong defenses against trespass because he thought Romney would continue to tack sharp right. At their debate, Romney invaded the middle ground but Obama failed to evict him. The Republican understood the closer he drew his positions to Obama’s, the more undecided white voters would tilt his way. Given a choice between a white man and black man signing essentially the same tune, these voters would be pulled to the white man as if by magnet. Credit goes to Romney; he has played the race card as subtly as it can be played, so subtly that few observers will dare mention it.

Against this backdrop, Biden’s performance must be measured. Garrulous and interrupting his opponent every time Congressman Ryan spoke an untruth, Biden had the expression of a lion uncaged. By contrast, Ryan hoped to repeat the strategy that proved successful for Romney in his debate where Romney proved to be a master of the lie, sincerely told. Where Obama gave Romney a free pass, Biden pounced on Ryan like a weightlifter on a scrawny thief.

When Ryan claimed the Obama fiscal stimulus was an inefficient waste that burdened the economy, “fuss and guts” Biden exploded that Ryan had glued himself to hypocrisy. Saying Ryan had written for stimulus funds for projects in his state, Biden reminded the Congressman that his request letter said the stimulus money would create jobs and help the state economy. Biden asked the man how he could write a formal letter asserting that the stimulus funds were condign then lie to the entire nation that the stimulus failed. Ryan could do nothing but tender a nearly unintelligible reply.

Ryan cited the unemployment rate in Biden’s hometown of Scranton had risen during the past four years. Then he tried a cheap trick by asserting Scranton’s increase was representative of the national trend. Before he could complete the falsehood, Biden snapped Ryan was misleading the public and that unemployment was going down throughout the nation.

When Ryan tried to blame Obama for the lagging economy, Biden retorted Ryan’s culpability exceeded the president’s because Ryan had supported all the Bush-era policies of waging two wars while simultaneously executing a steep tax cut for the wealthy. On health care, Biden chastised Ryan for offering a voucher plan that would not give the poor and elderly enough money to afford decent insurance coverage. Biden reminded the audience Ryan had been a long-time proponent of privatising Social Security. Had Social Security been privatised during the 2009 recession, the life-savings and retirement nest eggs of millions of American would have evaporated due to the greedy speculation that Republican policies had encouraged in the financial system. Time and time again, Biden returned to the theme that the Republicans had a long history of attacking vital social programs. Thus, the Republican ticket’s sudden, late-hour support of these programs was more than suspicious. It was an attempt to win the contest by hoodwinking the public. A passionate Biden emphasised that Obama had always championed the middle class and thus was more trustworthy than these recent converts.

On foreign policy, Biden claimed Ryan and Romney were engaged in empty posturing. While claiming that Obama’s foreign policy was weak, Ryan and Romney could not offer any concrete ideas of what they would do differently in foreign policy, Biden complained. The Vice President said his opponents were silent on alternatives because they had none. Again, Ryan’s reply was feeble and unpersuasive.

Sadly, on the most important foreign policy matter Biden did not adequately dog Ryan and his dangerous logic. Ryan alleged the Iranian “Ayatollahs” were intent on acquiring a nuclear weapon; that current sanctions and negotiations would not dissuade them. He then echoed the vague and frightening postulate that Iran should be stopped before it acquired “the capability” to create a nuclear weapon. Advanced to their logical conclusion, these statements basically mean that Ryan has determined that war is inevitable. If this reflects Romney’s thinking, America will likely be at war with Iran within a year should a Romney Administration be inaugurated.

Biden was not perfect and made a few misstatements including one about the Libyan consultant attack. Still, in winning the debate, Biden achieved his primary goal. The Democrats are revived and no longer despondent. He also showed his boss how to handle the chameleonic Romney. As good as Biden performed, the effects of his labor will not live beyond the next presidential debate on October 16. This one will be telling. After the first encounter, Romney demonstrated he had the ability to embrace multiple positions on one issue. As such, he showed himself to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing pretending to be a sheep in wolf’s clothing pretending to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. On the other hand, Obama has simply been a sheep in sheep’s clothing. If he keeps at this defenseless posture, he will be badly hit. October 16 might be night of the most momentous debate in the last fifty years. Despite his failings, Obama is a safer bet than Romney. If Ryan spoke the truth about his boss’s Iranian policy, they will ignite another war in a region already beset by too many conflicts; they will rush to war without compelling reason. One dares not underestimate the dangerous consequences of their coarse aversion to diplomacy and decadent affection for pummeling weaker, rival nations.

October 14, 2012
Happy birthday, jare, Gov Okorocha

How can anyone accuse the governor of extravagant celebration?

