The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • The hour is here

    Friends, Nigerians and countrymen, spare me your time. At last, the moment has come for us to determine  whether or not things should continue as they are. Which direction our nation should go lies in our hands as we go to the polls on Saturday. The electorate, as in any election, have a crucial role to play in Saturday’s presidential poll. In our hands is the fate of the contestants and our dear country. If we vote right, we will be paving the way for a better and brighter future. But if we vote for the wrong candidate, our action will haunt us forever.

    Besides, generations unborn will not forgive us for mortgaging their future. How we vote and who we vote for will go a long way in shaping and building the Nigeria of our dream. At this critical stage of the nation’s life, we need a leader that can take us to the promised land – a land flowing with oil that will be beneficial to all and not only a few because they are in power. We are a blessed nation; we are blessed in resources – there is hardly any part of the country where natural mineral cannot be found and in abundance too.

    All we need do is to tap these resources and make life worth living for the people. With the right leader, this can be done. That right leader is the one we should go for on Saturday. There are many contestants in the race, but President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his arch-opponent, Gen Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) stand shoulder above the others whose names voters cannot even readily recall. On Saturday, there will be no fewer than 14 names on the ballot, but the votes will be going to only Jonathan and Buhari.

    What we are  experiencing in the countdown to the election has never happened before in the history of elections in the country. It is as if we have never had an election in Nigeria until now. The tension is so high that you can cut it with a knife. What about the hate campaign? Oh! that is another kettle of fish. This is why the world is worried about the election. Global leaders are afraid that there may be trouble because of the way our politicians are going about their campaigns. The ruling PDP,  its candidates and their supporters are the most guilty of this. Taking a cue from the party, its supporters have gone wild across the country, unleashing terror on the people.

    Under the guise of rallies, they shut down towns and cities, hindering movement.  In some instances, they vandalised vehicles, destroyed the campaign posters of opposing candidates, with the police looking the other way.  In some states, the president was stoned, perhaps by those who feel that they have had a raw deal under him. No matter how bad such people may feel, that was a wrong approach. They do not need pebbles to make their grievances known. Their voter’s card is their stone and they should use it wisely on Saturday. They can throw all the stones they want with their vote that day. This symbolic stone throwing will have more meaning than pelting the president’s convoy with pebbles on the road.

    Pelting the president’s convoy with stones will not yield anything, but with our votes we can throw  him out of office and bring him the person that will make our country the pride of Africa. We are called giant of Africa, but deep down us we know that to be a misnomer. How can we be giant of Africa when we cannot cater for the citizenry? How can we be giant of Africa when millions of graduates are roaming the streets for job? How can we be Africa’s giant when we cannot generate enough electricity for industrial and domestic use? How can we be Africa’s giant when the value of our naira keeps depreciating? The naira, at the official market, currently exchanges for N199 to the dollar; at the black market, it is around N230 to the dollar. Giant of Africa indeed! How can we be giant of Africa when the real sector is virtually dead? Because of the epileptic power supply, many firms are either not operating under full capacity or have relocated to countries where the environment is more conducive.

    Nigeria has never had it so bad. Jonathan has a lot of baggage going into this election, but his supporters do not think so. To them, Jonathan has done well and so, he should be given a second term. I do not know their yardstick for measuring Jonathan’s performance, but if it is the same as that of other Nigerians, surely the president cannot be said to have done well at all. Those against his return believe that he has done nothing to better the people’s lot. The only thing he has done, some believe,  is the rebasing of the gross domestic product (GDP) to accommodate sectors hitherto not captured. This is what his loyalists are touting as his achievement. What is an achievement in the rebasing of the GDP? It is nothing to crow about because it does not translate to more jobs or better life for the people.

    That the rebasing made Nigeria’s economy the largest in Africa does not in anyway deviate from the fact that it is all an economic jargon to bamboozle the people that Jonathan is working. If indeed Jonathan is working, it would have shown in the number of the unemployed  taken off the streets. If indeed he is working, it would have shown in regular power supply. If indeed the president is working, it would have shown in the resuscitation of the real sector. The last six years of Jonathan have been nothing but suffering for Nigerians. So, this election is about who can deliver the goods between Jonathan and Buhari.  This is why the election must be peaceful for us to make the right choice.

    If we get the right leader, it will be to our own good, but if we  make the wrong choice, it will be to our eternal regret. Buhari has done it before – as a military leader he restored order and sanity in the land. He was a no-nonsense leader, who acted the way the times then demanded. In the mess we now find ourselves, we need such a person to nudge us on to the path of greatness. Nigeria has a lot of potential. We are a nation of can-do people, but we lack the national leadership that will make us blossom. If honest Nigerians cannot make it under six years of Jonathan,  while marketers are robbing us through fuel subsidy,  what hope is there that if  he gets a second term things would be better? Things can only get worse under him. What we need is a  leader to propel us to greatness, not one that will promote divisiveness as Jonathan has been doing.

    As former President Olusegun Obasanjo said at a lecture to mark his 78th birthday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, last March 5, ‘’there is nothing they have told us that is impossible but all they have said boils down to one thing and one thing only – leadership. And until we get it right, anytime we do not get it right, we cannot get any other thing right; don’t let us deceive ourselves, whether it is security, science and technology or innovation or the development of the economy or education they all boil down to leadership and at all levels. May God give us the leadership that occasions like this deserve in Nigeria…’’ Come Saturday, we will have an opportunity to pick such a leader. So, let us vote right; let us vote wise because no amount of stoning will later correct a wrong choice.

  • Jonathan’s love: Neither for Nigeria nor Yoruba nation

    In two days time, Nigerians will have a choice to decide whether to continue enduring the pains inflicted by Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) buccaneers that have continued to wield power and influence over our lives.  March 28 offers us an opportunity to give a verdict on President Goodluck Jonathan who four years ago made a solemn promise “to uphold ‘democracy and rule of law’, ‘banish corruption and its attendant vices, ‘respect human life and human rights’. It is a payback date for Jonathan who beyond self, appears incapable of loving anyone, whether Nigeria in spite of self serving mouthing of ‘for the love of Nigeria’ or the Yoruba nation that made him that he is aiming to turn its land into a battle ground because of his desperate ambition to rule for ten years.

    In 2011, to secure the PDP ticket, President Jonathan after subverting his party’s constitution allegedly doled out $1 billion to PDP governors on the eve of his party’s primary ostensibly for mobilization. For this Saturday election, 2015 election, President Jonathan whose first international engagement after victory was a visit to Uganda’s Powered Museveni, a ruthless dictator in the last 30 years has no opponent in his party’s primaries. All unanimously adopted him.

