The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Osuntokun

  • Muhammad Ali, an iconic personality

    Every one of my generation cannot but be sad about the final exit of the greatest athlete of the 20th century. I grew up watching the magnificent Ali upgrading boxing from sport to an art, more like ballet. To see a big man do what was called the Ali shuffle was simply unbelievable. I was introduced to boxing by a certain Sugar Ray Johnson who was my late brother, Chief OduolaOsuntokun’s driver and personal assistant who at one time was the light weight champion of Nigeria. Through him I got to meet a couple of great Nigerian boxers who were campaigning for world laurels in Europe.

    Boxing in the United States in the time of Ali provided young and energetic black boys avenue for self-development and rapid upward mobility. To white America, the best place for blacks was the prison where blacks spent the better parts of their lives. To avoid this fate, blacks generally suffered in silence. This was the United States Muhammad Ali grew up in. After leaving high school, his talent as a boxer was soon recognized by a white do-gooder.Boxing soon brought him into America’s notice when he represented the country as a light heavyweight boxer in the Rome Olympics of 1960 and won a gold medal.He was so excited by this victory at a young age of 19 that according to Wilma Rudolph, the black woman Olympic gold medallist in the sprints in the same games, that he wore his medal throughout the two weeks of the games.

    On returning home, a syndicate of white businessmen soon formed around him in Louisville to promote his boxing career. From one victory to another, the brash young man began to promote himself by boasting about what round he would knock out his opponent. In an uncanny fashion, his predictions always came true. He was nicknamed the Louisville Lip among other names. He began to call attention to himself as the greatest as well as asking people how beautiful not handsome he was. No doubt he was a beauty of a man to behold, tall, well-proportioned and with fair skin. By this time he had heard about the black Muslims,the followers of Elijah Mohammed in Chicago with their doctrine of separatism and virtually throwing at the white manthat black people too rejected integration. He liked their celebration of black women as queens to be treasured and respected unlike the beating his own dad and black men generally inflicted on his mother and black women generally.He however did not yet come out until after the fight against Sonny Liston the then reigning champion.

    Sonny Liston was a hard man who had killer instinct and was backed by the mobsters and many of the white folks secretly wished this ex-convict black dude would put an end to the boasting of the young Cassius Clay. Some even hoped Liston would kill Clay and put an end to this uppity nigger! But on the night of the fight against Liston, Clay turned the tables against the fearsome pugilist by not only beating him but knocking him out. The whole world was surprised and from that time on everyone wanted to know the trajectory of this handsome man. A couple of fights later including a second knockout in a rematch with Liston, Cassius Marcellus Clay jnr declared to the world that he had converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. No one is sure why he took the name Muhammad Ali. But it is safe to guess that he took the name of a major figure in the history of Egypt. Muhammad Ali was the khedive or ruler of Egypt early in the 19th century contemporaneous with the Meiji restoration in Japan and a modernizer like his counterpart in Japan.

    The moment Clay announced his conversion to Islam he drew the ire of white American establishment to himself. Even his father complained about the black Muslims taking away his son from him. But Ali stood his ground.

    The 1960s was a period of political and social ferment in the black world in the USA and in Africa. This was at the height of independent movements in Africa and the civil rights movement in the USA and each movement somehow fed on each other. This was also the period of American military campaign in Vietnam necessitating sending hundreds of thousands of young American soldiers to fight, killand be killed in the jungle of South-eastAsia. These young men were draftees who had to go to Vietnam as part of their citizen responsibility. Most of the draftees were usually the children of the poor and most were not university students like children of the affluent who either deferred serving in the military or escaped to Canada and Europe to avoid going to Vietnam.

    The radical wing of the so-called Negro rebellion included young academics like the beautiful young philosophy professor in university of California at Berkley, Angela Davis, one of the products of Hebert Marcuse a radical left wing professor. Others formed what was called the Black Panther Party led by Hugh Newton based mostly in the west coast of the USA with public declaration to resist police brutality by fighting back.One of their thinkers was the famous Eldridge Cleaver who wrote a successful book, Soul on Ice, depicting the plight of black men in America while in prison.On the east coast the likes of Stockley Carmichael and Rap Brown were raising hell.Young blacks were rioting from coast to coast burning down shops and shouting burn baby burn!The coming of Ali into the maelstrom confused white Americans. The reaction of most was that these niggers should be made to know who was boss.

    Muhammad Ali was drafted and was asked to report for posting to Vietnam. He of course refused that the Vietcong were not his enemies. But that the blue eyed Devils as the Nation of Islam called the whites were his enemies! He famously declared I ain’t got no problem with them Vietcong! He said Vietcong never called him nigger and if he must fight it will be in the USA.This brought anger and hatred to him. He was stripped of his title and sentenced to jail for three years. He appealed to the Supreme Court as a conscientious opponent of the war. It took the court three long years to deliver a judgement in his favour. This was at the height of his career as a boxer. The more he was persecuted, the more he attracted the attention and affection of the world outside the USA. When he tried to get his title back by fighting Joe Frazier the new champion, he met his Waterloo when he was defeated. The three years absence had had his toll. But Ali was an indomitable competitor. He later beat Frazier on two gruelling occasions including the so-called Thrilla in Manilla when these two black men nearly killed each other in order to assert superiority of  one over the other in an acrimonious relation that went way beyond the sport of boxing. Even though Ali tended to see his verbal abuse and teasing of Frazier as part of promotional tricks for their matches calling Frazier Uncle Tom and Gorilla,  it went beyond the pale and Frazier took it so personal that he said he wished Ali dead while watching the shaking and quivering Ali light the Olympic flames in Atlanta in 1996. The fight with Joe Frazier and the dramatic defeat of George Forman the giant from Atlanta by Muhammad Ali in the fight named Rumble in the jungle took a lot out of Ali. In spite of advice to stop fighting, he continued fighting and receiving blows unnecessarily to the head. I personally watched his fight in 1979, I believe in Bethesda Maryland where his former sparring partner and the then world champion Larry Holmes gave him the whipping of his life. The 61 fights he had must have contributed to the Parkinson’s disease that finally killed him after suffering for 32 years.

