The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ropo Sekoni

  • At 60 : Kunle Ajibade, the hero that didn’t have to die

    Many of us have been asking: is this what we went to jail for? What has our entire struggle come to? Is it just a mere clearing of path for another set of murderers and looters? Right now, a cloud of despair hangs over our country. There is so much insecurity everywhere. Assassinations of key political personalities are rife all over Nigeria. An army of jobless youths roam our streets….—Kunle Ajibade in What a Country!

    Kunle Ajibade is given in this piece an oriki: ‘the hero that didn’t have to die,’ deliberately to underscore the fact he is a modern hero, i.e. one that takes personal risks for the common good and has time to share in the dividends of change. He is so nicknamed because his life has been, since I first came across him at the University of Ife (Obafemi Awolowo University) in the 1980s, characterized by twin preoccupations: striving to attain heights of professionalism and religiously applying such skills and knowledge to advancement of the common good.

    Like many of the members of his generation at Ife, Kunle started as a stellar student who not only spent time to digest required and recommended books like a glutton but also to convert the knowledge thus acquired to add value to Nigeria’s journey on the road to modernity, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, and not minding doing so and at the risk to of losing his own freedom and life.

    It is cheap to dwell on the academic readiness and accomplishments of a man of Ajibade’s post-university activities. But mention ought to be made about Kunle as a highly respected member of a generation of post-graduate students at the Department of Literature in English at Ife in the late 1970s/early 1980s, a generation which I enthusiastically characterized as ‘co-learners with their professors.’ Kunle and other members of his generation freed themselves of all distractions to the extent that they were each ready to do a book review or report on monographs of average length of 200 pages and to serve as lead discussant of a colleague’s book report or critique. The indefatigable post-graduate students in Ajibade’s generation also volunteered to interrogate their professors during review of previous class, once teachers in their self-confidence chose to open a new lecture review of the previous class. It was not surprising to hear that Kunle killed loneliness in claustrophobic prison room with reading and conjuring up an imagined community of authors to interrogate for three years in Makurdi prison.

    While the brilliance and industriousness of each student indicated that he or she would do well in their chosen careers, nothing indicated which of them would create a reputation for turning their means of livelihood into a profession of speaking truth to power, regardless of the risks involved in such professional and moral bravery. It turned out that many of them in varying degrees chose the path in their post-university years.The only hint in this respect was one suggestion made to me in a collegial manner when I loaned my most expensive book, Benison Gray’s The Phenomenon of Literatureto Kunle and Dapo one after the other. I asked which of them had failed to return the book as arranged. Kunle and Dapo shot back, “with due respect sir, I would suggest that you keep records of movement of your books.” I retorted, “among a community of friends?” Shortly after that, I accepted the saying: ”Ogbon ologbon kii je ka pe agba ni were” (many heads are better than one). Had Abacha countenanced this proverb, he would not have sent Ajibade to prison; he would have examined the logic of his articles about the consequence of stealing a mandate freely given to MKO Abiola.

    About a decade after leaving Ife, Ajibade, Olorunyomi, and other collaborators— Onanuga, Obasa, Ojudu, and others—established what became Guerilla Journalism War for democracy in the country. Almost all of them paid a heavy price for this under the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s most autocratic military ruler. Kunle was sentenced to life imprisonment for failing to disclose the source of information in a story published by TheNews, one of the papers alternating as guerilla warriors against Abacha’s tyrannical rule. George Mbah of Tell Magazine, Chris Anyanwu of the Sunday Magazine, and Charles Obi of Classique Magazine were also jailed, not to mention Shehu Yar’Adua, Olusegun Obasanjo, Beko Ransome-Kuti, and many others also on charges related to attempted coup against Sani Abacha, and the rest is history.

    Today’s tribute is not to congratulate Ajibade for his brilliance and many awards he must have received on account of his high intelligence. Intelligence or brilliance could have been the result of genetic transfer from his parents, but his flair for hand work is worthy of mention, as that must have been a choice he made, just like the brand of journalism he did. He made hard work a religion as a student, reporter, editor, and CEO. He has also devoted his energy and expertise since leaving university to struggle for a Nigeria of justice in which citizens’ rights are protected and considered inviolable by those in power. Hard work and struggle seem to be synonymous to Ajibade. To this wordsmith, hard work is not just about professional excellence but in his own words also about ideals, and consistent investment in working for human progress: “We pray too much in Nigeria. There’s nothing in this life you can get without struggling. You just have to be vigilant and resilient. So yes, prison was worth it.”

    Admittedly, the Ajibade school of human and social rights journalism did not start with his generation, but the Ajibade brand of it is on record as having institutionalized a journalism that is much larger than reporting what happens, one that is given to interpreting, explaining, interrogating, and confronting what happens under the watch of rulers, more so when and if what happens derogates from human and citizens’ rights.

    In everything Ajibade does, he has been an Omoluwabi to the core; balanced, polite, respectful, considerate, and forgiving. When he asked in What a Country! ten years ago at the presentation of the book, “Is this what we went to jail for?” he must have started a new dialogue about the country’s post-military polity, a dialogue that has refused to go away and remains on the table for those who sacrificed life, property, emotion, and personal energy to make Nigeria a modern democratic federation.

    Kunle, my family and I join other admirers and patriots in saying, “Happy birthday to a jolly good fellow, good health, long life, assured prosperity and fulfillment to a 60-year old hero of our time.”

    Roposek@msn.com

  • Little things that erode quality of education

    By the end of April, we are proposing there will be a declaration of state of emergency in the education sector all over the country. We request all the state governors to do same in their states and we hope that once this is done our educational sector will improve. I will also meet with the governors to appeal to them to give special emphasis to address the problem of low standard of education especially at primary level.—Adamu Adamu, Education Minister

    It will be no exaggeration to say that the current government has more social intervention programmes than anyone before it: National Homegrown School Feeding; NPower (Job programme for unemployed graduates); Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT); and Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme (GEEP). But as expected, human societies are dynamic and do generate new problems that require new attention from governments from time to time. Relatedly, two news items surfaced a few days ago: millions of Nigerian children are malnourished, a source of cognitive malnutrition or under-nourishment for children below five years and many of the teachers in private schools are unqualified to teach, a source of cognitive underdevelopment of children.

    The two problems do not concern the Minister of Education directly, but they are interrelated enough to be taken in one column, especially around a time that the Education Minister is expected to declare an emergency in the education sector and at a time that the Health Minister is signing memorandum with UNICEF to jointly provide malnourished Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for many children.

    The federal government has been active in the Social Investment Programmes it has set for itself since it came to power, spending billions already on the four SIP initiatives. But no serious government can afford to look away from news of children not having enough to eat to develop both physically and mentally as they should. It is, therefore, reassuring that the Minister of Health has enthusiastically signed to provide his ministry’s counterpart funding on provision of Ready to Use Therapeutic Food for children suffering from malnutrition and are at the risk of stunted growth—physically and mentally.