    In the run up to 2011, Jonathan overlooked the PDP/Halliburton $180m LNG Bonny plant contract scam in deference to his corrupt PDP benefactors. By 2015, stealing in billions has replaced corruption. Thus those PDP stalwarts, their children and their fronts involved in the monumental N1.6 trillion fuel subsidy scam are today busy raising funds and campaigning for Jonathan’s re-election instead of being behind bars.  In fact, about 17 of the 22 PDP elected governors in 1999 that had been indicted by the courts or still in court defending their integrity have been re-integrated back as governors, lawmakers or party officials. In the period, N5b pension fund fraud was uncovered right inside the Head of Government office. One Director of Pensions in the Police Affairs ministry was indicted for stealing N32.5 billion. Of the over 200 banking officials that Sanusi Lamido alleged to have contributed to the collapse of the banking sector, only one, according to him was successfully prosecuted as at the time he was removed from office, over alleged ‘missing’ $20b.

    For four years, Jonathan exploited our ethnic and religious differences. Unidentified suspected Fulani herdsmen mindlessly murdered women and children in their sleep. The president has been tolerant of the assaults of his Ijaw and ethnic irredentist, on critics of his inept leadership. Today as it was in 2011, President Jonathan is urging leaders of different ethnic groups resident in Lagos to join forces to defeat their chief host and owners of Lagos. Yet, Jonathan belongs to the Ijaw nation that regarded Igbo properties in Port Harcourt as abandoned properties 45 years after the civil war.

    For four years when not in Jerusalem or Rome, sometimes accompanied by some dubious members of his cabinet, the president was seen at home moving from churches to synagogues, and dismissing as subversive elements, critics of government and conjuring metaphors of the triumph of Biblical David over Goliath, and the Egyptian enslaved Israelis over powerful Pharaoh. But to the president, his opponents who worship their own God without becoming public nuisance are Islamists bent on Islamising Nigeria. For four years, insurgents operated with little resistance killing over 19,000 innocent Nigerians, turning over 1.5 Nigerians into refugees in their country. About 300 young girls abducted from their dormitories have remained in captivity for close to a year. With crisis in the international oil market, the naira now exchanges for about N220 to one dollar. What a shame!

    But in spite of the baleful legacies of unfulfilled promises, President Jonathan is breaking all rules in a desperate bid for re-election in two days’ time. He has turned Yoruba land into battleground. It is not as if President Jonathan, the master of political subterfuge has ever had anything but contempt for the Yoruba on whose back he rode to power. This finds expression in the fact that besides his chief of staff and the Accountant General of Nigeria, no Yoruba of note featured among the holders of the first fifty important positions in his administration. Dismissing Obasanjo who betrayed Nigeria to make him president as ‘not a statesman but someone not better that a motor park tout”; he identified those who in his judgment should lead the Yoruba nation. They include the likes of Kashamu Buruji, Gbenga Daniel, Fani Kayode, Musliu Obanikoro, Ayo Fayose, Olusegun Mimiko Doyin Okupe and Gani Adams.

    The Jonathan recognized Yoruba leaders say they are ready to deliver the Yoruba votes to Jonathan. Pa Ayo Adebanjo who, some two years back, publicly praised Bola Tinubu for liberating Yoruba land from Obasanjo and PDP has joined forces with Jonathan’s errand boys to say the aspirations of the Yoruba can only be achieved by voting for PDP and President Jonathan who has promised to implement the confab report tucked away along dozen other committee reports until the eve of a national election. But Pa Adebanjo has never struck many people as a successful politician, a successful lawyer or even a successful Awo follower.

    If we see politics as ‘an art of the possible’, any politician who is condemned to the past and not the future and what it holds, is a failed politician.  In a nation that has according to General Alabi Isama been ruled since independence by a coalition of Igbo and Hausa Fulani elite, even while pretending to be at war, Pa Adebanjo cannot see what Yoruba stands to gain in a combination of Hausa Fulani and the main stream Yoruba political tendency to which he has identified for an upwards of fifty years. He even discountenanced the presence of his Ijebu kinsman, Prof Osinbajo on the Buhari ticket. Pa Adebanjo is prepared to throw away the baby with the bath water because of selfish bitterness against Tinubu.

    Pa Adebanjo  is not ready to forgive Buhari even after he had said ‘dictatorship goes with military rule’ and after the children of those directly affected publicly pardoned him because of their deeper understanding of the limitation of ill-equipped military junta suffering from messianic complex, Pa Adebanjo has shown he cannot comprehend the essence of Awoism, Awo as philosopher and Awo as a brilliant politician.  For instance Awo jailed by Hausa Fulani and Igbo ruling elites came out of prison without bitterness. He moved on to write books because he was deep enough to know the crisis was ideological. It was the ruling elite in the north and east that reached a consensus to send Awo to prison, hoping erroneously that, he would be too old by the time he returns to question how they govern Nigeria.

    On the Lagos metro line project of over 30 years ago, it is a good that that Alhaji Lateef Jakande during his 80th birthday celebration recently put the blame squarely on President Shehu Shagari’s administration. The same Shagari, whose administration guaranteed billions of dollars as external loans for NPP and NPN coalition partner governors, prevented the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from releasing the seventy million mobilization fees for the project, long after the specified amount had been deposited by Lagos State government with it. Pa Jakande also accused Shagari of abandoning the Third mainland bridge due to ‘pettiness.’

    Adebanjo is selfishly asking Yoruba people to vote for Jonathan that has nothing but contempt for our people. Our youths, in two days time, must demonstrate that our selfless forbearers’ investment in us have not been in vain by rejecting Jonathan and his errand boys and errant old men.

  • The hard way the only way

    Sublime; isn’t it? That a greater number of Nigerian youths have in them the deportment of certifiable adults and the depth of frivolous boobs. Like doped up characters with infrequent lucid intervals, we epitomize the worst that Nigeria has to offer: think desperate youth leaders, overnight celebrities and their credulous, easy to fool peers.

    Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa, Gani Fawehinmi…Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe; these among others, are leading lights among a firmament of heroes that have appeared in Nigeria’s history. Some are dead and those still living are lamentably in their twilight. Shame.

    Shame that even at this minute; they are the epitome of cool. Shame that they earnestly symbolize a sense, culture and approach to citizenship that signifies an indifference to vanities and which sticks a defiant swivel-on-it finger towards mainstream society.

    These individual men are less secular stars than quasi-religious figures and their citizenship has so far earned for them a godly reverence that’s at once enviable and unique – little wonder they seem deserving of worship.

    There’s nothing unique, nor indeed unusual about bestowing divine status on mere mortals. History is full of characters who actually encouraged their followers to do so – the Caesars, Aztec leaders, Pharaohs – and, in the modern world, millennial cults are typically led by charismatic figures claiming messianic powers; think 21st century Nigerian Pentecostal pastors or “Men of God” among many others.

