Olatunji Dare

Happy new month,” my caller from Nigeria said a tad solicitously last Saturday.

“Happy new month to you too,” I responded perfunctorily, while trying to figure out the caller’s identity

“Happy last month of the year sir,” the caller said in a tone solicitous still but more emphatic.

Then, I got it.

It is December, the month of Christmas, of goodwill to all men and women as enjoined by Christian scripture. It is the time of Father Christmas, the time of family, town and clan reunions and all kinds of anniversaries, weddings and burials, a season of giving and receiving – the former more than the latter.

A time of interstate and international travel to show the gleaming SUV and other blessings of sojourn in Lagos and abroad to the village folk; a time to “warm” new houses, take new brides and take new titles,           etc, etc.

Sadly, like everything else, Christmas is no longer what it used to be.

I remember the scenes at the check-in counter in New York of the national carrier Nigeria Airways, unfortunately no longer with us, at this time of year.  To call those scenes riotous would be courteous.  The place was a combat zone, bar the shooting.  Whenever you saw an unusually large police detachment at the airport, you knew that a Nigeria Airways flight was set to depart.

Passengers and touts, at least four abreast, spilled on to the street, pushing and shoving and jostling and shouting and cursing; they shook their fists at frazzled airline staff who dared to insist that their oversize baggage could not pass for hand luggage and must be paid for accordingly.

I distinctly recall a young man who wanted to board the plane with a Christmas tree with all the lights and bells and whistles, insisting that he had settled for only one hand luggage when he was entitled to two and deserved to be treated with respect.

The plane finally took off some three hours after its scheduled time. As it cruised over the Long Island, the friendly and reassuring voice of Captain Bara Allwell-Brown welcomed all on board, apologized for the delay and announced that there would be a refueling stop at Robertsville Airport in Monrovia, Liberia.

In the spirit of Christmas, what with passengers taking home presents to loved ones, the plane had to shed 15 tons of fuel to accommodate excess freight, he said.  The refueling stop stretch arrival time by no more than two hours.

Nigeria Airways is no more. Attempts to revive it have gulped hundreds of millions of Naira, with nary a trial taxiing down the runway to show for it.  I gather that flying out of Atlanta or Dallas to New York is not the most pleasant experience, but I bet it is almost a picnic compared with flying out of New York in those good-bad old days of Nigeria Airways.

Christmas, as I was saying, is no longer what it used to be, especially if you are travelling by road.  In almost every case, it is a painful, scary and unnerving trip, and you would probably have to spend the first two or three days of your arrival nursing your bumps and bruises and digestive system to recovery.  But that is probably the easy part.

No longer can you take your safety for granted.  Not when headed out, not when returning, and not while visiting. You have to keep a sharp lookout for kidnappers and their agents, and may even have to arm yourself or engage armed help.

Here are some helpful hints for the road, furnished gratis in the spirit of the season by the boss of one of the leading kidnapping syndicates:  Don’t post pictures of your new limousines or latest acquisitions on Facebook.

Don’t spread pictures of your lavish parties all over the newspapers and the internet.

Don’t post a video of the opening of your palatial home all over the place.

Operatives of the syndicate being preliminary fieldwork by scouring the neighbourhood and the internet for tell-tale pictures wealthy persons taking new brides or giving away their daughters in marriage, burying a parent again 23 years later, and in the process flinging N1,000 banknotes or ten-dollar bills or bundles thereof into the crowd.

Confirmation follows. The process is usually rigorous.  You don’t want to take in a poseur, or even worse,  a flunkey.  It would be a waste of time and effort, and a blight on the profession, to take in someone who  might have to be given financial assistance to find his way back to the village.

So, beware, holiday-maker.

Those who are forever yearning for the good old times will no doubt be consoled that one thing has remained unchanged. Christmas is still the season of fakes and faking, or the faking season, since there                     is always so much taking place anyway.

Fake merchandise is already everywhere, with fake bargains to suit every pocket. Fake rice, laced with granular plastic. Fake apples. Fake wines. Fake cakes. Fake beef.  Fake poultry parts. Fake cooking oil. Fake tomato puree.  Fake honey. Fake table salt. Even fake toothpicks.

Fake designer apparel, fake designer watches, handbags, shoes, jewelry, and what have you.

What has changed perhaps is that the art of faking has now advanced to the point that the most practised eye or the best calibrated instrument can no longer separate the fake from the original.

But the merchants are never as solicitous as the automotive spare-parts dealers at Ladipo Market, Lagos, who cheerfully volunteer the price of an original as against the price of a fake, and assures you as just as cheerfully that they carry only originals when you tell you would rather settle for the fake, and with their hand on their hearts assure you that they don’t know and have never heard of any shops that sell fake parts.

The closure of Nigeria’s official land borders to curb smuggling has reduced the inflow of merchandise to a trickle while, paradoxically, boosting customs revenues to new heights, apparently decongesting the ports to allow for speedier collection of custom. For the Federal Government, it is a win-win outcome.

But since smuggling is carried out for the most part through unofficial routes which are beyond government control, closing the official borders may not curb it to the extent desired.  Closing the border may have the opposite effect of sharpening the appetite for consumer goods that have vanished from the markets as well and of course the propensity for to fake them.

But all this is in the realm of theory.

Just remember that, even without the border closures, Christmas is the season for fake stuff.

Take especial care extra when buying wines, body lotion, cologne, and other bottled products.  Check them for scratches and crushed crowns.  Make sure the labels are not photocopies.  Apply the lotion or cologne  to a tiny portion of your face or body for a start. If it doesn’t burn your skin, you can be sure that it is not at first blush harmful, not that it is the real stuff.

If the wine doesn’t scorch your tongue or throat, you can proceed to have a judicious sip, hoping that it will not your gastronomy.

The internet, I need hardly add, is just as accommodating to fake news as it is to fake merchandise. You cannot touch or feel or smell the stuff on offer.  It is some consolation that you can return it and get your money back.  But even with the more reputable marketers, it can be a hassle.  With the shadowy ones who prowl the internet and bury the merchandize in reams of fine print, the process is guaranteed to be traumatic.

Since we are dealing with a highly dynamic situation, his cannot be the last word on the matter. An update is in already in the works.

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 Olatunji Dare

 

This past fortnight, Nigeria lost two of its most arresting personalities in quick succession.

The first to depart, on November 11, was Professor Tam (Tamunoeni) Sokari David-West, eminent virologist, former commissioner for education in the old Rivers State, minister of petroleum resources, minister for mines, power and steel, was perhaps better known for his “philosophical essays” in the news media on a wide range of subjects.  He was 83.