    To me it is not Ali’s skill as a boxer that is important. Of course he was the greatest athlete that ever lived. But besides that and most importantly he gave the black people of America a voice. He spoke truth to power and it is people like him that made the civil rights act of 1965 possible. Yes Martin Luther King jnr. was the eloquent preacher and mobilizer of the masses but it is Ali who epitomized the freedom sought by black youth. I must also not forget to mention the contribution of Malcom X to Ali’s psychological development as well as his own contribution to the African American liberation? Muhammad Ali’s appeal transcended race eventually appealing to the whole world to the extent that Oxford University wanted to elect him their poet laureate. To us in Africa he was a brother and to the Muslim world he was an iconic figure. It is fitting that the president of Turkey and the King of Jordan will be among many dignitaries who will be present at his burial today. What a pity that no African president will be at his funeral. To my generation Ali represents pride in our African personality and heritage which does not defer to the arrogance of racists who put Africans and other non-white people down.May God accept him and grant him  AljanatFirdaus

  • Oba Ajagungbade is 90

    Throughout last week the people of Ogbomosho and their well wishers celebrated with the Soun his 90th birth day and his 42nd year on the throne of his ancestors. If Kabiyesi was not the Soun, he would still have been a great man. In other words he brought greatness to the throne. His father  Bello Afolabi Oyewumi was Soun between 1916 and 1940. Bello’s father had also been Soun which means that even without the principle of retaining the kingship of Ogbomosho in one lineage, the Oyewumis have found favour with God and man to produce excellent candidates that were approved by the discerning Ogbomosho people for their throne.

    Prince Oyewumi as he was known before coming to the throne was a successful  self made business man. He lived in Jos where he made his fortune. For almost 30 years, he resided in Jos providing service for the plateau people during the period of British imperium. He was in Jos from 1944 to early 1970s when he relocated the headquarters of his company from Jos to Ogbomosho. When he was in Jos he maintained contacts with all those who mattered in the North. Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto had much respect for his business acumen  and maintained amicable relations with him calling him Ciroman Ogbomosho and treating him  with the respect which a fellow prince deserved. The then Prince Oyewumi was never a politician but he could read the signs that the future of independent Nigeria would be in the hands of the rising national political leaders.  Whenever the leaders of the Action Group came to the plateau they also sought the company of Prince Oyewumi. He was quite close to Awolowo and closer to Akintola his townsman and he selflessly provided them hospitality during their polical campaigns in the north.

    Even though he did not have much of formal schooling, he made up for it by attending courses as a young man when he first got to the north of Nigeria and had many English  miners as his friends. He was a great  socialite and he could dance to  all the western music then in vogue in colonial Nigeria. He made friends easily and this facilitated his business deals with the European firms that maintained trading monopoly in colonial Nigeria. He travelled to consolidate business relations with several  firms in England  and continental  Europe  particularly in Hamburg, Germany and Marseille, France in 1958. His business interest spans retail and wholesale distributorship, estate development, hotels and hospitality, light manufacturing and even shipping. By the time he ascended the throne, he had enough fortune to last him more than a lifetime and to give all his children the best education money could buy. He was a liberal father as attested to by all his children. He allowed them considerable freedom to choose their professions and did not force any faith on any of his children even though he is a strict Muslim. He believes that salvation is a personal thing and that we will all be judged as individuals rather than  as families  and that we will individually account for our lives on the day of judgement. He has managed to build a successful  family.

    As a successful father, he sees his Ogbomosho citizens as his extended family. He has tried to bring modernity to Ogbomosho and his reign has witnessed tremendous development in education, commerce and industry, banking, finance, telecommunication and road infrastructure. He is most happy about the great stride the Ogbomosho people have taken in education. When he came to the throne in 1973, there were only three secondary schools in  Ogbomosho; there are now over 150. He also contributed to the location of Ladoke Akintola University in Ogbomosho. He was also a major contributor to the building of a modern mosque in Ogbomosho. His reign above all has witnessed a period of peace. He is by nature a peacemaker. He did everything to make peace when the Action Group crisis broke out in the 1960s and when Ladoja and Akala had their political fight, he intervened unsuccessfully because he took Ladoja as a son and  did not want any crisis involving any Ogbomosho  man to affect Yorubaland.

    Knowing how tempestuous Ogbomosho history has been in the past, it is not a small achievement for Kabiyesi Oyewumi to have ruled this huge rural conurbation of millions of people without any crisis. The Soun deserves to be commended.

    It was a joy to see the number of dignitaries who attended the celebrations. Apart from friends of his children, the governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi was  there so were former governors, civilian and military, crowned heads such as the Olukare  of Ikare, the Gbong Gwon of  Jos and the emir of neighboring Ilorin who praised the Soun for his wisdom from which he has benefited in the past and adding that whenever he passed through Ogbomosho to and from Lagos, he always made it a point of duty to call on the Soun.

    Ogbomosho is a very important town. It used to be the third biggest town  in Nigeria coming after Ibadan and Kano. This was before census was politicized, and instead of being routine counting of citizens it became a competition in demographic rigging! I do not know its position in the demographic pecking order today. Its importance is however widely recognized by the fact that no head of state since independence has missed visiting the town. I was happy to have participated in the festivities surrounding the double celebration of a life lived for many and  a remarkable reign so far. Live Long  Soun Atobatele – meaning a man who was king before ascending the throne ,-a man destined to be great and who has achieved greatness. Live Long Baba. A boba lan boke koko lan bokuta.

  • Alhaji Hamzat Ahmadu Walin Sokoto, Adieu

    Life is a stage and man and woman are but mere actors. When the curtain falls then our role is over. Ambassador Hamzat Ahmadu, Walin Sokoto, has played his part and he is gone to be with his maker and to have eternal rest. May God grant him Aljanat Firdaus.

    I have known Ambassador Hamzat Ahmadu for at least three decades. Throughout those years, he has always been forthright in his views and his views were not coloured by ethnic  or religious considerations at all. Whatever is right is right and whatever is wrong is wrong in his views. He was a quintessential Nigerian, he was a patriot to the core and he loved this country. He was not a typical Nigerian who saw the country from the prism of ethnic nationality or religion, yet he was a patriotic northerner and a serious and practicing Muslim. His religion made him to care for humanity at large, he epitomized the Renaissance man. He was polished and well groomed and he was  a man of high etiquette.

