The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Party oligarchy and democracy

    Party oligarchy and democracy

    Parts of the selling points for democracy is that it is an antidote to tyranny and other forms of autocratic tendencies associated with monarchy, oligarchy and other forms of government because of its transparency.  But the rough road to democracy itself is through political parties, properties of an oligarchy of a few powerful individuals who see political parties as investment for higher dividends.  The mistake we often make therefore is to assume political parties,  often  a  refuge for all manners of ‘selfish interest’ groups, are  haven of angels on a God’s mission to protect the less privileged from their oppressors.

    The truth is that political parties are owned by investors, made up, on advanced democracies, of aristocrats, former office holders, current and aspiring office holders.  Here at home, the Nigeria National Democratic Party, (NNDP), the first political party in Nigeria formed in 1923 was owned by Herbert Macaulay. In the run up to independence, National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) was inherited by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and his fellow elite members; Action Group (AG) was owned by Obafemi Awolowo and his fellow old western regional elite members  while the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) was owned by Ahmadu Bello and his fellow northern conservatives.

    Unfortunately, this was a fact lost on our ill-equipped military who upon their violent take-over of power, attempted to sever the umbilical cord between the mother and the baby by barring past owners of political parties from party formation. The irony was that those who preached ‘ownerless’ party or party without ‘founders but of equal joiners’ ended up imposing their own decreed political parties.

    First was Babangida’s short-lived decreed NRC and SDP; then Abacha’s five parties (five fingers of a leprous hand) for which he was their sole presidential candidate and then Abubakar Abdulsalam midwifed PDP, a party described by John Campbell, former US envoy as  ‘an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria that came together  for sharing of oil rents and political spoils’.

    The party between 1999 and 2015, lived that creed with its oligarchs made up of retired soldiers and their new-breed politicians engaged in vicious battle over the sharing of the nation’s resources through privatization, monetization and constituency projects policies or through cornering of about 20% of the nation’s annual budget as salaries and allowances.

    While what they described as “family quarrel” over stolen national resources went on for 16 years, PDP agenda  including roadmap to stable electricity,  agricultural revolution, end of massive importation of foreign goods as well as fight against corruption under Obasanjo;  President Yar’Adua’s seven-point agenda as well as President Jonathan ‘transformation Agenda’, remained a mirage.

    APC is tarred with the same brush. Many frustrated Nigerians have said the only difference between PDP and APC is that the former is an institution where all Nigerian looters graduated from and the latter their post-graduate school. In  August 2013, the All Progressives Congress unfolded its own eight-point cardinal programme – devolution of power, accelerated economic growth and affordable health care, electricity, generation, war against corruption, food security, integrated transport network and free education. Like the PDP, the party with its  control of 65 seats in the 109-seat senate, 190 of the 360 lower house seats and  about 21 of the 36 state governors after the 2015 victory failed to deliver on those goals.

    In October 9, 2000, the late Professor Sam Aluko identified  a cabal made up of  fuel importers as being responsible for importation of fuel and had advised that “Total PLC that manages 17 refineries all over the world should be invited to fix our own”.

    Eleven years after, and six years of APC, none of the refineries works.

    But unlike PDP that brought  to the fore their family war over illegal sharing of our resources including the $180m Halliburton contract scandal, the N1.7t fuel subsidy scam (Bukola Saraki was the whistle blower), $16b power generation scandal, the national identity card scam for which a serving minister went to jail, the derailed Nigeria-China railway project, the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemicals Company (KRPC)’s N700b annual loses in addition to  the loss of a whopping N12 billion annually on staff  salaries of a company that has almost been converted to a container making firm, (Report of Magnus Abe, chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (downstream), the APC ‘fights corruption among his supporters with deodorant’.

    In fact, APC has been expanding its shareholder’s base by welcoming into their party, those PDP members put on trial for corruption by PDP between 2003 and 2015. ‘Join APC and your sins will be forgiven’, once chorused Adam Oshiomhole, one-time APC chairman. ‘We cannot stop sinners from going to church but prevent them from taking over the pulpit’ added Babatunde Fashola, Minister for Works. Ababakar Malami, the Attorney General of Federation and Minister of Justice even tried to smuggle into the civil service, an accused fugitive offender indicted by the National Assembly report for embezzlement of pension funds.

    If anyone is still in doubt political parties are owned by investors, the bitter battle over the souls of the two leading political parties during their recently concluded congresses and convention was all that is needed. Nyeson Wike, the self-confessed chief financier of PDP since the party lost power in 2015 celebrated his victory by displaying his dancing skills. As for the APC, although President Buhari out-witted other shareholders after the 2019 election by imposing his own man and relocating the headquarters to Aso Villa, the battle for the soul of APC in the states by party oligarchs was no less fierce.

    Read Also: Hamzat: we’ll continue to deliver dividends of democracy

    In Rivers State, Senator Magnus Abe insisted during their parallel congresses that he, unlike his rival, Rotimi Amaechi, was a founding member of APC. In Ogun State, incumbent Governor Dapo Abiodun believes Amosun has lost part of his investments by engaging in anti-party activities during the run up to the 2019 election. In Osun, Governor Gboyega Oyetola tried to impress it on Minister Rauf Aregbesola, his predecessor that all politics is domestic.  In Kwara, the battle  to dethrone Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed  by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq  was premised on lack of transparency in the disbursement of campaign donations.

    In Kano State, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje leveraged on his being the chief financier of the party in the state in his battle for supremacy against Senator Ibrahim Shekarau.

    While democracy is antithetical to dictatorship, the owners of the political parties without which democracy can thrive are oligarchs. We have seen dictatorship of the party at play in advanced democracies such as USA where the Republican Party has become Trump’s party and where Biden cannot get his party agenda through because of in-fighting among vested interests in his Democratic Party. Nearer home, we remember how ineffective Prime Minister Balewa left the nation rudderless as he waited for arrival of Ahmadu Bello, the principal shareholder in NPC from pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia by which time it was too late to save the First Republic.

    To therefore think the time will come when the current oligarchs that own PDP and APC will place our interest before their investments is to live in a fool’s paradise.  I can hear them say the Bible has not said they should love others more than themselves. The law of nature which allows the strong to feed on the week is on their side.

    For our youths, the future of the nation who desire change, form your own party like your forbears did instead of EndSARS or IPOB terror or better still,   join PDP and APC and out-invest the reigning oligarchs as some of the current governors are trying to do.

  • Adieu General Colin Powell 1937-2021

    Adieu General Colin Powell 1937-2021

    Anyone who has either lived in North America or has followed the politics of the United States as they affect the destiny of Black Americans cannot but be touched by the death of General Colin  L. Powell. If he were a white man, the death of such an important person would still have been a great loss to the world. But as a former army infantry General, chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Security Adviser,

    Secretary of State, war hero and a black man and a member of the Republican Party, his life and rise are remarkably attractive and worthy  of celebration having achieved this in a hostile environment.

    General Colin Powell was born to a Jamaican immigrant father and mother in the Bronx, one of the rundown areas of New York City 84 years ago. His father worked very hard but his little education could not carry him very far. He was however determined to see his young son get the education that he did not have. With family encouragement and his own determination, young Colin worked in the evenings on part-time basis in a Jewish toy store until he finished high school at the age of 17. The question of going to a regular university did not arise because of the penury of his father, but he found a way around this by enrolling in the ROTC (Reserved Training Officer Corps) where he trained and graduated as an infantry officer. He had a passion for military service and this first took him to South Vietnam as a young junior officer during the war against the revolutionary cadres of the Vietnamese infiltrating from North Vietnam to the South of the divided nation in the 1960s. these were the poorly clad ragtag rubber slippers-wearing guerrilla fighters known to American journalism as Vietcong during the Lyndon Baines Johnson‘s administration in the latter part of the 1960s. Colin Powell even as a young officer so distinguished himself that he went back for a second tour of duty rising to the rank of Colonel before President Richard Nixon in 1975 wound up the war that killed over a million  Vietnamese, military and civilian, while the Americans and their Allies lost 282,000  in a war that spilled over to Laos and Cambodia.

