Category: Tatalo Alamu

By Tatalo Alamu

And whilst we are still on the issue of the desecration of our values and institutions by politics, it is meet to report on even more ominous developments. The chickens are coming home to roost faster than we expect. It is not possible to harvest yams after you have planted cassava. In the ever turbulent and politically combustible west, it does appear as if the Amotekun Revolt will be accompanied by the Yoruba equivalent of the Boxers’ Uprising.

The week began with the news making the round that a prominent Oba in Osun State has beaten his royal colleague in the same domain to a pulp at a peace meeting and in full view of a serving Assistant Inspector General who had facilitated the meeting in the first instance. It was reported that the meeting was called to avert bloodshed over the ceaseless and unregulated sale of land by the royal fathers. But blood flowed before palm wine could flow.

As if this was not enough “Iroyin Kayefi”, the week climaxed with a viral video of another prominent Oba, this time in Lagos State, being publicly disgraced and humiliated by touts and area boys over a land dispute. Kabiyesi eventually took to his heels with his assailants in hot pursuit. The irony was that he knew the chief culprit by name as he repeatedly called out the name in royal consternation. But this was not going to faze the chap who rained foul imprecations on absconding royalty.

Just as the week was going into final recess a mysterious video surfaced of a very angry young boxer obviously of Yoruba extraction threatening fire and brimstone over the mismanagement of sports particularly prize boxing in the country. The irate youth threatened to knock out any boxing official who came near him even as he virtually renounced his Nigerian nationality.

Echoes of the Boxers’ uprising, or is it Simon and Garfunkel? The obaship institution in the old west has taken quite a pounding in recent times. Some rascals, reprobates and rogues have found their way into royal plumage in obvious contradiction of a Yoruba saying that you cannot procure the title of a strongman with monetary inducements.

Unless there is urgent reform of the vexed issue of landed property particularly among the Yoruba people which takes into consideration the complex history of the people, the diluted feudalism and the growing awareness among the people that the authority of the Oba flows from secular laws and not divine rule, land racketeering is going to destroy the royal institution in the land of Oodua.

As snooper was pondering these ominous developments and their implications for a sacred Yoruba institution that is the envy of even some western societies not to talk of neighbouring nationalities, Okon suddenly barged in dressed like an Omdurman dervish complete with dark goggles and a carved walking stick to match. From his devilish smiles and cynical giggles, it was clear that the errant clown was up to something sinister.

“Oga, I wan quickly reach dem Yoruba town near Ibadan where dem dey dispose dem Tyson Fury oba after he come finis dem other oba for two fighting. Oga na real helele. Dem blow dey come like dem Obudu thunder. He don reach my family turn. Sikira mother na princess for dem place”, the mad boy jeered.

“Okon, you better stop putting your useless mouth in a matter beyond your ancestors’ ken. Since when have they started making kukuruku touts like you Yoruba oba?” snooper screamed at the mad fellow.

“Ha oga, all dat na yeye grammar. Abi no be dem thin we dey say? Even if say na gogodogo dem make king, him no go behave like dat boy”, the mad boy shot back.

“My God, has it come to this in Yoruba land? “ snooper mused in wounded self-regard.

“Oga, dem one dat laugh me pass na dem other oba. Him come give small boy dirty slap and small boy come reply am gbua. Baba come run to him car. I think say na ogbonge juju him go bring but na yeye phone baba come bring, so dem small boy hit am again gbigi and baba come pick race. Dem Yoruba say goat wey run from fight na power him go get but baba take style comot dem place. And him sabi dem boy well well because him dey scream, Shina, Shina!!! Juju no dey work again”, the mad boy sniggered.

It was at this point that that snooper aimed an idle shoe at the boy’s cranium.

Tatalo Alamu

 

TO the modish and trendsetting Sasangele Television Station in Shangisha where Mama Igosun is fielding questions on Yoruba cuisine and ancient culinary culture to wild approval and approbation from the excited audience. Nativism is in the air in the old West. The entire region is swamped by what can only be described as Amotekun nationalism.

Amotekun has become the omnibus vessel for distilling ancient and contemporary grievances against the Nigerian post-colonial state. There are now Amotekun caps, Amotekun vests, Amotekun undies, Amotekun charms and Amotekun soothsayers. Amotekun has taken a life of its own carrying everything before it.

Mama Igosun has been riding the wave with aplomb. After a local radio show in which she enumerated without blinking or stumbling over her words sixteen different native ways of poisoning an adult, she became an instant celebrity and much sought after traditional savant and consultant on metaphysical conflagrations.

The only exception to the rule was the old recalcitrant and Stalinist nationalist, Baba Lekki who dismissed the whole Amotekun brouhaha as nothing but bourgeois claptrap and neo-Tarzan razzmatazz by failed politicians. Based purely on account of her frail and fragile health, snooper had advised Mama Igosun to take things easy. But the old Amazon was having none of this civilized humbug.

“Wo, Akanbi make I warn you. Even your papa no fit tell me where to go. You be gentleman like your papa, but me I no be gentle lady at all at all. I been dey follow Funlayo Daley before before”, the old warrior exploded.

“And who is this Funlayo Daley?” snooper asked in alarm fearing the onset of dementia.

“ Sebi you say you don read history past ten books? Yeye boy, no be Fela’s mama him name be dat before him come marry dem Daodu man?” the old woman sneered at a deflated snooper as she stormed out, pointing her walking stick contemptuously at the sky.

Mama Igosun was still poking the air with the same walking stick a week later as she arrived at the stylish postmodernist studio of  Sasangele  Television Station to field questions on the contents and discontents of Yoruba cuisine and the uses of horticultural hostilities in times of nomadic aggressions induced by climatological changes. After heavy makeup and preliminary pleasantries, the old woman who now resembled a fearsome cadaver, began raising hell.

“Ma, how about some cake and tea?” an angelic-looking hostess with a sweet voice offered.

“Me I no dey take yeye pancake and dem Sambisa tea. He good say I don branch for mama put to whack dem orisirisi before I dey waka come here. Or you get Bandaranaike tea?” the ancient contrarian demanded with a haughty stare. The hosts and hostesses exchanged anxious glances of horror and disquiet wondering what the mumbo-jumbo meant.

“Ah you see dem yeye people? Bandaranaike na original tea from Ceylon. Na dem name of them woman first president be dat after dem pieces him husband,” The old woman crowed and burst into a devilish grin even as she pressed her advantage.

“Bia, if you no sabi dat one how you go sabi dem next one? Wetin osculate me come mean?” the fiery old woman demanded even as members of the audience shifted on their chairs to avoid her searing and coruscating gaze.

“You see now, osculate me mean kiss me. Na dem thing we dey stich for our pillow cases and him dey make our oga go gaga like dem mad goat. After dat na real Iponkiri”, the ancient devil sniggered even as she giggled like a naughty girl. The audience clapped in wild rapture. An excitable man jumped up and began to chant her praise with feverish relish.

“Iya mi osoronga, afinju aje ti f’agbari omo tuntun mu’ko l’oru” ( the great witch who drinks pap with a child’s scalp in the dead  of the night), the crazy man crooned. Mama Igosun nodded in appreciation as the crowd roared in approval. It was at this point that one of the hosts, an uppity-looking young man in his mid-thirties, decided to force the rowdy proceeding by returning to the original purpose of the interview.

“Iya Agba, how many types of yams do we have in Yoruba land?” he demanded.

