The Nation Newspaper

Tag: anomie

  • Season of anomie

    There is a paralysing feeling of despondency due to the suffocating economic and socio-political milieu across the country which has almost stripped us of our human essence.  All over the land, it has not been tales of aplomb for lofty things and achievements but rather tales of mind boggling malfeasance, crime and violence.  The whole world tends to look at us as poor specimen of human species especially when we rise up in arms in defence of the immorality and infamy of highly placed individuals in the society.  Everything in our clime appears to be in higgledy-piggledy topsy-turvy.  What has truly held and kept us afloat together as a nation has been the legendary good luck that at every twist and turn comes as a totem and a magic wand to stabilize the ship of state.

    What is trending now is corruption in high places which has always cast dark spectre on our survival as a nation from the very beginning, just as Nigerians throw dice to determine whether the fight against corruption is selective or vindictive, being targeted against perceived political foes. We seem to have lost our minds and sanity, reacting to serious issues that have kept our nation perpetually underdeveloped with our appetite rather than our heads and reason.   While footages coming from every part of Nigeria show a relapse into a medieval barbarism and anarchism, we watch in perplexity as the scale of justice and the rule of law sit on its head.  Most shameful is to watch the gladiators in hitherto exalted and reputable organizations employ all manners of schism in desperate protection of crooks who have desecrated their oath of office.

    It is clearly symptomatic of pirates and buccaneers having taken over the reign of power in this country like a ravaging locust and are holding the nation by the jugular.  We are in agreement that corruption is tearing the nation apart; political and economic corruption. What is indeed worrisome is the desperation to deploy the apparatuses of the state to shield individuals that are alleged of criminal infractions and malfeasance.  Legal philosophers have held that there should be equality before the law, and concluded that the king is not above the law because it is the law that makes him king.  Those who dispense justice are next to God because they wield the power of life and death and should therefore be above all appearances of impropriety.

    It is recorded in the Holy Bible, in the Book of 2nd Chronicles where God admonished Judges, “Take heed to what you are doing for you do not judge for man but for the Lord, who is with you in judgment. Now therefore, let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take care and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, no partiality, nor taking of bribes”.   Again, in the Book of 1st Samuel, God punished Eli and his family because his sons were taking bribe and perverting justice.  God Himself would not pardon a bribe taker and those who pervert justice. As the saying goes, those who live in glass house should not throw stone.

    Justice Oputa of blessed memory once observed  that, “In Rome, it is the legion that made the law legal but here in Nigeria and a democracy, it is effective adjudication, efficient judicial enforcement that makes the law legal”.  I am a stickler to the rule of law but the letters of the law are not absolute and immutable.  I am aware and it is a common knowledge that every citizen of Nigeria can exercise the power of arrest where the person is at the point of committing an offence; the person does not have to be a Jew and a Gentile before he can do that.  It is balderdash to argue that it is only the Nigerian Police, or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission that is empowered to arrest corrupt people in their official capacity when there is evidence of the loot is in a known place.

    We may pretend otherwise but the truth as it stands today is that the image and reputation of the Nigerian Police is a whitewash. The failure of the Nigerian Police is partly responsible for the establishment of other agencies whose duties appear to overlap with that of the police like the Nigerian Road Safety Corps, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and these agencies today enjoy confidence of the populace more than the Police.

    What is even more troubling is the fact that we appropriate and personalize public offices.  An individual official is not the same as the state or institution that he presides or represents; Nigeria is not France where Napoleon would be equated with the state. Therefore, the National Assembly is wrong to say that the investigation and trial of some of its presiding officials is the trial of the National Assembly.  In the same vein, the arrest of some judges and Justices of the Supreme Court over suspicion of corruption is certainly not an attack on the judiciary.  We may extend the argument and equally draw the same conclusion that the arrest and arraignment of some members of the Armed Forces both serving and retired like Air Marshal  Alex Badeh and some service chiefs recently and serving Generals is an attack on the Armed forces, which I do not share.