    But the long-term response to malnutrition needs to go beyond provision of RUTF. Perhaps, Nigerians act as too sensitive when they feel embarrassed at news about UNICEF and many other global Good Samaritans being called upon or rushing into the country on their own volition to provide special nutrition packs for children growing up in extreme poverty. That international aid givers are needed to provide nutritious paste to deprived children in Africa’s largest economy without any natural disaster or war is what some ‘self-conscious’ citizens believe the country can save for periods of national emergency. Apart from children in IDP camps, no young ones should be denied the nutrients they need to survive without becoming a burden to society later in life because of extremely poor feeding. Child malnourishment is a quick cause of making malnourished children develop severely limited brain power to cope with cognitive challenges. child malnutrition. Assisting poor parents to feed their children is as important as giving N5,000 to indigent senior citizens who, like children, are part of the country’s demographic groups that depend on others for care and even for survival. This is the source of Food Stamps for pregnant women and young children in many countries. Seeking foreign assistance to solve nutrition problems of children ought to be left for capital-intensive matters, such as Malaria, HIV-AIDS currently being provided by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which volunteered to carry such burden, or to any group in periods of war or national disaster.

    Similarly, the news from Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) about recruitment of unqualified teachers by private schools across the country portends danger for quality of education at all levels. The exposure in Kaduna much earlier that many of the teachers in Kaduna public primary schools were not trained teachers also indicates that with proper staff audit, many public schools in other states are likely to be populated by teachers without training for the job.  Given the fact that the fashionable thing to do in the country now is for entrepreneurs to start private schools-pre-school, primary, secondary, and tertiary in the cities and even in the rural areas—it is important for the government—central, state, and local—to pay more attention to quality control in private schools. This is not going to be an easy job for governments to do for as long as public schools are also operating largely without standard control and quality assurance mechanisms. But the country cannot afford to leave schools—private and public—unregulated, if quality of education is to rise from where it is at present and about which the Education Minister is eager to declare a national emergency.

    With respect to public school, unqualified teachers are accounted for largely by cronies of politicians in power who across the states hire their proteges as teachers as a quick way to distribute dividends of democracy. Meanwhile, hundreds of people with National Certificate in Education (NCE) are roaming the urban streets and village centers for jobs to no avail.  Particularly in the rural area, private schools have been known for long to depend on unqualified teachers to teach children sent to them by their parents and guardians. There are many villages in which private school teachers earn less than the minimum wage. I personally know of relations on N5,000 per month as pre-school teacher in private schools. Public schools do not have programmes for pre-school children. In both cases, the victim are young Nigerians enrolled in public schools manned by sycophants of politicians working as teachers with no training for the job or individuals without training but who are ready to earn N5,000 per month in private schools in the countryside. The effect is the same: ‘Garbage in, garbage out’ in preparation for other education levels.

    In the 1950s in Western Nigeria, special training was given to persons sufficiently literate and numerate to benefit from post-primary school of just seven years basic education. Such teachers received training to qualify as Grade III, went to earn teaching experience and returned to teacher training institutions for Grade II, and later Grade I, which at that time was equivalent to NCE of today. At that time, the government used this model to respond to the need for thousands of teachers demanded by its Free Primary Education Scheme. In the 1960s, a three-year NCE programme provided training for teachers. Since the establishment of many universities as from mid-1960s, all universities established education faculties for the training of teachers. It is, therefore surprising that teachers are still being trained in colleges of education in the first quarter of the 21st century when curriculum from pre-school to universities had become more complex and demanding in terms of content and method, especially teaching/learning technology. Even as we speak, it is students who are not qualified to enter universities and colleges of technology that are reserved as candidates for National Certificate of Education. There is no cheap way to attain quality in all levels of education—pre-school, primary, secondary, and tertiary, and those preparing the country for long-promised emergency in the education sector should take note. No country serious about its future reserves the teaching of their youths for candidates that are not admissible to universities and polytechnics. Like feeding children right while growing up, providing citizens education with quality, though expensive, is the only way to grow a nation with a future of dignity, prosperity, and tolerance. Good food, like good education, nurture a mind with force and a heart with feeling.

    Three Sundays ago, I said in the piece “Solar electricity with tears in Nigeria” that the Minister of Power et al, Babatunde Fashola, had announced that Nigeria might not have uninterrupted power until 2038. This paraphrase of the minister is not accurate, and I accept responsibility for the slip. The minister had mentioned 2030 as the date for the country to benefit from ongoing plans for energy mix projects that can lead the country to uninterrupted power.

    • Roposek@msn.com

  • Quality of undergraduate degree and fear of wrong solutions

    The universities are producing products that are not matching the needs of the industries. I urged the Committee of Pro-chancellors and Committee of Vice-Chancellor to end the decline in the standard of education,” he said.… Law students attend Law School for one year before going for NYSC and medical students go for one-year Housemanship before they are allowed to practice fully, so it will be necessary for other courses to also go through this process…. The Lagos Business School can also serve as a one year after-school training…. Anthony Anwukah, Minister of State for Education.

    The Minister of State for Education, Anthony Anwukah said recently that graduates from the country’s universities are unemployable because their knowledge does not meet the needs of industries. He said this at a retreat preparatory to National Universities Commissions’ plan to reform university education. The Minister added that his ministry is mulling over increasing the current four-year programme of study for undergraduate degrees in all disciplines to five years. One good thing about this announcement is that it has come in advance of efforts by NUC to reform university education, thus giving experienced higher education specialists and citizens in general adequate notice to intervene in pre-reform debate that is required for such a major policy initiative.

    The acknowledgment by the Education Minister is not new. Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala made similar remarks about six years ago, when she characterized university graduates as generally unemployable, without concluding in her own case that the problem would be solved by adding one year to the time to complete an undergraduate degree. Since the Education Minister too has not reached a conclusion on the matter, it is proper to warn policymakers at the Ministry of Education and their counterparts at the NUC that “mulling over adding one more year to residency requirement for an undergraduate degree” may not be a rational way to solve a problem whose cause does not seem to have been identified.

    Taking such a decision may be tantamount to facing the effects of a behavior without worrying about the cause(s) of such effects. How much longitudinal and latitudinal research has been conducted on the issue of quality of undergraduate education in the country? What are specific statistical and anecdotal evidence to support why Ghanaians, Sierra Leonians in West Africa and Ugandans and Kenyans in East Africa, as well as South Africans and Botswanans are able to produce undergraduate degree holders who can meet the needs of industries at the end of four years of residency?  The research needed to answer this question needs to be done before any rational policymaker can reach a decision on how many years would Nigerian undergraduates need to benefit from university education, if we have good reasons to assume that Nigerians are different from other nationals in this respect.

    More specifically, both NUC and the Ministry of Education ought to find out why students who attended Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello, Ife, Nsukka, Lagos, and other universities about twenty-five years ago acquired an education that matched the demands of industries after studying for three or four years. It is on record that most, if not all, of Nigeria’s stellar achievers attended some of the universities that the current generation of students unable to meet needs of industries attended.

    Further, policy wonks assigned the task of reforming the university system need to take a holistic and rational approach to finding solution to the problem of decline in quality of university training in the country.  Policymakers can benefit from a popular admonition of late Professor Sam Aluko.  Put less poetically than he did, the advice goes thus: ‘Anyone who sets out from the campus of University of Ife with the intention of going to Ibadan should not turn left at the main gate towards Ondo. After such turn, the faster such person moves, the longer it will take the traveler to reach his destination.’ All stakeholders: the professoriate, undergraduates, parents/guardians should resist any attempt by government—also a major stakeholder—to impose a solution that cannot solve the problem at hand but that may be more likely to create new problems.

    Nigeria is now a democracy rather than a military dictatorship. Many reforms had been made under military rule: federal government takeover of regional universities in the 1970s; introduction of 6-3-3-4 education system; establishment of National Universities Commission that came to have power over universities not owned by the central government; creation of  JAMB as a federal agency with powers to regulate admission to federal, state and private universities; and establishment of NECO to do the same job with WAEC. Changing length of study for first academic degree should not be handled in a hurry and without proper debate by the Senate/Congregation of federal universities.