    Colin Powell’s rise in the army was gradual, steady and not meteoric. But policy makers in the Army and Defence Department took notice of the excellent army officer. As an army officer, he kept his political views to himself but he did not hide the fact that he believed that every American can rise to whatever position he desired if he had the talent and was prepared to work very hard. He was not oblivious of the ingrained racism in the country at large and in the military in particular but he had the credo that if offended, one should get very mad and move on with life.

    When President Ronald Reagan took over the American presidency from Jimmy Carter between 1981 and 1989, the Republican Party took a sharp turn to the right politically speaking and blacks in the country suffered neglect;  yet in the last two years of the Reagan administration from 1987 to 1989, Colin Powell was made the first black man to serve as National Security Adviser and when President George H. Bush became president after Reagan, he was appointed the 12th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest position in the United States military and a Four-star General, an accomplishment rare in the American military. He served in this position from 1989 to 1993.

    He was chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff when America invaded Kuwait to expel Saddam Hussein’s forces from that country. This was the time he enunciated what was called the Colin Powell doctrine that if, and when, America goes to war, it must go with overwhelming power and force to defeat the enemy and after which it must withdraw and not be involved in state building. This was first tested successfully in the US invasion of Panama from December 20, 1989 to January 31, 1990 and the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait on January 17, 1991 to February 1991. These were short and precise missions which Colin Powell could justifiably be proud of. But as a military man he did not relish the putting of young men and women in harm’s way and he believed that force must only be used as a last resort.

    Read Also:Colin Powell: The glitter and the tarnish

    The outcome of these two military promenades into Panama and the Gulf shot him into national spotlight and people began to see him as a future president.

    When President George W. Bush took over the presidency from the morally-damaged President Bill Clinton over his affairs with a female intern in the White House, the new president, looking for a morally upright man of impeccable integrity found it in Colin L. Powell whom he appointed as Secretary of State on January 20, 2001 after he was unanimously confirmed by the usually partisan senate. He served in this position till January 26, 2005. He was in this position when Al Qaeda launched its attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon and a botched attack on the White House which ended on a field in Pennsylvania – thanks to the heroic effort of passengers in the plane who fought the terrorists until the plane came crashing down in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. Passion was naturally inflamed in the USA after suffering loss of more than 3,000 souls, most of whom were Americans and others from different countries in the world.

    It was not clear who were the sponsors of this terrible terrorist attack that inflicted more casualties on America than Pearl Harbour in 1941. The war party headed by the President  George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz for various and different reasons were bent on going to war to assuage the feelings of the people of the United States. Their youthful president on visiting the site of the disaster in New York promised retribution and crusade against terror which after advice about the loaded meaning of “a Christian war against Islam” changed it to war against terror . The president gave orders to topple the Taliban regime that hosted the Al Qaeda that was responsible for the attacks on the USA and to defeat the Taliban in detail in a war the whole world regarded as a just war if there was ever a war that was just.

    The Afghan regime fell quickly but mission creep led America to embark on nation-building  in that country which was finally ended  in ignominy after almost two decades by President Joe Biden in 2021.  While the Afghan war was still on,  the  hawkish group surrounding the president decided that the president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein must be gotten rid of because he allegedly had what was called ‘weapons  of mass destruction’ ( WMD).

    Colin Powell’s advice against this was brushed aside even though as Secretary of State, he would have to sell this to the whole world. Nevertheless, the president gave the orders to invade Iraq and to capture or kill Saddam Hussein, the country’s president. The war began in 2003 with the United States and its willing allies bombarding already weakened Iraq after the first Iraq war. In one way or the other, this war which lasted till 2011 contradicted the Colin Powell doctrine because the allies not only defeated and hanged Saddam Hussein, but embarked on nation-building the end of which we are yet to see.

    To justify this war, Colin Powell had to go before the UN Security Council to present unconvincing and spurious evidence including alleged Iraq’s purchase of uranium from Niger Republic. Nobody believed that Iraq had the possession of so called WMD otherwise known as nuclear weapons and no one wanted to risk the coming of nuclear cloud over Europe as Saddam Hussein was allegedly planning to do. Colin Powell as Secretary of State during these times could not totally exonerate himself from guilt  if only by association, and his misleading the world in the United Nations to justify America’s invasion of Iraq using a bad intelligence report dented his image of transparency and integrity. The world can however not judge him too harshly because he could not escape the limit imposed on him by the principle of cabinet collective responsibility.

    This was a man in 1990 and 2000 who was being seen as a Republican president and he might have won a presidential election as a war hero but for the fact that his wife, Alma said no to presidential ambition and he himself felt he did not feel a call to serve at the highest office in the land. A grateful country gave him a presidential honour and respect even as an elder statesman whose opinion counted and was always sought.

    I met him once just as I met Condoleezza Rice once not one on one, but in a small group and I was amazed about the similarity of their views on Africa but particularly on Nigeria. Both were disappointed about the so-called latent potentiality of Nigeria and wondered when this potentiality will become actualized. Both of them also said what Africa needs is strong institutions not strong men that is the so called “African big men”.

    Colin Powell used his influence to see to the emergence of South Sudan as an independent country after suffering for years under the jackboots of Arab military adventurers from the north. Africa owes him a debt for this. Colin L. Powell  has played his part in the march of American black people for full acceptance and in this role he paved the way for the Barack Obama presidency even though he was a Republican who  campaigned quietly and voted for a Democrat.

    It is instructive that Obama kept non-performing Nigeria at arms’ length during his presidency and preferred to visit Ghana while ignoring Nigeria. The situation now is even worse and America in a thousand years is not likely to warm up to a doddering Nigeria on the verge of collapse.

    Finally there is something intriguing about the fact  that successful black Americans like the first black congress woman, Shirley  Shisholm,  1969-1971 who later ran for president, Kamala Harris, the current vice president, Colin Powell,  Stockley Carmichael and Marcus Garvey, Wilmot Dubois and many others had their roots in Jamaica or somewhere in the Caribbean and my explanation is that coming from majority black countries gave them and their descendants courage and boldness to succeed in a white country while black Americans are almost genetically condemned to a sad feeling of inferiority.

  • Hostage to the flesh envelope

    Hostage to the flesh envelope

    This minute, Nigeria pulses to fluid femaleness. Next minute, fluidity may surge trapped, and femaleness may unfurl insipid in the rite of hierarchies by which a dominant male divide harnesses female spunk to win elections.

    How do politicians define a woman with a voter’s card? As manipulable muscle perhaps. In truth, she is a worker of marvels. She is a peasant farmer and market woman of the sidewalk. She is a maternal hero and guardian of fruits from errant male loins. She is the spangled artisan mining the dreams of those that would put her in fetters.

    A shackled woman is a shackled nation; repressed womanhood often manifests dangerously; recent figures by the National Population Commission (NPC) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), estimate Nigeria at 213 million people with approximately 51 percent males and 49 percent females.

    The figures hardly translate in favour of women in governance and elective positions.

    For instance, women recorded low representation at the 2015 general elections, securing a paltry 6.2 percent (seven female senators) of seats in the Senate while men constituted 93.8 percent. Only six women emerged as deputy governors in the 36 states of the country and no woman was elected governor.

    At the backdrop of this worrisome narrative, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, revealed that more men voted than women in 2015, thus bemoaning the marked decrease in the number of women who have won elective positions since 2007: 11 percent in 2007, seven percent in 2011 and 5.6 percent in 2015.

    Out of 2,970 women who contested for different political offices, in 2019, only 62 were elected thus affirming 4.17% women representation in the 2019 general elections, as against 5.65% elected in the 2015 general elections to the National Assembly.

    Thus Mufuliat Fijabi, founder of the Nigerian Women’s Trust Fund (NWTF), pleaded for a level playing field with men, stressing, that women can excel and contribute immensely to the advancement of democratic governance in Nigeria.