“Ah dat one we get am for ewura, igangan, esuru, odunkun, anamo, coco, gbere or iyanfoworogi….”

“Ha Iya, no be dat kind yam him dey talk about, na Kollington kinda yam him dey talk about”, one hilarious clown suddenly erupted cutting the old woman short.

“Ha dat one na your papa’s grandma yam be dat and like dem mad sheep na only you fit whack am”, the old woman retorted without being fazed. Pandemonium ensued as a figure dressed in leopard camouflage suddenly jumped on stage. Everybody fled in different directions leaving mama to tongue lash the savage interloper. It was Lambert Alekuso aka Baba Lekki.

 

Tatalo Alamu

 

BY the time he died in a Lagos hospital last Wednesday, Dr Victor Abimbola Olaiya had already passed into legend. To be so revered and idolized in one’s lifetime is an iconic status reserved for only few human beings.

The Ekiti-born trumpeter was no doubt a musical titan who dazzled and bewitched his compatriots with his original and intriguing adaptation of the Highlife music which itself was an astonishing melange of Afro-American rhythm, calypso music from the Caribbean , Brazilian meringue,  Congolese hotchpotch  and Ghanaian pastiche.

In a career lasting almost seventy years beginning from 1952, Olaiya imposed his prodigious talents on this chaotic medley producing music of such soothing sonority and evocative beauty that he was christened by a normally sober and reticent commentator as the evil genius of highlife music. Only music that is at once dazzling and unsettling in its harmonious mellifluence could have produced such superlative hyperbole.

In a ceremony to mark the silver jubilee of his musical debut eight years ago at the Lagos City Hall, yours sincerely made the following observation: “The problem with Nigeria is not an absence of human resources but an embarrassment of human riches. It is arguable that no other nation on earth is so spectacularly endowed in terms of human capital. The prodigious capacity to excel no matter the adversarial circumstances is part of the Nigerian narrative. Yet it is also an integral part of the Nigerian paradox that at every turn, particularly in national politics, we keep throwing up our third eleven”.

Eight years after these words were uttered they remain true in every material particular. It is only in music and sports and perhaps the literary arts that the ineluctable power of genius administers its own meritocratic order rather than succumbing to the national merit of mediocrity. But even these fields are not without their controversies as partisan ethnic and class considerations often trump authentic merits.

Without any doubt, Victor Olaiya, is the doyen, the primus inter pares and the Victor Ludorum of Nigerian Highlife music. In a country wracked by ethnic animosities and contending cultural rivalries, this claim may open one to charges of Yoruba irredentism or even sub-ethnic sabre-rattling. Highlife, we must remember, was the nearest thing to our national music and hence a site of fierce intellectual contestation.

Let us now use the concept of Victor Ludorum to elaborate the signal importance and pre-eminent status of Victor Olaiya.  In its Roman instance, Victor Ludorum means the victor of the games or the overall winner of the competition. Overall is the operative word here. In other words, other competitors may surpass the eventual winner in some departments, but when the overall aggregate is taken, the winner is clear.

Celestine Ukwu will continue to dazzle with the sheer poetry and musicality of his compositions and the philosophical profundity of thought. Rex Lawson , the Kalabari crooner, will continue to thrill and astound with his masterly cadences, the poetic sonority of his voice and the  bewitching originality of rhythm.

When it comes to John Ademulegun Akintola, a.ka Roy Chicago, the urbane self-assurance, the metropolitan swagger and breathtaking lyrics, particularly the infusion of his native Ikare folksongs into highlife, will surely outlive him. Fela will be justly celebrated for the genius of his innovations, particularly the hectic syncopation of the post-Lobitos era, and his political and ideological bravura. Victor Uwaifo trumps all with his electrifying rhythm and mastery of the guitar.

But among this stellar array of musical giants, Victor Olaiya is the true prodigy of musical engineering. Possessing most of the attributes of his rivals and contemporaries, he could blend disparate elements together to create truly memorable and mellifluous music.

Yet he makes it looks so simple and deceptively easy. True genius is often such a formidably disruptive phenomenon that it must wear the mask of ordinariness. On an ordinary day, Olaiya could pass for your average uncle next door. It takes true genius to mask true genius.

Famously described as the evil genius of highlife music by another prodigious exemplar, the great and unassuming Allah De, Olaiya was born in Calabar of Ijesha Isu parentage, schooled in the east before coming to live in Lagos.

This seeming cosmopolitan rootlessness was to turn out a great source of strength, allowing Olaiya’s genius to roam far and wide for musical fodder, borrowing freely from Highlife’s origins in the old Gold Coast and its ashiko variant from Sierra Leone’s ex-slave coastal community. Like so much grist for a musical mill, Olaiya’s genius worked over the chaotic potpourri producing a unique blend and an even more unique brand.

It can now be said that what Olaiya had going for him more than anyone else is the sheer accumulated heft of experience, the longevity of career and the professional gravitas accruing from this. No other Nigerian musician, dead or alive, could boast of sixty eight years on stage and the glittering accolades. As the Chinese would say, if you stay long enough by the river side, the bodies of your enemies would wash by.

Olaiya played for the queen of England on a visit to Nigeria in 1956 and four years later at the Independence Ball. For a musician, it doesn’t get more royal than this. Olaiya is a royalty among the nobility of Nigerian musicians. This much was evident on that memorable occasion at the Lagos City Council Hall  eight years ago as great musicians such as Sunny Ade, Dele Ojo, Orlando Julius, Tunde Osofisan and the octogenarian but mysteriously agile Fatai Rolling Dollar, fell over themselves to pay homage to his dandy majesty.

Yet the beginning was not so propitious or flattering. True enough, Olaiya was born into considerable riches. True enough, there was music in the family, the father being an accomplished lay organist and the mother a singer of repute.

But to the Olaiya pere, music was what you play in your spare time and not what you choose as a profession. Professional music was for the flunkies and junkies; the no-hopers and casual riffraff on the margins of society. It was not for scions of the new merchant class.

Having passed his matriculation examinations in 1951, the young Victor was expected to proceed to Howard University for a course in Civil Engineering. But Olaiya rebelled and chose music and a different kind of Engineering.

It was a decision that was to cause much sorrow and gnashing of teeth. In cocking a snook at his family, Olaiya joined Bobby Benson and Sammy Akpabot in rebellion, just as they were to be joined later by the then Fela Ransome-Kuti, Ebenezer Fabiyi and Sunday Adegeye aka Sunny Ade.

In a private conversation with this writer, Sunny Ade confessed that he had lied to his family that it must be an old man called Akintade when the news filtered to Ondo of a rising star from the city calling himself Sunny Adeniyi. It is doubtful if as an engineer, Olaiya could have brought more fame and historic importance to his family or if Sunny Ade as a mere graduate could have brought more honour and prestige.

The irony of pre-Independence highlife music in Nigeria was that many of its leading exponents were from affluent well-heeled background that rebelled against their class in order to create the music appropriate and befitting for their class.

If they showed great determination and force of character in this rebellion, they were to show greater integrity by refusing to kowtow to the arriviste new class or pander to the crude taste of the parvenus. Till date, highlife music remains a class act, but also music for a class in ascendancy.

But everything has its time and place. Even while highlife music was recording its magnificent successes, the material conditions for its possibility were being eroded by new dominant and emergent realities. First, the coastal elite lost economic and political power to the hinterland elite. Then the military overran both.

