Category: Opinion

By Emmanuel Oladesu

Death has sneaked into the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), snatching Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu.

He was a detribalised leader; a core believer in one Nigeria. That national outlook was premised on his exposure, training and cosmopolitan disposition as a soldier and statesman.

But, more important was his vision and target. His focus throughout his pro-democracy crusade was the enthronement of democratic values in a united Nigeria.

Although he was dedicated to the cause of an indivisible country, he emphasised unity in diversity. He never worked for the evolution of a country where a race would lord it over other diverse social formations.

Like his compatriots in the struggle, he believed that Nigerians, under their various umbrellas of pan-ethnic groups, should discuss and agree on the basis for peaceful co-existence.

It was not Nigeria that was colonised by the British. Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani, Igbo, and other tribes were colonised. However, independence was restored, not to these ethnic groups, but Nigeria, a foreign creation.

That agreement the ethnic groups may be critical to the survival of the highly heterogeneous country. The union cannot be by force. Equity, fairness and justice are ingredients of unity and harmony.

Kanu believed in these conditions as an advocate of what is now called true federalism. He loathed the awful picture of the Nigerian unitary nation-state masquerading as a model of democracy in Africa. It is a curious version of federalism cast in the image of military interlopers.

Yet, the struggle for federalism in its entirety is not new. Agitators are only drawing attention to the 1947 solution, which the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, canvassed in his book, ‘Path to Nigeria’s freedom.’

Awolowo had canvassed the non-negotiable option for a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious country christened Nigeria by Flora Shaw, wife of colonial Governor Frederick Lugard.

Nigeria was comparatively better when it upheld the federal principle. The three, later four, regions at independence developed according to their pace and the arrangement fostered a healthy competition.

That workable formula was crippled by the military, an institution that derailed from its fundamental duty of defending the territorial integrity of the emerging country. Out of covertouseness, the military hijacked power, sacking legitimate authorities with the barren of gun.

Kanu cannot be divorced from this institution that truncated Nigerian democracy at its infancy and foisted on the country a centralised political structure that mirrored the military command chain.

But, it could be said that the Admiral made restitution in retirement by becoming an ardent supporter of military disengagement to allow popular rule to thrive.

In the twilight of life, he also made spirited efforts to rally the surviving NADECO chieftains to continue the unfinished business of sensitising Nigerians to the danger of a meagre civil rule without the full compliments of democratic dividends.

Lamentably, he continually groaned over the gap between expectation and reality. The struggle led to civil rule. But, it never translated to good governance. When he urged the political class to do the right thing, they refused to listen to his candid advice. Power drew a wool across the eyes of those in power.

Kanu was a humble statesman. A diminutive individual, he could be lost in the crowd. But, he was a man of immense moral stature and discipline. Unlike other top military brass, he never flaunted wealth.  He distanced himself from the culture of opulence that was infuriating to the poor, who were victims of prolonged military profligacy.

Kanu rose to the pinnacle of his military profession. He served as military governor of Imo and Lagos states. As a General, he was a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC).Therefore, he was professionally fulfilled. As a public servant, many believe that he was a man of honour and integrity. Many saw him as a mentor and role model. In public life, he was neither associated with vulgarity nor recklessness.

However, he became more popular many years after leaving the military. He was until his death the leader of the pro-democracy group, which tried to re-convene when the old activists realised that only self rule, and not total democracy, had been achieved by their titanic struggle.

Why the agitation for democracy became intense was partly due to the involvement of certain Generals, who in their own rights were masters of tactics. It was possible that the strategies they lent to civilian fighters upset the military in the nineties. Kanu, Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Commodore Dan Sulaiman, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, Col. Umar Dangiwa and other retired soldiers were worried by the criminal annulment of the historic June 12, 1993 election by former military President Ibrahim Babangida. They fired salvos at the military, their traditional constituency.

For the old soldiers, it was a risky venture. But, their source of strength was their courage of conviction, which made them to stay on the side of truth, justice and rationality.

When their former juniors in the military who held the levers of power turned the heat on them, some of them retraced their steps. Although the inaugural meeting of NADECO was hosted by a General in his GRA, Ikeja residence, the General later developed a cold feet when the military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, threatened him.

However, Kanu was consistent. He was bold and brave. He offered to host NADECO meetings in his house, thereby daring the military.

The deceased elder statesman was in the forefront of the agitation for the actualization of the June 12 mandate throughout the turbulent period. His message was that soldiers’ continued reign of terror lacked justification.

The military Head of State, Gen. Abacha, was particularly worried by Kanu’s involvement in the agitation to halt his inglorious rule. He once told him to deck his khaki and face him with his gun, instead of joining forces with bloody civilians to rubbish his discredited regime.

When he persisted in his NADECO activities, his businesses were crippled by the military. Kanu never publicised his ordeals to attract sympathy. He accepted it with philosophical calmness. To him, it was an inevitable price to be paid for his involvement in the struggle for a better society.

His private residence was searched by security agents. He was accused of planning to import arms and ammunitions. But, he was not bothered by personal losses. After all, the huge losses that had accrued to the country due to prolonged military dictatorship were unquantifiable.