    The histrionics of some elements in the NBA and the Judiciary is a wrong message that there are two measures of justice: justice for the ordinary citizens and justice for the elites or justice for the poor and justice for the rich.   It is obvious that this is the only government in this country that has the liver to come headlong with the  power cabals and syndicates behind the heist and corruption in this country that were hitherto untouchable. The man on the street should be wary of the antics of these individuals and groups that speak vociferously as if truly they are defending the rule of law and justice whereas they are just fighting to ensure that one of their own does not sink or go down. They are not fighting for the masses and they are certainly not fighting to revamp the image of our dear nation that has been raped and battered to a state of unconsciousness.  When these elites are losing their heads, when they engage in the wrong fight and struggle, we should not lose our minds but stand on the right side of history in this season of anomie.

    We have seen that the quality of representation in the National Assembly is poor and puerile. If not, why would it be a priority to start a process of amending the Act of the Code of Conduct Tribunal in order to whittle down its power or that of the President of the Tribunal  the moment the Senate President was arraigned?  Now the National Assembly is excited and in a jubilant mood to amend the Act of the Directorate of State Services (DSS) to clip its wings as they claim because they arrested some judicial officials.  Just the same way there is something uncanny about the current NBA chairman’s call at his inaugural speech in Port Harcourt for the amendment of the Act to take away the prosecutorial powers of the EFCC.  Now the same NBA chairman is calling for a State of Emergency in the judiciary; and I ask myself, over what?

    It is rascality in the extreme and infantile for a sitting governor to turn himself into a scout at midnight to ‘rescue’ a judge when law enforcement agents are carrying out their legitimate duties whereas the same governor cannot come out to rescue ordinary citizens caught in the fight between the ubiquitous cult groups that have turned life into nightmare in the state.  In the democracies that we ape, like the United States of America and Britain, no governor would interfere with activities of federal agencies carrying out their duties irrespective of the status of the person involved.  Nigerians should stop venerating thugs and hooligans as national leaders.

     

    • Kebonkwu Esq writes from Abuja.
  • Season of anomie

    Season of anomie

    There is a creeping contest in the land.  Whoever howls most, about the nation’s present woes, appears sure of some Nobel Prize in mass melancholy!

    But isn’t Tiger Woe — whose devastating spring pushes pan-Nigerian wailing to a crescendo — obvious and gut-tearing enough?

    Must folks fall over themselves to screech its cruel “tigeritude”, in the very words of our own WS, the very tiger of progressive populism himself?

    O, you must have noticed!  This headline is straight from the mouth of our esteemed Nobel Laureate, the title of the second of his two novels, the first being The Interpreters.

    In Season of Anomy (1973), Wole Soyinka painted the anomie of military rule, and the parasitic (un)civil class that, with the soldiers, conspired to rape and plunder their country.

    Why, at that nadir, Anomy even creatively foretold the Sani Abacha horror, at the tail-end of military misrule.

    Any citizen that stood against that stark dictator was doomed to slaughter!  That was the fictional Zaki Amuri, in Anomy, feudal lord of Cross-River!

    Between Abacha and Amuri, can you spot a difference — or, for that matter, between feudalism and military rule in Nigeria?

    But all those latter-day ruin had their roots in early-day politics-driven anarchy of 1st Republic Western Nigeria.

    Back then, the vote-heisting Demo (formally named: Nigerian National Democratic Party, NNDP), of Samuel Ladoke Akintola and Remi Fani-Kayode, gloried in brazen political turpitude.

    The ruling Northern People’s Congress, NPC’s decision to condone Demo’s electoral rascality, for short-term political gain, sparked the first coup d’état.

    From WS, more facts on that troubling period of Nigerian history would come with autobiographical memoirs: Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years, and later, You Must Set Forth At Dawn.

    That then, was the rotten foundation of the present mess.

    Of course, the military’s wasted years — that useless god that left its votaries much worse than it met them — worsened the situation.

    Add Olusegun Obasanjo’s empty but doomed swagger, in the first crucial eight years of this republic.  Add too, Goodluck Jonathan’s near-undertaking business, in the last six years of the ancien regime.

    Now, even factor in the notorious Nigerian amnesia, natural or wilful, when the subject is institutional memory.  But could anybody have forgotten, so soon, the havoc of the swamp criminals, euphemistically called militants — walking their talk to sabotage and ground the economy, by bombing oil installations?