    He was a well trained diplomat and he served in many countries and he had the distinction of serving in the capitals of the then two superpowers namely Washington and Moscow. Yet when the Foreign Ministry came up with the idea that our most experienced diplomats should be posted to neighbouring countries, he happily accepted being sent to the Cameroons believing that peace at our borders are as important as in serving in glamorous places like Washington, The Hague, Moscow and Bonn.

    Wherever he served he gave it his best, he was an encyclopedia on Nigerian diplomatic history having worked with Sir Ahmadu Bello, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, Yakubu Gowon and Murtala Mohammed. Wherever he served and whoever he served, he was a typical Sokoto man whose religion of Islam positively influenced his comportment and zeitgeist. Fanaticism was not in his way of life. He was a Sunni Muslim without embracing the extreme Wahhabism chacteristic of present day Islamic fundamentalism. He died when his views about the so-called herdsmen versus farmers would have been helpful.

    Just like Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu Gambari, the Emir of Ilorin said that not all the herdsmen are Fulani. I agree. The Bororo have lived with us for hundreds of years without any problem. In my hometown I was contemplating buying some cows to give to the Bororo to rear for me; this was the practice by my colleagues when I was in Maiduguri. In my place we have never had any problem with Fulani people. And to the uninformed, most of the Bororo are not even Muslims. Many of them are animists or practice some old religion and anthropologists have found traces of some crude Judaism  in their belief. They are simple, hardy people who are not envious of other people as most of us are.

    It is difficult therefore for me to imagine the peaceful solitary Fulani of my youth becoming the murderous Fulani of today; something must have gone wrong. In Newtonian physics, action and reaction are equal and oppositely directed, if these Fulanis have become violent there must be a cause for this and it behooves us to find the cause.  We should also realize that this farmer/pastoral divide and antagonism is not a North/ South  phenomenon. It exists all over Nigeria from Sokoto to Badagry and from Maiduguri to Calabar and from Kano to Lagos. We are not in anyway helped by heaping all the heavy blame on Buhari because he’s a Fulani man and I don’t think we are being fair to him. By asking him to come out and denounce the cow Fulani without ascertaining the facts, we are forcing him on the defensive and no leader likes to take dictates  or follow from behind. Leaders lead from the front. Pardon me for this digression.

    I remember with fondness Ambassador Clark joking with Ambassador Hamzat Ahmadu of his people coming from Futa Toro in the Senegambia or Futa Djallon area perhaps in the 18th century or thereabout and Ambassador Clark turning to people like myself saying their neighbours were across the seas meaning the Izon people traded across the seas with Europeans and not people like myself in upcountry Nigeria. These are memories and memories are forever and I will always treasure my friendship with Ambassador Hamzat Ahmadu.

    I worked with him in his later years as members of the Presidential Advisory Council which was set up by General Obasanjo and in spite of our difference in age, he related to me and everyone of us as equals. His anecdotal comments about former Heads of States with whom he served provided us background to whatever advice we offered to the new people in power.  When he had to observe his religious rite of prayers during meetings unlike most people, he never announced to anybody that he was going to pray and whenever I went to the washroom to ease myself, I will meet him making ablution preparatory to prayers. He was important enough to tell the meeting to stop and wait for him because he wanted to pray but that was not his style and whenever we had breakfast with Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan, he spoke sparingly and left all the presentations of our views to the chairman Chief Emeka Anyaoku. I deliberately emulated him and made whatever vigorous contribution I needed to make at the council meeting and not at the presidential breakfast meeting.

    By the end of our service in 2015 when we all deliberately said we were no longer interested in staying on in the same advisory capacity to the new president, Muhammadu Buhari, it was a collective decision because after 14 and half years of serving three presidents without pay or as non-stipendiary advisers, we felt others should be given the chance. I noticed at that time that Walin Sokoto as I used to call him was no longer as strong as he  used to be. He was by this time over 88 years old but still walked without the walking stick but he sometimes held to me or any person near him for support. His contribution to the foreign policy of this country will remain imperishable. His human relations will remain an example of how all gentlemen and ladies should behave. He brought integrity to the committee on national honours before the whole thing was bastardized and national honours became two for a penny and rogues looters and criminals found their ways to the list if they were politically connected.

    On a personal note, he was ever so considerate to me. When my brother Kayode died prematurely, he was always telling others what a national tragedy his death was and how American medical scientists held him in high esteem. When my wife passed on in 2003, he came all the way from Lagos to attend the funeral service. It is a pity that because of the Islamic injunctions for burial to take place within 24 hours, I could not go to Sokoto but a delegation of our former colleagues including Ambassador Jibrin Chinade carried out a message of commiseration from all of us to the Sultan. I remember one or two times when Ambassador was in Washington and while visiting he would ask for our neck size and you’ll be wondering why he was asking for this and before you knew it he will go inside his room to bring out a couple of shirts for us take home back to Nigeria. He was such a generous giver and in my religion, God loves a generous giver. Ambassador Hamzat Ahmadu was involved in several areas of Nigerian life from banking, journalism and culture and I know that wherever he served, it was not for material purposes. If he had wanted to be stupendously rich, he had the opportunity but he never took it. His wife was from the South so in the North-South dichotomy of the Nigerian politics, he always took the side that was right by his own definition. One side of him that used to amaze me was his jovial relationship with his colleagues especially the ones from the south. He and Ambassador Akporode Clark were very close and they looked after each other. Hamzat Ahmadu is an unforgettable man and I will always remember him with fondness because it is people like him that hold this complex but complementary country together. I pray that he would find rest and God will look favorably on his soul and bless his family  he has left behind. They should take solace in the solid good name and legacy their loved one left behind which posterity will remember and celebrate. Adieu! Walin Sokoto

  • House of Lords Nigeria @ 50 – 3

    The need to put more emphasis on proper education is fancied by Professor Peter Okebukola who argues that with proper funding, Nigerians would reach their goal of rapid transformation of the country. He mercifully does not believe that the standard of education has fallen. I agree. The present generation has more facility to access information than any generation before them. Digesting and assimilating information accessed constitutes the basis of wisdom. The present generation may not be as “grammatical” as we are but they are knowledgeable. What Okebukola advocates is proper training of teachers, and getting the right quantum of teachers, and appropriate facilities for learning and building of good schools for primary and secondary school pupils the type one finds in Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa and shall I say in Aregbesola’s Osun State.