    The issues involved in adding one year to academic to the number of years of study for first degrees are too complex to be handled without due reference to staff and students of federal universities, and non-federal universities need not be bound by any decision to increase the number of years for B.A. or B.SC. In all countries of the world, universities are not isolated from other levels of learning that provide students for them; primary and secondary education. There is no reason to single out the university system as the only source of decline in quality of learning. Serious research is important on decline in quality of education at all levels.

    Some economistic minds are already saying that an additional year in the university would delay entry into the job market by one year. But the disadvantages of an additional year are many. It will cost the federal government more money to run an already underfunded university system. Nigerian parents will need to pay for one extra year that their counterparts in other parts of the world don’t need to do. Making Nigerian undergraduates spend five years for a programme that requires four years elsewhere will give the impression that the brain power of Nigerians is less than that of their counterparts in other countries, thus marking Nigerians as slow learners. Such policy may make it harder for Nigerian graduates to get admission to international universities and even to get jobs because of the stigma of being slow learners who need five years to do the same amount of work that other nationals do in four years.

    But one good outcome from the recent special retreat preparatory to reforming education is that this important sector seems to be finally receiving needed attention. But the reform required seems to be much more complex than just adding one year to the length of study for undergraduate studies. It should include a reform that reduces central control over education in a federal system; that includes a policy to ensure full access to public education that provides adequate resources for improvement of quality of teaching and proper facilities for modern teaching and learning; consistent regulatory framework for private schools; and a comprehensive review of university curriculum (and of other levels of education) in relation to the demands of the 21st century.

    Reforming the university system without or before the other levels of education—primary and secondary—is not advisable and not a matter that should be attempted this close to national elections. Preparation of the nation’s children for the future is too important to be discussed dispassionately in the extremely partisan atmosphere of electioneering. Education reform in a country that used to get its graduates (after three or four yeas of residency) admitted to the world’s leading universities on the strength of their transcripts but now produces students with difficulties getting jobs in companies certainly deserves a robust debate and planning. But there is too much political distraction that can water down or confuse such debate a few months before national elections. The remaining part of the first tenure of President Buhari should be devoted to the research needed to provide insight on a problem that requires the full attention of all citizens.

    • Roposek@msn.com

  • Solar power with more tears in Nigeria

    The controversial Nigeria Factor now seems to be back to the arena of planning for power security in the country. Shortly after the Power and Education ministries announced a special initiative to provide solar-driven electricity to 40 universities and teaching hospitals and after the Minister of Power had announced on television that it would take till 2038 before Nigeria could have uninterrupted power, the Nigeria Customs Service imposed 10% duty on solar panels. Between the ministry of power and the country’s Customs Service, no efforts seem to have been made to coordinate efforts on supplying what Nigeria needs most direly: electricity to power factories and improve health care and education.

    It is bad enough in the era of global connection for young men and women to hear from their national television that it would take another 20 years for reliable electricity to come to their country. It is even worse for an agency, such as the Nigeria Customs Service, to make policies that can frustrate office holders and people in the private sector striving to reduce the pain of darkness brought to the country by failure of government to enable electrification through the model of diversification of sources of power. The world’s most advanced countries are increasing their power supply without hurting the environment by investing in and subsidizing production of technology for renewable energy: solar, hydro, wind, and biomass. But Nigeria’s government seems comfortable with discouraging through taxation adoption of alternative energy production model.

    The positions of producers of solar electricity and the spokesman for the Nigerian Customs Service show that the thinking that powers public policy is primarily about revenue to the coffers of government. Importers of solar panels claim that under the old Customs classification-85414000 attracted zero tariff while NCS’s new code-85013300 which now attracts 5% duty and 5% VAT believe the new code is sacrosanct. This thinking indicates how little is the concern of authors of the decision to impose 10% tariff on an extremely essential item for a country that had lived in darkness for most its post-colonial life. Knowing or witnessing how lack of electricity degrades the lives of citizens in general, citizens are in order by crying foul to imposition of tariff on solar panels. If policy making at the level of NCS is mechanical, it shouldn’t be so with other sections of government, particularly the legislature which needs to be more people-centered. It is scandalous that the National Assembly that is eager to emphasize its oversight role by inviting all manners of officials to appear before it has been unusually quiet about a policy that is likely to worsen the country’s energy problem.

    Since the onset of aggressive promotion of the benefits of solar energy worldwide, ordinary citizens in countries experiencing less difficulty in providing electricity from traditional systems have been hoping for direct solar power to individual homes and offices. It seems that the new desire for Internally Generated Revenue by NCS has come to dampen the spirit of such citizens. It is, however, unfortunate that policies are made principally on the strength of arbitrary change in classification of import items, regardless of how much such policy may further degradation of   the quality of life of citizens. Solar energy statistics had confirmed that the price of solar panels is coming down fast because advanced countries, not as threatened as Nigeria in terms of energy insecurity, are investing heavily and subsidizing generously the production of solar panels. Such countries include Japan, China, United States, United Kingdom, Spain, etc.  Isn’t it ironic that a country that needs as many sources of power as it can get is now discouraging adoption and promotion of renewable energy?

    Pundits are already manufacturing reasons for the policy that imposes more charges on private small businesses engaged in reducing the energy deficit that has become second nature to the country. One such explanation is the need to increase IGR to make up for the shortfall in loss of revenue from sale of petroleum. Another is the need to create a level-playing field for suppliers of both solar energy and of fossil-driven power.  Some even say that such policy will push Nigerians to manufacture solar panels. But none of these reasons makes sense in view of the gravity of the country’s failure to provide electricity to meet dire needs of citizens.

    On the issue of increasing IGR, isn’t the NCS acting on behalf of the federal government missing an important point about the relationship between government and the citizens that vote them into power? Is IGR automatically synonymous with citizen’s happiness? What research has been done to show that the more IGR is collected, the more pro-citizen development is achieved? The country has been one of the most enthusiastic rent seeking and collecting polities in the world for over half a century and yet has been unable to generate electricity for factories to stay in the country,  and for hospitals and schools to have reliable electricity to keep diagnostic centres or laboratories open for effective health care or learning. How much IGR is NCS likely to collect from private providers of solar electricity to match the gain from increased productivity of citizens and small businesses that can benefit from direct electricity from solar? Which one should come first—many citizens with opportunities to start business that can pay tax or a few providers of solar electricity that can pay tariff on imported panels? Policy advisers need to realize that obsession with IGR that can make up for loss in rent collection from petroleum in the first 15 months of the Buhari administration ought to try a new template that shows optimism about stimulating small businesses through subsidy for manufacturers of renewable energy. Hanging all hope about development on IGR may not be the best option for a government that has told citizens that reliable energy may not come until 2038.

    The argument that subsidizing production of solar power may be unfair to Gencos and Discos that also function as competitors to solar energy providers from non-renewable energy sources does not seem as logical as it looks. The advantage of renewable energy for the environment, particularly climate change and sustainability, makes the need to encourage renewable energy more urgent than subsidizing those to whom infrastructure for traditional sources of electricity have been sold at a give-away price by the Jonathan administration. Discos that are being pampered with pre-paid meters at less than market price and on long-term interest-free loan cannot be characterized as operating in a competitive market. Citizens are already calling existing Discos products of crony capitalism which are being protected through the new policy of imposing 10% duty on imported solar panels.