    All these would appear doom — wilful doom — foretold!  Yet, for this countrywide wailing orchestra, sweet din blissfully swallows any foreground history of reason.

    Their grouse? That  Muhammadu Buhari, struggling with his braves to fix the millennial mess, has no magic fixes!

    Still, this anomie is especially devastating because the pocket hurts; and the stomach rumbles.  You don’t reason with the hungry, do you?

    Even then, it is tanking to corrode the basic norms, fast becoming value-neuter:  the problem solvers are the new devils; while those that led us to perdition are newly consecrated saints, in a new national cathedral of unrestrained grief and explosive passion!

    That, by the way, cuts through the sectors: ecclesiastical, political and even the media, now wearing plebeianism, as some unfazed badge of honour!

    From the ecclesiastical front, the goodly Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, retired Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, warns: Buhari, Nigerians are hungry, in much the same snappy voice as Oby Esekwezili and her BBOG crusaders, virtually holding a gun to the President’s head to, willy-nilly, produce the Chibok girls, or else!

    Yet, beyond cheap populism, that inflames passion sans solving any problem, His Lordship owes the Catholic faithful that dot on his very words, the moral duty of preaching understanding in these delicate and perilous times.

    The intervention, from the political front, would appear even worse, with the immaculate Shehu Sani, senator of the Federal Republic from the ruling APC, playing the ostrich; declaring all would have perished before Buhari finished his reforms!  Pray, should the president then fold his arms — and join the lamentation gang?

    Yet, this senator is part and parcel of Bukola Saraki’s National Assembly, legislative children of perdition, that have shown little affinity with — or sensitivity to — the pains in the land.

    On the other side of the aisle, the doomed PDP grandstands over the magical clearing of the debacle its 16 years of ruins piled up.  And to underscore this audacity, Her Audaciousness, Dame Patience Jonathan, just laid claim to some US $31 million in frozen cash deposits!

    Need we forget — her husband, President Goodluck Jonathan, practically sold the last national family silver to feed the crave of the criminal ring, clamped round him in power?

    But perhaps the most asinine intervention, so far, has got to come from the media.  A columnist, of some repute, put the rhetorical question: Buhari, the worst president ever?  That was enough signal for his votaries of hate and bigotry to do their thing, eye-blazing and mouth-foaming!

    Another reduced the new “Change Starts with me” campaign to a personal tussle between the column — if not the columnist — and a minister, in a column codification of the market-folks’ whims and caprices!

    Want to feel the scandalous lack of empathy with whatever the Buhari government is doing to fix the problems?  Just pick up the papers, with their sensational headlines, and hysterical columns!

    The issue, mark you, is neither the democratic right to report; nor the people’s right to know.  It is rather  the Fourth Estate’s lack of emotional intelligence to push empathy, even while at its critical duty, in times of extreme national angst, as now.

    So, the Nigerian media, after 157 years of practice, cannot still summon that?  Shame!

    This media resort to culpable hysteria may well become veritable embarrassment, when these hard times are gone and done with!

    Predictably, like a people blinded by too much of their own tears, the whimpering party can’t even see the early lights, now piercing the dank clouds.

    In the North East, a joyful company drummed through the streets, announcing its homecoming, after years of Boko Haram sack.  But to the howling, cynical assembly, “nothing is happening”!

    Progressively, if creeping, power is getting better, with many neighbourhoods in Lagos, reporting no less than 15 hours a day.  Even then, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, former high-flying Lagos governor, remains their “minister of darkness”!

    On the food front, there are already talks about Kebbi rice, Anambra rice, Ebonyi rice, Dangote rice, etc, which, when they fully hit the market, may force prices down from N20, 000 a bag to N8, 000 — or even less!

    But the moral here is not even the putative tumbling of rice prices, to tame the rumbling tummy.  It is weaning Nigerians from that grand folly  — that their palate is just too delicate for local rice!  That is the mind-restructuring only temporary adversity can force down.

    To be sure, the Buhari government still has a lot to do, if it must deliver on its promise.  But given this dire historical juncture, the people should acknowledge little gains, while awaiting the big ones.

    That would be far better than the present distracting bedlam.