    Engineer Vincent Maduka claims that Nigerians can be whatever they want to be if the will is there. The ICT sector gives one reasons for optimism. When the GSM birthed in Nigeria, foreign companies said there was not enough market to attract their investment. But now with the success and size of the GSM market, it has come to stay in a big way and Nigeria remains a prize the international investors in the field are dying to win. With the right education Maduka feels Nigeria should be able to make a contribution to the future development in ICT like India is doing. This will depend on carefully planned strategy not to be left behind considering the enthusiasm of the young Nigerians not only as consumers but as agent of change in hardware and software computing. Emeagwali’s contributions to the development of the internet super highway have shown, if given the chance, what Nigerians can do.

    The girl child should also be encouraged because any country that neglects more than 50% of its population does injustice to itself. There is no mental incapacity that can be proven in women, and women all over the world in the U.K, France, Sri Lanka, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Israel, Pakistan, Bangladesh, have become Prime Ministers or presidents. It is therefore a challenge argued Chief Solanke for Nigeria to give women a chance and their due. At the end of the day women are foundations on which nations are built.

    Home training, argues Professor Tomori, is the foundation on which further training hangs, whether we embrace PDP’s “transformation” or APC’s “change”, which he says mean the same if we are to judge by our recent election and the slogans of the defeated PDP and the victorious APC. What is required is not mere slogan but root and branch change. The insane roguery of politicians is the bane of our society. But change will not come unless everybody embraces the credo of change. We must change as individuals and as a collectivity but leadership is important. The leader of a country must be like a lighted candle which cannot be hid. His goodness must be manifested by how he lifts the entire country up so that history can be fair and remember the change he has brought for the better into their lives.

    With the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as president of Nigeria in 2015, Professor Tomori is cautiously optimistic that we may yet get the change that this country requires and needs. The question to ask is whether Buhari, borrowing a leaf from the book of J.J Rousseau, represents the general will of Nigerians. And if he does, according to Rousseau, he will be right to force us to obey the general will which Rousseau says may not be known by the majority but by the minority or even one person. The problem of Nigeria is not just that of political leadership alone. So Buhari alone cannot solve our problem. Our problem is structural and systemic and we should rather err on the side of structures and systems that are long lasting than pin all our hopes and future on the ephemerality of persons.

    At the end of the day, whether it is 70 years or 100 years as some clerics say, we are allotted by God to live on this terrestrial plain we would all grow old and pass on to eternity. A country should be judged on how well it treats its old, and I dare say, its dead. A situation, argues Chief Akinyele, in which pensioners over the age of 80 are wickedly struck off the payment schedule on the ground that they should have died calls for change. People in charge of pension steal pensioner’s funds with impunity or put pensions fund in fixed term deposits so as to earn interest for themselves while pensioners die of hunger and in penury.

    Pensioners have been known to curse heads of governments while on their dying beds and God knows there is no way such curses would not come true.

    Reading this book has been a journey of how a well-endowed country has failed miserably on every count. Most of us are eager that our present experiment in governance will succeed. But for this to happen there is a need for a new architecture of government that will reduce the financial strength of the centre where most of the looting takes place and redistribute resources to the states. The centre must remove its hands from local government creation in a new restructured country. The federation must be between the states and the centre and the anomaly of a three-tier structure must be done away with like in all federations of the world. States must be left to create as many local governments as their resources permit and their people want.

    Whatever it will take must be done to bring Nigeria into the 21st century where potable water, regular electricity, security, motorable roads, railways, health, and education will be taken for granted as in most countries of the world, including some African countries.

  • House of Lords Nigeria @ 50 – 2

    As Chief Fola Solanke said in her piece, it is disgraceful that our children know very little about our history and collective wisdom of the past. It is a truism that a people who do not know where they are coming from cannot know where they are going. Perhaps in the whirling of time, our federal government would realize the folly of cutting off our young ones from their roots and restore the teaching of history in our schools. If I were to send a copy of this present book with all its distressing details of failure to my son and his young impressionable daughter, that would be ensuring that they would not come visiting to Nigeria again. Not even as tourists.

    The Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo said in 1979 that if he became president he would scrap the ministry of tourism. He argued that no sane person would come to Nigeria as a tourist. He said unless the person wants to know what hell would look like. Chief Awolowo had an uncanny sense about development or lack of it in our country.

    All the 11 distinguished writers of this book perhaps with the exception Chief Folake Solanke, Professor Peter Okebukola, and Engineer V.I Maduka, end their chapters on notes of pessimism about current and future development of Nigeria.

    Each person, using different imageries, end up painting the same picture of missed opportunities, missed steps and following the wide road that will eventually lead to perdition. But within their sad and clinical analysis, one can find preferred solutions if we changed course. One of the most telling aspects of this book for me is to see two of my former teachers who have now joined the saints triumphant, Professor Emeritus J.F. Ade Ajayi and Professor Emeritus T.N Tamuno virtually giving up on Nigeria in their evening years. Professor Ajayi, the quiet and deep thinker that he was, ends his chapter on a radical note that only the payment of reparations to Africa can balance the sheet of the debt owed to Africa by the West through the Slave Trade and Colonialism imposed on us because of our weakness. How the reparation is to be gotten did not seem to bother him too much. He apparently believed that the injustice done to Africa is self-evident and that the West will give in to our demand without a fight. Unfortunately it is not likely the West would surrender their position of privilege and power without a fight. Do we have the wherewithal to compel the West to accede to our request? The answer is no. Professor Tamuno is more pessimistic. He described Nigeria as “Lying in State” and that increasingly Nigeria, former giant of Africa before the civil war of 1967-70 “…Now resembles an ant or rat on global platforms of rectitude, justice, stability, security and peace”.