In a touch of mesmerising irony, Olaiya himself was given the field rank of Colonel to entertain soldiers fighting the civil war.  It was like a man playing at his own professional funeral. Military and police bands may play excellent highlife music at ceremonial balls but in real life, the new military aristocracy and their emergency contractor buddies do not care a hoot for the sedate languor and the kusimilaya ballet of highlife music. They would need praise singers and a more pulsating beat to reflect new social and martial exigencies.

Perhaps the most delectable piece of irony of that glorious evening with the departed master musician eight years ago was when Sunny Ade reminded him of how as a boy, he held his trumpet for him at the Fakunle Major Hotel Oshogbo.

But more importantly, Sunny Ade reminded the great musician that when decades later his band’s musical equipment was impounded after defaulting on terms of payment to Olaiya’s musical equipment company, it was Olaiya who quietly ordered that the equipment be released. It was like a general handing over a cache of arms to an ambitious major. Juju music killed highlife.

As historic empires rise and fall, so do musical empires. Whether highlife would come back in a modified form is beside the point. Such things do not depend on an individual genius but on the configuration of material, social and historical forces. But for Nigeria to rise again, it will require the genius, the nobility of heart and the generosity of spirit evident in Dr Victor Olaiya. May his noble soul rest in peace.

 

• This obituary incorporates materials published in a 2012 piece of the same title.

 

By Tatalo Alamu

 

In keeping with the established policy of this column of according honour and respect to only those who deserve it, snooper this morning mourns the passing of the wizard of the talking drum, master percussionist and the man who gave Ebenezer “Obey” Oluremilekun Fabiyi’s excellent music its memorable traditional flavouring, Mutiu Jimoh, the Ayantoyinbo of all the ayans. The pint-sized maestro passed on last month as quietly and as unobtrusively as he lived.

But he had already drummed his way into musical immortality. It will be impossible to recall the Ebenezer Obey musical phenomenon without mentioning those who made it possible. Mutiu’s talking drum was a key component of the melodious and mellifluous medley.

Judging by his diminutive stature and boyish looks, no one would have been able to guess his real age. But the ace drummer was in his mid-seventies when he received his final marching order last January. It would appear that long before his number came up, the self-effacing genius had quietly retired to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

He was certainly missing in the Obey line up at Biodun Shobanjo’s one year commemoration of his mother at Aiyepe, Ijebu last December. But as we would later discover, the ace drummer had been battling with a mortal affliction for years. He succumbed on the 26th of January to the grim reaper. Focused, diligent and devoted, he remained loyal to his boss till the end.

Whenever Obey mentioned him in his songs, one can feel the affection and gratitude of the master for a beloved accomplice and creative collaborator.  In one exceptional instance, Obey eulogized the great drummer for his stirring and sterling role when the band’s entire musical equipment caught fire on a musical tour of Britain in the early seventies.  Mutiu Kekere gbiyanju o se bi okunrin, sugbon epa o boro mo. (Mutiu tried his bravest best but all to no avail)

When Mutiu fell last month, the master-musician, ever courteous and considerate, rose to the occasion once again. In a moving tribute to his friend and fallen colleague, Ebenezer Obey praised the Oke-Ogun born instrumentalist as a loyal and dependable ally who would be sorely missed by the surviving members of the band.

One great thing about a great cultural era is that you never realise how great it is until it is about to pass into antiquity. No one can choose where and when they will be born. As Ebenezer Obey and Sunny Ade finally approach the twilight of their illustrious careers, one is happy to be alive at the time when two Yoruba musical geniuses, from different, almost opposing, spheres of the expansive and dynamic Yoruba culture, pushed Juju music to the zenith of its possibility through sheer originality, hard work and relentless improvising.

Mutiu Jimoh would be smiling in his grave. He was the last of the musical Mohicans. His was classy drumming from old empire and it gave Obey’s music its leisurely aristocratic cadence. This was royal music-making fit only for the unhurried consumption of nobility, in sharp contrast to the pulsating counterhegemonic beats of Ayinla Omo-Wura and its violence-prone artisans swinging and swivelling from the hips in orgiastic permutations.

One can always imagine members of the ancient Yoruba master class cantering backward and capering forward in synchronized elegance, recalling the flamboyance handed down by their aristocratic forefathers. To be dismissed as drum-deaf is the worst insult that can be handed to a Yoruba person.  It was a refined culture at its most opulent and mesmerising.

By Tatalo Alamu

From the breath taking picture we have painted so far, there can be no doubt that the advent of artificial intelligence has opened up new possibilities for the human race. It has brought life more abundant to the denizens of western societies with food security and a great measure of security and safety. But what is life more abundant?

According to the Google search engine, the term abundant life comes from the bible verse John 10: 10b, “I am come that they might have it more abundantly”. More abundantly means to have a superabundance of a thing. “Abundant life” refers to life in its abounding fullness of joy and strength for mind, body and soul.

The concept and philosophy of life more abundant echoes the eighteenth century British philosopher, gentleman and reformer Jeremy Bentham and his declaration that the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people is the foundation of morals and legislation. This is the philosophical foundation of what has come to be known as Utilitarianism.

The greatest avatar of life more abundant philosophy in Nigeria’s history was Obafemi Awolowo who adopted the saying as the political war-cry of his party, Action Group. Like Bentham, Awolowo was a social reformer and crusader for the inalienable right of every citizen to access life more abundant. In five brisk years of radical social engineering, Awolowo transformed the life of his Yoruba people and ushered an era of unprecedented abundance for a people traumatised by centuries of war and ceaseless strife.

It is worthy of note that Awolowo achieved his social revolution through a radical agricultural programme which put food on the table through massive farming and the subsidization of farmers and which put money in their pocket by paying competitive prices for their cash groups. He also boosted human capital through the universal free primary education scheme and various scholarship initiatives. Needless to add that the establishment of cottage industries facilitated the emergence of an indigenous entrepreneurial elite which was the envy of the rest of the country.

This, in sum, is the essence of life more abundant for a people which simply means harnessing the power of extant technology and a visionary view of humankind liberated from the realm of brutal necessity to the realm of freedom from want and excruciating poverty. When compared to the new society of artificial intelligence, Awolowo’s revolution looks rudimentary and elementary. But it is a brilliant and accurate reflection of the dialectic of history at that particular point in time. It is now time to reassemble the major planks of this lecture and come to a conclusion.

Unburdening the beast

The picture we have been painting so far is of a future that became today; of a fantastical world that hitherto existed in the realm of dreaming and fanciful reverie that has been willed into existence through the sheer force of human intelligence and imaginative daring. The liveable world will never be the same again.

But the medicine has some remarkable side-effects. The brave new world has come with its unique combo of disquiet and disaffection. Much as we find its effects very desirable and the superabundance and prosperity that attend to the scientific wizardry a manifest testimony to the ability of humankind to create paradise on earth, the impact on our daily life has been unprecedented in all its disruptive and destabilizing power.

There is an uneasy feeling abroad that humanity is about to become the ultimate victim of its own intelligence and creative ingenuity. There is global anxiety that we might have arrived at the true end of history a situation in which the scientific beast created by humankind is about to devour its creator unless it is urgently leashed and reined in.

Machines are about to become our masters and contraptions created by humankind for the sake of humanity have assumed an independent existence of their own and may well be on the way to overpowering their maker. Without the emotional intelligence and rational nous of humankind, the world-historic apocalypse is better imagined.