  • Anomie all the way

    Anomie all the way

    Suddenly, the ‘prophets’ are quiet. I mean the experts, the economists and our latter day‘manufacturers’ who yesterday predicated a stable reign of the national currency after its floatation. Well, the naira may havedone well – far beyond their expectations. By Monday, it exchanged for N292 to the United States dollar officially. And if you are unlucky to do any purchase abroad with your ATM, you’ll need fork out N366 to purchase a one dollar bill. My charge studying in Canada actually confirmed purchasing the Canadian dollar last week at the rate of N258.1 via ATM. By the way, the CAD officially sold at N218. On enquiry from the bank, she was told that foreign ATM transactions were precluded from official forex transactions. In other words, the black market rules on all ATM transactions outside our shores!

    Sure, we know that the black market rules in more areas that the regulators will care to admit – no thanks to the nation’s irresponsible elite and the financial system operators. The former, lacking any scruples, would readily sell the nation for a morsel of bread; and the latter, with neither the sense to understand the niceties of rules nor the ethical foundation to mind them would do anything for money. In the interplay between the two is a vast jungle defining our marketplace.

    Of course, if we go by the prediction of experts as reported by Punch newspapers, your naira, the symbol of the nation’s strength in the market place is in for a terrible time ahead with some predicting that it might even hit N350 to the dollar at the interbank window. That should not be hard to understand (never mind Godwin Emefiele, the nation’s number one banker’s projection ofN250).While very negligible production is going on, far much less is going on in terms of local value addition to primary products.The result? We earn less and less of forex to spend more and more on imported manufacture!

    Still want to know where the naira is headed? Short answer is – nowhere! Check it out; rather than the being forced out of existence, the black market – the so-called parallel market is on the ascent and so is the incentive for arbitrage. At the subsisting differentials of N65 to N70 between the interbank and parallel market rates, it would take more than a vow of poverty to resist the temptation to round-trip.

    Truth is – had the economy’s minders spent as much time on how to get the economy on its feet as they have done on figuring out the arithmetic of sharing the shrinking piggy bank, we would probably be well on the way to developing the concrete policies to get some our critical industries revving back to life and to boost our forex stock.

    Not that anyone is complaining at the moment though. Not our dot.com analysts – the friends of the foreign merchants for whom tight forex regulations had come to spell trouble. Not our manufacturers, who, hung on forex, need the cover of machineries and raw materials to ship our increasingly scarce capital abroad. Now, everyone can have their heart’s content of the forex they are not earning under the liberalized forex regime. For now, matters of affordability or even the crushing illiquidity will have to tarry a while. The same for the foreign carriers; time to cart their $500 million ticket remittances – and more –home.

    You ask where this leads? Where else but the warm embrace of the very Breton Woods institutions and their toxic brew of policy support instruments – the potion that Nigerians have come to loathe? Does anyone see how nearer we are to the 1980s than anyone would care to imagine?

     

    Court vs. NERC: Play of the giants?

     

    Last week, a Federal High Court in Lagos ruled against the bid by the National Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) and electricity distribution companies to increase electricity tariff. A Lagos-based lawyer, Toluwani Adebiyi, had following announcement of a new tariff regime, approached the court to stop the hike until there had been a meaningful and significant improvement in power supply to at least 18 hours in a day in most Nigerian communities.

    Of interest is the finding of the court.

    In the opinion ofJustice Mohammed Idris,”The upward increment in tariff was hasty and procedurally ultra vires. The review was done in a breach of existing order. This again was hasty, reckless and irresponsible”.

    The erudite justice went on: “The court has the inherent jurisdiction to undo what has been done by a party in self-help.The increment in tariff by the 1st defendant, while parties were before the court and there was a subsisting order for status quo, is hereby declared illegal. The 1st defendant is hereby directed to reverse to status quo. The 1st defendant is further restrained from increasing the electricity tariff except in strict compliance of the provisions EPSRA and the procedures stipulated in section 76 of the EPSRA”.

    By the ruling, the judge may have preserved the sanctity of his orders; the issue is whether public policy will be served either now or in the long term.