Also, while politicians who were neck deep in the struggle for the revalidation of June 12 were driven by the partisan desire to bounce back to power, Kanu participated without being driven by anticipation of any political reward. His only wish was that Nigeria should become a democratic country capable of resolving its multiple challenges of development.

Unfortunately, the goal was elusive. The mandate of Chief Moshood Abiola, winner of the historic poll, was not restored. By 1999, when the soldiers of fortune finally agreed to abdicate, their successors were military lackeys and confederates, who collaborated with the military rulers to commit heinous crimes against democracy.

In post-military period, Kanu remained a moral voice reminding those in government of their unfulfilled promises to Nigerians. He loathed graft and decried corruption in high places. He advocated for electoral reforms, restructuring and true federalism.

His demise is being mourned by his NADECO compatriots and other activists: Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Commodore Sulaiman, Col. Umar, Gen. Akinrinade, Dr. Amos Akingba, Ayo Opadokun, Ralph Obiorah, Wale Oshun, Kofo Bucknor-Akerele, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Mrs. Ayoka Lawani, Chief Frank Kokori, and Senator Nwite.

There is the need to immortalised Admiral Kanu by the state and federal governments. However, the best honour to his memory is for those in power to emulate his humility, simplicity, team spirit, respect for superior views, candour, courage, and belief in the future greatness and survival of Nigeria as a Federal nation-state, where poverty will drastically reduce, where government will be transparent and accountable, where there will be no oppression of any race by any tribe, and where justice will always prevail.

Roundtable with Nnedinso OGAZIECHI

 

As the world stayed glued to global cable networks to watch the inauguration of President Joe Biden and the first female Vice –President in America a few days ago, a few histories were made. The Vice President, Kamala Harris, the first woman of colour to rise to that position was sworn in by the first Latina to be appointed into the US Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor.  The youngest poet laureate, Amanda Gorman wowed the world with her brilliant performance of her spoken word, “Even as we grieved, we grew”.

The young lady has said that she intends to contest for the presidency of the United States in 2036. What an admirable courage and dream? Her bravery and confidence stems from the fact that flawed as the American political and social systems might be, it is still a land of reasonable opportunity.

Three Nigerian-Americans have been appointed to different positions by the Biden administration just like other citizens from other climes. The mantra is merit and capacity. Even though as humans the system is imperfect, citizens realize that once they work hard at their dreams, there are likely chances of succeeding and contributing to the democratic experience and the development of the country.  The country has tried to be loyal to the constitution and so there are chances of growth and progress.

On the contrary, the Nigeria state seems divided more than five long decades after the civil war that needed not to have been fought in the first place. Being true to ourselves means chatting the best way forward as a nation in an era that nations are closing their borders and seriously looking inwards. Recounting what led to the war or who lost or who won can never bring progress. The future demands that we have some introspection and begin to address holistically the things that are wrong with us a nation.

The Roundtable Conversation caught up with Charity Shekari, an Administrator, gender/civil rights advocate and a former Health Commissioner in Kaduna State. She believes that all Nigerians must sincerely come to the table with humility and a sense of purpose. The present situation of manipulation through ethnicism, religion and other mundane reasons that have been the order of the day cannot make us progress. We can never be progressive with the level of injustice, nepotism and self-centeredness across the country. No nation grows from being divisive. The issue of injustice  must be addressed holistically. Injustice at any level is a root to permanent national damage. The sign of justice is a blindfolded woman with a scale that does not tilt to any side. Nigeria must begin to look at our justice system. Is there equity, is justice available to the rich and poor, to the influential and none influential?

The Nigerian citizens must have real introspection and search our souls for the hypocrisies that brought us to the situation where we have our children attending universities in our towns, a politician would consider ethnicity and religion before merit in both appointive and elective positions. We must stop seeing each other as enemies because we have too much that unite us rather than the other way round.

The hypocrisy of even discriminating based on ethnicity and religion is so puerile because it has eaten deep into the psyche of Nigerians both high and low in all regions. We often push divisions through geography and religion in very destructive ways. You have the so-called tripod treating the  minorities as though they don’t belong at different levels. Somebody from the middle belt for instance might be treated as a Northerner by the Southerners, then in the North, the same person might not get full acceptance as people might begin to again point to geographical boundaries and religion.

Even amongst the Southerners, you still find cleavages in tribes and religion and even in Christianity you still see denominations discriminating against each other. How can we grow? All those  attempts to exclude others is the root of the injustice in the larger Nigerian society and the bane of our development. When any human or group of humans feel any sense of injustice, the spirit of unity disappears and development cannot come.

Ironically the same Nigerians that try to find differences in each other would meet abroad and become brothers and sisters in the diaspora. Why then can that spirit of brotherhood not like charity, start at home? We do not need to separate because we are too closely linked to be progressive if taken apart.

The solution for a progressive nation is for us to sit down and continue to have the conversation. There must be the inclusiveness that tells everyone in all the nooks and crannies of the nation that they are valued and are parts of the whole. Justice and equity must be the mantra. When there is no justice those who request justice would continue to demand it and might not be willing to give their best.