    Even individuals who had scorned such attributions, like Bob Marley or Bob Dylan, have been endowed with deistic eminence by fans. Marley had an oracular presence and his songs were infused with Rastafarian prophecy. Dylan perplexed one generation, while inspiring another with his sour condemnations of war and prejudice. Their influence makes their veneration comprehensible but of what worth is the current crop of Nigerian youth leaders, politicians, music and movie stars and other celebrity icons? What is it that makes them deserving of acclaim and hero-worship?

    Their claims to affluence, ostentatious lifestyles and oratory. Add to the mix, their unrestricted access to eminent politicians, bank chiefs, technocrats and you have a “perfect” role model for the Nigerian youth. At the heels of many a loathsome politician, cleric and light-fingered technocrat, the Nigerian youth leader, celebrity and advocacy guru to mention a few, have evolved into some familiar but infinitely worse predatorship than we can ever learn to endure. More worrisome is the fact that they seem to be multiplying by the second.

    The malaise has degenerated to the extent that these current crops of “superstars,” “youth leaders,” heroes,” “role models cum motivational speakers” are diversifying from their usual forte. Some have learnt to perfect the art of profiting by their clueless, dim peers by veering into politics. Many a self-styled youth leader, celebrity and motivational speaker currently serve as henchmen and henchwomen to the most awful band of leaders the country has suffered so far.

    These foetal adults, adept at manipulating fellow youngsters with all manners of anecdotes, celebrity cult culture, mannerisms and clichés attain celebrity status by dint of fraudulence and “hard work.” Eventually, they attain stardom or celebrity status not because they are deserving of it but because they have perfected the art of oratory and deployment of the society’s media apparatus to effectively further their con.

    Having ridden to eminence on the might of a pitifully docile and unquestioning media, these embodiments of wantonness and figments of hack writers’ imaginations intrude the imagination of their fellow youths and influence it; basically they corrupt it.

    And like pitiful retches of human surfeit, suckers for celebrity culture are taken for endless rides; they remain on the receiving end of a barrage of outright lies, true lies and scorn impenitently dished to them usually by their most lovable “superstar.”

    The problem of the Nigerian youth is the lust for undeserved fame; blinded by their yearnings for acclaim or inclinations to worship their favourite superstar, they do not take care to examine and see their favourite peer heroes and celebrity role models for the fraud they really are. But the problem is hardly with the latter for they can’t truly help being what they are; the problem is with their teeming fans and obsessed peers.

    Celebrity worship is measurable; low worship describes what many of us do watching and reading about celebrities. At the other extreme are reverent followers obsessing about celebrity successes and failures. This is the kind of uncompromising and extreme disposition that might be regarded in a different context as inglorious zealotry or fanaticism.

    We must have new names, Marcel Proust presciently noted—in fashion, in medicine, in art, there must always be new names, he said. It’s a very tidy remark, and the fields Proust chose seem smart, too, at least for his time. Now there must also be new names across various fields today. Implicit in Proust’s remark is the notion that if the names don’t really exist and the quality isn’t there to sustain them, it doesn’t matter; new names we shall have in any case. The Nigerian society somehow contrives to supply them.

    It’s amazing to think that think that we haven’t had a major statesman whose statesmanship is timeless and worth emulating since perhaps the death of Awolowo, Azikiwe and Balewa or, to lower the bar a little…nobody!

    But new names are put forth nevertheless—high among them has been those of the current crops of Nigerian “statesmen” and politicians. It is even more amazing to see what manner of “patriots” are today, invested with national honours by the country’s leadership. Year after year, national honours are given out to a myriad of characters, even if so many of the recipients don’t seem quite worthy of them.

    Of the many dubious gifts bestowed upon the nation’s youth by celebrity culture, the most innocuous and pernicious is the rejection of abject reality for the comfort of lies and fantasy. The lust dizzyingly manifests into compulsive fixation that translates into a desperate and lamentable inclination to model their lives after that of their favourite peer icon or hero.

    It will do the Nigerian youth greater good to understand that, that enviable affluence and grandiosity attractively touted as the result of their favourite peer icon or celebrity’s experience doesn’t really work for the vast majority of people – successful or not. It’s time they begin to see their favourite youth leaders and advocacy gurus for the for the fraud they have become – for what promising youth  in their prime would abandon medicine, law, journalism, education, engineering for ‘motivational speaking’ at a fee even before they earned their first keep? It’s the indolent, fraudulent type that does that. It’s the conniving, covetous kind that does that.

    There is no short cut to success. That is why reality show superstars never last. That is why the actress who sleeps her way to stardom as the artiste who sings gibberish to the gallery evolves into a mere flash in the pan. That is why dishonest politicians and youth leaders fade out into infamy and disgrace.

    The slow steady path remains the surest path. Everybody has to pay his dues. It is the way the universe is ordered. The greatest fraud is he who would die to get ahead rather than doing what is right – like following the slow, steady path of honest industry to progress.

     

     

    • To be continued…

  • A presidential bonanza

    A presidential bonanza

    STEP aside stock market. You are no longer the darling of investors. Move over, fuel merchants; years of amazing subsidy windfall are coming to an end. Generator dealers and proprietors of other cash machines must now watch it. A new money spinner is in town.

    Even for the most inattentive of citizens, the ones who usually do not give a damn about new trends in business and social life, the new bonanza seems so real. Why not? The President is the one personally driving it–with strange passion and energy.

    Dr Goodluck Jonathan has visited the Southwest several times since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was coerced into postponing the presidential election from February 14 to March 28. With every visit have come stories of bountiful rewards for his hosts and guests who visit the State House, Marina.

    To be candid, such stories were not common when the sorties into Lagos and the other parts of the Southwest began. No. But, I recall that Governor Babatunde Fashola alleged that huge funds were being shipped into town to induce various groups to line up behind the President in the coming elections.

    Jonathan met with various ethnic groups. Some of the meetings were never publicised. But we saw on television the interactive session he had with youths, some of who were dressed as if they were heading for the night club down the road, the one in which he danced Shoki. There was also the one with Nollywood stars and other entertainers where we were let into the secret of His Excellency’s musical taste. He loves reggae, we were told. Dr Jonathan didn’t disappoint those who let the cat out of the bag. Smiling like a seductive Lagos girl, His Excellency jumped up and down to the rendition by three veterans of the genre, who, by the way, seemed to have been hauled out of hibernation to join the new bonanza. A source told me they were not disappointed.

    None of these sessions generated so much argument as the President’s visits to traditional rulers. He was said to have unleashed a dollar rain that caused commotion in some palaces. Some of these custodians of our culture are said to have got as much as $250,000. It all depends on the grade, I am told. A grade one king got $250,000. Others got between $100,000 and $200,000. Ah! The fruits of royalty.

    Some are said to have ordered new cars to boost the royal fleet. Others, I am told, are  getting set to take on new oloris to add some colour to the royal harem.

