Category: Editorial

Early Wednesday morning, as sleep-deprived supporters rallied for a final cheer, President Obama concluded his re-election campaign with a promising glimpse at what the fight was all about: a second-term agenda that can make real progress on issues neglected in the first.

Without question, the president intends to build on and improve the significant accomplishments of the last four years, particularly the full implementation of health care reform and the use of government policy to keep the economy growing. But the president went beyond that in his victory speech and added some less familiar words to his policy vocabulary.

Children should live in a world that is not burdened by debt or weakened by inequality, he said, but also one “that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.” That suggests he knows he has an opportunity to address climate change with more vigour, going beyond auto-mileage standards and renewable-energy jobs to possibly advocating tougher carbon emissions standards.

The president also said he was looking forward to working with Republicans to fix the immigration system, giving him a chance to do more than promote the Dream Act for young immigrants. He could lead the way to comprehensive reform that combines strong enforcement with a path to citizenship for immigrants already here. He also hinted that combating poverty might move higher on his priority list.

And he spoke of tax reform, an issue that will immediately begin to grow louder with the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts at year’s end. Mr. Obama won re-election on an unambiguous promise not to renew those cuts for incomes of $250,000 or more, and his supporters expect him to stick to that vow. In coming months, after he persuades Congress to keep taxes from rising on the middle class, he should push to restore a fair estate tax and raise the low capital gains rate to the level of ordinary income.

He even mentioned the need to fix a balloting system that left thousands of people standing in long lines to vote this week, a tantalizing hint that electoral reform might become a priority.

All these agenda items require the same ingredient: ending his standoffish attitude toward Congress and working closely with any leader or lawmaker willing to make real progress. That may be easier now that Senate Democrats (and their independent allies) have expanded their majority by two seats to 55, many of them filled with newcomers more liberal and feisty than their predecessors, most notably Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

The new Democratic caucus’s first order of business should be a reform of the filibuster that prevents its routine abuse by Republicans, and the majority leader, Harry Reid, suggested Wednesday that he supported some modest changes. The newcomers, along with the White House, should forcefully advocate that he go as far as possible.

A newly energized Obama administration and Senate could have the effect of isolating the supply-side dead-enders in the House. John Boehner, the House speaker, announced Wednesday that nothing had changed; he and his caucus still oppose higher tax rates for the rich and still want to pursue Mr. Romney’s defeated goal of raising revenue by lowering rates and cutting unspecified loopholes. Standing up to Republican recalcitrance on this and many other issues will require bringing to bear political pressure from the coalition that gave Mr. Obama a commanding victory in the Electoral College on Tuesday.

The president’s victory was decisive, and many who didn’t support him nonetheless told pollsters that they agreed with his positions on taxes, health care and immigration. He now needs to use the power that voters have given to him to enhance and broaden his agenda.

– New York Times

An embattled Obama rebounds at the polls after an uncertain term

After over a year of frenetic campaigns marked at times with vitriolic acrimony, the majesty of the American democratic system shone through on Tuesday. The victory was not as emphatic and glorious as the 2008 election story, but Barack Obama’s win was a testament to a resilient candidacy and the level-headedness of the American people.

All President Obama needed were 270 votes, but he exceeded the mark. He swept the electoral votes in the Midwest, especially in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan. The opponent, Mitt Romney, after some hesitancy, gave a graceful concession speech. He had earlier congratulated President Obama in a phone conversation.

A number of issues emerge out of this election. It was closer than it seemed. Unlike in the 2008 election, President Obama won the popular votes with a slimmer margin, and that was because some of the states he won came with also narrow edges. They include Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Colorado.

It was also an expensive campaign, and regarded as perhaps the most expensive ever, gulping over six billion dollars. The election was a bold statement by the minorities. Romney held the majority of whites, especially the white male. While Obama raked in 39 percent of white votes, Romney lapped up 59 percent. But over 70 percent of Hispanic, black and Asian voters backed President Obama.

Without doubt, President Obama could not have won without white votes, especially women who buoyed his numbers with 55 percent of their population. This demographic is a rebuke to what is perceived of the Republican Party as the party of white men and racism. But with the rising visibility and population of the Hispanics, the so-called Grand Old Party may find itself shrunken to a minority status by a coalition of the minorities, or what some analysts have called the coalition of the ascendant. This includes, of course, the young population, 60 percent of whom voted for the president. This demographic accounted for 19 percent of the vote, up from 18 percent in 2008.