    The optimism that keeping the policy of zero tariff on importation of solar panels is likely to make solar electricity producers complacent to the point of not taking on the challenge of manufacturing solar panels locally is childish. Without electricity, no company can manufacture solar panels. We ought to have learnt this lesson when Dunlop and many other manufacturers took their companies from Lagos to Accra, after realizing that they could not stay in business without affordable power. Potential investors wonder why hotel rooms cost more than they do in any other country in West Africa, despite that salaries in Nigeria do not compare with those of peer countries in the region? The reason is that most of our hotels rely on generators, which cost more than fossil power that is hardly available in Nigeria. Government needs to assure citizens that discouraging expansion of direct solar electricity is not another ploy to help other cronies like Generator and Diesel companies. It was such favouritism that killed provision of electricity in the country in the first place. The rumour is that Generator companies have hired full-time lobbyists to push their interest among rulers. Creating additional hurdles for renewable energy through tariff may stifle change and innovation in a country that urgently needs change.

    Now that the government itself has said that citizens should not expect reliable electricity till 2038, it ought to look for ways to subsidize production of renewable energy, to break the vicious circle of the culture of deprivation that lack of electricity in the country has spawned for about half a century.

  • Fear for democracy: securitising politics or politicising security?

    He who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with diabolical powers and for his action it is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant.—Max Weber

    One sentence that has been popular in the country’s political space of discourse in the last few days is ‘politicisation of security’ i.e. subjecting community or nation to threats of its survival and its values by individuals or groups whose motive is to obtain or retain political power. The most recent of such attempts by President Buhari and other owners of discourse of security is the claim that people who “politicise security” through questioning the process of release of Dapchi girls expose themselves to being ‘dealt with.”

    On the other side of the political divide are those who present themselves as political liberals or liberal democrats. These people cry foul, warning that attempts to prevent them from asking questions that can give citizens, the donors of power to presidents, governors, and legislators full information about their country are tantamount to depriving them of a basic universal value in democratic governance—the right to know which forms an important part of the right to tell or state—freedom of speech. An older example of threat to democratic rights is the announcement that hate speech would be made punishable by death. And another is the claim that the governor of Benue is playing politics unduly with the killing of tens of farmers in his state.

    But there is an obverse side to the charge of politicising of security. And that side is what looks like the securitising of politics. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not using securitisation in relation to financial management; pooling various types of debt—commercial, residential, and credit card obligations to sell related cash flows to third party investors as securities or guarantee. By securitising of politics, I mean in the sense of the Copenhagen School or Theory in security studies, means “creation of a discursive process through which an understanding is constructed within a political community to treat something as an existential threat and to enable a call for urgent and exceptional measures to deal with the threat.”

    Put in a plainer language, members of a ruling or dominant group get so sensitive to words about the security of all that they resort to characterising citizens who complain or ask questions about official or state response to security challenges as persons politicising security. Those who in return are worrying about the tendency of those in power for securitising politics are bothered by witting or unwitting denial of citizens in a democracy of the democratic rituals that sustain democracy directly or indirectly. Such rituals range from periodic elections to allow the people a say in who becomes their ruler to the freedom to praise or blame rulers for whatever choice or attitude they take on issues important to citizens.

    Although maintaining security is within the jurisdiction of the executive, even in a democratic system, the need for secrecy about the process of ensuring survival of a community or state does not (and should not) give political leaders—executive or legislative—any excuse to abridge the freedom of expression and choice that sustains democracy by giving citizens convincing appearance of inclusiveness that makes citizens not in power believe in the fairness of democratic governance. In this respect, the temptation that rulers everywhere and under every system needs to be interrogated in a democracy, if such state desires to grow and thrive as a democracy.

    The notion that governance is not challenged or challengeable in a democratic system in respect of government’s method of securing the state and citizens is dangerous for both ruler and the ruled. Over sensitisation of rulers to complaints by official opposition parties or ordinary citizens is often a cause for demands on the part of governments and their partisans for tougher rules to discourage citizens in disagreement with rulers or their style of ruling. More importantly, there is a thin line between politics and other aspects of life in an organised state. Isn’t this why every modern nation starts with a constitution—negotiated in the case of democracy and imposed in the case of other systems? Without doubt, living in Nigeria is a political choice. Nigeria itself, like other modern nation-states, is a political construct, regardless of puerile statements about Nigeria being created by God. If human beings in the Nigerian State choose not to be a part of the construct, such decision would not be started by or passed to God. It is, therefore, honest for both leaders and the led to agree that politics is an integral part of the country’s existence. Even to declare a statement political is tantamount to the owner of the statement trying to be political.

    Our multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multicultural Nigeria is one huge country tied together by politics and better sutured by democratic politics and governance. Any attempt to curtail the space of politics, especially the space of freedom of speech in order to create an easier space for governance is fraught with dangers. Demonisation of persons complaining about governing styles that they consider inefficient or ineffective is not the best way to reduce the field of conflicts in a democratic diverse state like Nigeria. Debates – formal or informal – are indispensable to democratic governance. And all partisans of any national issue have a right to participate in the endless debates that define democratic rule.

    Rulers of the moment may make unforced errors by attempting to muffle or muzzle the voices of dissent wherever they may come from, even at a time of crisis. Such statements as the “Governor Ortom of Benue State is playing politics with the killing of Benue farmers by Fulani herdsmen” (be they from Mali, Niger, Chad, or Cameroon) is curing rash and leaving leprosy unattended. That General Danjuma is (or may be) playing politics with security for saying that the military is not acting impartially as it should or calling on citizens who feel unprotected to defend themselves smacks of attempting a conclusion while ignoring the major premise in a syllogism. The most important concern about such comments is finding out if such charges are true, and if so, what should be done to address such dangerous behaviour by police and the military in a multi-ethnic state. It is not the interest of democracy for any government to act or talk in a way that suggests talking politics is a bad thing that can degrade governance.

    The dangers in turning any complaint about governance into politicisation of perceived non-political parts of Nigeria’s life may be considered by citizens as a deliberate attempt to securitise politics, i.e. turn political remarks into a threat that needs to be forcefully removed. If the saying that became popular with Boko Haram terrorism: ‘security is the business of all of us’ is to have meaning, pro and con stances on important security issues should be encouraged. Doing otherwise is driving important complaints underground and making them more dangerous than they would have been, were they made in the open, as is expected to be in a democracy.

     

    Roposek@msn.com                                                                                          I will be on vacation for the rest of April.

     

  • Governors’ security details and police ‘mai guards’ for big men

    The police has recently announced its decision to cut security details for governors from 150 to 62. The decision was sequel to calls by President Buhari for liberation of hundreds of police men and women meant to protect the community from serving as Mai Guards in the homes and cars of powerful men and women in the society. The question that is likely to still remain on the minds of most citizens is why governors elected by citizens in a free and fair election would need 62 security details, sixteen years after the exit of military dictatorship. Citizens should also be worried about thousands of police officers attached to retired ministers, commissioners, and even local government chairmen in a country where the only time citizens see police men or women is on highways and street corners where police ask motorists for their driving and vehicle permits, preparatory to extorting them.

    In a way, the recent reduction of governor’s security details from 150 to 62 smacks of some commitment on the part of the IGP to the ethic of change. In the past sixteen years, governors and their wives, and often, children have experienced the generosity (or prodigality?) of the state. There was a time in the recent past when governors’ wives travelled with 40 security details and aides on the same day their gubernatorial husbands were on another assignment that required at least 60 gubernatorial power protectors. Should children of such governors also need to be somewhere else at the same time, they too were entitled to police men to secure them on their way to clubs, bars, or friends. It is still a common sight to see governors alight from their cars in the midst of 50 or more security details, even now that change is in the air.