    Again, Nigeria pulses to this frantic fiction of change; as INEC, civil and women’s rights groups demand greater women participation in politics.

    Getting more women involved in politics offers no solution at a short stretch, greater attention must be paid to the quality of their political awareness. Unlike her male counterpart, the female voter is modern politics’ most significant personae; a reckoning of phenomenal realities, she possesses immense power yet untapped.

    Crucial questions must be asked: What is the pattern of votes cast by women? What’s the quality of their electoral decision? Are they rooting for the candidate who always delivers? What are the poetics of such delivery? Are they clamouring to re-elect the candidate who bought them pepper grinders, ice coolers, ankara, and bread loaf during the last general elections?

    I remember an encounter with two female voters and neighbours, who were recently ‘upgraded’ to minor party chieftains at the grassroots. Both work for an aspirant seeking to represent their constituency for the third time, at the federal legislative chambers.

    At the latter’s first tenure, he promised them a borehole that never got built. At his second time out, however, he pleaded for forgiveness and bought pepper grinding machines, ice coolers, and food warmers for women across the local districts of their constituency.

    Brandishing a hazy list of beneficiaries, he promised to give their children scholarships, valued at N20, 000 each. Of the figure, each recipient will pay a commission of N5, 000 to the woman leader who facilitates the inclusion of her child’s name in the list of recipients. They have vowed to get him re-elected at all cost.

    The duo mirror a fragment of a larger percentage of females, who like their male peers, are blinded by an insidious culture of tokenism, to the gaping inadequacies of their preferred candidates, and the consequences on the economy, social, and political structures that herald their lives.

    They do not understand, that, these structures, which they have been tutored to serve, must be abolished to avoid disaster. The bane of such a voter divide is their handlers. Political parties activate their campaign teams with influential females answering to the title of ‘women leader.’

    The latter flaunt the lustre of folk heroines and local champions, who develop multiple forms of sentiments in the female populace, exploiting emotionality for political benefits.

    Some evolve into the political femme fatale, committing to their parties’ candidate irrespective of the latter’s true ethical bent. They play the devil’s advocate, showering plaudits and heroism on aspirants, whose lives are often examples of moral squalor and unchecked greed.

    Local politics careens dangerously by the antics of such femme fatale, who survive by the mystique of an equation akin to politics of the herdsmen and the herd.

    Women constitute a significant and very powerful section of the political divide no doubt. Societal problems, however, persist where they fail to wield their power and influence decisively in their interest and for the benefit of the country.

    The social afflictions of inadequate primary healthcare centres, substandard education, gender violence, and economic insecurity persist, where women fail to participate in national, state, and grassroots politics by progressive terms.

    It is often argued that if more women get into politics, there would be less failure and tragedy in governance. This argument, however, falls flat on the face at the backdrop of revelations of monumental corruption perpetrated by female public officers at all levels of government.

    Yet it may be argued that the culprits are victims of an interplay and intra-play of forces led by powerful male elements holding sway over public and private institutions.

    Leadership failure is ultimately a male sport, invented by the politically dominant male to patent victory by the choices of a hapless electorate. In order to fulfill this dysfunction and make it amenable to precepts of political correctness, the Nigerian female is occasionally tossed political office, like a gift of bone to a starving dog.

    Thus the emergence of often ceremonial female deputies and commissioners to male governors – even though their functions at times, conflict with the offices of their principals’ First Ladies. Such deputy governors, commissioners, in the end, settle into roles and functions beneath their designations.

    This is a manifestation of flawed choice, an ultimate human dilemma precipitated by survival instinct in a blemished system. The gravest challenge to our hopes and dreams as a nation are the messy political transactions prevalent at the grassroots and party arena, every minute and hour of every day.

    Resistance to such acts cannot take place without a degree of knowledge and self-reflection. We must end these acts by transforming moral outrage into concrete steps to curb such violations.

    We can no longer shut our eyes to the venomous superstructure foisted on us, fuelled by insentient politics, retained by toxic social economy.

    More women suffer the scourge of tarnished awareness in this political high drama that renders their conscience, a pitiful hostage of its flesh envelope; “whose surges and secret murmurings they cannot stay or speed,” says Paglia.

    If the woman’s body is truly a labyrinth in which the man is lost, the Nigerian woman should loom formidably before him as negotiations intensify on the country’s next social, political hierarchies.

    The conflict of economies and social ironies notwithstanding, a new class of womanhood must emerge not as a corpse in future argument with itself, but as a heroic shiner of light and hope on Nigeria’s dark aspects.

  • Anifowose: Farewell to a good man

    The glories of our blood and state

    Are shadows, not substantial thing;

    There is no armour against fate.

    Death lays his icy hands on kings.

    Sceptre and crowns   must tumble down.

    And in the dust be equal made”.

    James Shirley (1596-1666) with his Death the Leveller tries to tell us about the ephemeral nature of worldly success, victories, power and influence. The only thing that outlives us all is our good deeds. And since everyone has a date with death, Ernest Hemmingway, (1899-1961), a 1954 Nobel winner in his 1940 novel For Whom The Bell Tolls admonishes us not to ask for whom the funeral bell tolls,  because as part of mankind,  each human death affects all of us.

    Although it was the turn of Professor Anifowose who was laid to rest last Saturday in Ijeda near Ilesha, his passage however was a sad reminder that the bell tolls for each and every one of us. Every transition therefore is an opportunity for introspection about how our lives in terms of charity, compassion and sympathy impact on others we are in a position to help.

    Prof Remi Anifowose was a self-made man who achieved greatness through a dint of hard work.  He was at the Methodist Teachers college Ifaki-Ekiti between 1959 and 1960 from where he moved to the Methodist Teachers College Sagamu for his Grade II Teacher’s Certificate between1963 and 1964. He combined his teaching job with studying at home through Rapids Result Correspondence for his Advance Level GCE certificate which aided his admission to the University of Ibadan in 1966. Not ready to rest on his oars after graduating in 1969, he sought and secured admission to University of Manchester where he completed his Masters and Ph.D. in a record time in 1973.  The same year, he joined University of Lagos where he was to spend the next 34 years teaching and mentoring students.

    A lifelong relationship with late Professor Anifowose started as a Ph.D. candidate in the early eighties. Professor Adeoye Akinsanya, my supervisor had relocated to Ilorin. Then the late Prof Oyediran who agreed to take me on, at a critical point of the work went on sabbatical to the US.  Shortly afterwards, the relevance of my work in the Department of Political Science became an issue.

    But Anifowose, my second supervisor came to my rescue by pointing out that ‘politics is communication’ since the whole idea of the modern nation state is nothing but a ‘decision and control system’ in which the communication media becomes an instrument for waging a battle of consciousness, citing Deutsch, Dudley,  Coleman, Rosberg, Claude Ake  Lucien Pye and  Karl Marx himself who insisted ‘the  idea of the ruling class are in any every epoch the ruling idea’.

    From there it was a smooth ride to my defence for which he had warned – ‘Don’t stop talking except you are stopped because it is your work’!

    But those were the days of committed scholarship and mentorship. It was the days of  Adele Jinadu, Moyibi Amoda, Oye Oyediran, Bolaji Akinyemi, Stephen Odugbemi,  Alaba Ogunsanwo  Jide Coker, Ben Amunoo,  Godfrey Nweke.  Those were the days lecturers played leading role in the formulation and implementation of public policies and foreign policy objectives. Those were the days lecturers instilled confidence rather than fear in their students. It was from Prof Adele Jinadu I first heard professors and Ph.D. students are colleagues, the only distinction being that the latter are ‘junior’ colleagues. It was that generation of committed scholars and mentors that told us that the preoccupation of every professor should be how to reproduce himself in his specialized field and thereafter step aside to work under his former student.