GOVERNOR Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has been in the news again of late. As usual with people who would not give the governor a breather, it is for the wrong reasons. The bile this time is the governor’s 50th birthday, which ought to have been marked on September 28, but was postponed to October 8 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the governor’s foundation and schools. This is where the critics first got it all wrong. If Governor Okorocha had been as flamboyant and wasteful as he is portrayed, he would have celebrated the two ceremonies differently. Because both were landmarks in their individual rights would have called for double celebration. The birthday would have been marked on September 28 and the foundation and schools that clocked 10 would also have had their day on October 8.

Apparently, Governor Okorocha knew that armchair critics would take him to task if he did that; so, he decided to collapse the two ceremonies into one, thus killing two birds with one stone. Some savings had been made from this decision; obviously, from whichever coffers the money for the celebrations came. Not a few had speculated it must have come from the public till; some were even so categorical that the money spent on the ceremonies was from the government coffers as if the state’s accountant-general has furnished them with the necessary papers to make such a categorical assertion. Now, even if that were so, people still have to realise that money had been saved all the same because money would still have had to come from wherever if the governor had not been considerate enough to collapse his twin celebration into one.

I can smell two rats in all these criticisms: poverty and envy. The problem is that many of those complaining that the governor is extravagant did so because they did not know how it feels to be 50, especially so when one has the deep pocket to let the invitees eat and drink to their full and still have more than enough to take away. Many of the critics must have matched the array of personalities at the ceremony: former (self-styled) President Ibrahim Babangida, former Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai, governors of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi; Rivers, Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi; Delta, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan; Katsina, Alhaji Shehu Shema, and Bauchi, Mallam Isa Yuguda with what these and other dignitaries consumed, and the exotic wines that they would have used to flush down the small chops and sumptuous meals, and concluded that it must have cost a fortune to put together such an event. That is poverty at work. Or is it at play?

As ‘King Sunny Ade once sang, when the poor gets to the mansion of the rich, as he is cursing God, so would he be speaking so disdainfully of Him, wondering why He should create some people tall and others short; they would be wondering whether it was not the same God that created the rich who is spending so lavishly, and the poor who like Lazarus must wait to feed from the crumbs falling under the tables of the rich.

The interesting thing is that Imo people did not behave like that, at least not the hoi polloi, which really is soul-lifting. That is to say that those protesting the governor’s ‘extravagant spending’ on the occasion of his Golden Jubilee are essentially busy bodies who delight in their fantasy that no good can ever come of the ‘Okorocha Nazareth’. Now, how do I know? A commentator’s ‘notorious fact’ revealed this in his description of the arrival of Babangida to the Heroes Square, venue of the celebration: “Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who in company with the governor, rode into the square with some streak of a triumphant entry, as the mass of the people who had gathered at the square since 8.00 a.m. rose in loud ovation on sighting their governor and his array of important guests”.

Pray, how does this show disapproval with the governor’s ceremony? I am sure they must have sung ‘Happy birthday’ for the governor. Their representative/s must have joined in cutting the birthday cake, etc. How could people in this felicitation mood complain about the economy of the state shut down for just one day to mark the governor’s 50th birthday? Now, when these critics got to their wits’ end, they even contradicted themselves by saying the governor shut down the entire economy in the state by approving the holiday, when time and again, these same critics have always reminded whoever cares to listen that the state is predominantly a civil servant state. So, which businesses must have lost colossal amounts due to the declaration of a day holiday? Which man-hours could have been lost? If the major source of sustenance is the monthly federal allocation, how did the holiday affect the state’s share? Those who say basic infrastructure is weak if not non-existent in the state; and those who say the schools are dilapidated, that the people have no potable water and that healthcare facilities are inadequate, in short those who say Imo State is backward, thus trying to give the impression that the governor has not been working would see how little they are when they hear what some of the invited eminent persons said of the governor at the ceremony.

Tsvangirai, in his remarks charged African leaders to look inwards by delivering those promises they made during their electioneering campaign, adding that the electorate expected more from them. He commended Okorocha for his milestone in ensuring that his people benefit from democracy dividends. General Babangida on his part extolled the virtues of Okorocha for his achievements in education, philanthropy and governance. He called on other leaders to assist the special citizens by providing for them at all times. What he did not add is that they should emulate Governor Okorocha. When these gods who have seen it all in public office have spoken, who are people who do not know how hot the seats on which the governor and other highly placed people are sitting (or once sat) to contradict them? What other testimonial could have been greater than these?