    He also accused our rulers of preferring “State security” over “National Security” and he said, government at all levels in Marxist terminology constitutes the state and the governments guzzles all the resources in order to secure themselves with little or no care and regard for the people who make up the nation. In the case of Nigeria of 400 or so nationalities brought together without consultation by the British, Tamuno argues that the only thing binding us together is the oil and even at that we continue to behave in the manner of “quarrelsome crabs in confined space”. Both Professors Sagay and Agbaje agreed with Tamuno that we deceive ourselves if we say we are operating a Federal System of Government. Rather Agbaje and Sagay say we live in deceit and that our so-called federalism is decentralized unitary system of government. In a normal federal system, the states create the centre and not the other way round of the centre creating states. The federal government should normally be co-equal with the states in all federations. It is the states that have land, the people and the resources. The state by agreement should be funding the centre which since the military seizure of power has become a Frankenstein monster, some kind of Leviathan breathing down everybody’s neck. Both Agbaje and Sagay advocate a functioning federal system, some kind of cooperative federation similar to that of Switzerland and Canada which incidentally are not without their own problems. In the same vein Prof Mabogunje goes over the unreasonable structure of our country in which the federal government not only creates states but local governments that are not rooted in the historical loyalty of our people. He suggests that instead of lumping together disparate settlements and breaking down large cities in order to conform to some mathematical demography, we should in fact have a new paradigm of local government that is not static but changes with demographic development of our rural and urban settlements. This is the only way the much required grassroots development will be meaningful.

    Professor Emeritus O.O Akinkugbe writes with tremendous lucidity, hilarity, and facility but poignancy. The municipal problems of inadequate water supply, shortage of electricity, insecurity, and poor medical facilities attract his attention. These municipal inadequacies are actually militating against our performance at optimal level in all our vocations. Imagine operations being performed using lanterns or the insomnia-inducing loud noise of generators.

    Professor Akinkugbe opined that to have a decent and functional life, each person has to assume the role of a local government, providing one’s own electricity, policing, water, and even roads not minding contributing to the general pollution of noise and carbon emission in the provision of electricity as a result of the absence or failure of the national grid.

    Prof. Akinkugbe wonders why Africa is poorly represented in the pantheon of scientific heroes. His implied answer is that mental ability is enhanced by a web of factors which are sadly absent in Africa whose total contributions to world economy is less than two percent. Perhaps Africa’s time has come and gone with the achievement of ancient and Pharaonic Egypt’s primacy in world civilization. After all Cheikh Anta Diop of Senegal claims that ancient Egypt was an African civilization or may be the time of African’s dominance will be in the future  if one were  to believe Professor Ludwig Dehio’s Theory of civilization coming in cycles.

  • House of Lords Nigeria @ 50 – 1

    The House of Lords Nigeria just turned 50 and to mark this auspicious occasion, a book entitled NIGERIA: THE CHALLENGES OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT was presented to the public and the guest of honor was his Excellency the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Professor Yemi Osinbajo. The House of Lords Nigeria was formed by young professionals in the 1970s. These were mostly young university dons, civil servants and other upwardly mobile professionals. The name House of Lords was a jovial mimicry of the exalted House of Lords in England which is the upper house to the House of Commons and its judicial committee is the highest court in England.

    Over the years, some of its member had passed on but their memories continued to linger on and in some cases, these founding fathers have been replaced by their sons and in my own case, my late brother Professor Kayode Osuntokun had apparently been replaced by my humble self, without prejudice to my nephew Segun joining us in the House of Lords as soon as he is invited. The House of Lords Nigeria is a social and public-spirited association devoted to the services of man and country. They generate ideas that are in the public space which government can take a look at and see what can be done to put these ideas to use for the good of the country.

    The name House of Lords has sometimes created problems for those who think that the house is a secret society. I remember when a member passed on and the officiating bishop said that he would not allow the casket of a member of a secret cult to be brought into the church, he was however told and persuaded that the House of Lords was not a secret cult.

    There was also another occasion when the leader of the House of Lords Nigeria was being conferred with a chieftaincy title, members of the House of Lords went to felicitate with him. The officiating cleric announced to the entire church that the town was so blessed that members of the House of Lords had flown in from England to celebrate the occasion with them. This was a cause for big laughter afterwards. Members of the House of Lords Nigeria, are so distinguished that they compare favourably with its counterparts in England.

    I had the distinction and privilege to review their publication which was presented to celebrate their 50th year anniversary. The book NIGERIA: THE CHALLENGES OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT is a must read.

    This is a sequel to an earlier book of the House of Lords Nigeria entitled Bumpy Ride to the 21st Century. This new book like the previous one is a collection of lectures presented by distinguished Nigerians during The Lords annual May Day luncheon and lecture. The current book is made up of 11 chapters. Writers include late Professor Emeritus J.F. Ade Ajayi: “Towards African Renaissance in the 21st century”; Professor Itse Sagay: 3 Anatomy of Federalism with special reference to Nigeria”; Chief T.A Akinyele 3 Before the sun sets”: A glimpse into life in retirement in Nigeria”; Professor Emeritus O.O Akinkugbe CFR NNOM: “The wages of curiosity”; Chief Folake Solanke SAN, CON: “Women in Politics”.

    Engineer V.I Maduka: 3 P&T, GSM, and beyond”; Professor Adigun Agbaje: “Interrogating the future: Past, present and the architecting of tragedies”; Professor Peter Okebukola, OFR: “Rhyme Reason and Rhetoric of Education”; late Professor Emeritus T.N Tamuno NNOM: “Quo Vadis Nigeria”; Professor Emeritus Akin L Mabogunje: “My Lords, what is the state of your manors”; and finally, Professor Oyewale Tomori NNOM: 3 Transforming Nigeria into a changed Nation”

    Some years ago my son who is an electrical engineer based in Atlanta Georgia Unites states came home on a short visit during which time he kept asking me questions about our apparent failure as a country. The most apparent failure was in the area of power generation and distribution, among others. Like a typical historian, I tried to place our failure in the context of our political evolution as a country. I did not want to bore him with too many details. So I started from 1959 federal elections. I said the failure of Obafemi Awolowo’s Action Group and Nnamdi Azikwe’s NCNC to form a coalition government was the beginning of our problem. If this had happened the better prepared leadership of the country would have emerged to lead us on a faster trajectory of modernization. This interpretation may be disputed by those who genuinely believe such a government would have alienated the larger part of the country. This may be true and in the social science to which history belongs there are no answers with mathematical exactitude. This was not even the point of the story. After one or two days of power cuts and why we have not developed becoming a recurring decimal in my sons discussion with me and I then kept talking about Awolowo, Azikwe, Ahmadu Bello, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, my son said dad “who the hell is this Awolowo you are talking about?” I was shocked. I said “so you have never heard about Awolowo before?” He answered “no”. I forgot he was born in 1976.  “So who have you heard about?” He said “Buhari and Idiagbon”. Then he challenged me to write a short and readable political history of Nigeria which any intelligent scientist could read and understand. I promised to do so time and electric power permitting!