    That Anifowose lived that credo was self-evident with the presence of his academic children, grand-children, great-grand-children and great-great grand-children at Ijeda last Saturday. Representing his academic children were professors Derin Ologbenla, the current HOD, Browne Onuoha, a former HOD, Maduabum, Mudashiru, Unfondu and Dr M M Fadakinte. Also there to bid him good bye were his academic grand-children  including Dr. Laja Odukoya the immediate past  Acting HOD, Dr GSM Okeke, Dr. Emmanuel Onah, Dr. Fedinard Otto, Dr Augustine Eneanya  Dr Lara Quadri, Dr Kayode Esuola, all associate professors in the department. Professor Anifowose’s academic great grand-children were also fully represented in Ijeda by   Dr Dele Ashiru, the current ASUU chairman, Dr Awosika,  Dr Salami, Dr Akintola  Benson, Dr Akinwale, Dr Manuwa, Dr Nwachukwu, Dr Popoola, Dr Henry Otoighile among others. And of course among his great-great-great academic grand children at Ijeda were Ebenezar Ishola, Vera Amaechi and James Nwali.

    Professor Anifowose, regarded by many as ‘one the best hands in the academia’ lived a fulfilled life as a teacher, mentor and an accomplished scholar. He was a man of peace who freely gave his time that others may excel. He was an embodiment of compassion. He was a man of generous spirit.

    His colleagues of over 50 years from University of Ibadan spoke of his humanity.  To Emeritus Professor J. Bayo Adekanye who believes ‘The Nigerian Political Science community has lost a gem’,  ‘he was a good, honest, unassuming  and a  committed academic”. For Emeritus Professor JAA Ayoade ‘the late Anifowose was given to a life of humility and frankness. He was down to earth and courageous. In his academic life, he was painstakingly in search of truth. His judgment was ever fair and objective”.

    For Professor Osaghae Egbosa, ‘the powerful intellect in him never missed the opportunity to engage in a combat, but he was ever so friendly and nice. He was a good man’. And to Professor Adigun Agbaje, ‘he will for ever live in his heart in the role he played in his academic development just as many and uncountable others would fondly remember him’, while Professor Femi Mimiko saw him as  ‘a compelling scholar and most distinguished gentleman’.

    Prof Solomon Akinboye, former Dean of University of Lagos Post graduate School  who was also at Ijeda last Saturday spoke of ‘his commitment to scholarship and dedication to service’ and of  how Anifowose took special interest in grooming him when he joined the department in 1991 as lecturer II.  Dr Henry Otoighile who represented the 1982 set expressed immense gratitude of his set for the nurturing they received from Prof Anifowose which he said was the foundation for the giant strides they have made in society.

    With this type of home recognition and the testimonies coming from the best in our field, I am sureAnifowose will sleep well in his grave for living a life of service.

    And finally, as Chief Moluyi Oluwatoye his childhood friend and Professor  Solomon Akinboye, his protégé attested, Professor Remi Anifose was until his death committed to his Methodist faith. Besides living his footprint on the sand of time, they both hope to see him on resurrection day.

    For the consolation of his immediate family and extended academic family members, let us conclude this tribute to Professor Remi Anifowose with John Donne’s (1572-1631) most famous poem:

    “Death be not proud, though some have called thee

    Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so”.

    Die not, poor death, nor yet

    Canst thou kill me…”

    Because the soul lives on after life, people will awake to eternal life after death, leading to the death of death itself.

  • Igboho in Yoruba (Oyo) history

    Igboho in Yoruba (Oyo) history

    I have been reading a relatively short but concise history of Igboho by the Onigboho of Igboho, Oba John Oyekola Bolarinwa, Ajagungbade II, with great interest. Apart from the curiosity of a scholar on any new manuscript, I have abiding interest in the history of the Yoruba of which Igboho is an important part of. I am also interested in the intra and external relations of the old Oyo Empire and this manuscript awaiting publication throws some light on what went on in the inner core of the empire.

    Igboho in the Ibarapa area of Oyo State has been in the news recently as a Yoruba kingdom suffering from ceaseless attacks by Fulani herders who are making life impossible for farmers in the area.  This is part of a larger phenomenon pitching farmers who are protecting their livelihood against herders who seem to be determined to ignore the sensibilities of the farming community who are resisting the eating of their crops by cows driven through their farms by Fulani herders some of who are allegedly foreigners coming from central and West Africa.

    This has led to local response from the people championed by one of their young leaders, Sunday Adeyemo known generally as “Sunday Igboho”. The writing of the book by Alaiyeluwa Bolarinwa is just coincidental and has no relation to the ongoing campaign for Yoruba self-determination championed by Sunday Adeyemo; in fact nothing was mentioned about this except the fact that Igboho is an economic cross in the upper Ogun area.

    The other reason of my interest in this manuscript is the fact that I have unstinted interest in Oyo history as the “Baapitan” of Oyo by the grace of Iku Baba Yeye, His Royal Majesty, Alaafin Lamidi Layiwola Adeyemi III, the Alaafin of Oyo. Furthermore, as an historian, one must always look for new sources and data to validate or disprove existing knowledge based on what evidence was available to historians of the past of Oyo Empire like the Reverend Samuel Johnson who wrote the History of the Yoruba and whose manuscript was later published by his younger brother. We owe Reverend Johnson a debt of gratitude for rescuing Yoruba history from being condemned to oblivion. We of course now know there were gaps and omissions in his book. We also knew that he was reflecting the view of Oyo in his considerable effort to reconstruct the history of the Yoruba from oral traditions mostly collected from his stations as a roving missionary.

    This current effort of Oba Bolarinwa helps to illuminate the past and to foreshadow the future of the reconsideration of the modus operandi of the government of the old Oyo Empire as centred on the Alaafin and his court. The book written to justify the primacy of the Onigboho among competing traditional rulers viz the Alepata and the Onibode of Igboho and some minor chiefs in the area also makes great contributions to the understanding of intra kingdom relations among several of the allied kingdoms in the area and underscores the centrality of Igboho in the strategy of relations among the various kingdoms of the Yoruba and related Borgu people in the Upper Ogun region of Nigeria. The discussion of the religion of the people in precolonial times and the advent of Christianity and Islam give the reader the picture of the complex religious map of Igboho.

    Read Also: What I told Buhari about Sunday Igboho – Ooni

    My main take from the story ably told by Oba Bolarinwa is the strain the Kabiyesi takes to assert the primacy of the Onigboho over other obas in Igboho. In doing this he seems to cut off the Onigboho’s umbilical cord from the Alaafin to which the Eleruwa of Eruwa from where the founders of Igboho claim to have descended from.  In other words, the Onigboho dynasty is also related to the Alaafin of Oyo’s dynasty. There is no doubt that Igboho was among the towns in the old Oyo Empire where the power of the Alaafin went unchallenged. The fact that the Alaafin Egungunoju relocated from Oyo-Ile (Old Oyo) whether first to Kushu, Kishi, Shaki or Igboho as a result of external pressure  from the Nupe in the 16th century and was accommodated by the people of those towns showed that the Alaafin could rule wherever he resided whether in Oyo- Ile or any other part of the old Oyo Empire. This is not strange in the history of other people and in other climes. There is hardly any part of Yoruba land where there were no Oyo settlers before and after the second movement of the headquarters of Oyo from Oyo- Ile to present Oyo in the 19th century. The fact that the dynasty of the Alaafin was able to move and re-establish itself with the full paraphernalia of the imperial court is a credit to the enduring nature of the dynasty which in one form or the other has existed since the 13th century remaining today as one of the oldest dynasties to rule consistently for such a long period.

    From history of other kingdoms in Nigeria, say for example the Hausa kingdoms and their takeover by the Fulani  in the 19th century, original rulers have had to concede power or share it with new comers representing more formidable forces or higher civilizations. This is what seems to have happened in Igboho. This is political reality in the apparent eclipsing of the Onigboho by the Alepata who represents the suzerainty of the Alaafin over all other Obas in the Old Oyo empire and even today in Yoruba land at least politically speaking while the Alaafin will, I believe, concede the role of spiritual leadership to the Ooni of Ife.