All those who have been condemning this wise and prudent decision from an equally wise and prudent governor should ask for asagafurulahi so that God can forgive them. The governor’s ears must be full by now over this storm in a teacup. I plead with him not to let this stop the good works he has been doing in the state since his election in May, last year. That is the way it is. I am sure he must have heard of the wise saying that ‘uneasy lies the head that wears the crown’. The governor should not forget that when his predecessor was there, the people complained; they said he was present more on billboards than on ground.

The problem with the critics is that they cannot see the larger picture that the governor is seeing. Governor Okorocha at the occasion restated his vow to put Imo in the map of the fastest developing states by executing only people-oriented programmes. That is to say more holidays are coming. Isn’t this one sure way to make that happen? Happy birthday, jare, your Excellency. Even on auto-pilot, Imo Ebeano!

October 14, 2012
Sultan, the Archbishop and the Nobel

It is the Nobel season once again. This time Nigerian names are in the frame more than at any time in recent memory. Already, perennial favourite, Chinua Achebe, has lost out in the literature stakes to the Chinese writer, Mo Yan.

This year, in one of the more curious nominations, the shortlist for the Peace Prize has thrown up the names of the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Onaiyekan.

Ordinarily, the prospect of two of our countrymen picking up the coveted prize is something that should fill Nigerians with a sense of pride. Such an honour would be a welcome bit of good news amidst an unrelenting deluge of the bad stuff.

But coming at a time when the brutal actions of the fundamentalist Islamic sect, Boko Haram, are threatening to tear the country apart, this ranks as another in the long line of controversial nominations for the Peace Prize.

Without question the insurgency in large parts of northern Nigeria is the greatest challenge to peaceful coexistence this country has faced since the Civil War. The Niger-Delta insurgency was limited in scope to targeting Nigeria’s economic interests and making it impossible for multinational oil firms to operate.

But Boko Haram, combining the incendiary mix of politics and religion, has set as its goal the toppling of the current constitutional order, and replacing it with a theocracy where Sharia law will be the law of the land.

Such is the level of brutality deployed by Boko Haram in its campaign, that it has been cited – along with military agents of government – as committing possible crimes against humanity in the present theatre of conflict in the North-East.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimates that in the last three years the intense war between the sect and Nigerian security forces might have claimed at least 2,800 lives. With their use of crude IEDs for mass killing, we can credit the bulk of that body count to the terrorists.

A new report by HRW says some of these attacks were “deliberate acts leading to population ‘cleansing’ based on religion or ethnicity”. These are very grave charges indeed. They hold out the prospect that those being accused – whether on the side of the extremists or the government – could one day find themselves facing justice at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.

Despite its deployment of military force as the sect’s attacks became more brazen and catastrophic, the government has not been able to crush it. But many argue that this failure is also down to collusion on the part of local communities and their leadership who have shielded known elements of Boko Haram for years. This protective cover has made it almost impossible for security forces to get quality intelligence in their fight against the group.

Of course, Boko Haram has been able to cow large sections of the North – both ordinary people and elite – by showing potential collaborators with the Federal Government that they and their families could only expect sudden, brutal death for their folly.

A little over a year ago former President Olusegun Obasanjo embarked on a peace mission to Maiduguri to meet Babakura Fugu , the representative of the late Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Yusuf’s family. A few days later he was shot dead by assailants suspected to be from a faction of the sect.

Little wonder that such collaboration has been few and far between, and over the last few years a blanket of silence has descended upon the entire region. It is hard to get any major regional leader to publicly denounce the actions of the sect with the kind of trenchant rhetoric they deserve.

Where they have been forced to comment, such statements have been embarrassing balancing acts that in one breath offered anodyne words of condemnation while at the same time making excuses for the killers – or finding fault with the actions of the security agencies.

There is no question that in the North the Sultan remains the most influential and powerful traditional-cum-religious leader. But beyond making the usual bland, politically-correct statements, I cannot recall when he ever denounced the activities of Boko Haram with force that they deserve.

We do know that the sect are not exactly enamoured with him. If anything they hold defenders of traditional Islamic orthodoxy like him in great contempt, and would do anything to destroy his influence and all he represents. So it is a mystery that he has not come out as hard as he could have on the issue of Boko Haram.

As for his fellow nominee – the archbishop, I have no doubt that as a man of the cloth he is equally committed to peaceful coexistence of the two major faiths in Nigeria. I recall seeing a picture of him serving fruit to some Muslims at a gathering he organised to help them break their fast during the last Ramadan.

Still I am not convinced that such gestures alone, or offering the right platitudes after some terrorist outrage, qualify one to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

But again, stranger things have happened. After all United States President, Barack Obama, while still trying to find his feet in office was handed the Peace prize on a platter less than one year after he was elected.