    So excited are the royal fathers over the new bonanza, which is mind-boggling in comparison to what they get settling endless land squabbles in which they eventually become parties rather than fair adjudicators, that they have allowed themselves – crowns, beads, horsetails and all – to be suborned into committees to campaign for Jonathan. But this is the rather unfair view of some idle fellows, who hide under the nomenclature of social critic to slander respectable people.

    Among such idlers are those who do not wish our revered kings well, those who believe that obas should have no role in this democracy, those who insist that palaces should remain symbols of what some people define as our primitivism and all those who advocate that royalty should not move with the times. They are lashing the kabiyesis for being part of the bonanza. I disagree.

    Haven’t their royal and imperial majesties been grumbling that what they get from the local governments can no longer match their huge responsibilities? If Jonathan is trying to – in the true spirit of the Transformation Agenda (TA) – correct this, what is wrong with that?

    But, again, to be candid, the royal fathers are not the only exciting beneficiaries of the presidential bonanza. Just on Monday, crowds of youths – bloodshot eyes, foaming mouths, guns, knives and cutlasses – rampaged through Lagos streets, calling for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Attahiru Jega’s sack and rooting for Jonathan.

    They were led by Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) Coordinator Gani Adams and some Nollywood stars, who abandoned their locations for the pirates they so much dread, to join the rush for the bonanza. A colleague said he was not surprised at the protest. “How many people will get that kind of money and still remain sane?” he asked me. By the way, he was reminding me that Adams got a slice of the cake, the contentious N9b pipelines surveillance contracts, the one that OPC founder Frederick Fasehun confessed to bidding for alongside some former Niger Delta militants.

    To be fair to some of those lampooning the presidential bonanza as a vote harvesting gimmick, they don’t detest the idea; what irks them is the irony of it all. An idea that is supposed to bridge the inequality gap, an ingenious wealth redistribution initiative, is sectional and divisive. In other words, many are exempted from the bazaar.

    Their argument is that even in the renewed onslaught against the Boko Haram, the new bonanza has been pressed into service – effectively. Some South African mercenaries are fighting on our side for $400 a day. The government has dismissed this as a rumour (why won’t it? Aren’t these security matters that should be highly confidential, never to be revealed in beer parlour and pepper soup joint banters?), which has no place in military operations. The foreigners, said a report quoting government sources, are mere technical advisers as we have them in our soccer teams.

    Besides, said the critics – I’m sure by now you know them very well: those who never see the transforming powers of the administration’s TA- even fuel subsidy tricksters who are believed to have had their fill are to be paid N30bn for the cash they lost because of the sudden crash of the naira against the dollar – in the spirit of the bonanza that we are talking about.

    Not left out of the jackpot, said the grumblers, are mushroom rent-a-crowd companies, the type that got some loafers to carry anti-Buhari placards in front of Chatham House in London. They were handsomely rewarded in hard currency, the angry critics said.

    The other day in Abuja, a group of people posing as politicians called the media to announce that they were kicking against INEC’s plan to use the card reader in the elections. The plan, they insisted, was inconceivable because, according to them, they were not conversant with the workings of the machine. I do not remember what they called their party – nobody seems to – but the popular belief, which they never disputed, was that they were being bankrolled by the Villa to scupper the process and portray INEC as an inept body. It was all part of the bonanza, I learnt.

    Just last Friday, the families of the youths who died in the unprecedented Immigration death-for-jobs tragedy got a N75m payout. Even before the cheques could be cashed or deposited at the nearest bank, the critics, those unrepentant and ever disgruntled people of whom I had earlier spoken, had gone to town to scorn the gesture. Must one die for his family to get money? Must the government wait for somebody to die before awarding his family member a job? Why this now on the eve of a major election, which the government seems to be set to lose? What manner of justice is this? Where are the organisers of the bloody scam? The questions were many.

    But, a perceptive fellow saw it all as part of the bonanza.

    I was driving on Ahmadu Bello Way on Victoria Island, Lagos last weekend when a strange noise hit my ears. It was as if the ocean had angrily torn through the multi-billion naira barriers that had kept it in check or that a huge market was in session. It was neither of the situations. The noise, I learnt later from an “area boy” offering me a parking space a few metres away from the beach, was coming from a meeting of the army of necromancers and wild-bearded veteran prophets who dwell on the beach. They were planning a march on the State House on Jonathan’s next visit. Reason: what they have described as their unconscionable exemption from the bonanza and interactive sessions.

    Poor Jonathan. See how a scheme his hard working strategists have projected to be a vote hauling machine is being turned into an acrimonious object by some indolent  officials to whom every simple assignment is like breaking a rock. Now there is disquiet in the land as many feel either neglected or cheated in the bonanza.

    Ajegunle DJs Association. Oko-Oba butchers. Ebute-Metta Beggars League. Area Boys Forum. Ex-Yaba Psychiatric Hospitals Patients Union. Ex-Kirikiri Inmates Club. Bus Conductors Association. Nigerian Drivers Welfare Association. And many more are now threatening to tear their voter cards, unless they are enrolled in the new Amnesty Programme –  Ah! An error there –  in the current bonanza.

    At the Villa, however, it is eureka. In fact, a source told me last night of how the World Bank has been begging to be allowed a few weeks to understudy Dr Jonathan’s efficacious anti-poverty weapon, the bonanza or the new wealth distribution system, to free the Bank from many years of fighting poverty with little result.

    But, trust the idle critics, who have nothing but disdain for research and scholarship; they have been sneering at the ingenuity of the presidential bonanza as a vote harvesting machine. Let’s wait till March 28, they keep saying derisively. Yes; the countdown is on. March 28.

  • Jonathan and PDP’s desecration of Yoruba Land

    President Goodluck Jonathan seems to have taken personal abode in the southwest in the last three weeks. With little or nothing to sell to a people he has treated with absolute contempt in the last six years, he has, according to his political detractors, been distributing loads of naira and dollars to youth, religious and women groups, and even traditional leaders. And for his pains and despite his abysmal record of performance, is counting on these groups to win the coming presidential election with farcical endorsement after endorsement.

    We have seen him surrounded by traditional rulers receiving blessing with royal walking sticks menacingly pointed at him. Last Monday, of all days, his paid supporters, led by OPC leaders, alleged to have received N9b contract along with others, visited untold sufferings on Lagosians as they ‘wielded broken bottles and knives; destroyed bill boards while walking, on foot and in about 100 buses on the ever busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ikorodu Road to Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere’.

    Penultimate Tuesday, PDP governors had complimented the president’s desperate efforts. They assembled in Eko Le Meridian hotel; Victoria Island where, as an answer to PDP’s six years of baleful legacy, ditched out hideous lies, told horrific tales and made odious comparisons. They spoke of Jonathan and PDP commitment to democratic values. They claimed: “PDP abhors corruption in all its ramifications”. They insisted: “PDP has done a lot in the fighting of corruption since the inception of democracy to date.” They therefore sought Yoruba support to ensure the “Sustenance of Democratic Values and National Development”.  These PDP governors seem to have forgotten they were not addressing Nigeriens, Chadians or Cameroonians but the direct victims of 16 years of PDP mismanagement; of documented PDP mindless looting of our common wealth through such self serving policy thrusts as PPPRA and fuel subsidy regime, privatization programme described by the House of Representatives’ report as ‘giving away of national assets at next to nothing”, and monetization policy that allowed the sharing of our national patrimony dating back to the colonial period by few members of the governing elite and their friends.