But the most important lesson is the adherence to the grand rules of the game and display of the colourful ritual of democracy. It was beautiful to watch on cable television how Americans lined up for hours, with patience and sense of destiny. There was no reference to the mischief of any election chief. For sure, there were suspicions of mischief in Florida and Ohio, but the candidates had already mobilised lawyers to ensure that any infraction was handled according to law.

Unlike in Nigeria where the gangster logic and the big man prowess supervene, America reminded the world that it is a nation of laws and not of men.

President Obama’s victory comes after a tumultuous term, where the economy was the worst in half a century with every area of the economy haemorrhaging jobs. He bailed out the auto industry, instituted reforms in the financial sector, reformed health care, arrested the housing drift and turned the job profile to a net gain. In spite of these, the recovery only lumbered along as millions of Americans suffered hardships. That made the pundits cavil at President Obama’s attempt to buck the trend: to win an election on a soft economy with high unemployment rate.

But the undercurrent of the election was that it was a revenge of a backlash. Shortly after his 2008 victory, a group of conservatives known as the Tea Party confronted the president and backed an adversarial Republican legislature to frustrate his many moves to save the economy. The movement appealed to the worst of the human spirit, with racial taunts and other forms of insults.

The November 6th vote was to reaffirm the 2008 statement of an inclusive America and, by implication, a world as family. Obama did not invoke that crowd while he was under the siege of bigots. He retreated to himself and failed to engage. He has vowed to rally that crowd that played a major role in his rebound this week. They will back him on his government agenda. He needs to tap that voice in order to inspire America with his own voice, for himself, for America and for the world.

Femi Falana, SAN’s criticism of the senior Bar is good for self-cleansing

The allegation by Femi Falana, SAN, that some senior members of the Bar often collude to subvert justice instead of enthrone it, could be criticised on many fronts, the foremost of which is the lawyer’s creed.

Mr. Falana, the rights activist, was speaking in Lagos at a workshop with the theme, “Promoting Ethics and Integrity in the Courts System and Improving Citizens’ Access to Justice”, put together by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), in conjunction with the Royal Dutch Embassy in Nigeria.

The lawyer’s creed gifts everyone the right to legal representation, no matter how heinous the alleged crime is perceived. The reason is simple. Under the law that Nigeria and most of the civilised world operate, every accused person is presumed innocent until otherwise proven by a court of competent jurisdiction. The presumed innocence, it would appear, is less to encourage crime but more to ensure that whoever is accused has his guilt – or innocence – proved in the open court, so that everyone gets justice: the accused, the injured and the society.

If innocence is presumed, therefore, there cannot be any logical moral grandstanding over a brief a counsel should or should not take. This moral high horse, no matter how desirable for societal sanity, has already given way to access to justice, rigour of proof and equity before the law.

To this extent therefore, Mr. Falana’s trenchant criticism stood on slippery grounds. A senior lawyer that he is, he cannot in all conscience condemn others for doing their professional duties, even if their perceived morality rankles Mr. Falana – as do many.

Still, a lawyer’s total submission to his professional creed does not justify unbridled cynicism, which sets many lawyers on the extreme path of playing pranks to cripple justice, or winning cases at all cost, even if by that justice is openly, cynically and unconscionably subverted. That, if the truth must be told, is sickeningly common here. To the extent that such unscrupulous conducts rubbish the judiciary and run the risk of triggering anarchy, everyone should share Mr. Falana’s concern.

That any lawyer is merrily guilty of such conduct is bad enough. That some senior lawyers, senior advocates of Nigeria, luxuriate in this cynical practice is just intolerable, at least on two fronts.

One: If gold rusts, what would iron do, goes the sharp rebuke by English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer – if senior lawyers treat justice with levity, how would the general society not develop cynicism, the sort that has contempt for the court system, undermines the rule of law and promotes eventual anarchy?

Then two: senior lawyers are role models for the juniors. If they show such professional waywardness, what paths would the future senior lawyers tread: the wide and merry way that leads to perdition?

It is from this crucial prism that Mr. Falana earns praise for his courage, particularly for someone not exactly a golden boy with the establishment; which perhaps explains his long delayed admission into the body of SAN. In a country where privilege is often regarded as a cult of silence, even if things are going irredeemably wrong, Mr. Falana has proved his consistent self as a patriot and social critic.