In one of the most embarrassing chapters for the Nobel Academy in recent times, they strained for a reason for giving the prize to a president who at that point was superintending wars in two different theatres outside the American mainland. The best that apologists could offer was that the prize was to encourage the ‘apostle of hope’ to work toward global peace in the future – ‘a call to action’ they said it was.

How I wish the Sultan and the archbishop will win. What I am not sure of is whether Boko Haram insurgents who have not responded to the deadly persuasion of Joint Task Force (JTF) bullets, would be impressed by some shiny medals minted in Sweden.

October 14, 2012
Revisiting our unification policies (4)

Negotiated constitution is imperative for unity

In the last 14 years of post-military rule, very little has been done (apart from restoration of election as a means of selecting members of the power elite in executive and legislative branches of government) to de-militarise the polity that has been shaped or distorted by decades of military dictatorship. Beyond civilianising governance, very little effort has been made from the administration of Obasanjo to that of Jonathan to democratise governance fully by subjecting decrees, policies, and constitution inherited from military rulers to scrutiny and transformation. Nowhere is the fear of interrogating military legacy in the governance of the country more evident than in efforts by post-military rulers to argue that there is nothing wrong with the constitution, laws, and policies inherited since 1999 from military dictators.

We argued in the last three weeks that many of the policies created by military regimes have become anachronistic and of little value to the promotion of unity of purpose in the country, stating that no matter how well-meaning the military regimes were in making policies such as centralised police force, unity schools, national youth service corps, the reality today is that there is no evidence that these policies have worked. Nothing in the situation of general security in the country or in the culture of cooperation across ethnic groups has indicated that efforts to unite the country through policies created without thorough debate by citizens have worked. The bellicosity that attended rotation of the presidency or zoning is an illustration of how little the country has been united since 1966. Ethnicisation and regionalisation of power in 2011 is cruder than what it was before the first the coup.

Had the country gotten a truly democratic government in 1999, perhaps, it would have produced government leaders that would have the courage to re-examine pre-1999 policies and jettison any of them that has ceased to be useful. Those who created many of the policies under discussion in the last three weeks and those that believe such policies were made to promote their interests thought more proactively than those who spent their life and resources to struggle for an end to military rule. They quickly organised to bring one of the authors of de-federalization of the country to power after the death of Abacha and at the end of Abubakar’s transition programme. General Obasanjo came into power and spent eight years scheming about how to defuse the struggle for a people’s constitution. He quickly labeled those calling for national conference secessionists. At the end of his two terms, he also picked his successor, Umaru Yar’Adua, in a way similar to how he was picked to succeed Abdusalaam Abubakar, and the rest is history.

Fourteen years after the exit of the military from direct governance, the country is still saddled with a president who does not think that there is anything seriously wrong with a constitution without any input from citizens, a constitution that was invisible until after the election that brought the first post-military government to power in 1999. Just like Obasanjo before him, President Jonathan also attempts to preach to citizens that there is nothing substantially wrong with the 1999 Constitution. To President Jonathan, nothing is too wrong for ad hoc committee members not to have the wisdom to rectify without any input from the citizenry.

If anything, the fear of civilian presidents to support those calling for a constitutional conference to produce a democratic constitution has encouraged those who see themselves as the policemen of Nigeria’s unity to seize media space to warn that any attempt to change most of the policies and laws created by military dictators (including the 1999 Constitution) is capable of destroying the country’s unity. Several northern leaders including elected governors have said pontifically that any attempt to move away from the system of federal monopoly of law enforcement is synonymous with plans to break the country. Only recently, the Arewa Consultative Forum said that any call for people’s constitution is tantamount to casting a vote of no confidence in the country’s democracy.

President Jonathan himself appears confused about what the country needs to do with a constitution that has been taken to court as a fraudulent document in its claim to have been written by the people of Nigeria. He even says without any empirical evidence that the country is not ready for state police, despite the fact that under his watch, police work is contracted out to private citizens like Tompolo. He is even now in the process of sending a bill to the national assembly to detach local governments from the states that house them, seeing local governments solely as a receiver of federal grants, rather than as cultural and political units within states which constitutionally have governors and legislators to govern them.

It must, however, be remembered that it was first under military dictatorship that the idea of three tiers of government came into the nation’s political space and lexicon. Most federations in the world have two tiers of government—federal and state or provincial. Ironically, the axe to destroy the federalist origin of independent Nigeria has since 1999 been getting sharper in the hands of post-military civilian rulers. Consequently, citizens calling for restoration of federalism in the country are seen as forces of distraction and secession by spokesmen for federal power and sectional cultural leaders who see themselves as enforcers of national unity.