    At the head of PDP governor’s team was Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, the generous giver who has acquired all professional honours and chieftaincy titles money and influence can buy. Others include Reverend Jonah Jang of Plateau who lost the original Governors Forum election by 16 to 19 but lacking the grace to concede defeat, crowned himself winner and proceeded to church to thank God for giving him victory. There was   Babangida Aliyu of Niger, the self styled ‘Chief servants of the people,’ who talks more from both sides of the mouth; Sule Lamido of Jigawa, Obasanjo anointed successor to Jonathan whose ambition collapsed following EFCC arrest of his two sons for money laundry. Also on the team was Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo, the serial defector who is often attracted by the highest bidder and of course there was Ayo Fayose, a former impeached governor of Ekiti who has found his way back to the Government House through a flawed election as shown by the ongoing ‘Ekitigate’ and who is yet to establish his innocence after 53 appearances in court over his  EFCC charges of  mismanagement of N19b  Ekiti state fund.

    Speaking at the event, Governor Akpabio talked vaguely about what he termed the president and PDP achievements on war against corruption. But for Babangida Aliyu, the Chief ‘servant of the people’, probably realizing Jonathan is a bad product, chose to attack APC and Buhari, its flag bearer.  APC, a party he once hobnobbed with, he said was ‘a product of hate, frustration and anger’. He accused some of its leaders of ‘corruption’. He alleged money was used to influence the emergence of Buhari as APC candidate. And finally, he mischievously claimed Buhari was planning to spend only one term and this according to him will amount to shortchanging the north that should ordinarily be entitled to two terms.

    I think Nigerians and northerners in particular should be ashamed of leaders like Babangida Aliyu. Here is a northern leader who is unwilling to confront President Jonathan he had accused of reneging on an agreement with northern governors but now wants northerners to believe he is fighting their battle by fabricating lies to stop Buhari, another northerner contesting on the platform of another party. Groveling Babangida Aliyu not too long ago told Nigerians that he was the custodian of the secret document allegedly signed by President Jonathan to spend only six years. If he needed help, Obasanjo who publicly accused Jonathan of reneging on an undertaking to spend six years has strengthened Aliyu’s case.

    But curiously, Aliyu, who was part of northern governors who sold out in 2011 when Jonathan secured PDP ticket by default, Aliyu who is the leader of today’s incoherent Northern governors;  and who like all PDP leading light, are dealers and wheelers, now says they and Jonathan, their nemesis, are the true friends of the north while Buhari who most Nigerians today are counting on to rescue our nation is the enemy of the north. He is saying the interest of the north can only be protected by stopping Buhari a northerner from becoming president and not by stopping Jonathan he had claimed betrayed an agreement he signed with northern governors. With friends like Aliyu Babangida and the groveling northern governors, the north doesn’t need enemies.

    Just like incoherent Aliyu Babangida, Sule Lamido avoided dissipating energy on a bad product which will be a hard sell among enlightened people of Lagos and south west. He chose to introduce a game of mischief instead. He accused Buhari of keeping quiet as chairman of PTF while Abacha looted the nation’s treasury.  But Nigerians know Buharis’s oversight functions, as chairman of PTF did not cover the CBN. In any case, it is now facts of our history that the then CBN governor and Abacha’s minister of Finance, Chief Michael Ani aided Abacha in looting the CBN. Lamido avoided the painful fact that today, our country is adjudged one of the most corrupt nations on earth and that he has been part of PDP’s 16 years of locust. If we needed any proof of that, the politically motivated arrest of his two sons for money laundering at a time he expressed interest in the presidency was all president Jonathan needed to remind Nigerians that Lamido is a loyal member of PDP family that lives on the blood of Nigerians.

    As for Ayo Fayose, he has never been interested in selling Jonathan. He is haunted more by the prospect of a Buhari presidency. And we can understand his apprehensions. It is only under a Jonathan presidency we can have an Ayo Fayose with his liabilities, who but for the slow pace at which the wheel of justice grinds in our country,’ -apologies to President Jonathan, could have been behind bars, pontificating over how and who rules Nigeria. And Olusegun Mimiko, his Ondo state counterpart, whose attempt at dragging Yoruba Obas to partisan politics is a reflection of his lack of understanding of Yoruba culture, has nothing he holds sacred. If Buhari wins the coming election, as a survivalist who believes in nothing, he will crawl back to APC.

    On March 28, President Jonathan will reap the wages of investing on miscreants and those the Yoruba describe as ‘akotileta’ (seller of clan for a pot of porridge). As Awo observed in his autobiography, the Yoruba will not vote for you just because you are Yoruba if you have no manifesto that maps out strategies to address their future fears and anxieties. Those miscreants who are accomplices in today’s desecration of our land must remember Yoruba have a way of ensuring those who sow the wind reap the whirl wind, no matter how long it takes.

  • The havoc money does

    Money. For this five-letter word, many can do the unthinkable. Some can kill their wives; some their husbands or their children and yet others their siblings or parents for money. It is a good thing to aspire to be rich; to have money in order to stand up to others when it matters most. A man without money finds it difficult to measure up with others, especially his peers. He is tongue-tied when they talk not because he does not know what to say, but because he considers himself inferior to them.

    It is a good thing to be rich; to be able to acquire all that we desire in life. But affluence does not come easy. It takes a lot of hardwork; though some get rich by luck; society is not interested in how people make their money. What it is interested in is seeing you as rich or poor. So, it is common to hear people say with glee, ‘’see, that is that rich man coming’’, or with hiss, Abeg make you no let that poor man see me. Society does not respect the poor, but it revers the rich. The rich are demigods who are treated like royalty anywhere they go.

    Money has become the god that society worships. Whether old or young, we share the same attitude when it comes to money matters. Our family members expect the world from us once we are fortunate to hold an important office, whether in the public or private sector. To them, that office should be a passport to our wealth. No matter how much or how little the office pays, it must be enough to take care of the need of every member of our family. If it isn’t, God help us. The next best thing is to steal. And many have done that to their peril.

    The most unfortunate thing is that those for whom many dipped their hands into the public till will be the first to disown them when the chips are down. Yet, we never learn from the downfall of those who preceded us in office. We tend to believe that they were caught because they were not smart. We see ourselves as smarter and in that wise will never be caught. In our country, public service is the easiest way to making it big. This is why many jostle to become president, governors, lawmakers, ministers, commissioners, local government chairmen or councillors and so on and so forth.