Barely four days later, on November 14, Alex Akinyele, was reported dead. Akinyele was a chief public relations strategist for the Nigeria Customs Service, later serving as Minister for Information, Executive Chairman of the National Sports Commission and, to cap his public career, chair of a pork barrel set up by General Sani Abacha to promote “national reconciliation” in the wake of the turmoil into which he annulment of the 1993 presidential election had plunged Nigeria.  He was 81.

Both were remarkable personalities, each in his own way.

I first met Akinyele in 1990, at a reception for media executives by one of the leading advertisement companies.   He had the erect bearing of a senior military officer. His exquisite tailoring, his luxuriant, manicured moustache, his handsome, movie-actor looks and his overall grooming would have made him a standout in any crowd.

In no time at all, he was relating how his late uncle, Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, who was killed during the January 15, 1966 coup, had observed that he was made for the army but had somehow ended up in the Customs.

Just telling, mind you. No complaints.

Some two years later, it fell to me to chaperon him at a Guardian Newspapers function at the Ogun State Hotel, in Abeokuta.  After settling in in his suite, I tarried for a while to brief him on the programme.

During the small talk that ensued, he leaned across the couch, and in the manner of someone imparting a profound secret, asked:  “Are you aware that I am the first graduate of the University of Ife (later Obafemi Awolowo University) to be appointed a Federal Minister?”

Before I could formulate a response that would satisfy the honoured guest without advertising my ignorance on overarching issues of Nigeria’s history, he followed with another question:  “Do you know that I am also the first indigene of Ondo. to be appointed a federal minister?

That was vintage Alex Akinyele.

He had announced to the whole world one full year in advance that he was going to be named a minister.  One unreliable source, actuated no doubt be envy, even claimed that Akinyele had printed elegant business cards reflecting that designation ready for distribution on his first day in office.

At his investiture, Akinyele revealed something of his amazing physical fitness when he executed a 90-degree bow, without the slightest discomfort, to clasp military President Ibrahim Babangida’s outstretched hand by way of gratitude. He would later refer to his much younger benefactor as his “father,” and not just in the symbolic sense of “father of the nation.”

Akinyele’s brief was to repair Nigeria’s battered image, at home and abroad.  He returned from an extended visit to the UK and the United States and proclaimed “mission accomplished,” on the strength of an interview with a not-so-reputable journal in London, and an interview on a radio station in New York that belted out reggae music 24 hours a day.

He was so peeved by a satirical piece in the government-controlled Daily Times, something about a Mungo Park, that he asked Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi, the paper’s managing director, to fire its author, Ndaeyo Uko.  Ogunbiyi refused, whereupon Akinyele, with a nod from Babangida fired Ogunbiyi.

Akinyele took no little pleasure or pride in winning that power game, which he was fond of recounting.

Akinyele got his own comeuppance, or so the public thought, when Bagangida named him chair of the National Sports Commission.  It was no horizontal career move, much less a vertical one, even if it carried an executive tag.

Ironically it was in this somewhat diminished status that Akinyele accomplished his most notable feat on the national scene when he led the nation’s Olympic team to a record haul of three silver medals and a bronze at the Barcelona Olympics.

I last saw Akinyele in May 1992. The coronation of Oba Festus Adesanoye as the Osemawe of Ondo had reached a critical stage when a siren blasted the solemnity of the occasion, heralding a limousine that drove right to the outdoor stage.

Guess who stepped out daintily of the limousine, without the slightest unease, as if it was the most natural thing in the world?

No prizes for figuring that out:  Alex “Alecko” Akinyele. Who else but Himself the Alecko?

Whereas Akinyele stood out on account of his accoutrements, David-West stood out on account of his erudition, which he was never loath to display in insightful newspaper articles.  As many of his younger admirers have noted in tributes to his memory, those essays helped unlock the mystery of things and served as models of literary exposition.

But some of David-West’s contemporaries at the University of Ibadan thought him lacking in intellectual modesty. Without naming him, the philosopher Godwin Sogolo inveighed on those who were forever “veering without caution.”  He had in mind David-West’s forays into philosophy, even though he had no academic training in that field, formal or informal.

It is to David-West’s credit that his critics never accused him of misleading those he sought to educate. He claimed no originality in his essays, written long before the computer made the wisdom of the ages available at the touch of a button.  He sought to explain and integrate some concepts in philosophy and relate them to everyday life.

I first met him in 1963, when he came from the University of Lagos College of Medicine to observe a physics lab I was taking at the old Federal Advanced Teachers College, in Akoka.  Our Hungarian professor, Dr F. Bukovszky (we never knew what the F stood for. Fyodor, perhaps?), introduced him as an adjunct who would thenceforth supervise the labs.

Fresh-faced, clean-shaven and mild-mannered, he exuded the quiet confidence you would want in your of supervisor.  But he never showed up thereafter.

I never forget the occasion nor the man, and I was delighted to encounter him many years later as      a public intellectual who did not shy away from controversy or from the limelight. Appointment followed public appointment, in Rivers State, and at the Centre, with some of the most important cabinet portfolios under his belt.

Then, humiliation followed on humiliation. He was moved in a cabinet shuffle from petroleum resources to mines, energy and steel.  Then, without formally dismissing David-West, and without naming him to another post, military president Ibrahim Babangida announced David-West’s successor, with David-West himself in attendance.

He was later charged with contributing to the nation’s “economic adversity.”

The evidence? 

Accepting a cup of tea – yes, tea – and a wrist watch from a prospective investor.   In a transparent travesty, a rookie judge found David-West guilty as charged and sentenced him to ten-year jail term, to be served in the fly-infested Bama, in the desiccated Sahel.

The judgment was voided on appeal.  The judge in the court of first instance, was later dismissed for conduct unbecoming.

David-West often boasted that he used his office to turn many Nigerians into millionaires but never enriched himself.  If there is any evidence to the contrary, it is not pubic knowledge. He lived simply and modestly.  Not for him the opulence living that has come to be associated with holding public office.

They thought he was being self-righteous at their expense and decided to teach him a lesson he would never forget. He did not wallow in self-pity or in the injustice of it all. Rather, he took it like one of the Stoic philosophers he wrote about.

My personal interactions with David-West were not always smooth.  When he sent you an article, he expected it to be published the very next day, if not earlier.  He had this habit of rendering dozens of phrases and sometimes entire sentences in the upper case. Editing his copy was additional work that could wait.