The Nigerian men and women must realize that we all need each other. Leadership especially must begin to be handled with equity that sees every Nigerian citizen as equal and capable of contributing to the development of the country. Nothing trumps unity and a sense of citizenship. Our diversity must be seen as assets as we all bring different value to uplift each other. The rainbow is beautiful because all the colours are in sync and none replaces the other.

Nigerian women must equally begin to be proactive in ways that can make then access power because they are the greatest victims of underdevelopment.  Women must in the words of the popular African proverb, learn how to eat the elephant, slowly but tactfully.  Political inclusion is not done through fiat or war. We must marry the socio-cultural nuances and the modern political realities for impactful gender parity in politics.

Our men too must take a cue from other nations that have been benefitting from the excellence in the leadership of their women. The nurturing and patriotic zeal in women must be valued enough for a seamless inclusion because ultimately, we are in this together. Justice and equity never destroy, they build.

The woman must like the ants, work together. Women must work together for progress of the nation because really, there is strength in unity. We can be more accommodating of our imperfections and emerge victorious by being kind to each other and being less critical of our imperfections individually and as a group. We can only be together and strategize, there would be mistakes but we learn and move on.

Dr Fatima Lamishi Adamu, a sociologist,  gender rights activist and an executive director of Nana girls and Women’s empowerment Initiative, an NGO operating in Sokoto and Kebbi states believes that Nigerians all over the country especially those in leadership positions must as a matter of urgency look at ways to arrest the insecurity problems in the country because no nation can progress without security.

In the country, things are really difficult and we need to begin to ask ourselves what to do for the youths to be gainfully employed. We must address the issue of insecurity because those in the social ills like kidnapping, banditry and insurgency, are in their productive ages and this needs urgent action. The governors are trying but more still needs to be done. Security must be present before any type of development can happen.

The effects of insecurity affect the smooth running of any nation. We as women groups must begin to organize at least now with Zoom so we can all raise our voices. We need more women in leadership positions from the ward to state and federal levels. Women naturally have empathy and more compassion and their leadership helps develop the country.

Dr. Fatima believes women too must be ready to mentor and encourage others even when they themselves are not ready to be play partisan politics.  Political participation for women is very urgent at this time of our development because the men alone cannot handle leadership as we have seen across our nation.  Balancing leadership positions is a task women especially the educated ones must take seriously. The cases of insecurity affect women and children more because those areas where women get their economic power like agriculture and commercial ventures are affected very adversely.

The Nigerian leadership at all levels must come together to address the issues that have led to the insecurity that is affecting the whole country negatively. We must begin to address education, employment and infrastructure development so that the young people can get education and skills that would help them earn a living and in so doing the country can be safer and economic activities increase in ways that the poverty level will reduce. Women should not sit back and blame the men, those who are capable and willing to join politics must step and out and be supported for the good of the nation. When women lead, they lead with the zeal they nurture families.

The Roundtable Conversation believes that the mistake of the civil war cannot define our nation. Individuals and groups must begin to see and harness the beauty of diversity. We can all prosper together as we unite sincerely as a nation willing to work for progress.

The recent #EndSars movement is an example of what new ideas, women, youths, multicultural coalition and unity can give a nation. Growth and development are often not about race, tribe, youth or adult but a strategy adopted by willing nations to grow. We watched a Kamala Harris being sworn in as Vice-President in a country where women just got voting rights about a century ago and blacks and other minorities even more recently.

Today a coalition of nationalities, whites, blacks, Latinas , Jews, Hispanics and every creed and nationality joined hands to elect an administration to heal the wounds of division and return America back to its  global position. Nigeria too can borrow a leaf but equity, justice, citizenship rights and security for all must be jointly and sincerely allowed to blossom first.

 

• The dialogue continues…

By Charles Onunaiju

 

IT was not like the storming of the Bastille, attack of the state prison- symbol of repressive monarchy, east side of the French capital, Paris on July 14, 1789 which set the ball for the end of Bourbon monarchy and ushered in, the French revolution.

It was rather, the equivalent of the Reichstag fire outbreak on February 27, 1933 that burnt down Germany’s parliament and paved the way for the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party and subsequent establishment of fascist dictatorship, followed by the devastating 2nd world war.

The storming of the U.S capitol, the parliament building that houses both the House of Representatives and the Senate on January 6, has largely been interpreted as the desperate political vehemence of the defeated candidate in the last November Presidential election in that country. To now properly situate the violence at the U.S capitol, the House of Representatives has voted to impeach President Donald Trump ahead of the end of his constitutional tenure in office.

The impeachment would be the second, by the House of Representatives. However, the impeachment would only result in the removal of the president if the senate follows suit. However, the procedure at the senate, where the president would stand trial is more cumbersome and has little success at least, before President Trump leaves office.

However, much as the world appeared shocked at the violence in the U.S Capitol, the underlying current, much like the path leading to the rise of Hitler and the establishment of fascist dictatorship, shares some familiar characteristics.