However, fellow wigs should not see these point-blank criticisms – Mr. Falana named names and cases, in which his observed abhorrent practices took place – as wild disapproval from a gadfly. On the contrary, they should regard it as welcome peer review and criticism. The James Ibori, Siemens, Panalpina scandals, Erastus Akingbola and Halliburton cases that he cited vividly drive the point home.

Everyone in Nigeria’s judicial system must join hands to save the Nigerian judiciary form ridicule. Mr. Falana’s call is as good as any to start the rescue mission. The society can only be better for it.

Despite balking at military intervention, the U.S. is exercising prudence in

There is no appetite among the American people — or on the part of the two men competing for the U.S. presidency in Tuesday’s election — for U.S. military intervention in Syria. That reluctance is sensible. Painful as it is to observe the deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians in the war between President Bashar Assad and insurgents inspired by the Arab Spring, the deployment of U.S. troops or a campaign of airstrikes under the rubric of a no-fly zone would enmesh the United States in an unpredictable conflict with a heavily armed ally of Iran on behalf of a fractious and fragmented rebel army. Even providing weapons to the rebels at this point would entail unacceptable risks that they would flow to Islamic extremists.

Given the unwillingness of the United States to use force to help dislodge Assad, some have suggested that it is therefore pointless for the U.S. to concern itself with shaping a post-Assad Syria. On the contrary, this country and other “friends of Syria” are behaving prudently in trying to identify and nurture an alternative political structure in the event that Assad falls.

Looking forward to this week’s meeting of Syrian opposition figures in Qatar, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last week that the Syrian National Council, a group dominated by longtime exiles, “can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition,” though it could be “part of a larger opposition.”

The United States is especially insistent that a new opposition movement include not just Sunni Muslims but also Christians and members of the Alawite sect to which Assad and many of his officials belong. On Monday, the Syrian National Council expanded its ranks to add representatives from political groups inside the country, but the Obama administration is continuing to press for an entirely new structure. The consequences of a new alignment might not be limited to the shape of a post-Assad government. If it were clear that the alternative to Assad was not a Sunni-run regime that would oppress Alawites, Christians and secularists, Assad could lose support.

Hopes of dislodging Assad quickly died months ago with Russian objections in the United Nations Security Council to a plan under which he would have stepped aside in favor of his vice president. China, which also vetoed resolutions sanctioning Syria, recently expressed interest in a new international initiative for a cease-fire and a dialogue between the Assad regime and the opposition. If that effort also founders, as seems likely, Syria’s conflict will go on. But even if they don’t opt for military intervention, the U.S. and its allies are right to try to influence what happens in Syria during and after the conflict.

• Los Angeles Times

Despite balking at military intervention, the U.S. is exercising prudence in

There is no appetite among the American people — or on the part of the two men competing for the U.S. presidency in Tuesday’s election — for U.S. military intervention in Syria. That reluctance is sensible. Painful as it is to observe the deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians in the war between President Bashar Assad and insurgents inspired by the Arab Spring, the deployment of U.S. troops or a campaign of airstrikes under the rubric of a no-fly zone would enmesh the United States in an unpredictable conflict with a heavily armed ally of Iran on behalf of a fractious and fragmented rebel army. Even providing weapons to the rebels at this point would entail unacceptable risks that they would flow to Islamic extremists.

Given the unwillingness of the United States to use force to help dislodge Assad, some have suggested that it is therefore pointless for the U.S. to concern itself with shaping a post-Assad Syria. On the contrary, this country and other “friends of Syria” are behaving prudently in trying to identify and nurture an alternative political structure in the event that Assad falls.

Looking forward to this week’s meeting of Syrian opposition figures in Qatar, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last week that the Syrian National Council, a group dominated by longtime exiles, “can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition,” though it could be “part of a larger opposition.”

The United States is especially insistent that a new opposition movement include not just Sunni Muslims but also Christians and members of the Alawite sect to which Assad and many of his officials belong. On Monday, the Syrian National Council expanded its ranks to add representatives from political groups inside the country, but the Obama administration is continuing to press for an entirely new structure. The consequences of a new alignment might not be limited to the shape of a post-Assad government. If it were clear that the alternative to Assad was not a Sunni-run regime that would oppress Alawites, Christians and secularists, Assad could lose support.