The current constitution and many policies inherited from military dictatorship in 1999 have not enhanced national unity, despite repeated claims by those who believe the current unitary current system is the best way to guarantee the country’s unity. The unity that exists in Nigeria today is not an outcome of any constitution or policy. It is a sign that citizens from different sections of the country believe that the country has tremendous economic potential as one country, particularly the huge manna from oil and gas. It is more of unity of economic purpose than anything else. To turn the country into a union of affection, leaders will do well to listen to citizens calling for a negotiated constitution through the mechanism of constitutional conference, rather than relying on policies crafted by few soldiers and sustained by few civilian rulers to confuse homogenisation with unity.

October 14, 2012
Media women of substance

There are not many women who have made it to the top of the media profession in Nigeria like in other parts of the world. It is not for want of trying but journalism is very ‘masculine’ in many ways, making it difficult for many women to stay long enough to excel and prove that what a man can do, a woman can do better.

There are, however, a few who have overcome the gender limitation in the media industry. One of them is Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who clocked 60 last week. To her credit she had also served creditably as the Special Adviser on Media to President Olusegun Obansanjo and was the first female President of Nigeria Guild of Editors.

Under her leadership, the NAN has regained its lost glories as a foremost news agency in the continent.

Her commitment to the development of the media profession which she has demonstrated over the years in the various positions she has served is very commendable.

Honourable Abike Dabiri- Erewa of the House of Representative who also clocked 50 last week is another female journalist of note who should be celebrated for being a pride of the profession.

From being an outstanding broadcast journalist in her days at the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, Abike has moved on to becoming a notable legislator. She has done very well to earn a two-term tenure during which she has served as Chairman of the Media Committee and now Diaspora Committee.

I congratulate these two women of substance and wish them many years of service to not only the media but the nation and humanity at large.

Season of anomie

The gruesome killing of four students of the University of Port Harcourt in the Aluu community in Rivers State last week is yet another indication of the kind of times we live in. I managed to look at some of the pictures of the victims before and after they were killed but I have refused to watch the video recording of the incident.

The agony on the face of one of the victims in one of the pictures I saw online has stuck in my memory that I am sure that watching the video will leave me too heartbroken. The killing of the students further confirms how cheap death has become in our society. I still shudder to think of the ease with which those who committed the savage act and their collaborators who cheered them carried on without any fear that the law would catch up with them.

The various versions of the circumstances that led to the arrest of the students suggest that some of the villagers were just determined to kill the boys for whatever personal reasons. Whatever offence they might have committed, if indeed they did, does not justify the jungle justice they were subjected to.

In the attempt to get even with criminals, some communities in the county have resorted to taking the law into their hands, and like in this case, innocent people have been killed. I would rather prefer that a criminal escape than for an innocent person to be killed. Sooner or later, the law will catch up with the criminals and they will be made to pay for their evil deeds.

This particular case should be thoroughly investigated and all the perpetrators of the dastardly act brought to book to serve as a deterrent for others who have indulged in this kind of miscarriage of justice. Some security personnel were said to have witnessed the killing, they should not be spared as they could have called the killers to order if they really knew their duty. If they feared that they could be overwhelmed, they could have called for reinforcement instead of being onlookers like other civilians.

October 14, 2012
Fayemi : How the past molded a peoples’ governor

Fayemi is fundamentally changing the face of Ekiti

Time was about 11.45 pm in the sprawling Ekiti state governor’s office, which he derisively calls a football field, which he does not require to function effectively or efficiently, and quipped his friend of many years, the witheringly brilliant political scientist, Dr Abubakar Momoh: “Kayode, little did we know that God was preparing you for these days when we would, during our activist days in London , work until the wee hours of the following morning, quaffing coffee like it was going out of fashion.” I remembered Abubakar’s words sometime later after observing at close range, Dr Fayemi’s methodical and focused approach to governance, electing completely, not to be bothered with what the Yoruba would call the suffocating ‘ariwo oja’ –the market place noise, that the political opposition was spewing.