One day he told me with uncharacteristic gruffness that it was our publisher Alex Ibru who had urged him to contribute articles to The Guardian, and that he would have to report to Ibru if I delayed publishing his submissions.

I disinterred his latest submission from the pile on my desk, handed it to him and told him I would be expecting Ibru’s instructions.

We made up, but he never sent me another piece.  He found a way with another editor in the house.

There was no repressing Dam David-West.

Nigeria’s public sphere is the less vibrant for his passing.

Olatunji Dare

Two years ago, I allowed on this page that former Vice President Abubakar Atiku and putative presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party had been seeking “through judicious lectures, signed newspaper articles and other interventions to come across as a progressive statesman who has thought deeply about the country’s problems and has the endowments to fix them.”

“The fact that he is more a candidate of habit than of conviction takes nothing away from his quest.” I added.

This declaration stemmed from the many labels he had worn over the years, abandoning one political party for another and returning to that party again, pitching his political tent in any camp willing to offer him a path to the Presidency.

The judgement that he is driven more by habit than by conviction now seems to me rather harsh. Habit alone cannot account for the single-mindedness with which he pursued that office – a pursuit that consumed much of his fabled wealth and exposed him and his business empire to all manner of risk.  You do not enter the fray again and again, with all the attendant dangers, unless you also have the conviction that you can make a difference.

Atiku believed with all his heart that he could make a difference, I have since gathered. He must therefore feel sorely disappointed that he did not achieve his goal.  But in Nigeria, there are things worse than losing an election.

He must now brace himself for the mass desertion from the losing party to the victorious one. Those “on ground” tell me that the tell-tale signs of imminent defections are already in the air, and that one does not need to have sharp political instincts to perceive them.

Those contemplating defection were prepared to bide their time as long as there was a chance that the Apex Court would reverse the verdict of Presidential Election Court and declare Atiku president-elect.  The wait was all the more indicated since Atiku’s strategists, associates, confidants, publicist, hangers-on and assorted spongers and freeloaders were all over the place assuring their principal and the attentive public that the PEC verdict would not survive even the most cursory examination by the Apex justices

But now that the Apex justices have dismissed the appeal even more stridently, saying it lacked “a scintilla of merit,” the mass exodus can no longer be delayed. Already, Reception Committees at national, state and local levels nave been set up to plan and coordinate what is expected to be the largest political relocation and re-alignment of forces in living memory.

Thousands, nay, tens of thousands of camp followers, who swore by Atiku’s name only last week, I gather, are busy negotiating the terms and conditions of their reception into the PDP – the wording of the announcement, the guest list, the speaking order, the cuisine, the wines, the entertainment, the aso ebi, the stagecraft and, of course, their prospects in the new order; in short, Everything.

They are leaving nothing to chance.

According to someone who has seen it, a memo from the Coordinator-General of the scheme, urges those seeking realignment to submit, for a start, a signed and notarized letter of intent, backed by a non-refundable handling and processing fee in the sum of N100, 000  or the equivalent thereof in U.S. dollars.  Family applications will get a 10 per cent discount.  File early to avoid disappointment.

An insider tells me that this stipulation had set off a prolonged and impassioned debate in the National Reception Committee.  Some had argued that, given the state of the economy and the stalemated negotiations over a national minimum wage of N30, 000 a month, the application fee could only turn away well-meaning but indigent applicants.  Others contended that the investment was worth a higher price-tag, and that to settle for anything less would be to de-market the scheme.

The latter are now being hailed as the party’s Wise Men.   Such has been the glut of applications in the two weeks since registration opened that the Reception Committee has had to contract the handling and processing to a first-generation firm of computer analysts.   By the time registration closes in four weeks, the APC may well have become the wealthiest political party in the world.

Thereafter, screening panels at various levels will review submissions to verify the true names and identities of the applicants and to confirm that, in every material particular, the image on the photographs attached bear true and faithful resemblance to the person whose picture was duly notarized in the application material.

Who can blame those supervising the scheme when the middle name of such enterprises in the national experience, if not the first, is inconstancy?

I am here reminded of an attitude survey conducted at one of the first-generation universities several decades ago.  The instrument was to be administered by students at randomly-chosen rooms in the halls of residence.  As a control, the researcher scrambled the sequence to include toilets, janitorial rooms as well as classrooms.

Not entirely to his surprise, the most eloquent and insightful responses came from residents of the toilets, broom cupboards and classrooms.

To continue: When all that needs to be verified has been verified and those judged unworthy of membership of the APC have been eliminated, a Grand Reception will be staged simultaneously in Abuja, and in all state capitals and local government headquarters to welcome those who, in the lingo of sports commentators, made the cut.

According to a source who has seen a draft programme of the day’s events, clergy representing the ecumenical spectrum will offer prayers. Inductees, all decked out in party uniform featuring and wielding a thick broom, will solemnly pledge allegiance to the APC and covenant to abide by its cardinal principles, to submit to party discipline at all times.

The Environment might be too large for them to grasp, but can’t they at least spare a thought for the poor palm trees and those who make a living by tapping them?

Following the invocations, a person who has been designated to speak for them will express their collective regret that it took them so long to realize that the political party to which they previously subscribed did not have the best interests of their teeming followers and supporters back home in mind.  The epiphany may have come rather late in the day.  But isn’t later to be preferred to never?

Besides, the spokesman is expected add, recent developments had shown to the APC under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari is the only party that truly reflects and champions the yearnings and aspirations of the of diverse peoples of Nigeria and wishes nothing but the very best for them; the only party that can harness the nation’s huge potential and convert it to actual greatness; the only party that is committed to national unity, religious pluralism, and true national development.

This declaration is expected to generate an applause so thunderous that if the programmer stays faithful to the choreography, it will be heard in the capitals of contiguous states.

Thereafter, The President will deliver an Address of Welcome, formally signalling an end to the Grand Reception and the inauguration of a new political culture.

Nothing in the foregoing will be strange to the Wazirin Adamawa, however.  He may even have anticipated it all, having seen it all.

But his response to the judgment of the apex court, aforementioned, must have surprised his friends and acolytes in the news media who fawned over him throughout the campaign and generally cast him as the coming liberator.

And yet, hear him, in this self-serving lament:  “The Nigerian judiciary, just like every estate of our realm, has been sabotaged and undermined by an overreaching and dictatorial cabal, who have undone almost all the democratic progress the People’s Democratic Party and its administrations nurtured for sixteen years, up until 2015.”