Let us just give two concrete examples so that this does not look like mere scaremongering. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue Computer defeated the reigning World Chess Champion and grandmaster, Russia’s Gary Kasparov. In 2011, a new computer known as Watson also from IBM won the quiz show Jeopardy by overpowering reigning champions, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. What this shows is that machines can be imbued with such super intelligence that it can trump the most prodigiously endowed humans.

In the event, the era of Artificial Intelligence has led to a dramatic loss of regular jobs, the contraction of the work place, the replacement of humans by robotic machines in virtually all-human activities, helping scientists run real experiments, processing and incorporating megatons of scientific papers and outpacing ordinary mortals by doing incredibly fast mathematical computations.

Virtually everything as we know it has been spectacularly upended changing our perception of ourselves and the world in the process. The work place has become a virtual theatre, the old factory employee and farm hand are being gradually replaced just as the supermall is becoming a thing of the past as online shopping with speedy delivery and cost-saving incentives takes over. The old economy and its mode of production are replaced by knowledge economy and its new mode of production.  The dominant capital is human capital.

The old schools, universities, tertiary institutions are profoundly affected as knowledge economy takes root in most parts of the world and as the old system of learning gives way to revolutionary means of wealth creation. Consequently, the old disciplinary order collapses and new disciplines emerge as an epistemological imperative of the new mode of knowledge production.

Unfortunately, Africa is missing once again in this drastic re-ordering of the world order as we know it. As it happened during the Industrial Revolution and with grave consequences for the continent, Africa is once again a passive repository of historical developments in other places. As we speak, and apart from the recent initiative of Google tentatively based in Ghana, there is no single worthwhile centre for Artificial Intelligence in Black Africa.  This is at a time when Qatar has just established a whole University of Artificial Intelligence.

But all is not lost. This is where you all come in as fresh graduates, despite the constraints and crippling limitations.  I am aware of the efforts this pioneering and innovative university has put in despite the severe limitations of funds and opportunities and I commend the authorities for their heroic efforts.

Consequently, you must not see your degree as an end in itself but as a means to an end. When the sky falls, it falls on everybody. There is no hiding place. You are graduating into a world in which the beast of technology threatens everything including modern civilization as we know it and the survival of humankind itself.

Your education is designed to furnish you with the basic tools and basic awareness for survival in an increasingly complicated world. In the short run, you will be expected to join forces with growing international efforts to rein in and unburden the beast of modern technology of its savagery just as our ancestors did to wild animals epochs ago.

How you do this will depend on your ability to retrain and retool yourself. It has been shown time and time again that Nigerian students excel when they found themselves in competitive environments and they also show a remarkable capacity to survive adverse local circumstances. These are redemptive resources waiting to be harnessed for national development. It is not the future we must fear but the fear of the future.

In the long run, you must also see yourself as part of a growing concern to redress the structural imbalance and the geo-political adversity that has put Africa at the bottom of the ladder of the knowledge economy and that has turned Nigeria to the poverty capital of the world. The two are organically related. With only seven per-cent of its arable landmass under cultivation, China has been able to abolish hunger and banish extreme poverty.

In ending, I have two recommendations to make. The federal authorities in partnership with well-heeled Nigerian entrepreneurs must find the will and the means to establish in the nearest future, centres and institutes for Artificial Intelligence which will power cutting edge innovations in knowledge-industry and Agriculture.

Second, and as a matter of urgent national imperative, we must constitute a board to be known as a National Initiative for the Recovery of Intellectual Treasures (NIRIT), There are many Nigerian academics who have been trained or retooled in the global sanctuaries of knowledge revolution who have withdrawn from the nation in sullen and angry retirement whose expertise can be deployed to make the nation great.

I wish you all life more abundant hereafter. Thank you for having me.

• Concluded. [c]
• Convocation Lecture,

Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

27th January, 2020

 

 

 

By Tatalo Alamu

 

The Vice Chancellor, Registrar, Bursar, members of the University Council, the Chairman, Committee of Deans, Deans of Faculties, members of the senate, officers of the university, professors, lecturers, the graduands that we are honouring today, their parents, friends and families and most importantly, the students of this great pioneering university.

First, I must congratulate the graduating students for coming through an arduous process of training which can only be described as the academic equivalent of the survival of the fittest. It is a furnace requiring strength, resilience and fortitude. You have survived. You are the best and brightest of your set, and as the first set of graduates this university will produce this important decade, you must now go forth with hope and optimism to prove your worth and the worth of your teachers.

Second, I must thank the university authorities for inviting me to deliver this convocation lecture which is coming at the dawn of a new decade. I must commend the university for putting up this elaborate spectacle which in its painstaking attention to details showcases the future possibilities for country and continent. Once again, it has been shown that it is not lack of talents that kills a nation but the mismanagement of talents.

Let me remind our convocants that they are graduating at a time of extraordinary political and social ferment both for our nation and the world at large. We live in unusual times; a time of breath taking technological developments and scientific breakthrough. But not unexpectedly, it is also a time of unequal benefits. While in some societies, the frontiers of knowledge and advancement is expanding dramatically, in other societies, particularly in Africa, it is contracting catastrophically.

This is the imbalance that all of you as graduates of a university with an eye to the future and with the knowledge acquired in this institution as well as your fresh energy and vision will be called upon to redress. This is why it is important to rub minds with this distinguished audience on the subject matter of this afternoon. This being a festive rather than an academic occasion, I intend to be brief and to the point.

My lecture rests on three major planks. I intend to disentangle them one by one. The first is the very notion of the unburdened beast. The second is the concept of Artificial Intelligence, or what is often initialized as (AI). The third is the philosophy of Life More Abundant or what popular folks and politicized individuals in the old Western region famously rhapsodized as LMA.

The Beast Unburdened

Permit me now to come to the notion of the unburdened beast. I must admit that when the title of this convocation lecture was first mooted, there was some concern among top university officials about the whole idea of a beast being unburdened. Would it not be thought that the beast I was referring to were the graduating students themselves?

It was only after the whole notion was explained that the authorities not only agreed but also insisted that the title must be retained. To have thought of graduating students as beasts would have been an unkind cut worthy of a killjoy and sadist. Let me reassure the convoking students that you are not beasts. As a matter of fact, by virtue of your training, discipline and directing knowledge you are the future masters who will tame the beast of technology for the benefit of the human society.

Let me elaborate.  When we talk of beasts of burden, we are talking of hitherto wild animals that have been trained and domesticated by human imagination and ingenuity to carry load for human beings. It would have amounted to foolish daring and fatalism to mount a wild animal for sports and warfare or to attempt to turn it into a luggage courier. As a matter of fact, it is because the beast is unburdened of its savagery and wild instincts that it is able to become a beast of burden.

The unburdening of the beast led to a revolution in agriculture, transportation and warfare. In the early clusters of civilization such as Nok that stretched outward from the Niger-Benue confluence through the Egyptian civilization around the Nile river to the rich alluvial soil of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and later in the Yangtze basin of China, the introduction of animals to irrigation, farming, ploughing, planting ,harvesting and eventually to warfare opened up tremendous possibilities for human civilization.

For the first time in its history, humanity was able to leave behind the brutal necessities of the hunter-gatherer phase for a more ordered and civilized existence. To be sure and for quite some time there were still some enclaves of humanity stuck at the hunter-gatherer phase with occasional famine and excruciating material want their unhappy lot. But this was mainly due to the law of uneven development which allows the frontiers of human consciousness to take the lead in civilizational advancement while other less gifted societies struggled to advance.