    The Presidency is the highest office in the land and whoever occupies the exalted office has the power of life and death. He can make or mar people. With a stroke of his pen, he can turn an ordinary man into an extra-ordinary person; though he is not our Heavenly Father, he is god on earth because of the enormous powers of his office. The president, if he so wishes, can make you rich – all he needs do is to give you  a juicy appointment or get you a mouthwatering contract. It is because of this that some presidents have come to see themselves as deities who must be worshipped, forgetting that it is God that lifts up some and brings down others.

    Presidents may have the power of life and death, but it will do them well  to remember that they are not God. So, they cannot give what they do not have. They only have the power of life and death to the extent that they can sign or refuse to sign the warrant of those sentenced to death; they cannot create life. But many of us tend to forget that in our desperate search for wealth. So, if anything is thrown at us, we grab it with both hands, without considering the repercussion. Today, President Goodluck Jonathan is spending money as if it is going out of fashion all in his bid to win the March 28 election.

    As president, Dr Jonathan lacks nothing. The treasury is in his pocket; the security agencies are in his hands. In fact all institutions of government are in his palm.  At a snap of his finger, the Central Bank will empty its vault for him. So, for this election, cash is not his problem; it is how to spend it that is giving him sleepless nights. The president and his men have been spending our money for his political campaign, while many Nigerians are groaning under the crushing weight of naira devaluation. At a time naira is exchanging at over N200 to the dollar at the black market, he is busy using the greenback to woo key members of the society to his side.

    Since he knows the power of money, he has been using it to the utmost to boost his chances at the poll. He believes that by buying some religious and traditional leaders, artistes, students union, outlawed ethnic militias, and  former militants, among others, he is on his way to winning the election. He may yet be disappointed. If he likes, let him spend all the dollars in this world that may not guarantee his victory at the poll. What is the point in giving N7billion to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)? Is it to build a cathedral on the eve of a major election? What is the point in giving N9billion pipeline protection contracts to former militants’ leaders? To rehabilitate them?

    What is he up to in giving millions of dollars to traditional rulers across the country? To renovate their palaces? Nigerians are no fools; they know why their president is doing all this.  In a land bursting with hunger and poverty, many are outraged over what is happening and they have resolved to make their anger known  at the poll. They are annoyed that the money now being shared by the president could have gone a long way in creating jobs for the teeming unemployed youth.

    They also see through his late-hour job offer and N75milion gift to family members of those who died in the Immigration recruitment stampede across the country last year. To many, it was a little too late. The question they are asking is why wait until the eve of an election before relieving these families of their pains one year after the incident? The president and his men believe that this is the way to win the forthcoming election. Is it? Let’s wait and see.

  • Professor Ayankanmi Ayandele: A Tribute – 2

    Professor Ayandele was my teacher at the University of Ibadan and he was a damn good teacher. Those of my generation who came under his tutelage admired him for his hard work and elucidation. If one took his lectures verbatim, one did not have to read any other book because he had a prodigious energy for research and he would have consulted many sources before delivering his lectures. He was given to the use of bombastic language which many of us young people admired and enjoyed and tried to copy. He did not need a microphone because he spoke loudly and when he was lecturing in the Arts Theatre people in the library could follow.

    He was dramatic in the delivery of his lectures. Sometimes he would use a simple word say “transformation” if you did not get it, he would change it to “metamorphosis” and students would say what? He would retort “it is an English word”. He did not speak French, so when he said Louis XIV said “l’etat C’est moi”, he will say it as any Yoruba man would “Letat sest maui” and the class will explode into laughter. He would not get the joke but the joke was on us because he would have moved on.

    Professor Ayandele was the most prolific of all the historians in his generation. Apart from his book, Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria which remains a classic, he also wrote a voluminous biography of Bishop James Johnson with the title, Holy Johnson. He wrote The History of the Ijebus which remains a classic. He wrote many chapters in books and articles in referenced scholarly journals including a monograph on David Livingstone but the most enjoyable of his works for me is the book, The Educated Elite in Nigeria which was a compilation of the special university lectures which he gave in the University of Ibadan in the 70s. He was going to write a sequel to this book but unfortunately his health could not bear the exertion and rigour necessary for producing another book.

    I remember reading his book, Holy Johnson and feeling that I was reading about Professor Ayandele. Even the photograph of Bishop James Johnson reminds one of Ayandele. In the late 1890s and early twentieth century, educated Nigerians tended to be bombastic in language to the irritation of the owners of the English language. Bishop James Johnson shared this trait with his biographer who must have enjoyed reading the private papers of the bishop. Bishop James Johnson of course did not call himself holy; this was the perception of his sympathetic biographer. The bishop belonged to the class of educated Nigerians in Lagos that was so totally disliked by the Governor-General, Sir Fredrick Lugard and his younger brother, Major Edward Lugard whose critics described as the so called political secretary of the Governor-General with a fat salary and who in return described educated Nigerians as “trousered niggers dressed in Bond street attires who send their laundry to England every other week.” Professor Ayandele had prickly relations with his white colleagues in the department of History at the University of Ibadan. Perhaps this was due to his experience of racism while studying in England. His commitment to African culture shorn of the pretentions to western way of life was amply demonstrated in his book, The Educated Elite in Nigeria in which he described the Lagos westernised Nigerians as “deluded hybrids” who were neither Africans nor Europeans or as “wind sowers” because their downfall at the height of the nationalist movement was predictable unless they were ready to go native and become real Africans. Many of them later changed their names.

    Many of the European lecturers at the University of Ibadan in the late 1960s left in droves to go to Ahmadu Bello University where they felt more appreciated and far away from the fire brand nationalism of the people like Ayandele. Ahmadu Bello University was later to become the final resting place of European academics who lost out at the end of the British Empire and who were not ready to compete with uppity Africans of the like of Ayandele.

    Professor Ayandele was a serious scholar and a painstaking researcher but whatever he wrote was from the perspective of the African and he took license for generous interpretation of historical data to express his ideological commitment to African nationalist historiography. For this, we owe him a debt of gratitude. Professor Ayandele wrote history in the classical mode of literature. History to him was to be enjoyed and his use of flowery language was deliberate and to take historical scholarship from the compilation of dry data with little or no soul. He wrote like S.T. Bindoff, one of his teachers in England.