How miraculously God restored his Ekiti peoples’ mandate back to him, whilst the Obasanjos of this world were breathing down on all institutions of state, elicited indescribable joy, not only in the state, but across the length and breadth of Nigeria. But without a doubt, it equally brewed bitterness among the little colony of poll robbers who never thought the day would ever come when his mandate would be restored. Thus began a massive campaign of calumny, not much initiated by his main opponent at that election, but by a coterie of hangers-on, who, for reasons singularly unconnected with the welfare of our people, but their belly, embarked upon a proxy war to which the governor, characteristically, refused to invest even the minutest notice. The war has become largely muted today even though there was a time it looked like the demagogues were going to have it their way, given their cacophony and dexterity at concocting and weaving all manner of lies, even going as far as master-minding workers’ union revolts as we recently saw in the arrest of a lout who doubles as Press Secretary. Thanks largely to the incomparable, multi-sectoral achievements that have earned Dr Fayemi the prestigious ‘Leadership Governor of the Year’ award, an award for which many a state governor would have declared a state holiday to celebrate.

And they have not seen anything yet.

Back then to how his past, his multi-dimensional experiences, have served as the linchpin, the furnace and the crucible through which the peoples’ governor, was prepared for today. And there is no better place to go than OUT OF THE SHADOW’S, Dr Kayode Fayemi’s own book; his testimony and elegant historical capture of the events which shaped him at various stages of life up until he threw his cap into the political ring in his native Ekiti state. The intention here is not to re-write a book in which you have the author ‘writ large’ by our one and only Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka. Rather, it is to showcase how very small, almost insignificant events, a nice word here from a father when merited, a flagellation by mum when necessary and the whole idea of not sparing the rod, if that is what the moment deserved, as happened when his father gave him 12 strokes of the cane for not meeting him doing his home work, all cumulatively molding the total person; one who from the unsparing but loving hands of Pa and Mama Fayemi of Isan –Ekiti, would later be divinely thrown into public service to make life meaningful and better for the greater majority of Ekiti people. Had I, indeed, been minded, to re-write the book, this entire newspaper would hardly provide the space.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS, a book which in the hands of Bishop Felix Ajakaiye, the Catholic Bishop of Ekiti, has since become, besides the bible, a standard reference book for sermons about sacrifice, hard work, the value of education, perseverance, the role of parents and calls to service, among many other lessons, is replete with examples of how the governor’s home training, in a committed Christian family, – his own father had barely missed being a Catholic priest – his education and background in general, taught Dr Fayemi great lessons on how to be prepared to stand up, stand firm and control his own destiny.

I recall for instance an occasion well ahead of the serially rigged Ekiti gubernatorial elections, when three of us, in company of Dr Fayemi visited a distinguished Lagos-based Medical doctor of Ijesha extraction who truly loves the candidate and was willing to be part of his preparations. The host decided to first treat his visitors to dinner at a high end Chinese Restaurant. In the course of dinner, and knowing the PDP as I do, I chipped in by predicting that they would rig the election and ask us to go to court as the ‘one-minute heroine and next-minute villain’ of a onetime Ekiti INEC Commissioner, would later contemptuously advise. The candidate’s short response was: “Then they will come to know that I am a long distance runner.” I soon got confirmation of how the governor’s past must have informed this response when, in his Foreword to OUT OF THE SHADOWS, Professor Wole Soyinka wrote as follows about the monumental struggle in which he had Fayemi as one of his most trusted young intellectual combatants, I quote him: “It is my hope that this –the book –has opened the way to the records of infamy that internal democratic movement had to overcome in its pivotal struggle –the betrayals, repeated and repeated betrayals (note the repetitions by the master), campaigns of discouragement and so on – by some of those who supposedly occupy leadership positions in society, be they crowned heads, prelates, business moguls, professionals, politicians, intellectuals or whatever.” Fayemi’s own list of caterwaulers will include even a head of state and judges who were bought for nothing more than mere pittance. But he was completely unfazed, and from court to court, from one tribunal to another and from there to the Appeal Court, he went serially and when ignoramuses sang songs to the effect that he should be going to court while they govern, he still treated them with benign disdain, paying them no attention, whatever.

For the umpteenth time, many have had running bellies over my writings on Dr Kayode Fayemi but not only has he justified my implicit confidence in his ability to run an efficient government, I can say proudly that in all that I write, I testify only to the evidences of my very eyes. The entire Ekiti road network may not have all been paved yet –he has done two years of only a first four – and you may actually not be picking money on Ekiti streets, but for a fact, Fayemi is fundamentally changing the face of Ekiti. No longer do you have T V pictures of a hungry-looking people at state events, surrounded every inch of the way by gun-totting police and soldiers in defence of a stolen mandate, nor do you any longer have un-cared for elderly citizens who haven’t the slightest idea where help will come from since Fayemi’s monthly social security money will come as certainly as morning follows the night.