This advancement by less endowed societies to meet up with other societies that play lead violin in the race for human development can be procured either through commerce, outright conquest or cultural infiltration through spiritual indoctrination and religious proselytization. It can also be a case of technology transfer through daring acts of espionage.

For example, in his history of the early Egba people, Ajisafe wrote on how the Egba people were able to procure a more sturdy and higher yielding variant of the maize crop from their old Oyo overlords through their local daughter married to the Oloyo who swallowed some of the grains to speedily vomit same on getting to her Egba homestead.

There was also the case of the young English sixteenth century immigrant to America who copied by heart the entire new procedure for corn milling which he then painstakingly copied down on reaching his new country. He became rich and prosperous in his new home beyond his wildest dream and expectations. The world belongs to the brave and daring.

The point to note in all this is that human development is not static and no society is divinely ordained to take a permanent back seat in the race for civilizational advancement. As a matter of fact, it is a paradox of human development that the strength and resilience of earlier formations and initiatives may preclude a society from seeking new solutions to a fresh crisis of development.

It is a known fact that England was better enabled to transcend the contradictions of feudalism and leapfrog to the Industrial Revolution ironically because it belonged to the periphery of feudal formations whereas more classically feudal formations such as Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, China and Northern Nigeria roiled in the contradictions for much longer, a case of the first becoming the last.

In all this, one regular feature of human development is the uncanny presence of huge human population whenever there is a great problem of civilizational advancement to be solved. As we have seen with early civilizations such as Nok, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Yangtze basin, the presence of great rivers tends to attract unusual human settlements. This rich conurbation in turn facilitates and aids progress and innovation through sheer dynamism and the ferment of ideas.

Artificial Intelligence

To Early Man and his precursors, the very idea of putting animals to work on the farm or deploying them to carry heavy luggage on the highway, must have sounded like some outlandish fiction. About three hundred years ago, the very idea of sending machines on human mission, or infusing them with enough intelligence to make them take rational decisions must have sounded eerily unrealistic; a return to the magical world of fairies and spirits. It was only in 1956 at a conference at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA that the term “ robotic artificial intelligence” was coined.

It is a profound testimony to the power of human imagination that advances in sciences and technological breakthrough always appear like fantastical constructs or imaginative conceits to their precursor societies. Long before the arrival of the real thing, the science fiction of writers such as Isaac Asimov and H.G Wells brimmed with outlandish space crafts, shuttle ships and all kinds of robotic monstrosities.

Yet within a space of two hundred years, what was regarded as science fiction has become part of conventional reality; what hitherto existed in the realm of outrageous imagining has become part of everyday chores; unreality has become realistic. In retrospect, it is now obvious that H.G Wells spoke too soon when he sang about a brave new world of scientific revolution and industrial breakthrough.

With the advent of the phenomenon known as Artificial Intelligence, humanity is at the threshold of an unprecedented and revolutionary breakthrough; an explosion of a rash of possibilities in a way that is beyond ordinary scope and conception. In a way, it can be said that Artificial Intelligence has brought humanity to the frontiers of de-humanization.

For the first time in the history of humankind, the wheel of progress and scientific innovation has turned full circle in such a way that humanity is in danger of being dethroned and replaced by his own creation; the hunter is in danger of becoming the hunted. On its way to the final triumph of mastering everything in the universe, humanity is ambushed by his own hubris.  Once again an ancient morality play of biblical import is unfolding for humanity.

What then is Artificial Intelligence or AI as it has come to be known in scientific circuits? As the name implies, Artificial Intelligence is non-human or machine intelligence. It is the equivalent of breathing life and intelligence into machines in a way that makes them capable of obeying instructions or undertaking independent missions requiring human intelligence .

Not to be confused with Robotics or Robotic Engineering which is a branch of technology that deals with machines( robots or bots) that has the capacity of executing various actions solely on their own without external prompting, Artificial Intelligence deals with issues that pertain to learning, perception, problem-solving, logical reasoning, intuitive understanding and language perception.

It can however be seen that the two are often coterminous and organically related to each other. Like Siamese twins they are dependent on each other and one can hardly exist without the other. The intersection or bridge between AI and robotics produces artificially intelligent robots (AIR) with their invasive and pervasive influence on contemporary life style and even work ethics.

The impact of artificially intelligent robots on our daily life is so all-encompassing and so routinized that we are no longer shocked or perplexed by its revolutionary dimensions. When we give commands to an ATM machine, we have become so habituated to this humanized contraption that it feels normal and familiar. Yet this human machine is a product of a convergence of what is known as General Purpose Technologies (GPTs) wired with artificial intelligence.

Our smartphone is in reality a palmtop computer which democratizes banking and financial transactions through the use of financial technology (fintech) which abolishes the old fixities of traditional banking thus enabling money and monetary instruments to be moved about the entire globe in a way and manner that eliminates virtual time and space. The impact on the old notions of labour and production can be better imagined.

In this wondrous new world, the home, the work place, the big cities and public spaces are dramatically transformed from what they used to be. There are soft wares that can recognize objects and animals; there exists digital  virtual assistants that can cater or even anticipate their owners’ needs and desires; simple tasks for factory workers; beauty creation(painting and artwork); self-driving or autonomous cars; drones for mail delivery, surveillance and security and for combatting terrorism including ground robots, tracking endangered animals in the wild and for locating and pinpointing the last surviving enclaves of human slavery.

In medicine, the deployment of artificial intelligence has had a revolutionary impact on robotic surgery; the restoration of artificial limbs, the warehousing of artificial organs and bionic eyes, gene-sequencing; DNA restructuring, the treatment of cancer and what is known as stem engineering and opened up new vistas in human reproduction and artificial insemination.

From all this, it must be very clear that after the era of artificial intelligence, the world will never be the same again. This is definitely the most far-reaching of human scientific and technological revolution. For good or bad, the world will never be the same again. But we can say that it is more for good than for bad. For the civilized world, it has opened up an era of surplus and unprecedented prosperity. It is now time to move on to the last plank of this lecture, which is the whole idea of life more abundant.

• Convocation Lecture,

Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

27th January, 2020

• To be concluded next week [c] 2020. Not to be quoted or extensively reproduced without the permission of the author.

By Tatalo Alamu

The grand re-entry of Mama Igosun to the household has set a cat among Okon’s domestic pigeons. It was akin to the arrival of a big cat among a pack of antelopes. Things were no longer at ease as the old girl often strolled into the kitchen to dislodge Okon from his stronghold with a torrent of curses and   choleric abuses. The complaints about Okon’s culinary skills or lack of them have been legion with the ancient girl droning and drooling endlessly like a stranded fairy.

“If I come know say na dis gbarogudu beans you wan give me make I eat, I fit go them Bariga mama put myself. Na only for Magistrate Ogunmuyiwa baba ewa jail dem dey serve dis kin yeye beans,” Mama Igosun hollered and spat with contempt.

“Mama no vex. Dinner go better, I go make better dinner”, Okon pleaded, trying to put a brave face to his domestic adversities.

“And wetin be dinner sef, yeye boy. You no even sabi boil water sef”, the old woman griped.

“Dinner be pap and akara”, Okon responded with a sweet smile.

“Wetin be pap? Na your papa go take pap. If I hear dat kin nonsense for your kukuruku mouth again, “ the ancient girl raved as she slammed her walking stick on the kitchen cabinet.

“Okay mama, I don tire, wetin you want sef, abi no be food?” an exasperated Okon screamed at his tormentor, making the woman to lurch and sidle sideways.

“Make me Esuru and Sukuniyan, now now “, the old woman snorted.