    Agreed, issues of tariff determination have never been anything but a dangerous territory. Understandably, it is one area where Nigerians would rather have their passions, rather than cold economics, rule. This is even more so in a sector whose key players have neither lived up to their billings as responsible service providers nor appear persuaded of the need to play fair. We are talking of an environment where the regulator not only prefers to play the ostrich but would readily pander to the dictates of the players.For the Nigerian consumer, it is a Catch-22 situation.

    Yet, the ruling, no doubt populist, has merely complicated if not compounded, what is already a bad situation. Such weighty pronouncement on the basis of nebulous procedural technicalities without minding the grave risk the order could cause the sector? Will the court also direct that other elements in the cost chain be kept on hold until the final determination of the court?

    These are interesting times.

  • Anomie and rape in varsities

    SIR: From a part-time lecturer at the University of Lagos to professor of Law at the University of Calabar, the sad involvement of intellectuals in moral debauchery of sex exploitation of female students has further confirmed the slip of the Nigerian society into moral anomie. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the university symbolizes structure of moral purity. The university is a architecture designed for the pursuit of intellectual growth of society and ought to be divorced from the everyday concerns. But as universities become encircled by communities, and as a collectivity of human beings; we cannot but find the saint and the sinner cohabiting. Rape is a subset of sexual assault which is gaining ground due to our docile and sentimental nature which downplays the inhumanity of some of us against the vulnerable. Rape in our ‘knowledge factories’, like the other reported cases outside the walls of universities indicate the erosion of trust in our society. While the UNILAG case indicated abuse of trust, the UNICAL involved abuse of office, threat and capitalization on the vulnerability of the student.

    Nigeria is not yet in the league of top 20 countries in the world where rape is more deadly but if we are not careful and enforce the necessary laws, it will get out of hand. The social networks of randy lecturers are strong that it sometimes frustrates any efforts at reporting. Why rape students? Sociologically, it is rational action because the benefit outweighs the cost as it is in Nigeria. Rapist lecturers operate like other typical offenders based on power, anger and sexuality. The compromised lecturers operate from the position of strength of their power as having the ability to determine who will be found worthy to graduate. Thus they feel insulted if their subtle request is rejected by the ladies. They set up obstacles such as test, examinations and openly insult and harass their victims all with the aim of having their way. Rather than taking money, having sex with the student becomes a weapon of perpetual domination and a victory of masculinity. To them, having their way is their ‘victory’ over a disrespectful student. Rape is therefore symptomatic of patriarchal societies like Nigeria. Lecturers who rape students have emphatic or social skill deficits and may justify their behaviours on the basis of cognitive distortions.

    The way forward is having a supportive judiciary in attending to rape cases and their punishment if the case ever gets to that stage. If a rape case appears before a male judge, he is more likely to make a mess of it. The female judge feels affected and likely to dispense off the case with justice. Universities should have dress codes to check nudity and appropriately sanction infractions. A rapist lecturer should face a degradation ceremony; a shaming parade within the university. Such a lecturer, after prima facie has been established, must be taken across campus and his picture published in the university calendar. Universities must also be fined if a case of rape is established within their confines. Doing this will make institutions enforce high moral standard among the workforce. Universities must have a unit to investigate gender and sexual harassment as is being done at the University of Ibadan under the Gender Mainstreaming office. This unit must be made to function and lecturers found culpable must be disciplined within the stipulated laws. Rape comes under offences against morality in the criminal code and we must arrest it as we cannot allow this moral anomie to continue.

     

    • Dr Oludayo Tade,

    Department of Sociology,

    University of Ibadan.

     

  • Awaiting the season of anomie

    What Nigeria has remained a theatre for circus governance is not in doubt. That in the execution of the Nigerian project Ndigbo have borne the burden of hubris is also not in doubt. That at critical points in our history, Ndigbo have been violently stabbed in the back by people they thought were their partners. At each point, Ndigbo have been betrayed and subjected to ridicule and very often cast in the role of a felon.