  • The budget brouhaha

    It is almost a year since we had a change of government and yet we do not have a budget. This is simply embarrassing and totally uncalled for. In any civilized country, the minister of budget and national planning should have resigned long ago when it was discovered that what our president was made to present was poorly prepared and was not vetted before the president was told the budget was ready for submission to parliament. Ministers and heads of departments one after the other disowned the figures and projects in their departmental and ministries budget. The public was told that some people, presumably bureaucrats, had deliberately smuggled items and heads of expenditure without the knowledge of government. This is an act of sabotage and some people should be held responsible. This was also an act done to ridicule a president who means well for the country and who is doing everything to rescue the country from the abyss of stinking corruption the previous regime left us. I cannot imagine that anybody would have the kind of courage and audacity to frontally confront the president and his government in this way. This is why something must be done publicly to punish the culprits.

    The budget fiasco raises several points in my mind. I think people are trying to test the resolve of President Muhammadu Buhari. They are hiding under the pretext that we are in a democratic regime and Buhari dares not act as a military man and that if he does they will enlist the support of their bevy of lawyers to challenge him. We may yet borrow from the book of late Justice Kalu Anya who said in the 1980s that a time may come in this country when a defence counsel may be jailed along with the accused in cases bordering on national political or economic security. It seems the president’s hands are being tied and he seems to be going along with his traducers. If this goes on indefinitely without the president wielding the enormous powers of his office, people will lose interest in his reformist agenda and he will be perceived as a toothless bulldog or a bedraggled old soldier full of sound and fury signifying nothing. This apparent refusal to use the power of his office for the good of the silent majority has led to the National Assembly and particularly the Senate with its corrupt and compromised leadership blocking the moves of the president at every turn without consequences. Many people have suggested that there is a need to have special anti-corruption tribunals to try the innumerable cases of corruption being daily exposed. If this is not done, the culprits would use their loot to hire lawyers who will collude with the apparently compromised judges to delay the cases by issuing one injunction after another to frustrate the cause of justice as they have been doing since 2007. The result is that this crowd of treasury looters would come back next election and buy themselves seats in the Senate and the House. They will continue to rule us and award humongous salaries and perks to themselves. In the meantime, the work of government is being held hostage and poor people in the cities and rural areas are beginning to take laws into their hands by attacking ordinary people doing their own businesses or minding their own affairs.

    I just do not understand how members of the Senate would abandon discussing and passing the budget and troop down to the court where their so-called president has been arraigned for corruption. They say it is political persecution. Is the Nigerian government also involved in the Panama papers where the same money guzzler has been mentioned? We of course know what is going on. It is not that they love Bukola Saraki; what they are trying to prevent is so that the example of Saraki is not used as a template for their own treatment when the time comes. I wish these people know how angry the masses are with their shenanigans and irresponsibility.

    The president must not be seen to surrender to the evil forces in the land without a fight. There must be some emergency powers the president can invoke to prevent a civilian coup d’etat against his government. This is what the inability to pass a budget in a year is.

    The serious economic problem the country faces is being compounded by this inertia on the part of the legislative branch which instead of doing what is right for the people is nevertheless going on spending spree, buying jeeps whose prices are inflated by 100 percent and forging standing rules to permit all kinds of illegalities and untoward actions unbefitting of the status of the hallowed assemblies they temporarily occupy. The mistake Buhari made was allowing renegades take over parliament without the party whip. Once the leadership that emerged without party control was ensconced in office, the president lost all influence in parliament. If the president does not fight back, all will be lost and it will be goodbye to good governance. Instead of being sorry for their misdeeds, operatives of the regime that brought us to this economic pass are boasting that they will be back in 2019. If nothing is done quickly, their prophesy may just come true. The campaign is on.  Imagine the man responsible for the Boko Haram insurgency not only being appointed party chairman but also presumably gunning for the presidency itself! They are already blaming Buhari for the crash of oil price. The uninformed and even those who should know are saying things were better under the previous regime. They dishonestly give the impression that Buhari is wickedly withholding release of money to reflate a depressed economy. The myriad of problems arising from the collapse of the oil market does not allow President Buhari the luxury of being nice to those who want to bring down his government. He must confront them headlong. We did not elect him because of his democratic credentials or gentlemanly disposition to opponents, in fact we elected him because we want him to be tough to those who will sabotage the present and the future of Nigerians. We know one cannot make omelette without breaking eggs. What this country needs is not a pussy-footing leadership but a strong leader with clear conscience, incorruptible credential with the constitution in one hand and a whip in the other. Sometimes in strategy, it is not the actual use of force that does the trick but the threat of it.

    President Muhammadu Buhari stand up to be recognized, sir.

  • Gender discrimination and marginalisation in politics – 3

    A country that marginalizes half of her population has definitely shot itself in the foot and cannot run as fast as other healthy nations. This is particularly unfortunate for a backward country where all hands should be on deck. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that women are less cerebrally endowed than men are. This means denying women equal rights and opportunity denies our government the full pool from which it makes its recruitment. Without the right calibre of people manning the strategic centres of our life, there can be no development and without development there can hardly be political and economic stability. Therefore, we must borrow a leaf from such countries like the Scandinavia, Germany, France and Great Britain, where there is no longer a debate on woman’s role in the political and economic life of a country. Even the only superpower which likes to see itself as exceptional country may soon have a female head of state next January 2017.

    The question to ask is whether the marginalisation of women has been responsible for our apparent and seeming instability in Nigeria and consequent underdevelopment. The answer is NO. Our instability arises until recently from monopolization of power by the military and marginalisation of the entire civil society, which includes women. Our instability also arises from regional political imbalance, inequitable distribution of resources and national wealth, rampant corruption, youth unemployment, brigandage arising from joblessness, absence of rule of law, social disequilibrium, arrested political and economic development, confusion as to the system and mode of government, marriage of modern and ancient political system without a clear cut direction and evolution of a Nigeria system. While the problem of gender discrimination is a serious issue, it is not the most important factor making for instability and underdevelopment. It is nevertheless a serious issue and it must be tackled along with other issues. Associated with gender discrimination is the issue of sexual harassment, which is usually laughed off the court in Nigeria. But this is not a laughing matter. No country that wants to be taken seriously would condone the offence of sexual harassment, which is endemic in Nigeria. Because of the poverty of our people and the scarcity of jobs, female workers put up with indescribable humiliation in the hands of over-sexed men with unusually active libido. The abduction of underage women and converting them to Muslims or sex slaves is another vicious kind of sexual harassment.