Every estate, including the news media?

Olatunji Dare

 

I DO not envy Governor of Lagos State Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

Last week, he made a public show of repudiating the honorific that had attached to his office and his name until the week before.

No more His Excellency Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, or His Excellency Babajide Sanwo-Olu; just plain Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

If he had kept God out of the matter, his fellow governors and the legion of officials who cherish and parade the same honorific would perhaps have charged him with nothing more than grandstanding.  But I hear they have been chafing and squirming moment he asserted that only God Almighty is worthy of that appellation.

Sanwo-Olu’s assertion merely questioned the appropriateness of that term in the political context in which it is usually employed.  I will not be surprised however if some fundamentalists in our midst will go further and maintain that, however acquired or employed, be it as a job description or even as nickname, the term reeks of blasphemy and deserves to be visited with a fatwah.

In which case you can expect major, minor and lesser officials who have worn that title like an ornament   for decades to cast it away, not from modesty or conviction like Sanwo-Olu, but from fear of consequences known and unknown.

School uniforms and such things may stir up fundamentalist passions in the organised religions here, but I doubt whether the usage of a particular honorific can have that kind of effect.  It will more likely set off a wide and engaging national debate that may even resonate across the world.

At the funeral a fortnight ago for the late  African-American statesman, civil rights leader and chair of the powerful U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform, The Hon.  Elijah Cummings, former President Barack Obama spoke with practised subtlety about those who became honourable only after attaining certain positions, or indeed only by virtue of holding those positions.

Then, pausing for effect, he added:  “Elijah Cummings was honourable before he became a leader of the United States Congress.”

You could see members of the audience suppress their titters, nod approvingly, and exchange knowing glances.

That one is for you, Donald Trump, Obama might have added.  But he did not need to. Nor did the audience expect him to.  Any elaboration would have ruined that deft rhetorical device.

For until a narrow victory in the 2016 election catapulted him to President of the United States, only a few could have found the most tangential association between “Trump” and “Honourable.”  By his conduct in  that office three years on, the chances of finding any association between the twain will have to be judged galactic.

It will be said that the term “Honourable” refers only to the office, not to the man or woman, and that if even the incumbent is a certified reprobate and a blackguard, we should still accord him or her office the benefit of the doubt in matters relating to honour:  a person without honour elected to and basking in the glory of an office designed for persons who are at the very least supposed to know what honour is.

That is not uncommon in tribal politics, however.

“He is a thief all right, but he is our thief,” it is often said, in extenuation of wayward conduct.

The dissonance resulting from this mindset cannot make for healthy politics or a heathy polity.  No wonder we are in such a mess.

All in all, I do not expect that Sanwo-olu will not be assailed by the stormy winds that a fundamentalist or literal construction that some expect his disavowal of the honorific attached to his position.  Still he could be prepared for hard questions on other matters arising from that act.

Such as:  How can he preside over The Centre of Excellence if he has no claim to excellence?  Applied to Lagos, is that term not misconceived? Can there even be such a place in this sinful world, let alone Lagos? Only Heaven, Sanwo-Olu’s critic will chide him, qualifies to be regarded as a centre of excellence.

Here, as a long-term Lagos resident and a Lagosian at heart, I must come to the aid of the good governor.   As I see it, connotes aspiration rather than actuality.  And aspiration is the one thing most of us have in common, those on the march to sainthood as well as the most desperate hustlers.

Sanwo-olu’s critics will grant this objection but insist, nevertheless, that shedding the honorific at issue or going about his official business without being heralded by menacing outriders leading a snaking motorcade is not enough.  If he is really serious about the Excellency deficit, he should proceed to shed at least many of the perks and perquisites that flow from being designated excellent.

Those are statutory benefits.  He did not confer them on himself.  They come with the territory.

Divest himself of whatever he does not absolutely need in his emolument package, I can almost hear his critics rejoin.  How much does a person really need anyway, even a state governor?

Other officials on the Excellency spectrum can similarly expect to be badgered, even if the honorific consists mainly in holding a diplomatic passport and carries far fewer benefits than in the case of state governors. I hope matters do not get to a point where they determine that the honorific is not worth the risk.

Who wants to be caught wearing that label in any form while travelling through territory over which syndicated kidnappers rein?

Fortunately for our senators, being merely “distinguished” does not carry the kind of query that being “excellent” carries even if, in this particular instance, there is little basis for it in parliamentary history or usage.

When members of the House of Representatives, following foreign precedent, appropriated the term “Honourable” to themselves, the senators who stand higher in the political pecking order scrambled to find a grander and more evocative title.  But what they settled for was something more prosaic:  Distinguished.

What their distinction consists in is far from clear.  They are for most part distinguished only for or being distinguished, as has been said of those who are famous for being famous and not for any particular achievement that is the stuff of fame.

Still, I guess they will retain the honorific, happy that it is unlikely to attract the kind of objection that “excellency” and “honourable” seem set to attract, following what future historians will call Sanwo-olu’s Doctrine, at least, not until the senators come to insist that “Most Distinguished” is a more befitting term for their status.

Shall we then return to the “simply Mister” era when high-riding newspaper The Guardian, presuming to      set the tone and temper of public discourse, chose to dispense almost entirely with titles and honorifics and replacing them with “Mr” for men, and I forget what for women —  almost entirely, because it allowed for some exceptions, notably Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Mallam Aminu Kano.

There is a good dose of federal character there, too.

These exceptions, based on long usage to which the public had become accustomed, doomed the scheme. Probably the fatal blow was a strong misrepresentation from the military regime to the paper’s proprietors that it was subversive of the strict hierarchy of the military tradition, a levelling too far.

You cannot employ the same prefix to a General of the Army and a private and not give the corporal a false sense of equivalence, they said.

Since then, titles and honorifics have, if anything, proliferated beyond logic and beyond regulation.  They    will endure, in spite of the once and formerly excellent governor of Lagos State, now simply Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, of what will doubtless continue to be the Centre of Excellence — excellence as aspiration, if not as actuality.

 

By Olatunji Dare

They have been rolling out the drums and blowing the trumpets and the flutes and the horns and staging lectures and symposiums and laying out archival material – the full Monty, as it were — to celebrate the coming of television to Nigeria 60 years ago.

It has been a festive celebration, especially in Ibadan, the capital of the former Western Nigeria and political capital of the Yoruba nation, home of Nigeria’s, nay Africa’s first television service.

Its slogan, “First in Africa,” was no idle claim.