    From what is known and accepted facts about the origin of Igboho, there is no doubt that there were people in Igboho before Alaafin Egungunoju moved to Igboho during the 16th century Nupe invasion of Oyo Ile. Four Alaafin ruled the Oyo Empire from Igboho of which Igboho was part of after first relocating to Shaki and then moving to a more defensible place like Igboho. The original settlers in Igboho from Eruwa welcomed the influx of Oyo people who accompanied the Alaafin. This fact changed the history of Igboho just as the history of most Yoruba kingdoms changed after the southward movement of Oyo people after the final collapse of the Oyo Empire 1826-1830 following the rebellion of Afonja of Ilorin and the pressure of the Muslim jamaa from Ilorin which was later to contest for power and supremacy with Ibadan forces in Yorubaland. The Onigboho’s mistake in the past was the assertion of his independence from the Alaafin which if the Alaafin had conceded  would have eroded the influence of the Alaafin if not his power in and over Igboho. The presence of the Alepata and to a lesser extent the Onibode strengthened the hand of the Alaafin in the challenge the independent posture of the Onigboho posed.

    The dichotomy of power in Igboho is not unique to Igboho, it is the result of the accident of history which we can do nothing about.  This same problems exist in Ogbomosho, Abeokuta and several places in present Osun, Ekiti and Ondo states where original Obas are locked in arms with new suzerainty representing more powerful forces behind them historically. What is important for the sake of peace among brothers is for the rights of the original Obas to be recognized while the power of the new reality is carefully delineated so as to avoid clashes. The sky is broad enough for all birds to fly at the same time. In a situation where the entire institution of traditional royalty is being challenged by purveyors of modern democratic civilizations, a crack in the unity of the traditional institutions will be suicidal. The current situation in Igboho where the existence of the entire town is threatened by Fulani herders and other terrorists, calls for unity of direction or else the whole town will perish. A people speaking the same tongue should not allow history to divide them and should not be victims of abuse of history. The culture of accommodation among the people of Igboho which existed in the past should guide them to the future. The people of Igboho and their competing Obas should also guide against the possible exploitation of religious differences among the claimants for royal primacy and their supporters. The past belongs to history while the future is what the people should look forward to. Victory does not always go to the swiftest and history is written from the prism of the victor. This is what the Onigboho’s history has demonstrated. There is absolutely no reason to divide Igboho into Oyo- Igboho and original Igboho because both are people from the same stock and they are all subjects of the Alaafin from whom all the competing Obas descend!

  • October wild and herd feral

    October wild and herd feral

    October 20, 2020, the #EndSARS protester paraded careless angst in trendy herd.  He was the plebeian statue sculpted of spunk and spittle. Governors, lawmakers, and the presidency considered him to be a dangerous cuss. But he saw himself otherwise.

    In truth, he was the proverbial yowl plundering rage slipshod, a revolutionary of dubious grace. His flashing eyes, vagrant rage, combined insolent swag with gruff panache. Flashing eyes may command and pierce but they can also incinerate from within. Ever wonder why the protests imploded and died?

    Violence was a mutation of the #EndSARS protest. When it broke, it was uninformed, primitive, and vast, like the chaos of savage night before the dawn of blossoms. Yet dawn erupts with sickly carnations. Despite the flowery fantasies of the protesters, their clamoured dawn illumined with moonshine.

    The fruits of the protests were negative for the same reason that they were positive for the youth; the resultant mayhem counselled the need for caution, tact, and masterful self-containment. One positive takeaway from the protests was the timeless opportunity it offered the youth to regroup and restrategise.

    Come 2023, they won’t seize power from the incumbent ruling class. That is a tall dream. But this minute, they could set about reordering in numbers and might, to renegotiate the nature and extent of their participation in the political process.

    Their inability to unite constructively for the good of all and their incapacity at achieving a rational engagement with the government and other demographics manifested as a desperate defect of the #EndSARS protest.

    The most sublime act they could have aspired to was the renegotiation of their terms of political engagement en route to the 2023 general elections and further. But they blew it.

    Many would rather seek cheap consolation and play to the gallery by romanticising the Lekki Tollgate shooting as a massacre. There was a shooting there quite alright, and it was in bad taste, but there was no massacre. Journalists should stop whinging reports to reflect the truth they can’t substantiate.

    Of course, several writers, presumed and self-appointed leaders of thought, celebrities, and publicity junkies would rail and declare this politically incorrect, their frantic grief is understandable. I accord them their right to it. “We move,” to echo one of #EndSARS purgative slogans.

    With #EndSARS, the youth seemed to speak with one voice but all they did was weaponise dissent and angst into a shrill orchestra. For a generation that prides itself on its disruptive capacities, their response to disruption was frantic, juvenile, and predictable – which further affirms the pointlessness of their rudderless protests.

    Contempt was a black hole of the protests, the disdain for constructive criticism, dishonesty, and a spiraling convolution of psyche. Little wonder the movement unfurled ethically-knocked.

    The youths must learn not to cherry-pick aspects of an insurrection to validate their caprices for change; life happened through #EndSARS, and they must deal with the consequences of their actions and inaction through the carnage.

    It’s inspiring that the youth have finally realised that their expectations of a better future are imperiled on the watch of a selfish political class but it’s self-serving to blame the older generation alone for the Nigerian crisis, the youths had always partnered with them in pillaging and carnage.

    The #EndSARS romantics, predictably, sought to immortalise October 2020 as the day soldiers killed an unsubstantiated number of protesters at Lekki Tollgate. But while they conjure the bodies from lies and bouquets of rage, we must remember that it was the day Nigerian youths murdered 22 policemen, roasting and eating some of them in Ibadan. A day the youths burned 205 police stations, and other critical private and public infrastructure. A day the so-called leaders of tomorrow burned over 164 police vehicles, looted, and bankrupted about 265 private businesses, leading to the joblessness of over 10, 000 youths.

    It was a day over 200 new public coaches were torched by angry youths; a day Lagos State and some other states lost over N20 billion to destructive youths. October 20, 2020, was the culmination of Nigeria’s loss of over N700 billion in economic value – over 14 days.

    It was a day Nigeria’s youths jointly escalated the crisis, leading to the deaths of at least 73 civilians, far from Lekki Tollgate. But the dubious, clout chasing celebrities and their unwitting groupies wouldn’t address these truths as they commemorated their fictive massacre at the Lekki Tollgate.

    Vladimir Lenin’s homily of a successful revolt benchmarks all three Russian revolutions in the 20th century; he said, it is not enough for a revolution that the exploited and oppressed masses should understand the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes, what is required for revolution is that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way.

    Only when the “lower classes” do not want the old way, and when the “upper classes” cannot carry on in the old way—only then can revolution win.

    Youthful Nigeria dabbled with such reality until criminals among them and the ruling class perhaps hatched venom into their ranks. The youth were wooing the police. Videos of protesters sharing sumptuous meals and drinks with police patrol teams went viral and raised eyebrows among the ruling class. It scared them silly.

    Like all despotic regimes, the ruling class understood the import of the events. They dreaded what the endgame of such camaraderie of protesters and the police could manifest.

    They understood that once the foot soldiers of the elite – the policemen, soldiers, party hooligans and random street urchins, the civil servants, the courts, the press and academia, and finally the army – no longer have the will to defend the regime, the regime is finished. When these societal elements shun the whims of an oppressive regime, it crumbles.

    To rebuild Nigeria, the youth must seek legitimate means of participation in the political process. It’s about time they adopted or established a viable political party, duly registered, and founded on humane principles of nationhood, citizenship, and thought.

    They must present through legitimate means, to the parliament, a heartfelt wish to participate in the forthcoming elections. To achieve this, they could urge the National Assembly to normalise the use of the international passport, driver’s license, national identity card, and BVN (for electronic ballot) as acceptable means of voting at the 2023 elections.

    And if the youths truly intend to assert themselves progressively at the forthcoming elections, they must begin to woo societal segments they had hitherto ignored and dismissed as too violent, too dumb, too compromised, and too wild.