    Now that we are in a democratic era, each of the two main political parties must begin to formulate policies especially directed at female and children issues. Politicians because they have had little chance at political leadership have not demonstrated forceful leadership in this regard. It is hoped that the current political dispensation would take more interest in women issues and women empowerment. It may be necessary to embark on affirmative action to allocate a certain parentage of seats to women in the various legislatures and cabinets. Political parties in their own interest must allow and encourage women to hold party political offices as well. Perhaps there is need for a constitutional device to force men to share power with women. The question of franchise has been legally and constitutionally settled. And there is no democracy anywhere in the world where people are forced to vote but in our own situation where quite a large number of our women-folk live in purdah, special and indigenous devices must be fashioned out to ensure the confidentiality of the franchise. Under no circumstance must it be permissible for men to dictate to their wives who to vote for. With modern communication, it ought to be possible for political parties looking for votes to reach the most distant recess of the purdah. There is a general knowledge that when a nation educates its women-folk, that nation is educating the entire society because of the fundamental and important role women play in child bearing and rearing and continuing and preserving human society.

    If our goal is to build a vibrant democratic society, then all people must be brought on board, and if we must move at a very rapid rate in order to catch up with the civilized world, then the question of women mobilization is just too important to be trifled with. Without stability there can be no development, with more than half of our population operating at the fringe of our political life, we cannot be said to be politically stable. Stability is not the same as the peace of the grave where society is terrorized into acquiescence or to silence. While women may not be in a position to terrorize society or to overthrow governments, their power lies in the influence, which they have over their male children and also their husbands. We must recognise this influence as power and we must deliberately educate this segment of our society who will always have this power. But above all, women power must not come vicariously through their sons and husbands, women must have access to power on their own merit. The only way to ensure this is by deliberately making our political environment women friendly. This we can do through affirmative action and through legislation. We must also proceed with deliberate speed in educating the female-child. Education has always been a liberating force as well as a training process and medium. With education most of the disabilities of women will overtime disappear. Economic empowerment will follow, and with this will come political participation. With women empowerment will come more voice and brain to confront other fundamental disabilities of our nation. Unity is strength; the more united a country is the better, unity goes beyond overcoming the primordial ties of ethnicity. Nowadays, gender unity is increasingly attracting the attention that it deserves. It may even be more fruitful and more intellectually rewarding if we move away from pre-occupation with ethnic and regional politics and really face the socio-economic issue for our times. What better people to look at the issues of begging, in the midst of plenty, starvation, unclean environment, inadequate health facilities, than women. Examples of countries like Russia, where more than 60% of the doctors are women or the United States, where most of the people who do social work are women, point to the tendency of women to be more suitable in building what President Bush called a “gentler kinder” and more humane society. Our women need to be challenged and our society must embrace the credo of “careers open to talents” and women certainly have talents.

  • Gender discrimination and marginalisation in politics-2

    This kind of choice should never have been allowed in the first instance if the state were aware and alive to its responsibilities. Education should be a right and not privilege. The resources to take care of the education of all of our children are there if properly managed and husbanded. In the best of times, female education should be at par with that of their male counterpart. In the public universities for example, the ratio is about 40:60 in favour of men. This is however the reverse in most private universities. This means that parity is within sight. If and when we have almost the same number of women and men vying for the same positions, inequality would not disappear because employers of labour would continue to view materially the loss of labour and corporate earning which leave, with or without pay, associated with child bearing entails. But these are issues, which are being tackled in more advanced economies where men too are being given paternity leave just like the maternity leave for the women.

    Discrimination in the job market will never be completely eliminated but it can at least be made illegal but since nobody has ever forced the issue, we still do not know what the opinions of our courts are. It is in the realm of politics that the situation is very serious. Women in Nigeria hardly show any interest in politics. They just want to be left alone to go on with their lives, and take care of their families. Educated women and the majority of their male counterparts actually view politics as a “dirty game”, which is largely played by lawyers and other self employed professionals. And because of the usual violence and thuggery associated with partisan politics, women and self-respecting men shy away from it. There is also the problem of finance. Politics in recent times have become a preserve of the plutocrats. One cannot be a successful politician in Nigeria unless one is well heeled or one has backers who are ready to finance one’s political career as an investment. In this way, one compromises one’s independence and the seed of corruption is sown. Women generally do not seem cut out for this kind of life.

    There is also the question of what an aspiring woman politician is to do with a husband who is apathetic or hostile to political participation. The general impression of a woman politician in the minds of Nigerians is that of somebody who is either out of control or out of her station. Nigerian male politicians prefer holding caucus meetings in the nights to the disadvantage of self-respecting women. We know of course that the families of women politicians all over the world have to forfeit their hold, expectations, demands and usual familial relationship with their wives or daughters. It is not easy in a rather conservative African society as ours for this to be done without somebody paying the price. That price is usually paid by women and their children, because the man is usually not inhibited in entering into new liaison with other “homely” and “wifely” partner. These cultural obstacles are immense and difficult to overcome them. We have a national aspiration to be in the league of important and civilized countries of the world. We must therefore march in tandem with the best. It is not a matter of religion anymore.

    We have had women serving at the highest levels of government everywhere except Africa. Golda Meier in Israel, the Bandaranaikes – mother and daughter in Sri Lanka, Indira Ghandi in India, Begum Hussaina Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh, Tansu Ciller in Turkey, Magaret Thatcher in Great Britain, Magot Brundlandt in Norway, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Megawati Sukarnoputra in Indonesia, the biggest Islamic country in the world. Other female presidents or Prime Ministers include Edith Cresson (France), Yingluck Shinawatra (Thailand), President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina), Michelle Bachlet (Chile) and Dilma Vana Rouseff (Brazil). Religious and male chauvinists have and are being confounded everywhere. It is not a question of whether it will be salutary for women to participate and to take the commanding heights in governance; it is a question of equity, fairness and justice.