The establishment of Weimar Republic following the defeat of Germany in the First World War and the Versailles treaty which imposed heavy war reparations along with stripping her, of its oversea possession were mocked and ridiculed by the Nazis, and actually referred to Germany’s signatories to the treaty as “November criminals”. The economic recession that hit in late 1920s, along with “loss of national pride” as most Germans then, considered the Versailles treaty” catapulted Hitler’s Nazis from fringe party to mainstream with large seats in parliament, as Hitler was invited to lead government and the Reichstag fire incident gave him all the emergency powers he needed to institute full-blown fascist dictatorship. Germany’s fascism has something to do with the manic of Hitler and his fellow Nazis but was more to do with the dire economic stress of the middle class and the weakening of its imperialism from its defeat and the consequent loss of national pride.

The storming of the U.S capitol may have been partly triggered by the maniacal nature of Donald Trump but did not explain everything about the social discontent, the actual foundation for the rise of U.S fascist movement for which Trump is only a titular head.

The affluence of the United States of America and the stability of its political institutions which actually defined the “success” of its democracy provided the foundation of its social balance. The thriving of U.S capitalism and the affluence it has engendered was the result of the success of U.S imperialism to amass or accumulate surplus on a global scale since after World War II. The emergence of the U.S as a super power and later as a “hyper power” has not only ensured the diffusion of its values or soft power on a global scale but its enforcement through political pressure and sometimes military intervention.

From Congo, where Patrice Lumumba was accused of Soviet or Communist puppetry to Guatemala where former President Jacob Arbenz was kicked out by a U.S multinational to the deadly CIA mastered coup in Chile on September 11, 1973 that took out, the charismatic leader Allende Salvador to the tiny Grenada where Bishop Maurice was overthrown, U.S imperialism exercised unquestioned global hegemony and ensured the extraction and repatriation of surplus from which America’s capitalism thrived and its people prospered, even as its political institutions appear both impregnable and unassailable. The bubble did not certainly look to anything like bursting for U.S capitalism and its democracy.

However, in recent years, U.S imperialism is weakening and the emerging multilateral international system are giving greater room for nations to exert their values and raise their voices. The ability of U.S imperialism to accumulate or extract surplus on a global scale has become considerably circumscribed and constrained. The flow of oversea resource-surplus that fuels America’s affluence that previously mitigated the crisis of access to resources by various social categories are constrained. Unable to extract surplus on a global scale, as nations across the world, stand up for the best deals for their respective peoples, U.S imperialism would have to come home to roost. The U.S famed affluence is no longer sustainable in the face of shrinking overseas accumulation. The long period of social harmony of class cohabitation would naturally burst into social discontents and class antagonism. The white working middle class, the greatest beneficiary of social democracy and distributive capitalism fueled by U.S global scale of surplus accumulation were evidently, the first to be hit by the decline and weakening of U.S imperialism like the Germans in the 1930s, are the most receptive of nihilistic nationalism, which vilifies outsiders for the weakening of their country.

Trump’s political narcissism corresponds to the U.S economic crises and expresses itself in the vengeance of the social category whose political grievance galvanizes in the fascist movement with the ultimate aim to the establishment of the fascist state as in Hitler’s Germany.

Trump expresses U.S economic crises as consisting in U.S’ stressful engagement with rest of world and what he claimed was an open border which magnates people from across the world. For him, U.S excess global baggage and open borders were culprits in America’s decline and this simplistic analysis resonated with the white working middle class to whom their loss of privilege was the direct consequence of the combination of internal parasitic people of colour at home and aspirant immigrants knocking at their border for which Trump promised to erect a wall. For the U.S extremist social faction seeking to take back their country from the imaginary foreign enemy, Trump is, its alter ego and the attempt to remake liberal institution like the congress and senate, seating in the Capitol was not a mere flash in the pan but the enigmatic trajectories of fascist muscle-flexing for which the event of January 6 is only a prelude.

To see the insurrection at the U.S Capitol on January 6 as merely Trump’s antics to overturn an election he lost is fairly simplistic, which also supposed that the political eclipse of Trump or even his trial and even sentence to prison would end the specific nature of U.S political crises. Trump’s imprisonment if it happens, might be the historical equivalent of Hitler’s prison sentence after the Beer Hall putsch in 1923. The attempted coup in Munich by right-wing members of the army in collusion with the Nazi Party was, however, foiled by the government with Hitler charged for high treason. Convicted, he spent less than a year in prison and emerged with his political position stronger than before.

America’s political establishment, especially the Democratic Party and their congressional leadership, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the pivot, seeking desperately to extract revenge on Trump might actually be setting the stage for his political canonization.

The Joe Biden Presidency, elected on a wide coalition of traditional Democratic Party members and the broad working people of all colours can mitigate the social tension of contemporary U.S capitalism through decisive expansion of corporate tax, reducing the social hegemony of the one percent of Americans that sit over more than 80% of U.S resources and national endowment.

Any attempt by the Biden administration to revive U.S imperialism and restart its war machine, an old and failing strategy at global accumulation of surplus would summarily fail and have the consequence of reviving Trump’s flagging political career and lead straight to the establishment of U.S fascist state, with dire consequences not only for the Americans but for the rest of the world.

The key to America’s revival and restoration is broad ranging national social reform that could tap on the ingenuity of the American people, which would be a major antidote to nipping the creeping fascism in the bud and saving humanity the prospects of another world war.