It was indeed the first television service in all of Africa. Egypt, which had been a prominent international actor well before Nigeria became independent, established its maiden television service one year after Western Nigeria had blazed the trail.

Ghana, which had won independence from Great Britain three years ahead of Nigeria in 1957, had no television service until 1965.  South Africa, fearing that television would explode the myth on which its white supremacist doctrine of apartheid was predicated, had no television until 1976.

Television arrived in Australia, Austria Spain and Sweden in 1956, just one year before it arrived in Nigeria.  New Zealand and Ireland introduced television a year later, in 1960 and 1961 respectively.

The way television came to Nigeria, which must seem a curious reversal to those used to seeing the Federal Government as the sun around which the Federating States revolve, had its roots in a controversy between the twain.

As the story goes, back in 1956, a senior official of the colonial government in Lagos had criticised on the federal government-controlled radio, some policy or programme of the Action Group government of Western Nigeria, of which Chief Obafemi Awolowo was premier.  Awolowo had demanded a right of reply through the same medium, but the colonial authorities had refused.

So, at the next constitutional conference in London to prepare Nigeria for independence, Awolowo demanded that broadcasting be classified as a concurrent subject, that is, one on which both the Federal Government and the regional governments can legislate.  His petition carried the day, and Awolowo went on to establish the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service (WNBS) and the Western Nigeria Television Service (WNTV) which went on air on October 31, 1959.

The Eastern Nigeria Government led by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe followed in 1960 with the launch in Enugu, of the Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation, and the Northern Nigeria Government of Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto, and the Federal Government of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa joined the train in 1962.

As conceived by Awolowo, the mission of WNTV was to serve as educator and entertainer, and as a stimulus to transform Nigeria into a modern and prosperous nation. Awolowo saw television as an important vehicle for prosecuting the government’s ambitious programme of free primary education, and as a multiplier of through which knowledge and skills essential for modernisation would be imparted to mass audiences.

This emphasis on education reflected Awolowo’s belief, enunciated on various platforms, that “the freedom to know is the first of all freedoms.”

When 30 years of the coming of television to Nigeria was celebrated in 1984, the medium had not attained the ubiquitous presence it enjoys in most Nigerian homes today, with more than 200 stations and cable channels operated by the federal and state governments as well as private organizations and individuals.

Even so television was already so well established in Nigeria that having color television set was not a status symbol back then as was the case in many developed countries. Outcomes have not matched expectations.  Television has bred some social dysfunctions.  But on the whole, Nigerian society has been the better for television.  It kindled aspirations and widened horizons

The 30th anniversary was therefore worth celebrating.

But what they advertised that year as a celebration was a travesty.

Missing from the official narrative and the narrative of Federal Government-owned media outlets in the run-up to the celebration and throughout the celebration itself was how television came to Nigeria.

It was as if Television — I here anthropomorphize it intentionally – just woke up one morning in its sedate abode, and out of sheer boredom or in a fit of absent-mindedness, decided to check out other climes with no particular clime in mind, and landed fortuitously on fertile and welcoming Nigerian soil. Instant Television, I should call it, like instant coffee, pre-programmed for consumption, and self-adapting.

Unacknowledged also in the narrative were the personalities whose vision and exertions had brought television to Nigeria and created an environment in which it could function productively; the engineers who daily performed feats of improvisation and adaptation;  institutional actors as well as the professional staff who learned and developed under the gun as it were.  Virtually every programme they originated went on air live; mistakes and miscues were there for everyone to see.

There was scarcely any mention of where it had all begun, or how.

All this happened in the time of General Muhammadu Buhari, who had vowed barely one month after overthrowing the inept and corrupt administration of President Shehu Shagari, that he would “tamper” with the freedom of the press; the time of Decree Two, which empowered Buhari’s mate in dourness and second-in-command, Major-General Tunde Idiagbon, to detain citizens for renewable periods without having to show cause.

This was also the time of Decree Four under which anyone could be jailed for publishing truthful material the authorities deemed embarrassing.

But I don’t think any of these factors had anything to do with the shameful omissions and silences that marked the celebration of 25 years of television in Nigeria.  Self-censorship, a more destructive force than official censorship, was responsible.

Indeed, it might be said generally of Nigerian journalists as was said of European and American journalists of a much earlier generation:  Considering what they will not publish even with no censors at work, there is hardly any occasion to censor them.

My investigations at the time yielded no “orders from above” forbidding stating that television came to Nigeria via Western Nigeria, through the instrumentality of the government of that region, led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

These are indisputable facts.  No matter how inconvenient a government may find them, it cannot punish publication thereof without bringing itself to ridicule.  In whatever case, such a government cannot last forever.  No government or institution or individual can.  Plus, the media will always have last say – and the last laugh.

More likely, it was some manager or divisional head fearing for his bread and butter that ordered those omissions, hiding behind their primary charge of “safeguarding national unity” as they perceive it or think it is perceived by the authorities and superior officials.

Such persons do more harm than good.

When news media fail to report events that members of the viewing audience had witnessed, or report them in ways that do violence to the facts in the belief that they are thereby “safeguarding national unity,” the audience loses faith in the media.

More damagingly, the media, television especially, loses is mobilization potential.  A news outlet that has been used to misinform or disinform the audience cannot be used to summon the same audience to higher purpose.

 

Another lexical matter

We often read in biographies that XZ or PK was a school headmaster before he “joined politics.”  Or that they intend to join politics.   XZ and PK may simplify matters by announcing that they decided to “join” politics in deference to the wishes of “their people.”

This usage is non-standard.

People enter politics, or more appropriately, party politics, since “politics” is such a nebulous term.

They join political parties.

Olatunji Dare

 

IN this business, there are some people you hope you never hear from, like the police or even worse, their military counterpart, and of course, lawyers.  They all spell trouble.

You can therefore imagine my state of mind when the senior official at the Nigerian Herald who doubled as my Personal Assistant when I was chair of the paper’s publishing company relayed a message to my office at the University of Lagos that a Major Giwa, military assistant to Governor Salaudeen Latinwo, would like to talk with me.

I had left Ilorin for Lagos only the previous day, after delivering a blistering critique of Decree Four, at a symposium organized by the Kwara State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists.   I had made it clear that I was speaking as a university lecturer, and that my presentation was to be understood and appraised only in that context.

As if the authors of the decree, General Muhammadu Buhari, head of state and General Tunde Idiagbon, chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters – the Dour Duo as I christened them after their ouster — cared a hoot about subtlety!