Hopes of dislodging Assad quickly died months ago with Russian objections in the United Nations Security Council to a plan under which he would have stepped aside in favor of his vice president. China, which also vetoed resolutions sanctioning Syria, recently expressed interest in a new international initiative for a cease-fire and a dialogue between the Assad regime and the opposition. If that effort also founders, as seems likely, Syria’s conflict will go on. But even if they don’t opt for military intervention, the U.S. and its allies are right to try to influence what happens in Syria during and after the conflict.

 Los Angeles Times

Femi Falana, SAN’s criticism of the senior Bar is good for self-cleansing

The allegation by Femi Falana, SAN, that some senior members of the Bar often collude to subvert justice instead of enthrone it, could be criticised on many fronts, the foremost of which is the lawyer’s creed.

Mr. Falana, the rights activist, was speaking in Lagos at a workshop with the theme, “Promoting Ethics and Integrity in the Courts System and Improving Citizens’ Access to Justice”, put together by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), in conjunction with the Royal Dutch Embassy in Nigeria.

The lawyer’s creed gifts everyone the right to legal representation, no matter how heinous the alleged crime is perceived. The reason is simple. Under the law that Nigeria and most of the civilised world operate, every accused person is presumed innocent until otherwise proven by a court of competent jurisdiction. The presumed innocence, it would appear, is less to encourage crime but more to ensure that whoever is accused has his guilt – or innocence – proved in the open court, so that everyone gets justice: the accused, the injured and the society.

If innocence is presumed, therefore, there cannot be any logical moral grandstanding over a brief a counsel should or should not take. This moral high horse, no matter how desirable for societal sanity, has already given way to access to justice, rigour of proof and equity before the law.

To this extent therefore, Mr. Falana’s trenchant criticism stood on slippery grounds. A senior lawyer that he is, he cannot in all conscience condemn others for doing their professional duties, even if their perceived morality rankles Mr. Falana – as do many.

Still, a lawyer’s total submission to his professional creed does not justify unbridled cynicism, which sets many lawyers on the extreme path of playing pranks to cripple justice, or winning cases at all cost, even if by that justice is openly, cynically and unconscionably subverted. That, if the truth must be told, is sickeningly common here. To the extent that such unscrupulous conducts rubbish the judiciary and run the risk of triggering anarchy, everyone should share Mr. Falana’s concern.

That any lawyer is merrily guilty of such conduct is bad enough. That some senior lawyers, senior advocates of Nigeria, luxuriate in this cynical practice is just intolerable, at least on two fronts.

One: If gold rusts, what would iron do, goes the sharp rebuke by English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer – if senior lawyers treat justice with levity, how would the general society not develop cynicism, the sort that has contempt for the court system, undermines the rule of law and promotes eventual anarchy?

Then two: senior lawyers are role models for the juniors. If they show such professional waywardness, what paths would the future senior lawyers tread: the wide and merry way that leads to perdition?

It is from this crucial prism that Mr. Falana earns praise for his courage, particularly for someone not exactly a golden boy with the establishment; which perhaps explains his long delayed admission into the body of SAN. In a country where privilege is often regarded as a cult of silence, even if things are going irredeemably wrong, Mr. Falana has proved his consistent self as a patriot and social critic.

However, fellow wigs should not see these point-blank criticisms – Mr. Falana named names and cases, in which his observed abhorrent practices took place – as wild disapproval from a gadfly. On the contrary, they should regard it as welcome peer review and criticism. The James Ibori, Siemens, Panalpina scandals, Erastus Akingbola and Halliburton cases that he cited vividly drive the point home.

Everyone in Nigeria’s judicial system must join hands to save the Nigerian judiciary form ridicule. Mr. Falana’s call is as good as any to start the rescue mission. The society can only be better for it.

On Friday Oct 19, Prof Bayo Olumide left us for eternity. He was 75. We almost saw, as he “walked away”, his mortal dignified bearing. And at the minute of his final departure into eternity, we saw him struggling to bid us farewell with his rich, sonorous but deliberately baritone voice. Yes, the Vice-President of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Society has left; yes, the President of the Pan African Association of Neurosurgical Society has departed; and yes, our No 2 Nigeria’s Neurosurgeon in terms of professional seniority has now moved on to victory. We remain enthused by his world-class competency in his area of calling. That was a Gentleman who bestrode the various operating theatres doing what he knew best: saving life from the most delicate area-THE BRAIN.