• Onunaiju is research director of an Abuja based Think Tank.

By Edward Ihejirika

AS a public health physician, development and health policy management consultant I like to state unequivocally that vaccines save lives and clearly people need to take vaccines this time to stay alive but what is more important are the protocols advised for prevention. This alone can cut down the spread of Covid in great proportions.

In 2010, then as Program Coordinator in a US Dept. of HHS funded program in the Upper Valley Region comprising the states of New Hampshire and Vermont we supervised the administration of ‘seasonal’ flu shots and people would turn up and take them. Even then, there was mild suspicion about vaccines and low turn out on some days but overall more people got immunized. Although not everyone got vaccinated, these flu viruses eventually would not do much harm and medically the teaching has been that the concept of developing ‘herd immunity’ is responsible for conferring immunity on the rest of the population against viruses. What is worthy of note here is that in two seasons in which I participated, I found that some of the same people responded and brought their kids and got vaccinated each time on each of those calls. So I got thinking, why would every flu season the same kids always get vaccinated? This clearly is due to the willingness of the receiver, knowledge base of the receiver especially that Viruses mutate and this can happen very fast or slow depending etc. thereby providing the incentive to get the shots. This job coincidentally led us at the MVHI to participate in the planning and design process of a board game at the Tiltfactor Laboratory in Dartmouth University known as “POX: save the people”. POX was developed to help teach the 1-4 players on board to stop the spread of disease, herd immunity and the need to vaccinate. Ultimately, that prevention is key and vaccines work!

For this we received a State Award in 2011, “Excellence in Immunization Partnerships’. Maybe today we deserve the ‘nobel prize’ =ØÞ

While settling down in 2013 as the Honorable Commissioner for Health in Imo State and taking charge at the Ministry, the Ebola virus in early 2014 was before us and eventually arrived in Nigeria. We applied the same practices of public health hygiene (sanitizers, hand washing, no hand shaking, use of PPE’s by health workers etc), health promotion and we demonstrated these prevention techniques at several fora (from screening for Temperature at Airport to conferences we hosted in Imo) all in a bid to prevent entry and stop the spread of the EBOLA virus. We never got to the point of Vaccine but Ebola was contained and if it mutated, is a story for another day. Perhaps for this in 2015, I was appointed to represent the Southeast in the technical working group (TWG) for the implementation and operationalization of the National Health Act.

First in 2019/2020 and now a second wave in 2021 we are dealing with Covid 19.

There are high numbers and numbers could even be higher if more people are testing.

What are we faced with? There are behavioural issues, uncertainty, fears, Economic considerations, work life imbalance. Poor Healthcare infrastructure, Funding, World Events etc.

The more people are in denial about this Covid-19 the more the risk of spread especially with and by the asymptomatic carriers and hence all hands must be on deck to continue the promotion of social distancing, use of hand sanitizers and other protocols in place. How do we tackle the fears of Vaccination in the face of several conspiracy theories flying around; theories of birth control, demographic control, 5G to mention a few? Education, education and more education using available tools, engagement of all stakeholders at the grassroots level to bring the information home and better prepare them for uptake or acceptance of the vaccine when it is available. All who have received can serve as sources of feedback to several people who look up to them, agencies of Government like the National Orientation Agency can also move with their equipment to sensitize fully the people on what is to come, incentives have been known to work where less understanding, culture or cooperation are issues.

In this period of economic uncertainty the people are unlikely to fully observe these prevention protocols due to the fact that the majority of the population run on daily take home pay and income. This has certainly created a lot of work-life imbalance since from the first wave and any further disruptions can be met with negativity therefore targeted incentives again come to mind or palliatives as it were.

There is no gain saying the fact that our healthcare infrastructure is poor. When analysed in terms of our GDP and population served, it is clear we need to do more in this sector. What is of most significance is that we lack the robust infrastructure to adequately deal with vaccine distribution effectively and of note is this Covid Vaccine which requires very cold temperatures for some of them. The multi-departmental approach of government agencies is trying to address this.

I have been privileged to attend just five days ago the first ever “National Stakeholder Engagement with Medical and Health Associations on Covid- 19 Vaccine Introduction ” hosted by the NPHCDA.

These efforts by the Government to introduce the vaccines certainly will require huge funding not only for purchase of the vaccines but also for the logistical infrastructure that comes with its distribution and at this point in time if you evaluate what is on ground, while the State Capitals may be ready with their cold stores, in the 774 LGA’s up to the PHC’s it is doubtful that we can cope without some stroke of ingenuity at this time.

Although the world is now plagued with this Covid pandemic, for some reason Africa has again shown some difference in its response to the virus perhaps due to the strain (not clear) but in the face of all the attendant uncertainties it continues to record lower mortalities and if the World is going to support us as has been proposed, it will look at some of the ways in which we have helped ourselves through governance structures in place, prevention protocols, Governments priority to health budgets and healthcare spending. That said, It is still going to cost a lot to get vaccines to arrive here and based on ‘purchase orders’ time is of significance and procrastination is unhelpful since the manufacturers must satisfy quotas or prioritized orders while initiating delivery of our requests. Is this a call to action for our scientist to go into the labs and see why and how and perhaps come up with vaccines peculiar to Africa? Very expensive venture we all know and unprepared for. Perhaps someday the private sector may play here.