“Mama, no one dey eat dat kin ogbologbo food for Lagos. Na dem food for old Oyo empirate before dem white man  and mala people come drive dem comot”, Okon sniggered eyeing mama Igosun who strangely refused the bait.

“I hear you. After we don finish dis dem amotekun business, all dem kukuruku and kanakana people must to leave Lagos and return to dem huts. To return dem must to get visa from Home Office at Alausa”.

It was at this point, as if on cue, that Lambert Oladosu Alekuso, aka Baba Lekki, aka Socrates, aka Garibaldi, aka Hannibal, shambled in with drunken self-importance accompanied by four local militants straight out of D.O Fagunwa’s Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irunmale. Flush with the euphoria of victory after the seeming climb down by the federal authorities over amotekun, the old hell-raiser had been drinking all night, telling anybody who cared to listen that he had only one more chance to ignite country-wide revolution in Nigeria.

“I will try one more time to bring down this stinking house of cards”, the crazy contrarian exploded before a crowd of admirers as he kicked the air with his left foot.

It was at this point that Baba Lekki noticed Mama Igosun berating a crestfallen Okon who appeared to be even more afraid of the dreaded local militants as they chanted incantations and cantered to imaginary music. Mama had been Baba Lekki’s senior by a few years in their ancient primary school at Oranyan in Ibadan, but the crazy contrarian was an old male chauvinist who did not believe in gender seniority based on age.

“Mariani, I hope you have not been tormenting that poor fellow?” Baba Lekki demanded.

“Dosu Agbako, what is your own? When are you going to stop all this igbo and jagbajantis after dem don dabaru your head?” the old woman chided Baba Lekki with grudging affection.

“You see now? When I asked you to marry me you ran way with dat yeye PWD man, no be so?” Baba Lekki retorted.

“Who go marry small boy like you? Dem spoil you rotten for home with cocoa money. Dem send you to England to read law and you come dey fail sotey dem deport you”, Mama replied with a scornful smile.

“Point of correction. I didn’t fail law. It is law that failed me”, Baba Lekki responded with a delinquent smile. It was at this point that Mama Igosun changed the topic.

“By the way wetin dat Balarabe Musa man dey say? I come listen to newspaper review for Tuesday morning and him come make me wan cry,” the old woman noted rather wistfully.

“Ha, you see, Government na wicked people, as Fela will say. Dem sabi say Bala’s medicals don overdue. Dem come tell am make him go say something, abi na like dat dem dey do medicals just like dat?  So him come dey shoot him Tundun wada mouth anyhow.” Baba Lekki chortled and began to laugh convulsively. It was at this point that one of the native militants blew his whistle and they all began to file out with Baba Lekki picking the rear.

By Tatalo Alamu

We have said it many times in this column that the mismanagement of diversity— ethnic, cultural, religious, regional and economic — will eventually spell doom for Nigeria. It was just as well, then, that it was as the Amotekun imbroglio was reaching its pulsating climax that the Boko Haram struck, forcibly reminding the nation of unfinished business.

In a horrific and blood-soaked video resonating with savage taunts and catcalls, the maniacal and bloodthirsty sect sent forward images of the summary decapitation of the abducted chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Adamawa State, Reverend Indimi.

It was not a sight for young children or the squeamish. The calm but obviously disconcerted cleric was earlier seen making a frantic appeal for his life to be spared. It was not to be. The homicidal sect stuck to its chilling execution timetable. Once again, Nigeria foams in blood and at the mercy of a murderous sect that is totally immune to reason and conventional rationality.

The Boko Haram insurgency has been going on for a whopping ten years, despite the claims by the federal authorities that it has been virtually degraded. When the fact is considered that  the civil war which ended fifty years ago lasted only three years, we can begin to imagine that the nation is faced with a unique type of hostility and existential threat which was not factored into conventional military textbooks and the ORBAT of colonially derived national armies.

In a great irony of history, one of the heroes of that civil war, the brave and intrepid General Mohammed Shuwa, met a gruesome end in the hands of the murderous sect as he roused to confront some of its members who had invaded his household in Maiduguri. Last week, the Emir of Potiskum was forced to trek for an hour in the bush before help came. That was after his motorcade had been overwhelmed and overpowered by the rampaging marauders.

Although it is true that it has been largely dislodged from its former territorial strongholds, the heinous sect is still able to strike at will, bleeding and draining the country without any compunction and robbing it of critical resources needed for economic growth and infrastructural development.

But we need to keep a reality check. It could have been far worse but for the bravery and courage displayed by men and women of our armed forces. At the height of its menace, the Boko Haram insurgents dislodged and deposed traditional rulers in at least four districts of the Maiduguri-Yobe-Yola perimeter. One or two were openly murdered.

At least for now, that daring and egregious assault on the nation’s territorial sanctity has been largely contained. Boko Haram is still able to strike at will because it does not require set-piece battles to do so. As a matter of fact, part of the strength lies in the ability to avoid set-piece battles, except the odds are overwhelmingly in their favour, relying very much on the superiority of their local intelligence gathering.

Over the years, the Boko Haram insurgents have proved to be masters of asymmetrical warfare. This is irregular and unconventional warfare for which a regular and conventional army is ill-equipped and ill-trained. There is no training school for asymmetrical warfare, although one cannot be entirely sure that the plucky and punitively proactive Americans are not studying the modus operandi somewhere.

In asymmetrical wars, the army cannot be conventionally deployed or arranged and arrayed in regular formation. Everything depends on grit, sheer brutality and relentless improvisation. Often, the crude generalissimo is the master of the refined general as the Vietnamese taught the Americans and the French earlier.

It should be remembered that in all the instances in post-colonial Africa where conventional colonially originated national armies have been overwhelmed by rebel forces, it has been through asymmetrical warfare: Uganda, Rwanda, Zaire, Ethiopia, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Libya. If national order is quickly restored, it is all well and good, if not it is apocalypse loading as we have seen in Somalia and Libya.

This is the critical threat an obviously revamped and reenergized Boko Haram poses to Nigeria’s territorial integrity and continued survival as a nation, particularly with the collapse of the Maghreb corridor and the influx of Middle East mercenaries from the inferno of Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

A disaffected Iran may be looking for trouble in order to teach Nigeria’s Sunni-dominated government a lesson in geopolitical power-play. There may also be some global powers bent on superintending the unfinished business of the eventual dismemberment of Nigeria as we witnessed during the civil war.

Judging from the operational daring and the renewed menace of the Boko Haram insurgents, proxy warfare as perfected by the Iranians and mastered by their assassinated military idol, General Quassem Soleimani, may have berthed in Nigeria.

In proxy wars the main combatants stay away from the battle field while rag tag militias and rebel sects acting on their briefs are primed into battle. When the Yemeni Houthi rebels unleashed missiles on Saudi oilfields, everybody knew that this was just a continuation of old hostilities between the Sunni sect and the Iranians. If this war of all against all were to be enacted on Nigerian soil, given the volatile social and religious equations, we may be in for a rough ride indeed.

We have no one to blame but ourselves. Is Nigeria fated to become a permanent killing field? The Boko Haram insurrection is a product of the mismanagement of ethnic, regional, political, economic and religious diversities. This had been simmering below the surface as a little local difficulty until the grossly mismanaged extra-judicial killing of its leader in 2009 exacerbated the tension and turned it into an international cause celebre for equal opportunity merchants of murder and mayhem.