And that he did most efficiently and gracefully for about 40 years Consultant Neurosurgeon. For each operation, he moved prayerfully into the theatre with his blessed hands; at the end of each miracle God wrought him, he came out of each theatre with more blessed hands! When shall we see the hands again? They are not gone. The hands have been duly replicated through his professional mentees in some parts of the World.

Achievement, Passion & Fulfillment: A synthesis

Talking directly about Prof Olumide’s ACHIEVEMENT is one thing we will not do. This is because achievements by themselves are not enduring. With time, every achievement of man is surpassed; the owner of each original achievement gets forgotten. What endures is FULFILLMENT. And each fulfillment is embodied in one’s respective passion. What we will therefore be talking about are some of Prof Olumide’s PASSION when he was alive. But before we review that phenomenon specifically, we will have a flash back on parts of his background and see the extent to which his background has enabled the various passion being brought to the front burner hereafter.

His Enabling Background

On both paternal and maternal side, he was born into enviable ancestry. He was a scion of Kemta, a division of Egba Kingdom. His great grandfather, Josiah, the second Balogun of Egba Christians, served as Minister for Sanitation and Public Health, (1898), in the Egba Council of State headed by His Royal Majesty, Oba Osokalu, the Alake of Egba Kingdom. His grandfather, Rev J.J Olumide, was the Secretary of the Egba Anglican Diocese. His father, Gabriel, was a Manager in the British G.B Ollivant Company in the mid-colonial era. We should add here that his maternal grandmother, Eyimetse, was a Princess of the Royal House of Ode, a division of the Itshekiri in Warri. Bayo’s marriage to Ronke achieved nobility blend. Ronke’s mother was from a respectable Calabar royal lineage. Her father equally had illustrious ancestry of Itebu-Manuwa. What remains unique about her father, Sir Samuel Manuwa, is his yet to be surpassed attainment as Consultant Surgeon, Consultant Physician and Medical Services Administrator. In the Colonial Legislative Assembly, Sir Samuel Manuwa was the Inspector-General of Health.

Prof Olumide was in Igbobi College, Lagos, for his secondary school education between 1953 and 1957. He was an all-round student with natural bias and flair for biological sciences. And from Igbobi, his prodigy began to unfold. His record in character, learning and the extracurricular attainment remain a bench-mark. He naturally ended-up as Senior Prefect in his era and with Grade 1 School Certificate in the bargain. But I must indicate here what still worries me personally as past President of Kings College Old Boys Association. I still wonder how Prof Olumide “missed” King’s College for his secondary school education. I feel consoled that he made up for the “miss” with the final “polish” he had in King’s College when he ended up there for his Higher School Certificate programme. But since Prof Olumide is no longer in a position to “hit” me back, I shall refrain from further banters which those of us who attended first grade secondary schools in Lagos, Ibadan and Edo are used to.

In any case, what we must note about our prodigy is the fact that even the boys who were his King’s College HSC Class mates, and who started their career in the College as Form 1 Students, did not find him an easy nut to touch, let alone to crack! He still held sway in academics and athletes. Also like K.C boys, his character was intact. In cricket, he became a threat to the K.C original bowlers, wicket-keepers and batsmen. And no wonder he ended up being in the Nigerian Cricket Team between 1963 and 1969 when he had already become a Senior Registrar.

We indeed celebrate this amiable K.C Boy who remained committed to our Association until his demise. And no need to go into the details of his excellent finish of his basic medical programme at U.I. He completed his Neurosurgical Fellowship programme at Edinburgh within two years. Becoming a professor in his chosen specialty by 1983 was expected. But as I said earlier, we are not concerned in this recall of his laurels within the concept of Achievement. We are rather concerned in this recall of his laurels within the concept of achievement. We are rather concerned now with fulfillment phenomenon within the framework of the various goals he set for himself. Fulfillment is the enduring issue. Each of his fulfillment area is embodied eternally in each of his passion when he was alive. We extol the passion now as benchmark for generations to come.

His passion For Culture & Value

The only language Bayo spoke was INTEGRITY. When he had tremendous stress as to how to retrieve his family home under the hammer of the mortgage, he left Nigeria’s shores for more remuneration with his dutiful wife and children bearing the psychological pain of living apart from him temporarily. He rejected the temptation of diverting Teaching Hospital patients to a private Surgery. Bayo was a GENTLEMAN. He was not only on avid Cricket Player, his life was “Cricket”. His humility and respect for all belie his background. He believed in human dignity and he reflected it. To him, all patients are basically human beings. He saw the accident of his being born into comfort as an opportunity to make any human being comfortable – he was blind in terms of class stratification or discrimination on whatever basis. He spent hours on-end in the theater on ANY patient who came under his blessed hands. Dola and I visited him and Ronke at home a fortnight before he passed on. When I coincidentally raised the value issue during our visiting tete-a-tete, he made some prophetic statements. Bottom line, he was still firm on his principles. He was neither fake nor artificial nor condescending in relationship, his overall attainment notwithstanding.