What happens in the event that there is a shortfall in vaccine supply and cases or even mortality rises? I don’t want to imagine the scramble that ensues due to panic and a fight for survival.

What should our deliverables be? Resource mobilisation from the private sector players to compliment or enrich a national vaccine development, storage, distribution and administration and reporting plan. Furthermore, we should obey the authorities and laws of the land by avoiding unnecessary crowds, do social distancing, wear you face masks, wash hands often, use hand sanitizers, cough or sneezing hygiene, travel only if absolutely necessary, Sensitization towards vaccination. Should vaccination be voluntary especially where still in doubt? I think it depends on social responsibility, knowledge and exposure to know that what affects one can affect all and therefore the common good of all starts with the interest of one. A good number of people still think Covid is a medical or political stunt and have adopted practices like steam inhaling and so on, the goal being to stay protected and it may be working for them.

In conclusion, either way we see it for or against Vaccines lets stay with the science, stop the spread! For now we must do with the prevention protocols and hope that the vaccine will reach everyone willing when it arrives or better still, may God let the virus mutate into a less harmful strain and finally nail this Covid to the dustbin of history.

In retrospect, chance favors the prepared mind.

• Dr. Ihejirika, is a Senior Legislative Aide to the Deputy Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, is a former Commissioner for Health in Imo State.

By Chris Cannon

 

HOW the Capitol riot was a natural consequence of the country’s response to the 9/11 attacks

Historians will spend decades parsing the tragic from the ridiculous in the events of the first few weeks of 2021, and many books will be written about the Capitol insurrection alone—perhaps the world’s first cosplayed revolution.

Sometimes the tragic and the ridiculous are one and the same, as in the fact that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell have emerged as the conscience of the Republican Party, all basking in a chorus of polite golf claps for publicly denouncing the direction of the GOP in recent weeks. I suspect they are secretly glad to have seen this administration fail so spectacularly, so that people will forget the unfathomable cruelty of theirs—and their culpability for what we’re experiencing today.

These rats fleeing the sinking ship are the ones who chewed through the hull in the first place. In the wake of 9/11, the predatory Bush administration realized it could bottle up the directionless anger over the terrorist attacks and use it to sell nationalism as a smarmier brand of patriotism. Enabled by moderates who didn’t want to appear soft on revenge, enough of us bought the line that rallying around the president would show the world that we were an unbroken, united people.

But we were broken, and our unity was threadbare. The right-wing elements of our society—up to and including the president—used this to their advantage, invoking the specter of otherness as a constant threat to justify a carte blanche approach to the “war on terror” abroad and the restriction of civil liberties at home. You were “either with us or against us” in facing an “axis of evil,” a calculated stoking of partisan and racial division that has grown and mutated, culminating in last week’s violence.

Susan Sontag warned us this was coming. In her New Yorker essay just six days after the towers fell, by which time American flags billowed on every doorstep and the speeches of politicos dripped with bigoted undertones, she wrote, “The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public.… Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management.… The public is not being asked to bear much of the burden of reality. Let’s by all means grieve together. But let’s not be stupid together.”

Sontag suggested that we brought the attacks upon ourselves through a belligerent foreign policy—a harsh sentiment to be expressing on September 17, 2001. But instead of reexamining our role as the world’s largest arms dealer, we marched into yet another war. And when our gaze turned inward, instead of an honest reckoning about how we could become better, we simply found more enemies at home.

The immediate scapegoats were the Muslims, of course. Sharia law was coming to get you. The apostles of Rush Limbaugh rode this narrative from fringe conspiracy theory to cult leadership, empowered by the explosion of social media that let them preach the dangers of immigration through unfiltered channels, without having to worry about inconvenient burdens like sources and evidence.

Black Americans fared little better in the Bush era. The NAACP called his Cabinet “the Taliban wing of American politics … whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection.” It took the Hurricane Katrina fiasco to see this in broad daylight, when Kanye West informed America that “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”

The administration stoked our paranoia to sell not one but two forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—one based on fabricated intelligence, the other on foolhardy strategy. The wars killed nearly 200,000 civilians and earned billions for Cheney’s friends, and no one was ever held accountable.

The invasion of Iraq may well have been the moment when bald-faced lies became the favored tool of Republican governance. If you could get away with lying to go to war, you could get away with anything. It was late in Bush’s tenure that Stephen Colbert coined the term “truthiness” in the pilot episode of The Colbert Report, referring to things that are true if you just ignore the facts. The barb was aimed squarely at Fox News, which more than anyone fomented American xenophobia and gave the GOP a broad base it could consistently lie to without consequences.

The truthiness only accelerated with the election of Barack Obama, whose very presence in the Oval Office inspired that cosplay revolution dress rehearsal, the Tea Party. Ostensibly about fiscal responsibility, the Tea Party quickly proved itself really to be about deciding who was and was not American. The president was clearly not American in its eyes, giving rise to the birtherism conspiracy theory—that Obama was born in Kenya—upon which Donald Trump built his political empire.