    A few years ago, the governor of Dubai was featured on CBS 60-minutes Sunday documentary, riding a horse and stopping to talk to citizens and driving his own car and stopping to chat with citizens along the road. It was a moving scene of love and admiration between the ruler and the ruled. When asked why the governor would risk a foolhardy mingling with citizens without heavy police protection, he said that there was no reason for him to fear those whose interest he was working to protect and promote. In the governance style that we have in Nigeria, it certainly will be suicidal for most of our governors to see their guests off from their sitting rooms without tens of security details suffocating them and their guests. Such behaviour is typical in most post-colonial African states from Cairo to Cape Town and from Dakar to Dodoma. Our rulers in post-colonial Africa still see themselves as superior successors to the colonial governor and district officer who needed to be protected from the wrath and jealousy of blood-thirsty primitive natives God had brought them to Africa to civilise.

    The mention of jealousy of colonialists by the colonised is not to imply that there is no jealousy or even envy between those who rule and those who are ruled in Africa in the post-colonial moment. In countries under military rule, the rulers need protection against the electorate whose elected governments they displace by violence, more so when such military dictators repeat the political and economic sabotage of the state for which they dismiss elected civilians. Given the bellicose nature of multiparty politics in Nigeria, especially the hostility between ruling and opposition parties in a system that is characterized by an electoral culture in which the ruling party sees remaining in power as a life-and-death matter (Asabiyya), post-election politics often requires that winners be given absolute protection from envious opposition party members. The need for special protection for governors and other holders of political appointments may not necessarily have anything to do with the behaviour or policies of governors. Even in a properly constituted democratic government (rare in many post-colonial African states), it may be suicidal for governors with near people-friendly policies and programmes not to take extra caution about the ubiquitous thugs that such governors dream about every night.

    It is thus understandable that governors be given adequate protection, but 62 security details are still too many in a country with less than 400,000 police to protect 180 million citizens, not to talk of state and personal property that requires round-the-clock protection from citizens who rulers have ignored.  I have heard those who said that 62 security details should not be considered outrageous, if we truly recognise that our governors, regardless of the quality of their governance require protection against evil doers. Reducing governor’s security staff by 88 per governor leaves the country with additional 3,168 to return to the general pool to protect citizens. This is also a good time to seek more rationalisation in the allocation of state security personnel to non-gubernatorial big men and women as personal security guards.

    The IGP ought to know (and if not, needs to be reminded) that there are thousands of citizens perceived by the government as value-added super men and women who deserve special police protection in their homes, cars, as well as in the cars of their spouses and children. In many cases, such police men are seen carrying the bags of their oga’s wives to and from the market, standing behind them in party halls, and standing at the doors of beauty parlours each time such wives or daughters of rare value-added men choose to paint their nails. Under the category of men and women of political power, the culture is that those who had served as ministers, commissioners, speakers, local government chairmen, vice chancellors, and in other occupants of ‘high-wattage’ political offices have police attached to them for life. The list includes surviving ministers from governments overthrown by military dictators since the sudden end of Balewa’s government for unacceptable level of corruption. Even individuals who served under military governments in what is considered in the country’s political culture as larger-than-life capacity between 1966 and now are also being protected at the expense of the state. Even three months into the government of change, members of the previous executive and legislature are still being protected by police men in cars that have no tags and those that carry NASS plate numbers.

    There must be a better strategy for protecting citizens who had held political appointments before than just reducing the number of security staff attached to them. While governors and current ministers may have some reason to fear for their lives, because of perception of what they do or fail to do, there is no reason why the state should be spending taxpayers’ money on special protection for individuals who ordinarily should not be in harm’s (or ‘arms’?) way, months and years after leaving office. In an ethos of equality before the law and equal opportunity for all citizens, there is a need for the new National Security Adviser to think anew about how to make former political office holders feel at ease after leaving office. Letting such know ahead of elections that they are not entitled to any special protection after leaving office may make the attract less enemies while in power.

    There is also no logical reason to be renting government security staff to economic giants or billionaires who also feel unsafe, to the extent of requiring special police to watch over them in their living rooms. In the universities twenty-five years ago, vice chancellors did not have policemen running around them and their wives. But today, a vice chancellor without a police orderly is a rarity. Even some vice chancellors of state and private universities are now seen in public with police orderlies sitting beside their drivers on highways while it is impossible for any citizen to get police to respond to stress calls.

    There is so much advantage that advances in technology can provide to support governments’ efforts to protect the life and property of current and past political office holders, more so that electricity supply is expected to improve. Electronic surveillance, home alarm systems, security presence in communities rather than in the homes of individuals with political or economic power are some of such devices to release thousands of police men working as Mai guards for politicians to protect citizens and communities.

    This piece first appeared in this column early in the presidency of Buhari.

     

    • Roposek@msn.com

  • PVCs and order of elections

    If, truly, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had threatened to destroy 7.5 million unclaimed permanent voter cards (PVCs), the problem facing both the commission and citizens whose citizenship rights may be curtailed if about 20% of PVCs are undeliverable to their owners should be a source of major concern to many people.

    A hallmark of representative government is protection of citizens’ right to choose those who govern them. Most democratic polities see the freedom of citizens to choose as a sacrosanct element of democracy and a necessary condition for legitimacy of any government that claims to be democratic.  Such conviction explains why many democratic societies worry about threats to free and fair election. Compromising the integrity of elections in a functioning democracy includes any form of disenfranchisement, i.e. failure of the agency responsible for democratic elections to ensure that every citizen who registers to vote is provided with the certification that is needed to participate in elections.

    In democratic countries with proper organisation and logistics, registering to vote is generally seamless for the agency in charge of election and for citizens desiring to exercise the right to vote. For example, in North America and Western Europe, it is possible for citizens to indicate their interest in obtaining voting cards in the same place they obtain or renew their driving license or where they obtain or receive library cards. Citizens also receive voting cards through their postal addresses, without having to hustle for voting cards, as millions of Nigerians often do during election season. Most streets in the country have no postal addresses because there are no street names. The postal service is believed by many citizens to have withered immediately after the rise of digital economy.  Postal service is still active even in epicentres of digital civilisation. But in Nigeria, citizens are required to go to specified registration centres to first register and later return to collect PVC.

    Providing voter cards for citizens with a population of about 100 million eligible voters is certainly an onerous task. It is therefore not surprising that INEC is, less than one year to the 2019 national elections, still saddled with 7.5 million unclaimed PVCs. This must be the highest number of unclaimed PVCs since 1999. It is no longer news that millions of people in the Southwest could not collect their PVCs before the 2015 elections, with the result that the number of voters in 2015 was not proportional to the population of the region at that time, when compared with the other five regions. If over 1.5 million potential voters in Lagos State cannot obtain their voting cards a few months before the 2019 elections, the South-West may suffer the same fate that it did in 2015. Despite efforts of political parties to assist their members to register, making voting card available to each citizen of voting age is a right for all citizens and should not be treated as party matters only.