I read and reread the presentation and mentally reviewed my answers to question from the audience just to be sure Major Giwa would not find me unprepared.  Idiagbon had Kwara as his home base, and Latinwo was known to be his enforcer-in-residence. Friends and relations in Ilorin had in fact warned me after the lecture to expect the worst from Latinwo.

I asked my aide to tell Major Giwa that I had no access to a phone.  Would it be okay to call on him during my visit the following week?  That would be fine, my aide reported.

With not a little trepidation, I called Major Giwa after settling down in my hotel room.

“How are you, Doctor?” he asked warmly.

“Very well Major,” I replied.  I am calling as you had requested.  I hope there is no problem.

“No problem at all.  Doctor.  I just wanted to congratulate you on your Decree Four lecture.  You said what you had to say, and you said it without giving offence.”

Oh, was I relieved!

I had hardly settled down as a member of the Editorial Board of The Guardian, on leave from the University of Lagos when I had visitation from Military Intelligence, no less.  My visitor came armed with an unsigned and undated memo alleging that, as chair of the Herald’s publishing company, I had pillaged it to set up a company which a certain Major Olatunji was running for me as a front.

He would like me to come to their office at 15 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, in Lagos, to make a statement.

Could I not make a statement there and then, in my office?

No, said my visitor.  I had to come to 15 Awolowo, which was notorious for its unwelcoming ambience, to make a statement and answer some questions

Had my visitor ascertained the identity of the petitioner?

No.

How about the identity of “Major Olatunji”?

No.

The company I am alleged to own, is it listed in the books of the Corporate Affairs Commission?

My visitor could not tell.

“This is irregular,” I protested. Why do I have to respond to such nebulous charges when you have not even ascertained whether there are factually grounded?

The visitor said it was their duty to investigate such allegations whenever they surfaced.

At 15 Awolowo, they made me submit and sign a written statement, and then asked me to go.  I never heard from them again.  It turned out that the petitioner was a staffer who had been dismissed for misconduct long before I was appointed to chair the Board at The Herald.

Fast forward to May 2015.  As part of its preparation to assume power after its historic victory in that year’s General Elections, the victorious APC had put together two days of briefings and discussions on the task ahead.  Former British Prime Minister Tony “The Liar” Blair was scheduled to be a keynote presenter.

By pure coincidence, my column, “A visitor, not a guest,” came out in The Nation the very day Blair was going to speak.  The article was a damning treatise on his warmongering in Iraq, and his subsequent career as a money-grubbing international hustler. A former student of mine who had read it overnight in the paper’s electronic edition had called, saying that if Blair had any honour left, he would not keep the date.

He was right.  Although Blair was already in town, he did not show up for the event.  Instead, he was represented by a former minister in the Blair’s Labour Cabinet Peter Mandelson.

I was going through Nigerian newspapers online when The Nation’s editor, Gbenga Omotoso, called from Lagos.  Chief Femi Okunnu, the SAN, had called to ask for my phone number so he could talk with me.  I asked Omotoso to send me Okunnu’s number instead so that at I could call him from my base in the United States.

“Tunji,” he said preliminaries over.

“Sir,” I responded.

“I have seen your article in today’s paper.”  He seemed to be pausing for dramatic effect.  I held my breath.

“I have seen it,” he resumed after what had seemed like an eternity.  But I have not read it.”

I was straining mightily to hold my breath.

“I have called Lai Mohammed’s attention to it and asked why they invited Tony Blair, of all persons, to be a keynote speaker as the APC prepares for the Inauguration?”

You could have heard me exhale.

You never know with these attorneys.  What if Tony Blair, himself a lawyer married to one of the smartest lawyers in the UK, or his solicitors, had called Okunnu on reading my column and asked him to issue a writ of libel against me immediately?

But I need not have worried.  Okunnu and I were of the same mind on Blair’s villainy regarding the invasion and destruction of Iraq with Trumped-up evidence.  No, I take that back:  trumped-up evidence.  Donald Trump was then only a concupiscent reprobate, groping and probing and grabbing women as he pleased.

This past week, I got a call from another attorney of the first rank, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, whom I had not met since 1985.  Why would he be calling, this learned  man who, considering the many titanic election cases he has argued and won in the courts over the years, might well be regarded as the most formidable,  if not the foremost, election lawyer in Nigeria?

“Egbon, my name is Wole Olanipekun,” he began disarmingly.

That was cause for relief.  You can’t call a man Egbon, and then put him on notice in your very next breath that you would be sandbagging him with a multi-billion Naira defamation lawsuit on behalf of a client next week. That would not accord with the omoluabi ethos.

The more he talked, the more I was reassured of his bona fides.

He was calling about one of my recent articles all right, but you’ll never guess which one.  It was not a matter on which even the most creative attorney could have grounded a lawsuit.

He was calling about a lexical matter – specifically the use and abuse of the word “foremost,” which I had discussed in the column for the previous week.  He said with touching humility that he “wanted to be educated.”

Next time a lawyer calls me, I will be more relaxed, less worked-up.  Such calls do not always spell trouble.  They sometimes turn out to be positive feedback.  But I will still feel queasy any day I get a call  from the custodians of law and order and national security.

 

The fly in JKF’s ointment

 

IT first blush, an airport for Ekiti state, to be located in Ado-Ekiti, might seem high-minded compared to other projects his predecessor Ayo Fayose conjured up in an impulse.  On close examination, it is just another monument to vainglory.

Dr Fayemi’s admirers, among whom I count myself, cannot but feel disappointed that he has now adopted it.

Think of the dozens of rural health centres that can be built and equipped, the roads that can be fixed, schools that can be rehabilitated, the hundreds of teachers that can be hired, the tens of small-scale industries that can be funded with the resources that will go into building an airport for which there will be little patronage, and which will be a drainpipe on the state’s fragile economy.

The airport in Akure, in neighbouring Ondo State, has lain idle for decades, and the prospects for an airport in Ado-Ekiti are not more promising.

Governor Fayemi should let it remain for now an idea on paper, a dream perhaps, but certainly not one to which scarce funds needed more urgently elsewhere should be committed.

In his column for this newspaper several months ago, Harvard Professor Biodun (BJ) Jeyifo, who cares more passionately about the proper use of the language than most people I know in the business, called attention to the abuse of the word “foremost” in the Nigerian news media — a misuse so rampant that it qualifies to be called an abuse.