    They must accommodate the random hooligan, street urchin, among others, as co-travellers in the march towards the Nigeria of our dreams.

    Nobody was born to serve as a hooligan, arsonist, assassin; the youth must initiate debates and deliberations spanning various fora, nationwide, whereby they would honestly thrash out crucial issues that aid the reduction of Nigeria’s youth to disposable social elements and cannon fodder for political violence.

    They must eschew violence and the inclinations for hate speech, and their synergies must be guided and adapted through an ad hoc and premeditated coordination in repelling  moles, armed goons, and saboteurs, who would be sent to disrupt their rallies with tribal toxins, fake news, religious venom, and filthy lucre.

    None of these is achievable where the youths remain faceless and buried in herd feral.

  • Ungoverned spaces and battle for grazing lands

    Ungoverned spaces and battle for grazing lands

    If only we would love others as we love ourselves as Christ, the social crusader and the greatest teacher the world has ever known commanded, the earth, which according to Pope Francis “is the only paradise we know”, but today controlled by only one per cent of its extremely rich inhabitants would have been  a world without conflict and strife. And if only Nigerians would subscribe to Yoruba “Afenifere” catchphrase, literarily translated as wanting ‘the best you want for yourself for others’ which best approximates the above Christ’s injunction, our youths who today know only violence will be witnesses to an organized society which defined our nation before independence.

    Unfortunately, efforts by Awo and his group to export ‘Afenifere’ policies including free education that has today positioned the old southwest as the most educated part of Africa to the north which according to Trevor Clark, the biographer of Tafawa Balewa, A Right Honourable Gentleman, was 70 years behind the south in western education at independence,  was roundly rejected by northern leaders who demanded to know what gave Awo and his group the impression the north wanted the same thing as the West. When Awo warned that Uthman Dan Fodio would protest in his grave at the legacy the northern leaders would be bequeathing to their youths, northern leaders, according to Trevor Clark, declared Awo’s reference to their grand-father, a sacrilege and an affront for which he must be made to pay a price. He was later slammed with 10 years imprisonment for among other things, an entry in his diary that he dreamt he was a prime minister.

    The late Olanihun Ajayi, a founding member of Afenifere  socio-cultural group, in his last work titled Nigeria: Political Power Imbalance – The Bane and Chain Down of Nigeria’s Progress and Development focuses on how some segment of the country not only  rejected progressive ideas but tried to nationalize their self-inflicted miseries. Consequently, instead of deploying resources towards building capacity, northern leaders became preoccupied with dragging down the south to its own level through various social engineering efforts including quota system and federal character policies.

    In 2019, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) listed Zamfara with “300 public primary schools manned by a single teacher each while many others in remote rural have no teachers” which managed to produce only 16 candidates with five credits at GCE O/level in 2017 along such states as Bauchi, Niger, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Kebbi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba as having eight million out-of-school children.

    But rather than employ teachers, hypocritical northern Sharia leaders who forgot Islamic religion was the foundation of western civilization would rather employ Hisbah corps (Kano as at 2010 had 9,000) who go around raiding bars or destroying trucks selling or conveying alcoholic beverages, arresting ladies adjudged not properly dressed or wearing sunglasses and preventing women passengers from riding in the same tri-cycle with men.

    But perhaps Olanihun Ajayi’s thesis needs no further validation than the on-going unproductive ‘open grazing’ battle between northern and southern political leaders. Herdsmen and their sponsors rejected modernization of their pastoral business because they claim open grazing is a Fulani culture which they rightly claim is protected by the nation’s constitution. In 2010, northern lawmakers during a heated debate at the National Assembly warned of the dire consequences of rejecting the proposed open grazing bill.  In 2015, Miyyetti Allah threatened violence and actually visited violence against states that passed anti-open grazing laws.

    But while the battle raged, merchants of violence and their sponsors forgot the north controls almost 80 per cent of the country’s landed area, one-third of which was designated special government reserved areas. Such reserved forests include Sambisa, covering an area of   60,000 square kilometres, twice the size of the southern part of Nigeria according to Professor Dikwa; Falgore Forest in Kano State, Kamuku or Birnin Gwari Forest in Kaduna State, Rugu Forest in Katsina, Kuyambana Forest, Zamfara and Alewa Forest. Others include  Zugurma Forest in Niger State, Lame Bura Forest in Bauchi State and of course, Dajin Rugu Forest where the kidnapped Emir of Bugundu, Hassan Attahiru who regained freedom last Monday was kept for 32 days.

    While a section of the country that occupies nearly 80 per cent of the country’s landmass was at war over grazing land with those holding about 20%, a situation described by Ohaneze as ‘provocative and suspicious’, these mostly ungoverned reserved forests became enclaves of banditry, cattle rustlers and killer herdsmen. It was from there marauding criminals move out periodically to unleash terror on innocent people.

    Counting the cost allowing criminals to take over ungoverned reserved forests to Zamfara, Abdullahi Shinkafi, the state Secretary to the Government during a recent Gusau town hall meeting organised by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), said the state government has spent some N17 billion in the past seven years on fighting banditry. Breaking down the cost, he explained: “In 2011, we provided 457 vehicles for security agencies; in 2012, we provided 2,250 vehicles; in 2014, 77 vehicles and 50 vehicles each in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Other prices according to him include “over 3,000 deaths, destruction of over 2,000 homes, burning of over 500 cars and kidnapping of over 500 people for ransom”.

    Kaduna, Katsina Sokoto and Borno states where ungoverned territories were seized by criminal herdsmen, bandits and cattle rustlers must have no doubt shared Zamfara’s painful experience. Sadly, the likes of Shehu Garba, Abubakar Malami and Kaduna’s Nasir El Rufai and Bauchi’s Bala Mohammed and other Fulani irredentists in Buhari’s government, by unleashing vicious attack on Governor Akeredolu of Ondo State for signing an anti-open grazing law to rid his state’s reserved forests of bandits and killer herdsmen, want Ondo and other southern states to share the Zamfara experience.

    Besides the kidnapping of Olu Falae, the killings of Chief Fasoranti’s daughter and Dr Fatai Aborode who left his lecturing job in Scotland to start a farm in his Ibarapa community of Oyo State, they probably want a replication of mass abduction of children for ransom, surrendering of Southwest’s reserved forests and farms to Fulani herdsmen from Mauritania, Libya or Niger the way it happened in the north to ensure northern miseries spread to the south. They will also probably not be satisfied until they see a replication of dangerous Abuja-Kaduna and Birnin Gwari highways in the southwest.

    It is by now obvious to Nigerians that Shehu Garba, Malami and El Rufai who often pretend to speak for Buhari when they in fact speak for the tendencies they represent in Buhari’s government, do not love others as they love themselves. It is hoped they will emulate Katsina’s Masari by supporting government efforts at liberating confiscated ungoverned territories from bandits and terrorists and use same to establish ranches which will promote the development of associated industries such as dairy, leather and shoe industries.

    It is also hoped they would stop opposing the demand by the 36 federating states for state and community policing which has the potential to prevent communities from being alienated from their land as against their preference for federal police who because they have no stakes, often allegedly look the other way or take sides as invincible AK-47-wielding criminal herdsmen sack communities after communities.

  • Thoughts on Obasanjo’s “unshakable faith’’

    Thoughts on Obasanjo’s “unshakable faith’’

    Words have power but that power derives more from the spirit than the letter. And in the case of the spoken word, the standing of the speaker is equally critical. Of course, that’s the reason some words are worthless and others are not.  And that’s why some can heal while others hurt. This truth is far-ranging, even within the frame of nation-building. But that is only a part of the equation. If only rhetoric could change the lot of nations, then the reality of many developing nations would be different. For example, Nigeria’s reality would be a completely different story. It would be of a strong, prosperous and united nation that is spiritedly living up to its promise, not one languidly battling with peril of its own making. Ours is a country that is perennially enmeshed in a war of its words against its will.  We know the right things to be said, have ideas on the right things to be done, and are confident on who is to do what, but that’s where it ends.