Today, work is going on at a frenetic pace on the Rehabilitate All Ekiti Schools Project which saw 100 schools rehabilitated in the first phase as well as on roads – both by state and local governments, water projects, re-industialisation i.e resuscitating dead and moribund industries and enterprises like the Ire Burnt Bricks industry, ROMACO which is about being concessioned and the Farm Settlement at Orin which is now a beehive of activity after decades of total abandonment. The educated youth are aggressively being introduced into commercial agriculture through the Y-CAD programme which combines training with financial mobilization through the provision of seed money, farm implements and agro-chemicals. Even with all the opposition-induced teachers’ intransigence, revitalizing the state education system remains a core area of Dr Fayemi’s programmes. Only this past week, the SUBEB Model Nursery and Primary School, Ado-Ekiti was rated as the best school nationwide in the year’s 2012 President Teachers and Schools’ Excellence Awards just as Mrs Oluwafemi Olusola of St John’s Primary School, Erinmope-Ekiti won the 3rd best teacher in the country.

His love of education and single minded determination to leave it better than he met it in Ekiti derives from his home background where his parents taught him the value of education and sent him to the best schools. That will subsequently influence his own choice of higher institutions to attend.

At his present duty post, this arduous, work-in-progress of taking Ekiti out of the shadows, his past has been a constant companion. He had, in fact, been born during the tumultuous NNDP’s short-lived ascendancy in the Western Region, a period which so presaged the PDP days that the governor has very readily acknowledged a causality between the events leading to and during the year of his birth – 1965 -and the subsequent trajectory of Nigerian politics which has since been dominated by those the Nobel Laureate describes as ‘brigands, parasites and unworthy custodians of power and authority.’

At age 5, the young Olukayode made his first ‘political outing’, joining in welcoming General Yakubu Gowon to Ibadan and the fact of his father being an Information officer in government soon exposed him at a very early stage in life to newspapers, many of which he read daily, thus imperceptibly learning and internalizing lessons in current and public affairs, especially politics that today stand him in good stead as they all combined to shape his career choices.

Parental guidance and early public awareness together with sound religious upbringing combined to inculcate in him discipline ,steadfastness ,compassion, vision, and focus. However, while the place of home training may have been totally incomparable in this discuss, the role of education peerless, and his entirely risky RADIO KUDIRAT exertions occupy a pride of place, what seems to me to have best prepared the governor for today was his matchless experiences in the UK, especially as a young, newly married man, studying and working; a period that left him with multiple life experiences not available in white collar jobs or acquired through reading books. This period saw him exposed to the variegated danger workers, especially blacks, got exposed to in what he describes as ‘the London underground job market, as typified by his two robbery attacks at dagger point by purported passengers and to one of which he lost, not only money but his wedding ring.

In terms of developing empathy, love and compassion for the other person, indeed for humanity, the leitmotif for his social security policy to cater for elderly citizens in the state, I do not think that anything, apart from his wife’s towering and ever constant positive influence, would compare in the governor’s past to the experience he garnered in the course of his active engagement, during this period, in local political organisation and, particularly, his involvement in the regeneration of the then completely run down Milton Court Estate and the entire Deptford area in South-East, London.

Of the people living in the area, wrote Dr Fayemi in OUT OF THE SHADOWS, ’ close to 60 percent were on housing benefits from the government and over 50npercent of school age kids were on meal subsidy in schools. Drug abuse was rife and crime among the idle youth was commonplace; deprivation, he wrote, was simply staggering. So touched, and concerned was he that he immediately joined a minority of individuals working towards ameliorating these extant conditions and ended up serving as Chair of the neighbourhood tenants and residents’ association whose duty it was to tackle the social, economic, environmental and physical problems through not just improving physical conditions but also ensuring improving housing management, diversifying tenure, attracting private investment and creating opportunities for training and enterprise.

Without a doubt, all the experiences gained in that project must have coalesced in all we see today in his midterm report card as governor of Ekiti.

Not just in Ekiti, but all those who followed from far and wide on television networks, online and through newspapers, must have marveled all this past week, watching governor Fayemi commission one project after the other. He inaugurated ten major roads spread all over the state as well as five water treatment plants just as he laid the foundations of truly millennial projects such as the Samsung I C T Centre, the new Government House and governor’s office, the State Pavilion amongst many others. He also did not only sign the Memorandum of Understanding with the Grand Towers Group of Companies but presented to its Chairman, the company’s Certificate of Occupancy at the signing ceremony. Among the enterprises the company will bring into Ekiti is the popular Shoprite Shopping Mall. He exuded such unbelievable vigor that all Chief Dele Falegan, a distinguished Ekiti elder and Chair of the state’s SURE-P Committee could do was pray that the good Lord ill continue to renew him. I simply crumbled, the only day I was on his all-week frenetic tour and that was when he visited my 2-part Local Government Area, having to address an appreciative and hugely turned out crowd at both Igede and Igbemo. As should be expected, both sides of the Local Government Area pleaded with the governor to split us into two local government areas.