This was why one could only wait with baited breath as the Amotekun imbroglio reached its crescendo, and while sterling statesmen looked for an acceptable solution and face-saving device, to see whether the authorities, in a moment of feudal hubris, would tip the nation over the edge of the cliff. It was a close run thing and ended with a typical Nigerian fudge with the authorities having their way and the South West people having their amotekun albeit in diminished branding.

While the face off lasted, the fate of Nigeria itself seemed to hang in the balance. The truth which our political leaders need to factor into their future calculations is that had a referendum being held for ethnic self-determination even at this moment, an overwhelming majority of Yoruba people would have opted out of Nigeria.

This would have been nunc dimittis for Nigeria. The fat lady would have been called to the stage. Sticking to objective analysis while avoiding the drum of ethnic triumphalism, it should be obvious that the magic key to holding Nigeria together lies in the South West. The west provides the binding glue that holds Nigeria together.

This is not due to any exceptionalism or superior qualities. The reason is simple. When you drive a normally tolerant and accommodating people to the wall where there is no further room for manoeuvring or shabby compromise, they fight  back with shrill ferocity and a no-further-nonsense  daring.

With the east severely alienated to a point of internal mass-exile from Nigeria, with the Ijaw nation becoming restive all over again and with the middle belt choking and chafing under the yoke of feudal peonage, all that remain is for the Yoruba people to pull the plug.

When you drive a nation to a point where two of the three major nationalities want out, the colonial fraud is no longer sustainable. So while the statesmen who looked for a solution behind the curtains ought to be commended, the stark partisans who furiously threw their hat into the ring in heroic defiance ought to be congratulated for clarifying and crystallizing the case against hegemonic obduracy.

Mismanagement of ethnic diversity does not lead to revolutions. It only leads to dismemberment and radical anarchy. This is why the old class analysis fails us in all its shrill hectoring and portentous scare-mongering. A hard look at historical developments suggests that unlike the ethnic and religious maelstrom of post-colonial Africa, it is only in racially and ethnically homogeneous countries such as France, Russia, China and Cuba where the mismanagement of economic diversities led to outright revolution.

There are two important take-away from the amotekun fracas and the potentially perilous business of the mismanagement of double-digit diversities in Nigeria. Whatever the degree of mis-federalisation imposed on Nigeria by the colonial authorities and military rule, a modern nation-state cannot be ruled as a feudal enclave without the constituting units throwing off the yoke of penal servitude at some point.

The restless roving spirit of the modern nation-state will ensure this and will ensure that no man can call a nation his ancestors’ estate for long without fatally contravening the founding ethos and originating spirit of the modern nation-state. Let those who have lessons to learn from Nigeria’s recent history learn and learn very fast.

The second lesson is the classical imperative of federalism that Nigerians ought to have internalized from their founding fathers as they moan and groan under the yoke of the misbegotten federalism imposed on them by military despotism and the colonial authorities. No two federating states are ever alike even where they share the fundamental features. Federalism is never given. It is defined in action, in dynamic contradiction and in the clash of conflicting and countervailing notions of the nation. This is the greatest lesson from the Amotekun rumpus.

For my friend, Prince Tayo Adesanya, who asked after Mama Igosun

By Tatalo Alamu

 

And whilst we are still on the subject of misbegotten federalism in Nigeria, it is meet to remember the saying that a people perish due to their leaders’ lack of vision. And how Nigerians have been perishing in droves, particularly on the Lagos-Ibadan Express! When this road was opened to public use in 1976, to great national applause, it is curious that nobody envisaged that given rising population and a rapidly expanding economy, we would be needing at least six of such thoroughfares forming a concentric hub to Lagos by 2020.

The first time yours sincerely traversed this road in December 1975, the entire journey took fifty five minutes and twenty seconds. For those of us accustomed to travelling to Lagos from the village at the back of overnight trailers, a journey necessitating a midnight stop at Ipara for stomach refurbishment, it was a dramatic revelation, brimful of hope and optimism.

But the chicks have all come home to roost. Last Sunday, snooper lay prostrate and powerless in bed suffering from a new ailment which can only be described as post-Express traumatic stress disorder having spent seven hours on the Express on Saturday.  The symptoms include nausea, extreme exhaustion and a feeling of sheer weightlessness. If one is not to perish on this accursed road, a quick decision has to be taken which was to evacuate Mama Igosun to Lagos since she was the main reason for our toing and froing on the berserk autobahn.

And so on Monday, and after a six year absence, mama returned to the house and all hell was let loose. Although now frail and much advanced in years, the old girl had lost nothing of her boundless zest and feisty disdain for social conventions. Before the car could come to a full halt, she jumped out waving her ancient crutch in the air like a military swagger stick. As soon as Okon sighted the Amazon, he ran back to his room, murmuring that he thought it was her funeral that was held a few months’ back.

“Chei, dem don bring dem ogbologbo Yoruba wizard to finish man, kai, dis oga na satan”, the crazy boy was overheard rumbling in his room. Mama did not help matters as she immediately proceeded on what looked at first like an ancient war-dance but which she said was animated supplication to the almighty that delivered her safely from the Express demons.

“Akanbi e morin oo. After us, dem Sina boy say grammar no be success, abi no be so?”, the ancient relic began probing for a weak link as she mixed English with pidgin and Yoruba with cheerful indifference even as snooper spread out in full prostration.

“Well done Akanbi. You be good boy like your papa, but my sister na real fire pepper”, the old woman gurgled as she kept ancient feuds in full view. But before you could say Jack Robinson she opened another front as she began spreading her deadly protocol of domestic warfare on the floor from an old Ashanti scarf.

First to tumble out was her ancient carved pipe brimming with Shaki tobacco, followed by old herbs for arthritis, then by an array of prehistoric condiments for seasoning okro and vegetables and finally by an iconic mirror straight out of old Oyo Empire. But one vital item was conspicuously missing. Snooper ventured to ask. It was like opening a Pandora Box.

“Mama, where is your Dane gun?” yours sincerely asked.

“Ah kini? I don donate dat one to dem Amotekun”, the old woman replied with a fiendish grin.

“Mama, they have just proscribed Amotekun”, snooper replied calmly and casually.

“Proscribe gini? Mewa babanla baba won no fit. Na dem doctor dey proscribe medicine. Dem sigidi wan go bath be dat”, the old woman screamed and began chanting war songs.

“Mama, take it easy now”, snooper pleaded.

“Akanbi, let me tell you this. He get time like dat when I dey go village and dem tell me dem useless boys dey kidnap for Majeroku. So when dem danfo get to Wasinmi, I telled dem driver make him stop. I come remove my clothes and come tell dem make dem drive jeje after me. When dem foolish people see me, dem come run inside bush and I come dey pursue dem. When I reach dem danfo and come put my clothes everybody come gentle. Even dem driver no fit ask for money as I comot”, the old woman exploded.

“Kai, mama dat one na awamaridi, African magic”, snooper noted as he rolled on the floor.

Äkanbi mi. Na di same thin we use for Ogunmakin towards Egba Owode when dem Ijebu and Egba armed robbers dey trouble dem around 1960,” the old woman noted. It was at this point a fearful and mortally distressed Okon emerged from his room. He must have been listening in. He bowed curtly and saluted his old adversary with utmost respect.

“Mama good afternoon. You are welcome ma”, Okon greeted the matriarch putting on his best behaviour.

“Akanbi, you mean say dis kanakana still dey with you?” the old woman demanded with a girlish smile.

Haba, mama you can see that Okon is a good boy now”, snooper pleaded.