    In the course of time I have had intimate discussions with people like Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe at the Chancery of the Eastern Mandate Union before their deaths concerning their experiences in Nigeria and what nature of conspiracy has bogged Ndigbo in Nigeria before, during and after independence. In the run-in to the Nigerian civil war, for example, so many conspiracies took place against Ndigbo even by certain individuals who held closed-doors with some of our leaders that time. For instance, Ojukwu narrated to me what he and other Igbo leaders agreed with certain leaders from western Nigeria on what to do on getting to Lagos. Somehow these agreements were reneged on the altar of political expediency. Ndigbo were traded off by the same people who ate, planned and dinned with us. Outside Igboland, I have also discussed extensively with people like M.D Yusuf, Chief Edwin Ogbu and Kam Salem.  My sources confirmed that what Ojukwu told me about massive betrayal of the Igbos was true; that agreements were reached which were latter breached on the altar of political expediency. These are hard facts which will be found in my forthcoming memoirs.

    Apart from the choreographed genocidal pogrom against the Igbo especially in the North, the Gowon regime, which prosecuted the civil war, saw starvation as a weapon of war. The federal government adopted this policy of starvation and pursued it with devotion leading to death of thousands of Igbo children.

    At the end of the war, the federal government gave out the paltry sum of twenty pounds (£20) to all Igbos who had accounts in banks, i.e. irrespective of the amount that person had in his or her account.

    As if that was not enough, the federal government, at that time, formulated and implemented the Indigenization Decree – a decree that effectively shut out the Igbo from the commanding heights of the economy. This unwritten policy of “identify and cut the Igbo to size” has continued even unto this day. No energy is spared in cutting Igbo to size when the chance arises. The end point of all this has always been to destroy the Igbo economy.

    Take the case of former Alpha Merchant Bank, for example. This was a Merchant bank that was doing exceptionally well at that time. It was owned by the late Eke Kalu with a Yoruba man, Jimi Lawal as the Managing Director. At that time, news came that some French businessmen who were substantial shareholders in Afribank wanted to divest their interests in the bank. Eke Kalu, the owner of Alpha Merchant Bank declared their interest to acquire the shares from the Frenchmen.

    Consequently, Eke Kalu went to Cote d’lvoire to negotiate the deal with the French share owners. Eke Kalu was told that he would pay ten million pounds for the shares. Determined to raise the required capital, Kalu travelled to London where he floated Alpha Securities Ltd, through which he was able to raise the required amount.

    By the time he came back with the funds, the French partners had sold the shares to Mandarin Bank of Zambia. Not ready to lose such opportunity, Kalu headed to France to further discuss with the French share owners. The Frenchmen expressed regrets that they had sold it to the Zambian bank noting that there was nothing they could do. The French men however encouraged Eke to talk to Mandarin Bank and add perhaps another one million pounds to them; and they could possible do business. This condition was accepted and Eke travelled to Lusaka and struck the deal. The money was paid to Afribank.

    But, you will recall that this was a period when the Abacha junta was trying to ingratiate itself into the psyche of Nigerians by parroting “war against corruption” and descending on banks. Incidentally, those running the Afribank at that time, especially a very highly placed management staff from the North alerted Abacha that an Igboman was at the verge of acquiring Afribank. Abacha was nonplussed.

    Just as this information was coming in, the ex-CBN governor, Paul Ogwuma was leaving Abacha’s office with an instruction to liquidate the Bank belonging to one Alhaji Bello. As the information of the impending acquisition of Afribank reached Abacha, he called Paul Ogwuma and ordered him to liquidate Alpha Merchant instead and leave Alhaji Bello’s bank.

    The papers for liquidation were duly filed before Justice Ukeje’s tribunal who declined the request to liquidate Alpha Merchant Bank insisting that the Bank was healthy. Angry at her refusal, Abacha removed and reposted her to the ministry and appointed a more pliable judge to execute his programme. Most Nigerians at that time did not see this as a pervasion and travesty of justice. They were encouraging Abacha to go ahead with what he was doing. Abacha only had to accuse a bank of being involved in one misconduct or the other; whether it is true or false, for him to take the bank out of business. The political class at that time kept urging Abacha to set up tribunals to try those accused of corruption.