This profile is, at best, a miniscule part of how Dr Fayemi’s past has shaped his persona; a decent, disciplined, caring, calm, focused and highly organized personality that Ekiti state could not have asked for more.

It is the reason he has aptly been named ‘THE ILUFEMILOYE 1’ -the chosen one -of Ekiti.

October 14, 2012
Wild, wild country

We must make life count

The two killing incidents, set apart by just four days, were as horrifying as the word can be. The one took place in the night when the day’s work was done and many had retired to bed; the other happened in broad daylight. On Independence Day, in Mubi, the second biggest town in Adamawa State, and its commercial nerve, students of the Federal Polytechnic sited there were in their hostel when guns began to boom. They sounded near at first, said one student; soon the gunmen drew nearer, still shooting. Panic gripped the hostel community. Everyone hurried into their rooms and locked their doors. But the visitors were on a mission they must accomplish. They kicked the doors open, shot and killed one student after another. At the end of the operation, over 40 students, according to some accounts, lay dead. The incident threw the polytechnic community into imaginable trauma. Friends and families of the dead were left in the deepest grief. The nation was in a daze, while the entire world stood stupefied.

That was one wild night in the Northeast of the country.

Four days later, and down south in Aluu, where the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, is located, four students of the institution faced the grimmest ordeal of their lives, none of them surviving to relive it. They were stripped naked and beaten until there was no life left in them. Finally, their bodies were burnt.

That was another wild outing.

Some reports blamed the Mubi attack on fundamentalists, while in Aluu, residents were said to have done the job.

Both incidents, not forgetting the killings in a Kano school within the same period, have sharpened up a whole new, horrifying angle in the country’s insecurity challenges. Schools have been attacked before, only now, there seems to be more boldness in taking on larger numbers of Nigeria’s young people secluded for the purpose of study. We must worry about the ease with which assailants invade our schools and kill young people being groomed for leadership. Our educational profile may not lift our spirits but we must worry when students are wasted. More fundamentally, we must worry when lives are wasted by people who neither have the sanction of the creator to do so nor the authority of the law of man. We must worry when mobs become accusers, prosecutors, judges and executioners in one fell swoop, as in the case of the Uniport Four, who were reportedly accused of stealing laptop computers and mobile phones.

Reports said a crowd watched with interest, even applauding, as the four, all below 22, were tortured to death and their corpses set ablaze. What do you make of such a scene and such an act? Such brutalities attack every claim we make to civility, and rebrand us a wild, wild nation.

Mob action or jungle justice did not start in Aluu, to be sure. All over the country, people have faced instant death at the hands of streetwalkers and bystanders, and for even the pettiest of offences. But for me, one nasty thing about such brand of justice is that the people dispensing it may be woefully unqualified for the job. Some who clobber mob victims to death may actually be thieves themselves. We can tell from the mob which was eager to slay a certain adulteress caught in the act.

But there are weightier concerns about jungle justice. It questions the character and professionalism of the police, the outfit whose responsibility it is to sort out civil disorders. How was it that a mob tortured and killed four undergraduates, then set their corpses on fire, an operation that must have lasted hours, without the police getting any wind of it? What do you make of such police? Again, why are people better disposed to taking the law into their own hands rather than reporting their concerns to law enforcers? Why has confidence in the police waned?

It is perhaps naive to conclude that the Aluu executioners were inspired by the assailants in Mubi simply because of the short space of time between them, but it is safe to say that unlawful killings, of which Nigeria has quite a pile, if not punished, pave the way for more of such barbaric illegalities. Heaps of files of unsolved murders are still with the police, as are bunches of reports on bloody communal and sectarian crises with government. Hope may have died out on those files being reopened or the murderers being brought to justice, and it is just this sort of profile that helps to reduce the value for life in the populace. In time, people with propensity to kill, begin to do so knowing that, as in the past, there is little or no chance of ever being caught and punished. Such scenarios make life seem worthless.

Everyone has a role to make things better, but people in authority have a bigger responsibility. You can tell if life matters in a local council if the chairman defends one threatened resident with all his soul. It is easy to see if a state or federal government cares for its people if a small endangered community is given the best possible attention.

Let’s make life count otherwise we are just one wild, wild bunch.

October 14, 2012