“He better be. I no dey take nonsense from kukuruku. Okunnu, abi wetin you call him name again?” the old woman sniggered.

“Mama as I been dey respect you, he good make you respect yourself”,Okon mumbled under his breath.

“Henhen, if I no respect myself nko? Abi which kind palapala be dis?” the old woman shouted as she aimed her all-purpose cane at Okon who ducked and quickly ran out.

War of hegemony in post-independence Nigeria

 By Tatalo Alamu

 

Once again, Nigeria has found itself in the throes of a major constitutional trauma. It is becoming proverbial that each time the nation manages to escape from the jaws of a terrible mishap it often finds itself firmly in the claws of an even more terrifying accident. Yet like a leopard which cannot change its spots, the authorities in Nigeria are at their old game of constitutional brinkmanship once again.

Fifty eight years after the unconstitutional take-over of old Western Region which culminated in a civil war and the destruction of the First Republic, we are at it once again baiting each other in a needless confrontation that can only result in the mutual ruination of the contending classes and provide an exit clause for those anxious to leave Nigeria.

A war of hegemony among the various ethnic elites has been the bane of Nigeria ever since independence. Politics itself is a game of manoeuvring and positioning which determines the feeding arrangement and who gets the lion share at a particular point and those who must be content with the scraps of meat thrown at them in the orgy of frenzied feeding.

It is a game of predators, mirroring humanity’s abiding fealty to the animal kingdom. So a war of hegemony in itself is not a bad thing if it is not accompanied by destructive mutual loathing and deliberate incapacitation which makes it impossible for development to take place or for the nation to make political advancement.

The irony of the current situation is that war-gaming is a sign of weakness and an approaching end of an epoch rather than a sign of strength and potency. Why has it proved impossible for the government to study the mood and disposition of the people over which it is pretending to rule?

Whereas in the First Republic an all-powerful federal government tried to muscle in the government of Western Nigeria on the pretext of a breach of peace and security, this time around, a weak, ineffectual, overburdened and directionless federal government is trying to prevent the people of the same region from acting in protective self-defence against murderous and marauding intruders.

That is after the federal government has failed in the fundamental raison d’etre of a state: the ability to provide security and safety for its people.

Yet events may not be entirely in the hands of the federal authorities. They may be dealing with matters beyond their ken and control.

As experience has shown, whenever Nigeria is in need of a fundamental constitutional make-over as a result of its foundational structural defect, the symptoms manifest in various forms: electoral treachery and perfidy, political disorder, economic impotence, leadership vacuum, ethnic bigotry, sectarian malice and the creeping feeling of an apocalyptic meltdown.

To be sure, there are lots of things wrong with Amotekun as currently envisioned. The legal and legislative footwork is laughable. There is too much grandstanding, opportunism and playing to the gallery on the part of many of its principals. One or two of them are seized by a delusion of grandeur.

Yet this notwithstanding, the attempt to cage it has finally exploded the myth of the APC as the party of restructuring and devolution of power. The few genuinely progressive elements in the party must now realise that they are truly endangered.

Had the hegemons in APC taken their political sensitivities into consideration, they ought to have avoided acts capable of turning them into pariahs and traitors among their own people.

Virtually all the governors who are instrumental to the formation of Amotekun are APC members with the exception of the governor of Oyo State. President Buhari and his camarilla ought to have taken them into confidence as political fellow-travellers or soul mates. Instead, they allowed them to carry on until they were ready to pull the plug thus precipitating a constitutional crisis which could have been avoided by higher statesmanship and wisdom.

What the APC has done is to expose its own festering innards as a decaying feudal behemoth incapable of change thus making it impossible for the current constitutional impasse to be solved by narrow and partisan inter-party or intra-party manoeuvring. Parties exist to solve national problems. Beyond vote-harvesting, neither the APC nor the comatose PDP has shown that it can pass muster when it comes to addressing the nation’s pressing problems.

The roadmap to the future no longer lies in the current weak and enfeebled party formation, unless there is a dramatic re-invention. Nigerians and the people of the old West must be ready to take their destiny in their own hand. An alliance with people who have no concept of modern nationhood or genuine democratic ethos cannot be carried beyond the point where it becomes a self-annulling contradiction.

Abubakar Malami’s youthful intemperance may be due to character defect. But the unwarranted diktat is a reflection of the inflexible mind-set of those he is fronting for and the unitary penal colony they envisage should be the lot of all Nigerians. First, he insists that security is the exclusive preserve of the state as the sole protector and law-giver of the nation. Second, he avers that federating states came together to form the Nigerian union.

This of course is sophomoric balderdash.  To start with, no federating states ever came together in Nigeria. This is the fundamental anomaly of the Nigerian nation. It is the colonial state that created the federating units after which it imposed its arbitrary whims and fantasies on them.

Malami and his feudal masters are the willing heirs to that colonial monstrosity. In all genuine federal systems, no one ever disputes the right and authority of the state when it comes to the defence of the nation against external and internal threats to its territorial integrity.

But in matters of national security, the state cannot be bothered and burdened with its minute cultural, social and religious particularities. Sub-national formations exist to supplement and complement the efforts of the central authority  as we have seen in all genuine federalist nations such as the US, Canada, Australia, UAE, etc.

This is precisely what Amotekun seeks to do. It is supplementary and complementary to the efforts of the federal authorities to maintain security, particularly in a context of yawning and murderous inefficiency and the general breakdown of law and order in some sections of the country.

It has been shouted from the rooftop that Amotekun is not an alternative police force or rival law enforcement outfit. It is not, pace Tanko Yakassai, a dormant secessionist militia ready to spring into action at the appropriate or appointed hour.

The federal government ought to have been more sensitive to the psychic trauma of the Yoruba people particularly after the unsolved murder of the daughter of their revered leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti and the brutal dispatch of several notable Yoruba sons and daughters by people fingered to be marauding invaders. This is no longer a matter of party affiliation or partisan politics. It is a question of deep cultural sensibility which tends to unite and unify a people in the face of the vagaries of a multi-ethnic nation.

Ironically, the only reason why majority of Yoruba people initially preferred a Buhari presidency , despite its scary possibilities, was because of a widespread conviction among the people that as a tested retired army general who knew the terrain and his onion, General Buhari was placed in a better position to halt the slide into anarchy and mayhem. This is because as people of empire, the Yoruba place maximum premium on order and stability believing as they do that no nation can thrive in a condition of disorder and generalized anarchy.

The jury is now out on that one.  But one can immediately surmise that a person who is incapable of appreciating other people’s sensitivities as a result of cultural, political, ideological and spiritual impairments is not in the best position to lead a badly polarized and bitterly divided multi-ethnic nation.

Whatever its achievements in other spheres of governance and without any prejudice to the fact that it may yet wake up to recover the initiative, it is clear that history will score the Buhari administration very low in its management of ethnic diversity in this tortured and tormented nation.

Judging by the steely resolve demonstrated by the Yoruba people this past week to take their destiny into their own hand, and with many other Nigerian nationalities choking and chafing under the monstrous yoke of a unitary madhouse, we can expect a lot of commotion and caterwauling in this land in the coming weeks and months.

When all is said, we may well have the retired general from Daura to thank for stripping bare for us the crippling contradictions of errant post-colonial nationhood as well as the hollow and inane rituals of misbegotten federalism. It is time to begin to look beyond General Mohammadu Buhari. A leopard cannot change its spots. Welcome to the land of the leopard.