    Now the same old politicians have come again calling on Buhari to set up tribunals to try so-called corrupt politicians. Tribunal is antithetic to democracy. It is an ad hoc judicial structure set up by dictators to do their special bidding. Setting up tribunals to try corrupt people in Nigeria is absurd. The courts are there, why circumvent them? I have had my own experiences with tribunals. If I had been tried by a tribunal in 1982 in the sedition suit instituted against me by Chief Jim Nwobodo, I would not have been free today. Even where the lower court had compromised its integrity and pronounced me guilty, the Appeal Court overturned that nebulous judgment and set me free in what has become a locus classicus in sedition cases in Nigeria. If the tribunal had tried me under Abacha I would have been rotting away in jail by now. It was the High Court in Enugu that set me free before I took the matter to the United States.

    Today, the same people are shouting all over the place asking Buhari to set up special tribunals for corruption trials; to jail people without trial. Is this a democracy or what? Buhari is not a stranger to tribunals. In 1983 he empanelled over ten tribunals to try politicians and even when the tribunals found men like Ekwueme, Pa Ajasin etc., not guilty, he still remanded them in prison custody. Today, he still thinks it is business as usual. This is a democracy and such unilateralism is unacceptable. Again Nigerian politicians are preparing the ground work for despotism and dictatorship just as they propped up Abacha, who decimated their ranks.

    Why is it impossible for the Nigerian circulating elite to understand that this is not a nation yet; that we are treading the path of destruction; that the stiff-necked fowl usually ends up in the old woman’s pot of soup? Why is it difficult for us to understand that Nigeria’s hope of survival is the round table; that we must come to a round table to resolve our differences? Tribunal is not the round table. Rather, it is the tinder that would spark the conflagration that is waiting to consume Nigeria. Until we humble ourselves to the negotiating table, the fate of Nigeria remains precarious and uncertain like the flight of the butterfly.

     

    • Dr. Arthur A. Nwankwo, Chancellor, Eastern Mandate Union (EMU)     
  • It’s no season of anomie

    It’s no season of anomie

    With the theme freedom and the word, renowned literary eggheads gathered in Lagos recently to discuss Wole Soyinka at 80 and Freedom and Nation Building. It was part of activities for this year’s edition of the Lagos Book and Art Festival as put together by the Committee for Relevent Art. Edozie Udeze reports

    The essence of every coloquium is to highlight a theme and bring it into life in the consciousness of the public. This was what the erudile professors and literary eggheads who gathered last weekend at the Freedom Square, Lagos, were able to do to some select works of Professor Wole Soyinka. It was the occasion of the 16th edition of the Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) organised by the Committee for Relevent Art (CORA)

    Even though the overall theme of the festival was Freedom and the word, the discussion around Soyinka’s works was anchored on Freedom and Nation Building, using The Man Died, Ake, Ibadan, Isara, You Must Set Forth at Dawn, Penkelemesi and so on, to get the ball rolling. Handled by Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, the idea was to see how Soyinka has been able to use his works to set the necessary agenda for the society. In a society where many things have gone wrong, where the leadership of the country is often foolhardy, where the people themselves, even the so-called champions of the cause of the common man keep silence in time of oppression and massive corruption, what then is the role of the writer in all these? How has Soyinka used his works to tackle these issues and reached out to the people as an activist?

    Professor Biodun Jeyifo who gave the keynote address noted that the likes of Soyinka are rare in the literary firmament of the world. He drew attention to the era of King Richard II in England who was so wicked and avaricious that William Shakespeare did not spare him in some of his poems and plays. So also is Soyinka whom he said has come for his own generation and the generation to come with abundance of visionary and revoluntionary works to set the tone for possible changes.

    “To relate what Soyinka is to Nigeria is to make poignant reference to what Shakespeare did in the era of King Richard II. In a land of abundance, a place where wealth is available to make the people happy, there is plenty of poverty, sadness ad agony. In England, Richard II was besotted with expensive lifestyle like most of the Nigerian leaders of today. The leaders are obviously insensitive to the suffereings of the people. This is what we face today in Nigeria. The common understanding here today is that leadership does not care about the people, about how to use the necessary elements of governance to distribute the wealth of the land equitably.”

    In his works, Soyinka follows in the same sequence in his style of writing, attacking issues, lampooning leaders for their inability to make the country better. “So we have so many Richard II in Nigeria and this is why Soyinka has refused to relent. The two WS lived in worlds filled with inequalities and bad leadership. Now we have in addition bad leadership, total looting of what belongs to the people. This was what Shakespeare tackled in his best quintessential artistic ideas and expressions. Therefore the works of Soyinka are deeply embedded in their intents on politics. He deals with the nation and its dispossessions”.