    I am surprised that professor Ayandele never won the national merit award. Of course, one is aware of the fact that sometimes, consideration of federal character unnecessarily creeps into what is supposed to be, an award for academic excellence. Be that as it may, Professor Ayankanmi Ayandele’s place in Nigeria’s academic history is settled. He was largely the founder of two academic institutions- the University of Jos and the University of Calabar. It is therefore surprising to me that when he died, neither the University of Ibadan nor these two institutions that he was closely connected with mourned him in death. Neither were there any editorials in the newspapers nor obituary comments from the federal government. This is not good enough for a life of service. Professor Ayandele had no hobbies but work. He had no family as such but the family of humanity and he was above ethnic prejudices and he was so totally loyal to one of his mentors, Professor J.C. Anene an Igbo man that when he died, he adopted Anene’s family as his own and took care of them. Ayandele was an eccentric academic but he was a good man and a good Christian. He would be remembered by those of us whose lives he touched. Adieu, great scholar, prolific writer, a man of ideas and letters and a prodigious builder of academic institutions. Ayandele was a good Baptist who before the advent of the current wave of Pentecostalism was given to paying his tithe and living modestly. He was a teetotaller and avoided the company of women of easy virtue. One hopes that the University of Calabar would immortalise this selfless man by naming one of the halls of residence or preferably the University Library just as the University of Ibadan named its library after Kenneth Dike its first Nigerian Vice Chancellor.

  • A song for Fani-Kayode

    A song for Fani-Kayode

    I STILL remember the old man with a husky voice. He was blind, but he always knew whenever a prominent client arrived at Links Bar on Lagos Street in Ebute-Metta, Lagos Mainland. He knew every family and had a special song for all. May his soul continue to rest in peace.

    What kind of song would Baba Osa have sung for Femi Fani-Kayode, the voluble spokesman for the Jonathan Campaign Organisation, son of the famous Chief Remi ‘Fani-Power’ Kayode, the deputy premier in the defunct Western Region? I can take a bet. Baba would have crooned:

     

    Omo o le jo baba, ka maa binu omo  (You don’t begrudge a son for resembling his dad)

         Omo o le jo baba, ka maa binu omo  (You don’t begrudge a son for resembling his dad)

        Femi yi jo baba e ju                                 (This Femi resembles his dad so much)

       Omo o le jo baba ka maa binu omo.    (You don’t begrudge a son for resembling his dad.)

  • The Yoruba and the impending Nigerian situation

    Nigeria’s presidential election campaigns of 2015 have developed into unprecedented confrontations. People holding extreme positions insist that their positions are irreconcilable, whip up the language of war, brutalize one another on the campaign trail, and accumulate sophisticated weapons for a final showdown. In the history of mankind, the accumulation of weapons has an almost irresistible logic and finale of its own: those who accumulate weapons almost always end up having to use them.

    Nigeria seems now to be about to reach the absolute bottom of the filthy slope that she has been descending determinedly and uncaringly since independence. Countless Nigerians at home and abroad, and countless citizens of a world that is increasingly worried about the impending disaster in Nigeria, have spoken, counseled, entreated and begged. But the captains who guide Nigeria have defiantly insisted on more concentration of power, and more concentration of resource-control and management – all in a country of heterogeneous nationalities. They are hurrying to construct more and more structures that are designed to minister to, and that do excite, the greed and other ignoble passions of man; they are designing more and more interference in, and pollution of, the basic processes of governance. For Nigeria, the hens are now about to come home to roost.

    I fear that those who are now beating the drums of war in Nigeria will soon stand condemned before the court of history for the rivers of blood they will soon cause to flow, for the families they will cause to lose loved ones, and for the mothers they will cause to weep for the loss of their children.

    As the feared storm gathers, Nigerian peoples will be hit in different ways. I have seen, and I have been part of the struggle through, many of Nigeria’s self- brewed storms since 1960, but I have never been as fearful as I am today for my Yoruba nation. By providence, history and culture, we Yoruba are a large and strong nation. By the time we were forced into Nigeria in 1914, we had had an enviable 1000 years of urban civilization, with a rich and sophisticated economy, and eminently well-structured, enabling and stable governance. We have therefore had, as a nation in a Nigeria of many nations, a lot to impart towards orderly, stable and successful governance. And in fairness, we can proudly say that we have done quite a lot – to persuade Nigeria to tread the path of orderliness, sustainable federal structure, modernization, and focused dedication of rulers to the improvement of the quality of Nigerians’ lives. In my younger years in Nigerian politics and government, my kinsmen and I used to serve with untainted pride, motivated by the realization that we had, as a nation, the duty to help our multi-nation country to walk in the path of decent governance. None of that has really worked – and Nigeria goes its own way towards its own destiny.

    But, at this critical juncture, I seem to perceive that my strong Yoruba nation is caving in to the deleterious afflictions of Nigeria, and appears to be becoming incapable of even holding itself together and defending its own. The sheep has kept the company of the dog too long. In all directions in our nation, weakness whimpers pathetically. The once glorious guides and guards of the 1000-year excellence of Yoruba political culture, disregarded and neglected by their own people of today, have abandoned the parapets. Service to the self reigns – with the result that the rich now say “I am poor”, and the strong say, “I am weak”, all because they all are unwilling to give towards the strength and dignity of their Yoruba nation. Little groups mushroom to march out, but nearly every one quickly degenerates into a self-serving cabal, builds a meaningless wall around itself, and then masquerades as too sanctified to touch, or to work with, any other group.

    Lone rangers dictate the tune of our national political life, and by their excessive and un-Yoruba presumptuousness, they provoke the emergence of detractors that become bent on fighting them to the death. In every political party, many influential Yoruba say, “We seek power, influence and wealth in Nigeria now; we will think of our Yoruba nation later”. The eagle that was fashioned to soar the heights now waddles in the mud ponds. The up-and-coming generation of bright youths is offered no vision or noble direction to hold on to.

    This is our day of weakness. But, it is the way of nature and of human society to experience times of weakness. What is more important, and what we need to grab, is the certainty that our inherent strength, nurtured over a thousand years, is alive and intact, that out there, everywhere, the men and women imbued with that strength are countless, and that the immediate need of the moment is to prod those elements of our culture and fundamental philosophies that can waken and accentuate their strength.  Coincidentally, I hear that a large conference of Yoruba leaders is meeting in Ibadan this day, and I hope that they will regard this column today as a message addressed to them.

    First and foremost, we need to reawaken our common consciousness as one people – one people with a common national character and a common destiny – no matter what becomes of Nigeria. No matter what political party or group any of us may belong to, our membership of it is chosen by us, and is evanescent and changeable – whereas our membership of the Yoruba nation is God-ordained, unchangeable, and passes automatically to our offspring. And, thankfully, our Yoruba nation is an enormously proud possession.

    Secondly, in the shifting sands of Nigerian politics, our only sensible and sustainable option is to revive and reemphasize our national ways and philosophies. From wisdom gathered for over a thousand years in our well-ordered communities, we know that it is not sensible or realistic that all of us should belong to one persuasion, either religiously or politically. The recognition of the right to choose is deeply ingrained in our culture; no Yoruba person disrespects the other because of difference of choice; and no Yoruba person, no matter how high, should claim that his partisan choice is the choice of all Yoruba.  Even if (or rather, when) we come to have our own sovereign Odua country, we will have different political parties with members across our land.