But it wasn’t just people of color who were othered. The list of un-Americans grew to include journalists, health professionals, academics, Californians, socialists, all Democrats, RINOs, and even former Trump officials who were heroes at dawn and traitors at dusk. The day patriots-cum-terrorists marched on the Capitol building like a dystopian Woodstock, we saw the definition expand to their own leaders. Some of the rioters were reportedly looking for Mike Pence, with plans to hang him from a makeshift gallows at the foot of Capitol Hill.

It took 20 years for this withering cult of xenophobia and racism to conclude that most of America was not American, to get to the point where patriotism meant beating a police officer with an American flag. But we didn’t lose anything in the Capitol Hill riots that we hadn’t already lost the day we gave the Bush administration a pass on the Iraq War. We did not respond to 9/11 by building a better world: We responded by tearing ours down. We are reaping today what we sowed then.

We are—and have been for the past 20 years—a nation in pain. But we are also a nation tired of being in pain. So let this be our catharsis. Let’s admit what we got wrong—then and now—and hold those accountable who brought us to this moment. Let 2020 be the year we screamed, and 2021 the year we caught our breath and reexamined who we are—both as a nation and to each other.

“Our country is strong, we are told again and again,” wrote Sontag. “I for one don’t find this entirely consoling. Who doubts that America is strong? But that’s not all America has to be.”

 

• This article was originally published on www.newrepublic.com

 

By Bisi Olawunmi

 

WITH the January  13, 2021  history-making,  second impeachment of President Donald Trump within a four-year, single term in the White House, the Democrat –led  U.S. House of Representatives seems determined to write the name of Donald Trump in the book of infamy.  The impeachment  saga was a fallout of the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol, allegedly  on incitement  by President Trump.  That 10 Republicans joined the Democrats  in the hurried  232-197 vote to impeach  the president just seven days to the end of his tenure manifests what some of the pro-Trump Republican Congressmen described as the vindictive, vengeful  nature of politics of hate.  Finally, The Establishment  got President Trump.  By The Establishment,  I refer to  America’s  Political-Industrial-Military-Media Elite whose pre-eminence in determining  the course of governance  candidate Trump  repudiated  when, against all predictions,  he defeated Hillary Clinton,  a Democrat and an Establishment icon, in the 2016 U.S presidential election. He had fought a running battle against the Establishment, particularly the media,  for all of his four-year presidency, a fact highlighted by pro-Trump Republican Congressmen  at the impeachment session with the disclosure that The Washington Post had even called for  Trump’s  impeachment  within days of his being sworn in. A combative Trump  had  alleged gross irregularities in the  presidential election, vehemently disputed  candidate Joe Biden’s  victory, describing it as a ‘’stolen’’ mandate.  Opponents  hold that  his call for a Last Stand  in an address  to Trump  faithfuls  who had gathered in Washington D.C. on the January 6 date for Congressional session to  certify  the electoral college votes, after which the Trumpists stormed  the U.S. Capitol, was a call to insurrection.  Trump supporters  defended his exhortation of the crowd as an exercise in Free Speech which is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  The impeachment vote short-circuited  the process  : no formal investigation of charges, no hearings – straight to a vote in Congress. We now have a somewhat cliff-hanger situation, an eerie cloud over America  :  you have an impeached outgoing president with a senate trial hanging on his neck at a time a president-elect will be sworn in !! Only in America,  the Land of Exceptionalism. And what an exception this scenario !!

These, therefore,  are not the best of times for the  United States and American democracy.  Wednesday,  January 6, 2021 when hundreds of predominantly ‘white’ Americans stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.  was the nadir of a political warfare, resulting from disputed  election results.    What an irony, that the country whose government  and NGOs  act as policemen of elections worldwide, arrogantly imposing sanctions on persons and governments considered not following due process during elections, is today engulfed in  a grave  crisis of disputed election results !  January 6, 2021 showed the world  America’s ugly underbelly  as the Evangelist of Democracy. America  that has  destroyed  many countries  in its determination  to force-feed  them with democracy, is today literally lying prostrate in crisis of democracy of tsunami gravity, threatening to tear the country apart. Words like election rigging, coup, fraud and all the electoral shenanigans often  associated, in denigration, with elections in developing countries, are now being freely used to describe fallouts from the 2020 American presidential election.  Welcome to America, the newest electoral  Banana Republic !!   What is more,  we are now told that those who launched the  violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, predominantly white,  are terrorists, a  MOB,  yes, American mobsters . American  Democracy has taken  a near fatal blow.  We can imagine the laughs of Communists in Moscow, Russia, the giggle of Dictators in Beijing, China and even the chuckle of sixth term President Yoweri  Museveni in Kampala, Uganda.

With few days to the inauguration of senator Joe Biden and Kamara Harris as President and Vice-President of the U.S. respectively, America is gripped with fear of violence , not celebration,  that usually accompany such Democracy’s appropriation of the coronation of a king.  Nobody is talking of the Inaugural Ball. For America, it does not rain, it pours – reeling from  having the highest number horrendous deaths from Coronavirus  worldwide, and still counting, and now  being stalked with fear as heavily armed militia groups stalk State Capitols across the country.