Usually, it takes the form “foremost banker, “foremost oil magnate,” or “foremost evangelist, or indeed, “foremost whatever,” where “whatever” can be a calling, trade, profession, occupation, or specialism.

Jeyifo explained with his accustomed lucidity that the term is meaningless if it is not preceded by the definite article the, as in “the foremost banker,” the foremost urban geographer,” “the foremost theologian,” or “the foremost Soyinka scholar,” a distinction that Jefiyo has earned in a lifetime of comment and criticism on the ouvre of the Nobelist.

But it was almost labour lost.  The very next week, the news media were brimming with foremost thespians and foremost labour leaders and foremost musicians.

I myself can report a similar experience. Two weeks ago, in a tailpiece to my column, I wrote about  “Our diminished universities.” The lament however was not about the underfunding, infrastructural deficit, and the erosion of autonomy and the sex scandals that vitiate their existence.

My concern was that the news media have reduced them to firms run by managers. Hence, we are told of how “the management” of a certain university has put out a strict dress code for female students, and how “the management” of another university has announced a zero-tolerance policy on campus sexual harassment in its many guises.

Like BJ’s, my intervention seemed like labour wasted.

Several days after the piece was published, this very newspaper was writing about “the management” of the University of Lagos. This past week, an eminent academic and newspaper columnist in a comment on campus sexual harassment heaped much the blame on “the management” of the universities. And an official of the University of Lagos spoke of its “management.”

There are units in the university which function as firms and are run by managers, the bookshop and the Guest House being examples.  But the university, it is necessary to insist, is not a firm. It is run on the collegial principle.

What is wrong with reporting that “The university of Abuja today announced that its medical school has been fully accredited by the Nigeria Medical Council? “ Isn’t that sharper and more specific than making “the management” of the University of Abuja the actor?

Those who employ such usage are wont to ask:  Why the fuss, when the public understands what we are talking about?  But if you are in the business of pubic communications, you can make no such assumption. The referent of a title must be specific.  Apropos of the university, the term vice chancellor or register is precise.  “The management,” on the other hand, is nebulous.

As a general rule of public communication, the specific is always to be preferred to the nebulous.

A first-time visitor to Nigeria who has spent some time reading Nigerian newspapers in preparation for the trip is likely to ask after exiting the airport:  Where are the stakeholders? From one day to the next, from one story to the next, the profile of a Nigerian that emerges is that of a person lugging all over the place stakes that they guard jealously.

Every man, woman or child is a stakeholder in one area of the national life or another.  You are not merely an electricity consumer, you are a stakeholder in the matter, or better still, a stakeholder in the energy sub-sector.  If you subscribe to the rule of law, you are a stakeholder in the judiciary.  As a parent or guardian of a student, you are an education stakeholder.

How is a visitor to protect himself or herself against all those stakes which can be repurposed into weapons of offence without notice?

I have inveighed against that word more times that I can recall.  I have even gone so far as to declare if I had the power, I would ban its usage.  For it discourages the search for creative alternatives.  Why strain to find another word when one that has been employed, to serve that purpose, however egregiously, is there for the plucking?

One alert reader has charged me with not practicing what I teach, pointing out that only last week, I had employed the word “stakeholders” in my column, “Rumours of a Third Term and a wedding.” Specifically, I had urged all “stakeholders” in the very delicate matter under reference to rest easy, since one of the parties was likely to be so fully engaged with ministerial duties that the status quo in the Villa was unlikely to be threatened.

I had agonized over the word but had settled for it from a sound instinct of self-preservation.  Enough said.

One other usage has attracted less attention that it merits.  I have in mind the word “conducive.”  We want a conducive environment, a conducive workplace, a conducive motoring experience, etc., etc. Some even speak of a “highly conducive environment.”

Conducive to what?

The word is an adjective, and it means likely to lead to some desirable end.  It cannot stand alone. You have to specify the end desired, as in “A good workplace is conducive to high productivity.”

In terms of usage, the verb “assure” falls in the same league as “conducive.” Example: “The floods will not affect the bumper rice harvest expected this year, the Minister of Agriculture has assured.”

“Assure” is a transitive verb.  That kind of verb cannot stand alone. It less with an object. And so when we encounter a sentence like that, we must ask:  assure whom.  Without the “whom”, the sentence is incorrect.

Given the climate crisis that has now been catapulted to the top of the global agenda, floods are no longer a rarity, even in desert regions. The rain comes down in sheets, lakes swell, rivers rage and sweep away almost everything in their wake.

Reporting on this phenomenon, with its own special vocabulary, has become a staple of news.

One word that readily comes to the reporter’s aid but is often misapplied is “submerged,” which means “under water. But that is not emphatic enough for some reporters.  So, they write of structures that are “completely submerged,” which is a redundancy.

Unless a house or other structure is under water, do not describe it as “submerged,” much less as “completely submerged.”  If you can see its top, it is flooded not submerged.

Pronunciations of some apparently common words are even more daunting than the use of words in writing.  I learned that lesson some six decades ago, when the Northern Minister of Education, the highly regarded Isa Kaita, an alumnus of the famous Katsina Higher College and a contemporary of the Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, visited my School, St Paul’s College, in Wusasa, Zaria.

In his address before the staff and students, Isa Kaita spoke of the “jigantik” strides the Government was taking in education.

You could hear the chortling and the chuckling in the ranks of the students, most of them from the lower Middle Belt and the South.

“A whole minister, some of them sniggered after the assembly. He can’t even pronounce an ordinary word like “jijantik.”

Back in class, one of the less self-assured students looked the pronunciation up in the Advanced Learners Dictionary of the English Language a standard issue in the school.

Alhaji Isa Kaita had it right, he announced.

When in doubt, look it up.

ONCE in a while, this column does a retrospective on persons who have figured in the news for better or worse but have somehow fallen off the news radar, including those who were famous or used to be famous for being famous.

This installment resumes that tradition after a long interlude.

Protocols.

Whatever happened to Professor Jubril Aminu, eminent cardiologist, formerly executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), professor of medicine, vice chancellor of the University of Maiduguri, Minister of Education and Minister of Petroleum Resources under the regime of military president Ibrahim Babangida, ambassador to the United States, and most recently a Senator of the Federal Republic?

At the NUC and the Ministry of Education, Aminu was the scourge of vice chancellors and the Academic Staff Union of Universities.  He inveighed, not without justification, against what he called the “proliferation of professors.” I wonder what he would call that tendency today. The “mushrooming” of professors?