    INEC needs to explain why many millions of voters cannot obtain their cards in the third month of 2018. Citizens in the South-West have made their own problems known in many ways: letters to the editor; comments on the radio; and complaints by citizens at centres dedicated to collection of PVCs. Grievances of potential voters include crowded collection units and queues  that are too long for citizens to balance with demands of their jobs; failure of INEC staff to start work before 10 a.m. and their unwillingness to stay beyond 5 p.m.; longer distance than in previous elections between PVC collection centres and residential or work addresses of potential voters. A close family member of this writer had gone to collection centres several times in the last few weeks, without being able to collect her PVC, after moving on the long queue for four or more hours. No excuse should be acceptable for INEC, if just one citizen is unable to obtain a card with which to vote, let alone having over seven million uncollected PVCs that INEC is threatening to destroy, if not collected. For example, MKO Abiola Gardens with close to 400 housing units had a centre for residents for 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, and 2015 elections. It does not have a place within the estate to register or collect voter cards this election season.

    As a creation of military government, INEC has existed for barely two decades, thus making the commission’s use of military language sound attractive to INEC officials. While it is not surprising that the agency uses a language register that makes it look like an agency doing citizens a favour, it needs to be stressed that INEC exists to serve the interest of every voter. It is wrong for the agency to threaten destruction of PVCs when it has not shown any evidence that it has addressed citizens’ complaints about collecting PVCs in different parts of the country effectively. In the short run, the challenge for INEC is to expand and improve facilities for citizens to collect their PVCs without undue hardship, such as they currently experience.

    And in the long run, the legislature ought to re-conceptualise and re-energise the commission to strengthen the agency to function as its counterparts in other functioning democracies do. The agency should not have to conduct too many elections between national elections as it now does, gubernatorial elections out of season because election petitions were not settled as they should have been by the judicial wing of government at the end of past elections. Apart from by- elections arising from death or infirmity, INEC should be allowed to concentrate on getting ready for national elections every four years, not to spread its energy to conduct other elections that seem to wear the agency out. There is need for a creative response to scattered governorship elections that had plagued the country for too long.

    Relatedly, news about ‘face-off’ between the presidency and the legislature with regards to proper order of elections is, to use popular parlance, an unnecessary overheating of the polity. There should have been no reason for this, if the country has not failed to improve voter literacy well enough for citizens to be able to cope with the heavy paper work of conducting all elections on the same day. There is no good reason why both federal and state elections cannot hold on the same day. Both the presidency and the legislature have good reasons to be concerned about fear of Bandwagon Effect. Nigerians have shown on several occasions, as they do by waiting in long lines to collect PVCs, that they are ready to make the sacrifice required to sustain free and fair elections. Those who were adults in the 1970s would remember that the fear of Bandwagon Effect was the beginning of political wisdom in the era of National Party of Nigeria (NPN). We need to do what other democracies do: conduct all national and state elections on the same day to allay genuine fears on all sides of the political spectrum.

    Nothing is likely to be lost should INEC hire three sets of electoral workers to work uninterrupted for 24 hours on election day: from 6am to 2pm; 2pm to 10pm; and from 10pm to 6am; and another two sets to complete counting and collating on the second day. Though literacy rate in Nigeria is lower than that of many countries in Africa, the average voter can still cope with the complexity of voting for five positions: president, senator, member of House of Representatives, governor, and state assembly representative on the same day. Citizens can benefit from special training on how to manage the stress of such intensive voting, if they are convinced that it is the best way to avoid anything that can compromise free and transparent choice of voters. The fear that holding both executive and legislative elections on the same day will be too cumbersome for both voters and INEC smacks of exaggeration. For example, the population of voters in the United States is about double the number of voters in Nigeria, yet both presidential and gubernatorial, as well as Congressional elections hold on the same day.

    INEC should be strengthened financially and technologically to provide leadership for holding executive and legislative elections on the same day. One year is long enough to sensitise voters and prepare them for one-day election in 2019. INEC can ask that the day of national and state elections be a work-free one, to make it easy for logistics and for voters to concentrate on this important civic duty.

  • Death for hate speech: one law too many

    Death for hate speech: one law too many

    In theory, there is nothing wrong with attempts to control hate speech, particularly after its definition has been clearly established.

    The fundamental human right, we should say, is the right to be treated with a certain attitude: an attitude that expresses the understanding that each person is a human being whose dignity matters. . . . Someone’s most basic human right, from which all other human rights flow, is his right to be treated by those in power in a way that is not inconsistent with their accepting that his life is of intrinsic importance and that he has a personal responsibility for realising value in his own life.—Ronald Dworkin in Principles for a New Political Debate: Is Democracy Possible Here?
    States Parties condemn all propaganda and all organisations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form, and undertake to adopt immediate and positive measures designed to eradicate all incitement to, or acts of, such discrimination and, to this end, with due regard to the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rights expressly set forth in article 5 of this Convention.— International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

    The first part of the epigraph overleaf refers particularly to American political culture once studied by Ronald Dworkin. In many ways, the principles invoked in Dworkin’s book apply to the practice of democracy universally, and more directly, to the reading of a new bill in the Nigerian legislature to enact a law that, among other things, sets out to punish Hate Speech with death by hanging. The second one is the first part of Article 5 of International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which specifically addresses the danger for harmony in countries and across the world of all manners of discrimination and the need for signatories to protect the rights of all citizens from assaults verbal and physical on account of race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, etc.

    In the past few days, the Nigerian Senate has been considering a bill to address what the sponsor sees as the danger of Hate Speech, which is viewed as a form of discrimination against a person or group. In the few days of the life of the bill, now in its second reading, many patriotic democrats and citizens have already registered strong opposition to any law that sets out to derogate from the most basic of citizens’ rights in the country: the freedom of speech and expression. The interest of today’s column is, in imitation of Dworkin, to raise issues with the level of political discourse, especially among people voted to make laws for the country and the level of understanding of the spirit of the constitution by such lawmakers, namely, that laws will not be made that are in consistent with the provisions of the constitution, especially Fundamental Rights: to life, dignity of human person, to personal liberty, to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, to freedom of expression and the press, and restriction on and derogation from fundamental rights (Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution).

    The latest news from the Nigerian Senate is a bill sponsored by Sabi Abdullahi (Niger-APC).  The bill seeks the establishment of an Independent National Commission for Hate Speeches to enforce hate speech laws across the country and ensure the elimination of hate speech. The bill proposes that, “A person who uses, publishes, presents, produces, plays, provides, distributes and/or directs the performance of any material, written and/or visual, which is threatening, abusive or insulting or involves the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” commits an offence for which punishment will range from five years imprisonment to death by hanging for those whose hate speeches lead to the death of another person or a group of persons.  The sponsor of the bill goes further on why the bill is needed: “In the past couple of years in this country, hate speech is driven by many variables; the issue of religion and ethnicity and because of that, a lot of lives have been lost. They question I want to ask is why.”

    In theory, there is nothing wrong with attempts to control hate speech, particularly after its definition has been clearly established. Without such definition, hate speech may become too nebulous to be proved. For example, many farmers in the last few years of incessant attacks from Fulani herdsmen—be they from Nigeria, Niger, Mali, or Chad—have overtly referred to their molesters as Fulani herdsmen. Many Nigerians have complained that such classification is ‘hate speech.’ Even though all law-enforcement agencies have not confirmed that such herdsmen are not Fulani. Such absence of another identity for the herdsmen throws up the need for a much clearer definition than what is before senators. From Senator Abdullahi’s emphasis on religion, religious comments by Muslim clerics and Christian clergy that ridicule and demonize African traditional religion is likely to be a matter for litigation. Such words as Kafir or Keferi or Aborisa will become an example of hate speech.