How did America, the self proclaimed beacon of democracy, come to these electoral dire straits ?

The Trump Factor

President Trump is a major factor in America’s current election debacle, not so much as precipitating it per se, but  for his anti-orthodoxy,  anti- Establishment,  and for rupturing  America’s  political oligarchy.  American democracy sells the myth  of a popular,  majority people’s government, but in reality it is a government of minority, by a minority – the oligarchy – for the benefit of a minority – the special interest  groups.  The political oligarchy, in bed with military-industrial –media power bases constitute the Establishment, whose members have America in a vice grip.  They call the shots.  They are the owners of America.  Candidate Trump joined the Republican party primaries in 2015 as a political outsider  and was dismissed as a joke.  In a crowded field of  17 contestants, with 16 of them governors, former governors, senators and senior professional politicians, Trump, the outsider,  routed them all, including former  governor of Florida,  Jeb Bush, younger brother of President G. W. Bush and son of President  G.H.W. Bush, thus putting a break to the run of the Bush dynasty.  In the presidential election of 2016, , he faced Hillary Clinton of the Democratic party, wife of President Bill Clinton and a former Secretary of State for  whom all the polls predicted a landslide victory. It was not to be.  Against all predictions, Trump trounced Hillary, delivering a shock to the Establishment which never forgave him and with which he had had a running battle, culminating in a denouement with the storming of the U.S. Capitol on  January 6, 2021. Trump’s rejection of the election result  is his final showdown  with the Establishment, the endgame in a four-year titanic political battle.  That House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat, could call President Trump a “deranged”  person shows the depth of animosity between the forces ranged.  As at Jan. 13, 2021, a week to Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021, there is no let up in anger between Trump’s fanatical troopers and the opposition forces.  On January 9, 2021, heavily armed white militia marched on the State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky state in a show of force.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has raised alarm that intelligence reports indicate militia groups ready to storm  Washington  and State Capitols in all the 50 states of the country. Even after the storming of the U.S. Capitol, over 140 members of the U.S. Congress still voted to reject the election result that gave victory to senator Biden.

The Media, The Mobs, Election Rigging

The American mainstream media, including the self-proclaimed media icons –the CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post – have been complicit in the unfolding drama that has demystified America as the Democracy of Example by their rabid anti Trump content and his demonization.  This has been interpreted as  a  Trump pull-down strategy for humiliating the media  in their predictions of a Hillary victory . Events are threatening to spin out of control and the media rather than promoting reconciliation seem bent on fuelling the vicious divisions which have emerged in the American society. In their strident anti Trump reports, American mainstream media abandoned the Doctrine of Fairness and Accuracy in media content.  As to mobs, America has a history of mob action – symbolized in mob lynching, mob take-over  landed property as well as  resolving disputes through gun-fights in the days of the Wild, Wild West.  So, what is happening now is tantamount to history repeating itself, a resurgence of mob action and looming gun fights as militia groups prime for action.  There is also history of election rigging which had been muted before now because of the oligarchy  consensus not to rock the democratic boat.  In 1960, the election that brought John F. Kennedy was disputed by many Republicans  but for  Republican candidate Richard Nixon who refused to be drafted  into open challenge of the election because he would not want to diminish the prestige and authority of the President of the United States.

Year 2000 – The Ugly Election

In 2000, the world witnessed a public challenge of the presidential election  where many believed that the last state  election result  released from Florida state, where Jeb Bush was governor, that gave  victory to George W.  Bush, his elder brother was manipulated.  With millions of votes cast and after recounts, only 527 votes was the victory margin for George W. Bush !!!   The dispute then did not erupt into open political warfare because of the self preservative interest of the two contenders  as members of the oligarchy  – Bush, a former governor of Texas and son of a former president  while  senator Al Gore, is a former Vice-President and son of a senator.  That 2000 American presidential election had attracted a Special Election Issue by the widely circulating American magazine,  U.S. News @ World Report  with its NOVEMBER 20, 2000  edition captioned  :  ‘The Ugly Election ‘ with the riders :  The war for votes in Florida; Can either lead a divided nation ?. The 2020 U.S. presidential  election is another  ‘Ugly Election’, that has led to a  divided  America but this time with higher stakes.  Outsider Trump has thrown a  spanner into the oligarchy’s  type of Consensus  of Compromise that characterised  the 2000 election, hence the ugly spectacle playing out in America.

Years Of Upheaval Ahead?

With opponents of impeached President Trump baying for blood and gloatingly dangling jail term  for him, post-White House residency,  but with  Trump and his die-hard supporters digging in and bracing for a showdown, America faces the prospects of a political meltdown, if these dicey political times are not proactively and strategically managed.  A spark is only what is needed to ignite a political incendiary that could burn America.  And that could lead to ‘YEARS OF UPHEAVAL’ ( apology to Dr. Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State).

 

• Olawunmi, is a former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) is a Mass Communication Scholar. Email : olawunmibisi@yahoo.com Phone ( SMS ONLY) 0803 364 7571.