Aminu had his favourite vice chancellor, though, in the person of Professor Grace Alele-Williams, who was also Babangida’s favourite vice chancellor, on account of which she was nicknamed Mamangida by  students and faculty at the University of Benin.

She was awarded a second term one full year before her first term ended, whereas, at the University of Ibadan, they kept Professor Ayo Banjo in limbo for almost one year before granting him a second term.  Then, as now, it helped to have friends in high places.

Aminu had a bad press.  They said he was haughty and high-handed, but he couldn’t care less.  He said he did what he had to do according to his best judgement and moved on.  He was content to let the facts and his conscience be the judge, though he was often loath to publicize acts of great personal kindness and official consideration that would have dampened, if not punctured, charges of parochialism that trailed him in his public career.

My last interaction with him occurred when he was serving as ambassador to the United States.  Shortly  after he arrived at the post, I called his office and asked to talk with him.

“Does he know you?” his secretary asked courteously.

“I believe he does,” I said.

She told me the ambassador was at a meeting and would ball me back.

Some 30 minutes later, the phone rang.  It was Aminu.

“Olatunji, you ran away,” he said, more in jest than in rebuke.  He was referring to my leaving Nigeria when Abacha banned The Guardian and many private media outlets and rendered the practice of journalism exceedingly fraught.

Some banter followed, after which he gave me his telephone number at the residence and said I should feel free to call him after hours.  And if I was visiting Washington DC, I was welcome to lodge in the embassy’s guest house.  I never took him up on the latter offer, but whenever I called the residence, he either took the call in person, or called back if he could not.

A good number of fellow expatriate Nigerians told me that their encounter with the ambassador was just as pleasant and gratifying.

I recall vividly the challenge my family faced when my wife and I had to obtain new Nigerian passports for ourselves and two of our children.  The rules demanded that all four of us go to the nearest issuing office (Washington) to have our biometrics captured for the purpose.  This unreasonable demand plunged many a family into credit card debt, loss of income, and great inconvenience.

In our case the challenge was especially formidable.  We have an autistic son who is difficult to manage when thrust into unfamiliar settings. I brought the matter up with Aminu, and he asked me to request a waiver in writing.

A few days later, a letter came from the chancery saying we should send our application material for new passports.  We did not have to come to Washington DC; the ambassador had waived that requirement.

In theory, any ambassador could have done that.  In practice, how many of them would have summoned the independence, the judgment and the fellow-feeling to do it?

That was the essential Jubril Aminu.

Aminu was probably still in medical school when Chief Richard Akinjide was elected to the Federal House of Representatives on the platform of the NCNC,  one of its youngest persons to achieve that distinction, later serving as Minister of Education in the NPC-NNDP coalition government until the collapse of the First Republic.

Reputed for his forensic brilliance – he belongs in the second set of Nigerians to be conferred with the SAN – Akinjide is best known for the ingenuous formula which moved the Federal Electoral Commission to hold that by, winning the most votes in 12 of the 19 states of the country, and in one half of two-thirds of a 13th State, the NPN candidate Shehu Shagari had won a plurality in each of at least two-thirds of the states of the federation as stipulated by the Constitution, and thus the presidential election outright.

The Supreme Court affirmed, and the joke was on those who had dismissed Akinjide’s formula as crack-brained.   In the legal battles that pitted the Federal Government against the states controlled by the Opposition in the Second Republic, Akinjide was a constant figure as Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, smirking as the courts did the government’s bidding in case after case.

Returning from self-exile following the overthrow of the Shagari Administration, he continued his brilliant advocacy, often doubling as a public intellectual.

Until lately.

His daughter Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide, a former minister of state for the Federal Capital Territory under the Goodluck Jonathan Administration, has been having a running battle with the EFCC over the misappropriation of some N650 million, little more than pocket change to minor functionaries in some federal establishments.

She has even offered to pay back the sum at issue, but the prosecutors would not budge. And yet, her father has not come up with some recondite forensic doctrine to put an end to all that nonsense.

Where is Chief Richard Akinjide?

I should also ask after Sani Abacha’s favorite historian and media coordinator, Dr Walter Ofonagoro.  As Abacha Minister of Information, he continued the unfinished business of Verdict 83, concerned as always to appear clever for one opportunistic moment rather than make society wiser.

On seizing power, Abacha had declared that June 12, 1993 presidential election presaged a vast promise for Nigeria. Later, as he tightened his grip on power, he declared that the election was “inconclusive.”  Later still, he would dismiss the election as “illegal,” a claim that military president Ibrahim Babangida who annulled the poll had never made.

Ofonagoro took up the matter from there and compiled a tome crammed with documents of dubious authenticity in a desperate effort to lend pseudo-scholarly support to Abacha’s revisionism.

The same Ofonagoro had served as communications director of the defunct National Republican Convention and a close adviser to its presidential candidate, Bashir Tofa.  One of the enduring images of the historic election was television film footage of Tofa driving from one polling centre to another in a futile bid to cast his ballot – futile, because he had not bothered to register to vote.  But since Abacha had declared the poll illegal, that must henceforth be the verdict of history.

All the media organs Ofonagoro controlled as minister of information dutifully picked up the refrain and sustained it long after a discriminating attentive audience had stopped listening to Radio Nigeria or watching the NTA or reading the Daily Times and the New Nigerian

When Kudirat Abiola was murdered by Abacha’s goons, Ofonagoro stopped just short of saying that  she got what she deserved.  When Abacha’s agents provocateurs were hurling bombs at federal installations and crowds of innocent Nigerians, Ofonagoro said it was the handiwork of a certain septuagenarian based in Owo, in Ondo State.

When a caller who identified himself by an Igbo name took Ofonagoro to task during a live call-in show on Radio Nigeria, Ofonagoro denounced the caller as a NADECO sympathiser fraudulently parading himself as an Igbo.

How so? 

Because, said Abacha’s favourite historian, no true Igbo man would stand up for June 12.

Under Ofonagoro, the NTA would not announce, much acknowledge the death of Afro-beat king Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, whose creative genius had contributed hugely to  stamping the music of Nigeria and Africa on the world’s cultural map.

Drawing his inspiration from Kim Il Sung’s North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Ofonagoro sought  to return the Nigerian press to the era of licensing and to make defamation a penal crime.

Lost on Abacha’s historian-in-residence was the elementary truth that when you have employed the media ceaselessly to alienate and brutalize and insult and stultify the public, you cannot employ the same media to mobilize that very public for nobler ends.

Where is Dr Walter Ibekwe Ofonagoro now?