    Very importantly, neither of the two leading presidential candidates has ever been formally given the Yoruba agenda for Nigeria. We should appoint a delegation of leaders to put it in the hands of the two candidates now – and demand formal responses without fail. Then, we should urge all parties and candidates to respect the non-partisanship of our Obas, and to relate to our Obas with utmost respect.

    Finally, we must explore all means to ensure that if, as is widely feared, violence happens to cap the coming elections, no part of Yorubaland, and no Yoruba person, will be involved or hurt in it. On the contrary, we must close ranks, turn such a situation around, and make it the dawn of our day of strength.

  • The usual scapegoat

    Picture a severely skewed news story bearing the newspaper Daily Editor’s byline and the curious tag: “With political intelligence unit reports.” Picture how ridiculous it must be to witness the metamorphosis of presumed intellect into dimwittedness.

    As you read many more newspaper editors and their reporters are manifesting at the ruling class’ bidding and your bidding, into the stamen that lets down the azalea, the comforters that bring grief, the emissaries of needless hate we orchestrate.

    Today, tyranny attains ultimate refinement in the news columns; this brings to mind that memorable jest by Norman Mailer that “Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists.” Journalists are often the butt of the most demeaning jokes and premeditated put-downs in the social arena. Nobody thinks much of a journalist; in the eyes of big business and the ruling class, the journalist whatever his designation or job title, is the manipulable pawn and necessary evil that has to be courted and tolerated. In fact, very few journalists command the respect of the society.

    The descent and humiliation of the journalist however, begins in the hands of his employer; very few media today are paying fairly. Many are not paying at all and among the few establishments that pay, salaries range from N15, 000 per month at entry level to N70, 000 per month at managerial level. Just three media houses endeavour to pay fairly and across the three; journalists are oft treated as vermin by administrative/human resources and advertising staff. While just three newspapers may claim exceptionality in this respect, the reality is known to the government, big business, advertisers and general public that the Nigerian journalist is an endangered species, haunted by his employer and tormented by the public he serves. These sad realities lead to daily exodus of skilled and promising hands from journalism and a daily influx of quacks into the profession.

    This resonates badly for the Nigerian mob; the nation’s critical mob to be precise. Mob culture requires that he who would adorn the cloak of defender of the masses’ rights should be upright and flawless in character, work and personal ethics. Such admirable traits are rarely attributable to the Nigerian journalist manager and the press in general.

    The Nigerian mob, like every other rabble, seeks fulfillment of tyrant fantasies; such fantasies often vary between the destruction of an unpopular government, despot or worn-out civilization. Reality however, affirms the impotence of the Nigerian mob. The latter is continually tamed and kept on a leash by a ruling class that capitalizes on its obvious handicaps: its impulsiveness, insensibility to reason and judgment, poverty of soul and intellect, its irritability and overt sentimentality – which are undeniably characteristic of beings belonging to inferior forms of evolution, like savages and carnivores.

    Despites it handicaps, the Nigerian mob conveniently picks on a scapegoat for its infinite timidity and cluelessness: the press. The journalist is expected to serve as the conscience and moral compass of the society, challenging the government and checking the excesses of the ruling class, uncompromisingly and selflessly.

    As utopian fantasies go, these are noble expectations of the journalist but the Nigerian mob ignores the cultural shift of the society from conventional morality to unbridled hedonism. It assumes, hypocritically, that the press will continually give it honest and developmental news even as every segment of the society strive to unmoor the journalist from his role as a crucial appendage of the nation’s critical mob. The public, comprising big business, the government, and civil societies among other mob segments, vilify any journalist or news medium that seeks to educate and engage rather than entertain and perpetuate their biased definitions of reality.

    Contemporary Nigeria embraces the emotional pageant that has turned news into paid publicity and mindless entertainment and the journalist in response kowtows to lusts and vanities of modern society. Beneath the mindless glamour and cultural decline however, an insidious reality festers in the death of hope and incandescence of tragedy. Prevalent socioeconomic tragedies necessitate the emergence and elevation among the citizenry of the bungling and sadistic, and the beginning of a differentiation cum tyranny of social grades.

    At the centre of the turmoil is the journalist whose fate is so critically bound with the country’s but he obviously does not know that hence the cluelessness, treachery and brazen recklessness that characterizes his work. Consequently, the Nigerian journalist manifests as an accident to society. He perpetually loses his grasp of the issues at stake; fundamentally hollow and benumbed to valor, he shamelessly resigns to the powers that be, blaming the tyranny of the ruling class and the proverbial ‘system’ for his inability to fulfill his professional and moral obligations to the society.

    Rather than pose a challenge to the system that domesticates and enslaves him, he chooses the easiest way out and plays junkyard dog to tyrant cabals and the predatory bunch constituting the nation’s ruling class. He assumes the role of a poseur and pretends to fight for the interest of the public. This sad charade is continually perpetuated across esteemed leader-writers’ polemics in foremost newspapers’ columns.

    The contemporary journalist trades in all manners of truths, deploying sophistry and shades of impressive fallacies in the interest of whatever social divide fulfills his lust for relevance and economic survival. I am a journalist and I shamefully acknowledge that my clan and I hardly epitomize hope to our world. Not yet. Rarely does our work signify hope, self-sacrifice or a promise of future honesty and gallantry in the interest of all. We can blame the society and advance all forms of isms and ostentatious arguments to justify our descent the steep slope of amorality and socioeconomic expediency; it wouldn’t excuse our treachery to our calling and the Nigerian citizenry.

    If Nigeria chooses to exist as a land of savages, it’s our responsibility to nudge her back on to the path of humanity and progress – for only in such clime can we positively evolve and prosper. Our failure as journalists indicates severance from a progressive and moral culture while we institutionalize bigotry, lies, depravity, base sentimentality and pitiful fantasies.

    The traditional, conscientious journalist is going extinct today along with true, dependable news culture because Nigeria obsesses and migrates to the pseudo-reality of the internet and reality shows. It is no doubt ironical that the masses would turn around to blame the press for not fulfilling its roles to the society.

    The only profiteers from the status quo are those skilled in the art of manipulation but this despicable band can rarely function without the support of the journalist hence the urgent need for the Nigerian press to retrace his steps. Journalism will thrive and Nigeria will prosper if we neglect the culture of the news spectacle to focus on progressive pursuits, like development and socially responsible journalism.

    It’s about time we stopped narrowing the debates and spotlight to the shenanigans and petty differences of the ruling class and instead aspire to serve as a true voice to the voiceless. There is no magical antidote to our decline and death as a crucial part of the nation’s critical mob.

    Real progress will manifest in the country when we start demanding that the ruling class march in virtual lockstep with promises they make. Whatever the tone and dialect of intellectualization that characterizes our news culture, posterity will judge us by how truthfully we fulfill our roles as conscience and watchdog of the society.