His Passion for God

These days, difficulty in defining who a Christian is increases by the second. Claim to being born-again and being filled with “holy spirit and anointing” has become the vogue. The closer one’s pew is to the Church Pastor and the louder one responds to the Pastor’s “Hallelujah” call, the more such a person presumes he has achieved nearness to God. The Egbas had the grace of earliest Christianity conversion. Knowledge of the true God by Bayo’s four earlier generations followed suit. And he naturally bequeathed commitment to Christ’s sovereignty to his nuclear family. He worshipped CHRIST uncompromisingly and in solemnity. Bayo demonstrated faith in CHRIST through spirituality and work. He departed a FULFILLED Man of God.

May he rest in perfect peace

An embattled Obama rebounds at the polls after an uncertain term

After over a year of frenetic campaigns marked at times with vitriolic acrimony, the majesty of the American democratic system shone through on Tuesday. The victory was not as emphatic and glorious as the 2008 election story, but Barack Obama’s win was a testament to a resilient candidacy and the level-headedness of the American people.

All President Obama needed were 270 votes, but he exceeded the mark. He swept the electoral votes in the Midwest, especially in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan. The opponent, Mitt Romney, after some hesitancy, gave a graceful concession speech. He had earlier congratulated President Obama in a phone conversation.

A number of issues emerge out of this election. It was closer than it seemed. Unlike in the 2008 election, President Obama won the popular votes with a slimmer margin, and that was because some of the states he won came with also narrow edges. They include Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Colorado.

It was also an expensive campaign, and regarded as perhaps the most expensive ever, gulping over six billion dollars. The election was a bold statement by the minorities. Romney held the majority of whites, especially the white male. While Obama raked in 39 percent of white votes, Romney lapped up 59 percent. But over 70 percent of Hispanic, black and Asian voters backed President Obama.

Without doubt, President Obama could not have won without white votes, especially women who buoyed his numbers with 55 percent of their population. This demographic is a rebuke to what is perceived of the Republican Party as the party of white men and racism. But with the rising visibility and population of the Hispanics, the so-called Grand Old Party may find itself shrunken to a minority status by a coalition of the minorities, or what some analysts have called the coalition of the ascendant. This includes, of course, the young population, 60 percent of whom voted for the president. This demographic accounted for 19 percent of the vote, up from 18 percent in 2008.

But the most important lesson is the adherence to the grand rules of the game and display of the colourful ritual of democracy. It was beautiful to watch on cable television how Americans lined up for hours, with patience and sense of destiny. There was no reference to the mischief of any election chief. For sure, there were suspicions of mischief in Florida and Ohio, but the candidates had already mobilised lawyers to ensure that any infraction was handled according to law.

Unlike in Nigeria where the gangster logic and the big man prowess supervene, America reminded the world that it is a nation of laws and not of men.

President Obama’s victory comes after a tumultuous term, where the economy was the worst in half a century with every area of the economy haemorrhaging jobs. He bailed out the auto industry, instituted reforms in the financial sector, reformed health care, arrested the housing drift and turned the job profile to a net gain. In spite of these, the recovery only lumbered along as millions of Americans suffered hardships. That made the pundits cavil at President Obama’s attempt to buck the trend: to win an election on a soft economy with high unemployment rate.

But the undercurrent of the election was that it was a revenge of a backlash. Shortly after his 2008 victory, a group of conservatives known as the Tea Party confronted the president and backed an adversarial Republican legislature to frustrate his many moves to save the economy. The movement appealed to the worst of the human spirit, with racial taunts and other forms of insults.

The November 6th vote was to reaffirm the 2008 statement of an inclusive America and, by implication, a world as family. Obama did not invoke that crowd while he was under the siege of bigots. He retreated to himself and failed to engage. He has vowed to rally that crowd that played a major role in his rebound this week. They will back him on his government agenda. He needs to tap that voice in order to inspire America with his own voice, for himself, for America and for the world.