    It is almost like a national culture for us to routinely do the opposite of what we know to be right. Committee upon committee, summit upon summit, conference upon conference, dialogue upon dialogue, and still, the result is the one-step-forward-two-steps-backward march towards nothing. We engage in the needless busyness of words and showmanship as a delay tactic for the imminent – a total blow-up of our collective failures. Rather than work, we pray. In place of action, we hope. In place of decision, we dither. Ours is a classic definition of unseriousness. But this is what we continue to do. It should be clear that endless rhetoric without an activated response is utterly useless. I’ll come back to this later.

    The main issue in this commentary is a recent comment by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The other week, he seized the opportunity of an event to reaffirm his faith in Nigeria despite the current trying times. His faith in Nigeria is of the unshakable kind. Impressive stuff. Amongst other things, he said: “My faith in Nigeria remains unshakable. My optimism about the future is resounding. Some may wonder how the future will be rescued? I see hope in the determination, resilience and the indomitable spirit of Nigerians. I see hope in their resistance when they are pushed to the wall. I see hope, in the zeal, commitment and courage in the face of adversity. I see hope, in the boundless and incurable optimism of young Nigerians.”

    I found this portion of the speech quite engaging. Firstly, the tone of this message is not so different from that of previous ones from the same messenger – the ‘I-have-a-dream’ kind; that Nigeria’s better days are ahead even in the face of obvious, deliberate and unpatriotic attempts to keep it a dream that never fructifies. Secondly, it is good to know that some people still unshakably believe in Nigeria. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is one elder statesman who has consistently leveraged every public occasion to reaffirm his faith, hope and optimism in the Nigerian project. This in itself is an admirable quality. He is one of the few people who are somehow confident of Nigeria’s would-be possibilities; that one-day dream that Nigeria would, like Martin Luther King Jr. once believed for the United States of America, “rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.” In these circumstances, one could rightly ask: what’s the Nigerian creed?

    Obasanjo sees a lot of hope. Hope is an eternal resource. It is a constant through life’s crests and troughs. An abundant spring that should never run dry. An institution that should never be out of business. A product that should not suffer scarcity even in the worst of economies. A beat that the pulse of a nation should not skip.

    Hope. That’s what the leaders of this country have always encouraged citizens to have, even in the face of pernicious exploitation. Hope is an incredible attribute of the strong. The strong in Nigeria’s case is not the high and mighty but the masses of the people who are always “pushed to the wall.” The youth in particular have suffered this push. Why is it only this push to the wall that they’ve known? A push to frustration, depression and a conclusion that the best option for them is to japa – which is now the buzzword for freedom from the manacle that Nigeria has become for them. When they try to speak up for justice, or against tyranny, they are resisted – sometimes killed – for daring to have a voice in their own country. Many of them remain resilient. Obasanjo tries to capture this resilience in effect when he said: “I see hope in the willingness of Nigerian young, who are resisting with all their might the evil that are being perpetrated.”

    I am happy that President Obasanjo has unshakable faith in Nigeria. I am happy for him and for others like him who have no clue about the buffeting of all sorts that every day Nigerians have to contend with. I see the sense in which Obasanjo tries to portray that he understands the severity of the challenges. And he tries in this effort. At least, he seems convinced about what he’s saying. If for anything, it is a refreshing contrast from the disturbing aloofness that is characteristic of the political class.

    For them, it’s easy to speak about hope when they are often not the victims of their failures. They are not the ones who have to find money to pay as ransom if they or someone they know falls prey to kidnappers. Of course, they can talk about hope. They are not the ones who have to worry about bandits who sometimes, reportedly, write in advance of their planned operation and the carnage that often follows. Or worry about the dastardly acts of ‘unknown gunmen’ which has now become a convenient appellation for non-state actors who pose deleterious threats to our people’s lives and livelihood. Hope is easy to talk about when they have a choice. When they have a choice of better healthcare elsewhere and can’t be perturbed that Resident Doctors are on strike for months. Or unmoved when ASUU decides to shut the public universities in protest of the government’s chicanery.

    So, yes, it’s good that he is hopeful. The hope is justified. But it doesn’t count for much. He is not one of those pushed to the wall. He doesn’t have a reason not to be hopeful. To be fair, some credit should be given. I appreciate the former president’s faith in a country that has given him everything. And he’s not the only one. There are other privileged citizens who have Nigeria to thank for the opportunities it gave them. I look forward to the day when the masses of patriotic Nigerians, particularly the young ones, can talk of what their country invested in them not on account of who they knew but on account of the noble passions they pursued. We have heard enough stories of what they had to become in the face of frustration, oppression and neglect on every side.

    Hope is good. But not nearly enough. What Nigeria is in dire need of is not hope. What it needs is for the leaders to rise to the existential challenges of the day; for them to do the required heavy-lifting, not give excuses. Nigeria is at a defining moment in its history. The next phase should be defined by its actions, not hope; by work, not words; by a plan, not prayer. The country needs people who can deliver the goods for the benefit of the greatest number, if possible, to everyone; people with an unadulterated sense of dedication to the cause of building this country. History is waiting. Let’s get to work. Viva Nigeria!

  • Behind the glitter and the rape (2)

    Behind the glitter and the rape (2)

    Angela Jika’s grin is “expensive.” For the right price, it will slink into a sneer while she plays the pitiless dominatrix. To act a bondage (BDSM) script is expensive. She would take N40, 000, and nothing less, she said.

    Through her definition of “expensive” to her cocksure demeanour, at her first encounter, her voice crashed through the Thursday evening like a broken scream, and a silent shriek crept into her narrative. The impact was chilling.

    At 21, Jika can “act anything.” She would submit to restraints and take a beating from a dominant male or dominatrix. She would feign a rapture by draping a slick, sultry mask on her face. For N50, 000, she would spread out and make a flora bed of the studio.

    Since she made her foray into the porn industry, Jika has done everything. She has paid her dues. Money teases off her inhibitions. Hard drugs too. She’d do anything to feed her drug dependence hence at age 17, she let two married neighbours sleep with her on the backseat of a car, while her boyfriend, Azuka, secretly filmed them in order to blackmail and extort money from them afterward.

    Jika, like most millennials nurses a delusive edge to her craft and being; a supposed sense of worth and ardour for growth that defies convention. Her talent is her truth, she told me, stressing that she doesn’t give a hoot what anyone thinks of her.

    Jika is a miner and hawker of truths, however, fickle their depth and resonance. There is very little difference between her and the hordes of youths that make it into the fetishized brothel cum tabernacle of the big pervert reality show.

    The digital broadcaster of the show understands Jika and the inmates’ kind of “truth” hence it sinks its fangs into their minds, as the falcon does to feeble fauna.

    Porn performers are often female victims of sex trafficking. They are often forced to create sex scenes by abusers adept at mental and economic exploitation while using slovenly psychological tools to break down the inhibitions of the unsuspecting victims.

    There is no one to protect the significantly young audience from the aggressive cues and wild decadence the broadcaster insinuates into their psyches. The fault is hardly with the broadcaster, however, but with Nigerian parents who leave the purveyor of filth to the task of raising their wards.

    The blame goes to a Nigerian leadership stymied in a swamp of freebies, like complimentary boxes of the broadcaster’s decoder, free satellite subscriptions, among others.

    The press, which ought to serve as Nigeria’s shield and last bastion of resistance to the broadcaster’s perverse programming, and other weird inclinations, is enslaved to its tokens.

    In pursuit of millions of naira in prize money, a brand new SUV, inmates of the amorality jailhouse shun dignity, decorum, and their supposed good breeding, to engage in wanton sex, voyeurism, and tantrums.

    Like animals in heat, participants have had sex in a public toilet, before a global audience. The scene prefigures the transition in Nigerian civilisation from high morality to decadence. The antics of the youths in the debate about the depravity glamourised by the show emphasises a throwback to primordial whim.