    Many countries: UK, USA, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, South Africa, etc., have addressed in their laws the concept and practice of hate speech through their penal codes. I am not sure that existing laws against libel, defamation of character, slander, sedition, cannot take care of what the proposed bill calls hate speech. If it does, then Nigeria needs to learn from the African-American saying: “If ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But if the sponsor and his supporters believe that none of the existing laws in the penal and criminal codes is good enough, then senators need to do what other countries do: do ample research on the spread of hate speech in the country and consult fully with their constituents before rushing to create a law that may become either an albatross or the opening of a Pandora’s box.

    Many commenters have drawn attention to the deployment of the Nigeria Factor in the bill under consideration in the senate. For example, citizens are worried that the bill may be become a mechanism or excuse for political repression or silencing of political dissent. The country has a robust law in respect of all manners of homicide—manslaughter, murder, etc. Citizens are worried why such laws cannot be used to take care of people who talk other individuals or groups of persons to death, directly or indirectly.

    More concerning is the creation of an Independent National Commission for Hate Speeches. While the punishment of persons accused of hate speech falls into the jurisdiction of the judiciary, creating a special bureaucracy that will also put detection and punishment of hate speech within the control of the executive branch of government creates fears for members of political parties that are in competition with the ruling party at any time. Of the many countries that have created laws against hate speech, it is hard to find anyone that establishes a commission that may compete with the judiciary on such a sensitive matter. If citizens are already complaining about politicisation of the EFCC, it is not surprising that citizens and groups are already expressing doubts about politicisation of the proposed anti-Hate Speech Commission.

    As some lawyers have argued, the Hate Speech bill currently in the Senate has the capacity to derogate from a constitutionally guaranteed Fundamental Right, the freedom of speech and of the press. Despite the recurrent proviso in the 1999 Constitution: “Nothing in this section (Fundamental Human Rights) shall invalidate any law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society,” there is an urgent need for proponents of Independent National Commission  for Hate Speeches to establish that the law as constructed fits into the category of laws in a democratic society, i.e. it does not derogate from citizens’ fundamental human rights. To assist the senators, citizens in their constituencies do not need to wait for them on such important matters. Constituents should go to senators to exchange ideas on what bills they consider democratic or not, before they are passed.

     

  • President Buhari’s comment on Yoruba worldview

    President Buhari’s comment on Yoruba worldview

    A simple illustration is the solidarity found in multi-religious Yoruba families between husband and wife during Ramadan and Lent. 

    As the electioneering season approaches politicians must avoid exploiting ethnicity and religion by linking ethnicity with religion and religion with politics. Such must be avoided at all costs if we are to live in harmony. In this respect the rest of Nigeria could learn from the South Western States who have successfully internalised religion, ethnicity and politics—President Muhammadu Buhari’s New Year Speech.

    I had forgotten about the president’s New Year speech after doing a Sunday piece on the president’s separation of process from structure. Since many of my regular readers have insisted that I comment on the president’s short lesson in Yoruba sociology, well captured in the epigraph overleaf, I succumb today to the pressure to comment on the President’s short but full-bodied comment on the Yoruba Character.

    Any attempt by our leaders to understand the cultural differences that make our polity and society diverse ought to be encouraged. The difference between Nnamdi Azikiwe’s famous statement, “Let us forget our differences” and Ahmadu Bello’s “Let us understand our differences” seems to be paying off half a century after the two founding fathers make the famous comments and almost twenty years after the departure of military rule. Appreciating the culture of the other, such as President Buhari did in his 2018 New Year message, is one of the gains that can add value to the development of a multi-ethnic and multicultural Nigeria, just as borrowing models from global best practices does to individual countries in the context of globalisation.

    But my focus is not to comment on the extent of the president’s sincerity in what looks like an acknowledgement of the most cited value of the Yoruba: openness to diversity. I have no reason not to believe that the president was sincere when he made such comment voluntarily. Many of his critics have not accused him of insincerity or grandstanding for this comment. I believe President Buhari means what he said in his New Year Speech about Yoruba culture, especially his emphasis on the value of tolerance of cultural and religious plurality as a necessary condition for peace, stability, and harmony in a multiethnic and multi-religious society like Nigeria. What the president could not have included in his short speech is reference to cost and benefit of making the entire country adopt a value referred to by the president as ‘successful internalisation of religion, ethnicity and politics.’

    To break down President Buhari’s concept of “internalising religion, ethnicity, and politics” in simpler terms, this statement underscores the centrality of tolerance of difference or diversity in the three major realms of self and group definition or identity: religion, ethnicity, and politics. It must have taken the Yoruba many years of experiment and experience to come to accept that what matters most for interaction with others is readiness to respect the humanity of such people and see them as agents of history rather than pawns, regardless of how they differ from each other in the God they worship or the way they worship God or which political party they identify with. The imperative to respect the humanity of the other more than an individual’s way of expressing his or her humanity forms a major part of socialisation among the Yoruba, even though this is prone to challenges from day to day. But President Buhari’s observation is largely correct, despite new challenges to socialisation of young ones in the Yoruba region of the country. One of such challenges is failure to ensure that children are competent linguistic members of their culture.

    Largely, tolerance of plurality of perspective as a foundational principle of managing differences and grievances exists in many other Nigerian cultures, but it seems to be most noticeable among the Yoruba. For example, it is normal for spouses in a Yoruba multi-religious family to allow each other to belong to whatever religion each has grown up with or prefers to identify with. A simple illustration is the solidarity found in multi-religious Yoruba families between husband and wife during Ramadan and Lent. Similarly, political ideologies are generally not allowed to separate families. This came to national attention in 1979 when two brothers in Lagos belonged to two starkly different political parties: UPN and NPN without any trace of bitterness. Some pundits not familiar with the nuances of this culture cried foul and called such behaviour the height of opportunism. It was not opportunism but tolerance of plurality.

    Is the President right to call for adoption of this value by other cultural groups in Nigeria? He is. The only surprise is that the country’s political leaders had avoided this cultural model in the construction of the country’s laws and institutions for the long period of military rule and feudalisation of governance  for which military dictators are known all over the world.  The danger not recognized by Buhari’s short reference to Yoruba culture is that the military or feudal mode of governance is fast becoming attractive to many politicians across political parties and cultural zones today, largely because such model had existed for long enough for many politicians not to see it as normative.

    President Buhari’s recommendation of Yoruba tolerance for diversity in major areas of human experience certainly requires a Cost and Benefit analysis. For individuals to adopt “internalisation of religion, ethnicity and politics,” it will require readiness on the part of individuals to accept the need to reduce the size of their power or control over others that they ought to accept as fellow agents rather than subjects or subordinates in the journey of life. Put more simply, individuals need to live as if others are their partners rather than vassals as they are generally seen to be in feudal political systems. If borrowing a model of religious and ethnic tolerance is to take the route of socialisation of individuals, it may take centuries for the polity and society to develop the respect for plurality of perspective that a multi-cultural state requires to function in harmony.

    It is, therefore, necessary to adopt an institutional approach that can influence individuals to move away from almost half a century of feudalisation of  political process and homogenisation of perspective that had been in vogue on and off in the country since 1966.  It is important for President Buhari to recognise that the energy being put by Yoruba individuals and organisations into demand for re-federalisation of the country results from the Yoruba tolerance of difference, rather than from an attempt to water down what other groups perceive as advantages of history— from colonialism to decades of military rule.