    One cannot identify a pattern, norm or paradigm in countries with women heads of government. But what is discernible is that women tend to be more authoritarian when they are heads of government than men perhaps because they have to assert themselves more than it is necessary for men to do. Mrs Margaret Thatcher used to say she was the ‘only man’ in her cabinet. The level of corruption is not less than when men are in power. From empirical data, there is hardly any difference in the way women or men behave in power. Perhaps the only trait one can isolate is that women in power seem to feel like men and to put other women at a distance. Whatever the shortcoming of women in power, the absence of the feminine touch wherever they are barred from participation is definitely a loss to the polity and society at large. Since the Beijing conference on women empowerment, the United Nations and the collective voice of the world have stood behind women self-realization in every facet of our human existence. It therefore behoves us to ensure that our women-folk have access to political power as their men counterparts. As a resource, man or woman is the ultimate factor in human development.

  • Lagos-Ibadan expressway is jinxed

    The rains are here. Thank God. The heat was becoming unbearable and many times I thought perhaps I was in hell because hell cannot be hotter than this. I hope America will experience the same kind of heat we had this year  in Nigeria to shut the loud mouths of those members of the Republican Party who deny the scientificity of global warming. Throughout the dry season from December 2015 to March, many of us anxiously looked forward to substantial work being done on the Lagos – Ibadan expressway. But alas nothing was done and hundreds of people are still dying needlessly on the most travelled road in Nigeria. Even if our government does not care for the people using the road, it should be concerned about the economic damage this bad road is doing  to the country. This road is the artery connecting the major port of Lagos which is also the economic nerve centre of the country to the north and other parts of the south of the country. Rudimentary knowledge of economics would indicate the fundamental importance of transportation in the life of a country. A country that is not in constant movement is a dead country. In our situation where we do not have railways, and where there is only primitive use of water-ways and our aviation leaves much to be desired, we just cannot do without tolerably good roads.

    We have been given some reasons for this delay ranging from various lawsuits in the courts to the need to secure adequate funding. The way things are going on in this country, we may die under the weight of irresponsible litigations. As for the lawsuits, there is need for out of  court settlement. The owner of the company suing the government is a well known patriot. Certainly, he will not like to be associated with a situation that has led to the death of many innocent struggling Nigerians whose only crime if crime it is, is that they  are struggling for their economic sustenance through the use of this jinxed road. This trajectory of out of court settlement must be embarked upon immediately. It is not one of these issues that must be allowed to linger on indefinitely. We just cannot wait. Any further deaths on the road is blood in the hands of those who should fix the road. If out of court arbitration fails, this government should be strong enough to damn the consequence in the public interest. I mean heaven will not fall! The government which owns the land should declare the company a trespasser and build the road. Enough of Turenci!

    I do not know how difficult it is for this government to borrow money for high priority and urgent infrastructural development. I am sure a loan can be easily syndicated through a consortium of banks that are daily declaring humongous profits. Funding a project like this should be regarded as part of their corporate social responsibility and support for  national economic recovery. If banks for whatever reasons would not lend to government, then the pensions commission should be approached to invest part of the trillions of Naira pension fund on the project on purely commercial basis. Their investment would be recovered by tolling the road and giving the power to collect the tolls to reputable banks rather than to government agencies to avoid sure and certain embezzlement.

    In a depressed economy like ours, road construction may actually be a panacea for employment and joblessness. In other words, we can kill two birds with one stone. I am therefore suggesting to this government a policy of country-wide road reconstruction as a way of reflating the economy, using if necessary, local banks as funding agencies and making sure all the roads are tolled. Priority roads all over the world are built and maintained in this way thus ensuring that road users pay for construction and maintenance of national highways. What Nigerians want is functionality of infrastructure. When available our people are prepared to pay for services. In the process of constructing these roads, young Nigerian civil engineers must be allowed to work along with whatever companies are given the contracts so that in future there will be a pool of people knowledgeable in road maintenance. The time has also come when we should begin to use interlocking cement and stone blocks in making critical roads to ensure  that they last long. This  policy  easily recommends itself because of our recent self-sufficiency in cement, thanks in this respect to private entrepreneurs like Dangote and Lafarge. I have said it before and I will say it again: one of our problems in Africa is that we are slaves to economic  orthodoxy. If something has not been done before, we are not prepared to try it yet the only way we as a country can make a mark in this world is to travel  the path least travelled. The greatest resource a country can have is its people. If well trained, they can be mobilized with committed and dedicated leadership to take their country to the highest point of development. We cannot say we do not have sufficiently well trained people to accomplish this rudimentary work of road construction.

    An  American academic colleague of mine  wondered recently  why Nigeria  does not have functioning infrastructure, railways, roads, reliable aviation, regular power supply and things that work generally considering the fact that there are Nigerians in the USA helping to build power stations and pipelines carrying fuel  across the country and also participating in the space projects. Nobody has an answer to our situation of arrested development. As I write this, there is pitch darkness where I am. The generator has broken down as any mechanical thing  is bound to do and the so-called privatized power companies have failed to generate and distribute power to my area of the country. Sometimes I worry if my grandchildren will in future be writing about power  after I would have passed on. There is no serious indication that this will not be the case unless God has mercy on us.

    I beg the people in authority to rise to the occasion and reconstruct this Lagos -Ibadan road and stop the carnage. I hope we do not get to a stage in this country when out of our collective frustration, citizens may be forced to take those responsible for this carnage to the world court to face charges of deliberate and premeditated murder of members of the traveling public.

    This article was written before the ghastly accident that took the life of Miss Rosemary Asuquo Nkanta an angel if ever there was one. This innocent soul came all the way from Jos where she was on the NYSC to join her former colleagues in REDEEMER’S UNIVERSITY  in FEAST of PRAISE (FOP) She was on her way to Lagos to fly back to Jos. She never made it. She was involved in an accident that took her life  near Sagamu.  She graduated First Class last September. The Nigerian condition killed this innocent soul. May God forgive all those who were directly or vicariously responsible for her death. Adieu Rosemary. May God condole your parents and all your friends and teachers at Redeemers University. You were one in a million.

     

    Corrigendum 

    My article on the Polisario Front last week contained an error. Instead of UNITA I wrote SWAPO. The Nigerian General who commanded UN troops  was Major – General Chris Garba. I omitted his first name.