    Entertainers use porn to groom society, and the youths, in particular, are dealt a gruesome form of psychological conditioning that leaves too many among them stirred, shaken, and receptive to dross.

    Despite its apparent dangers, porn addiction has become pop culture, cutting through swathes of conservative norms and social correctness. As it knifes through the country, cyberspace becomes a garish, raunchy boulevard; a theatre of libertine delight, fetishes, and rendezvous for voyeurs and porn stars.

    It also offers a negotiation point for the addicted desiring real physical action. The social space thus unfurls as an esplanade of taboos and fetishes that expands and contracts to temptation and patronage.

    A typical call for performers reads thus: “Do you want to join the porn industry today? We need ladies and young men who are ready to act porn in the Nigerian porn industry. To get a form, call. Maximum security is guaranteed, and all necessary background checkups will be done on all the ladies and men.”

    Read Also: Behind the glitter and the rape

    The terms and conditions are redolent of the admission criteria into the big pervert reality show.

    The stereotypes fostered by the programme are legion: voyeurs with tenacity post comments beneath porn videos, pleading with the producers to employ them as performers in subsequent videos. Some even offer to perform for free.

    Adult film actors and producers upload and sell content to popular porn sites for a fee. They also advertise their talents with suggestive thumbnails, while bragging about the number of subscribers to their sites. “Enjoy homemade videos of me having sex, masturbating, and being naughty. All my videos are real homemade videos of me. NB: I sometimes act with my friends, so they may not want to show their faces. Follow me on social media: IG: @####, Twitter: #####,” advertises a porn star.

    According to her, she picks numbers of prospective clients from social space, where available. She buys some from ‘digit dealers’ and.

    Each porn artiste’s story is remarkably different, although a few narratives resonate kindred needs and sexual exploitation. Several female performers – be it on cyberporn or the big pervert reality show – have argued that they are emancipated youths, wielding their sexual independence and ‘talents’ for a profit.

    However, the hushed narratives of the struggling newbies, who look up to them, establish that porn acting is no walk in the park. Not every porn artiste is assured of breaking even; for those who claim to make it, the road to stardom is grisly and the impact on actresses, in particular, is unimaginably severe.

    Although they talk shop about running tests on each other to prevent STDs’ spread, there have been cases of infections in major studios.

    Notwithstanding, porn allows the youth, safely removed from the traditional norms and social etiquette, to be voyeurs of a frighteningly prejudiced world of taboos and sexual stereotypes, where all the conventions of civilized society cease to exist.

    This eldorado is a place of cuckolded husbands, rapists, lechers, incestuous families, pimps, prostitutes, the dominatrix, and generally uncontrolled sex aficionados. And viewers are invited to slum in this world of debauchery, for a paltry fee.

    “Pornography hardly promotes sex, if one defines sex as a shared intimacy between two partners. It promotes masturbation, a solitary sexual auto-sexual. It’s a selfish experience that precludes healthy love and intimacy. Porn addicts are obsessed about getting off at someone else’s expense,” said Iyabo Osikoya, 41, a psychologist and sex therapist.

    The addicted must seek urgent help from experts. Therapy works, she said.

    But despite her upbeat claims of weaning the addicted off porn, Osikoya’s homily hardly serves the interest of porn artistes like Jika.

    The 21-year-old has done a lot of gang-bang and sodomy. She recently acted as a slave in a Bondage, Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadomasochism (BDSM) movie.

    “I was tied up and gang-raped. I was severely beaten and penetrated in every orifice. Viewers would love it,” she enthused.

    Yet through her enthusiasm, she slunk into a flat, numbing monotone, like a victim of trauma; a cottony shriek drifted across her coarse, heavily made-up face, and for a moment, unmasked the scarred youngster cringing beneath the icon of the sultry siren.

    “What you just described, was it painful?” I asked.

    “Yes,” she answered quietly.

  •  The lion and the crown

     The lion and the crown

    What do you make of him? He is well loved by many, yet in some quarters they speak ill of him. He knows that he is loved and hated in equal measures, but he is not disturbed. He carries on with his job for humanity unperturbed by the noise around him. His love for people is legendary and this propels him in whatever he is doing. You may not have met him, but you will surely have heard about him.

    Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not just happen on the nation, he worked to attain his great height, which is the envy of his detractors today. It was not an easy journey, according to those who know him. He fought for his rights; he did not just sit down, waiting for things to happen. He made things happen. When you hear him say power is not served ala carte, you know immediately that this is a man with a sense of purpose.

    His mission is to help his nation and its people with his God-given talent of leadership and organisation, of empowering and building others. In the past 30 years that he has been in politics, the Jagaban of Borgu, the traditional title bestowed on him in Niger State, has worked assiduously for the common good.

    Painfully, whatever he does is viewed with suspicion. Why? Could it be that he is misunderstood? Certainly, Asiwaju is misunderstood and those closest to him are more guilty of this. They are close to the lion of Bourdillon like the vein of the neck, yet they cannot read him. Is it then a case of mischief? Of pretending of not understanding the man so that they can paint him black before others?

    Whatever it is, people like Jagaban are the ones the Yoruba refer to as akanda, those specially created by God, and as such, no matter what you say about them, it would not remove an hair from their heads. Tinubu is such a person and more. He is a rare breed; his tribe is small. Such people are hard to come by because God deliberately did not create many of them. The almighty might have done so because the world does not appreciate such people.

    Read Also: God can give power to anyone He wishes to – Tinubu

    Indeed, we don’t value what we have. If we do, we will cherish the gift of God in leaders like Asiwaju. This is not a campaign call, far from it, this is to thank God for seeing Asiwaju through a knee operation and bringing him back home safely. Only few people knew when he quietly left these shores three months ago for London to undergo the surgery. But by the time he had the operation, the news was all over the place about his sojourn in London.

    A goldfish, they say, has no hiding place. Asiwaju wanted a quiet post-surgery rest but that was not to be as eminent persons started trooping in to see him. President Muhammadu Buhari and Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu visited him. Of course, many others went because it was politically expedient to do so! Trust Nigerians, they started seeing the visits in another light. They linked the visits to the 2023 elections.

    The talks got wings to fly when after their visit, a member of the House of Representatives Northern Caucus said to Asiwaju: ‘Mr President, we are expecting you back in Nigeria soon’. Thank God, Asiwaju is back home, ‘hale, hearty and big’. Sanwo-Olu held a reception for him on Sunday at the Lagos House, Marina. The event was well attended. Tinubu must have deliberately returned home quietly last Friday, just as he left three months earlier, to avoid turning his movement into a political carnival. If his loyalists had been aware that he was coming back that day, Ikeja, nay the entire Lagos, would have been shut down.

    I will be pretending to say that I have not heard talks about Asiwaju and the 2023 presidential election. Although, he has not publicly said that he is interested in the race, his supporters have been urging him to run. Will he run or not? That is left for him to say.

    If he decides to run, many will back him. Many too will not support him. That is politics for you. No matter where you stand, one thing is certain, though, Asiwaju has what it takes to lead Nigeria. He was a senator and he was the governor of Lagos State for eight years (1999-2007). The ultimate presidential crown may yet be his.

    The South West Agenda for Asiwaju (SWAGA) led by Senator Dayo Adeyeye has been going around the country drumming up support for him. All eyes are on Jagaban following his return home to shine the light for his supporters to see the way. ‘Where do we go in 2023?’ They want him to tell them. Until he throws his hat in the ring, all talks concerning his 2023 ambition remain in the realm of conjecture.

    As Asiwaju said at his reception, God is the giver and the taker of life. Only God knows what will happen in future because He is Omniscient. Asiwaju is like god to his followers, who are waiting eagerly for him to direct them in the way to go. Speak, Leader, for your people are listening. Whenever Jagaban decides to speak, may he be divinely inspired on what to say and do. Wishing you speedy recovery, sir.

     

    • This column goes on six-week break from next week.