    President Buhari’s apprehension of the good side of Yoruba political and religious laissez-faire political system is part of a worldview that can strengthen the federalist spirit which President Buhari promised during his 2015 campaign. The thrust of the 1999 Constitution is anti-federal and derives from a worldview hobbled by too much centralisation that suits military rule. He does not need to be second guessed for citing aspects of Yoruba worldview as foundation for peace and harmony in a multicultural society. He ought to be congratulated for seeing the way out of the morass into which the country has been pushed since the rise of unitary governance model for a country that requires a federal system that can sustain peace and progress for all.

    • Roposek@msn.com

  • Lagos language law: giving federalism a soul

    If Nigeria’s most cosmopolitan state can see the wisdom in encouraging children to learn in their mother tongue, other Yoruba states have no reason not to borrow a leaf from the Lagos State government.

    Today’s piece is dedicated to the memory of Akinwumi Isola, a man of high knowledge and culture who devoted a great deal of his intellectual energy to promotion of learning that takes advantage of the role of mother tongue and other languages in the acquisition of knowledge in a modern world that has provided so much to facilitate bilingual and multilingual education in a multicultural world.
    Every two weeks, one of the world’s languages disappears, along with the human history and cultural heritage that accompany it….A language is far more than a means of communication; it is the very condition of our humanity. Our values, our beliefs and our identity are embedded within it….It is through language that we transmit our experiences, our traditions and our knowledge. The diversity of languages reflects the incontestable wealth of our imaginations and ways of life.—UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azouulay at the 2018 Mother Language Day: Mother Language Day with the theme “Linguistic Diversity and Multilingualism Count for Sustainable Development.”

    The recent signing of the Lagos State Yoruba Language Preservation and Promotion Law (LSYLPPL) calls for congratulations to both the legislature and the governor of the state. The law has been long in coming but it is gratifying that it has come before self-imposed cultural anomie comes to the state because of the erosion of cultural values and identity in a state that has become a laboratory for multicultural literacy in the country. Lagos State is one state that has sacrificed so much of its resources and identity for the unity of Nigeria, having served first as a political capital of the country and ever since as the country’s commercial and cultural capital. Enacting a law that can sustain the state’s identity, improve cognitive development of its youth, create a pedagogy that nurtures innovativeness while also developing a huge cultural economy in the state is a welcome development.

    LSYLPPL has come to address many educational practices in the state that hitherto had been driven by misconceptions birthed and nurtured by parents under the influence of ungrounded theories about the role of mother tongue learning in academic achievement and confidence building of the child. Governments in a state comprising Yoruba-speaking Lagos Island, Badagry, Epe, Ikeja, and a huge population of people from other parts of Nigeria who have chosen to make Lagos State their home have responsibility to promote bilingual literacy. For long, governments in the state have had to focus on other pressing problems: making sure all children can attend school during the day rather than in the afternoon; providing adequate learning infrastructure for millions of children of school age; training and retraining of teachers; and increasing the number of schools in a city-state with a population estimated to be about 20 million. It is commendable that LSYLPPL has come at a time that physical infrastructure has stabilised in the state, after many years of positive intervention by various governments in the state.

    Lagosians have for too long condoned or ignored parents’ misconception that denying children   opportunity to use their mother tongue in school is a primitive thing that has no benefit. To many parents, restricting their children to use only English in school and at home is not only a sign of sophistication but also a means of preparing such children for a life of eminent success, which parents erroneously believe can be aborted if such children learn in their mother tongue. While private schools may get away with this untested theory that grew largely among illiterate parents and parents who are first-generation middle-class members in a social and economic context in which their academic credentials have given them noticeable social mobility, public education should not be encouraged to do so. What the new law has done is to de-program parents and guardians who have chosen the wrong route of educating a child in a post-colonial country like Nigeria. It is cheering that the new law has come to rescue children from problems of access, ease and quality of learning, general cognitive development, and academic achievement of children in Lagos State. This is the kind of law that should be emulated by other states across the federation.

    With signing of a law that encourages teaching and learning in mother tongue (L1) without any prejudice to acquiring simultaneously knowledge of and in L2 and L3 in multilingual and multicultural Nigerian federation, Lagos State government has another feather to its nest of problem solving governance. This is a good complement or reinforcement of the National Language Policy: ensuring that children acquire literacy in their mother tongue, one other Nigerian language in addition to English as the lingua franca. Such policy is in sync with language in education policy in communities that are multilingual: Canada, Belgium, Singapore, Switzerland, Nicaragua, Scotland, and many others. Nobody can thrive in the EU today without being bilingual. Bilingual or multilingual education in Hausa, Arabic, and English had existed in most of the states in the North since the amalgamation of Nigeria.

    Similarly, most of upper and middle-class people in the old Western Region and Lagos studied under the model of bilingual education. For example, most of the people  who have been stellar performers in knowledge-driven careers in the Yoruba region of Nigeria, like their counterparts in other regions: the father of Nigeria’s decolonization, Herbert Macaulay, top politicians like Obafemi Awolowo, Ladoke Akintola, top civil servants like Simeon Adebo, Tejumade Alakija, Nigeria’s only Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, and other stellar writers: Akinwumi Isola, Femi Osofisan, Niyi Osundare, Daniel Fagunwa, and top academics/vice chancellors like Hezekiah Oluwasanmi,  Ifedayo Oladapo, Ojetunji Aboyade, Oladipupo Akinkugbe, and all recipients of National Merit Awards in Western Nigeria, Sylvester Adegoke,  J.F.A. Ade-Ajayi, and many top achievers within and outside Nigeria, too numerous to mention in this short essay, are products of bilingual or multilingual education. The theory that it is when students do none of their learning in L1 that they can achieve is patently false. It is thus laudable that Lagos State government has chosen to take the bull by the horn.

    As expected, criticisms of the law have started to grow within the few days of the governor’s signing of the legislation and should be expected to grow further. As mordant as such criticisms may be, it is important for the state’s governor and legislature to rest assured that they have courageously thought outside the box of unplanned monolingual learning in a growing ethos of local and global multilingualism. Parents and guardians are certainly going to worry about the requirement for a Credit in Yoruba for admission to Lagos State’s higher education institutions. Such parents do not need to call for an end to the law because of this requirement. All they need to do is to appeal to the government to delay enforcement of that item for three years during which students currently in JSS3 can enrol for Immersion Yoruba course for the next three years, if their preference for tertiary education is for Lagos state institutions.

    With the Lagos State Yoruba Language Preservation and Promotion Law, the government of the state is a trailblazer for other states in Western Nigeria interested in saving their language, culture, values, and identity while connecting their learning to global civilization via English. The government of Lagos State should be proud of its prescience in respect of disappearance of languages every two weeks, acknowledged by the UNESCO a few days ago. It is also fitting that the law was ready for signing before the BBC took a bold step to make sure that at least three Nigerian languages: Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba are promoted through such a global news network.

    Certainly, citizens who have gotten used to teaching and learning only in L2 need to make major adjustments, just like their children and wards who have been victims of such choice by their parents in the past. And the government of Lagos State ought to do its best to make the transition smooth for those currently experiencing a philosophy and practice of education that shouldn’t have occurred in any part of post-colonial Nigeria. If Nigeria’s most cosmopolitan state can see the wisdom in encouraging children to learn in their mother tongue, other Yoruba states have no reason not to borrow a leaf from the Lagos State government. Congratulations to the government of Lagos State.

    • Roposek@msn.com