    In Dance of the Forests, Jeyifo noted, Soyinka drew attention to the early signs of fault starts and mistakes in the nationhood. The play which was premiered in 1960 to usher in the independence of Nigeria from the shackles of the British overlords. The play is full of injustices of all kinds. “Here, truly, Soyinka talks about the dispossessed. The work is more explicit as it clamours for change, a proper stage for change.The state of the dispossessed is always clear in all his works.”

    With reference to The Man Died, Season of Anomie and more, his radical activism came fully to the fore. In his memoirs he did not even spare the enemies of the people. Using both social, political and religious undertones, Soyinka pointed out the ills. In Trials of Brother Jero and others he foresaw the revoluntionary approach of men of God towards hoodwinking the people. However, in all these, Soyinka puts himself into his works. He uses himself to projest his stories and present the ideas before him. “This was why he deliberately broke away from the conservative forces to become a revolutionary, an activist just to face and deal with bad leaders in a society peopled by reactionary forces. When Soyinka became involved in the June 12, 1993 protests to right the wrong against M.K.O Abiola, he did so as a revolutionary, someone touched by the problems of the society. All these are what he brings to bear in all his works. Today, there is no African writer as powerful as he is in the way he implores his revoluntionary ideas to better the welfare of the people. This is why he is seen as a rampaging social crusader, who uses metaphors to externalise his ideas. He sees this as a monstrous society, with deep moral and social decadence where political forces are at work.”

    When King Henry IV became the leader of England, things became better, the English people smiled and the economy became more bouyant. Jeyifo infers that this is what Soinka wishes to happen in Nigeria. “When you compare the two leaders in England and then come home to see the irony of leadership in Nigeria, you then see why as a writer, Soyinka wants this era of eldorado to come now. He continues to search for good leaders and seek ways to actualise this in all his works. As a popular writer, the dispossessed must have a say, they should be given back what belongs to them”.

    In his own contribution, Professor Ropo Sekoni concurred with Jeyifo that Soyinka creates himself as one of the characters in most of his works. “He may not really make other protagonists in his works, but then to situate himself in them for proper effect. In his Pekelemesi years in Ibadan, Soyinka uses a character to project highly positive ideas. Even though he did not join any political party, he uses the involvement of those in them to champion his ideas for total change. Therefore in Ake, Isara, Ibadan and You Must Set Forth at Dawn, you see a revoluntionary anarchist, but with redemptive reformism”.

    Sekoni particularly made reference to the role Soyinka ascribed to women in Ake where he projects them as truly diplomatic and good leaders. He did this so well and ethusiastically, even in his story on Ogboni where he discovers that the place of women as leaders cannot be overlooked. In all, he agrees that as a writer, Soyinka is an activist with unbridled revoluntionary mind, a mind ever determined to ask for change for the good of all.

    For Profesor Mabel of the University of Abuja, Soyinka could only display his innocence as a boy child in Ake. There, he was untainted by the society and gradually he began to be involved in the affairs of the people with his works. According to her, “In Isara, he is now in the world of the grown-ups, asking for justice. You see him concerned for justice. He does not run away from fights. A vivid recount of women’s role in politics comes out clear here. The role of women in Egbaland in the choice of who leads them becomes Soyinka’s total portrayal of women.

    If the women could unseat the Egba monarch, if they could speak with one voice in such an organised manner, Soyinka is saying that women have a lot to offer to the society. “At that point, he was a young man fully prepared to ask for change in his community. This is why he was more interested in teacher-education through his own father who was equally a teacher. And so in traversing all genres of literature, you see Soyinka involved in social, political and moral issues of the people. The Pekelemesi years shows and epitomises the strength of character in him. To him, freedom becomes a symbol, Nigeria becomes an unfinished business.”

    Describing him as a moving dramatist , Mabel said, “Soyinka believes strongly that the human mind and psyche has to be free. This is why his works try to make life meaningful for the people. He is more guided by the sentiments of his time, of the people around him both now and forever,” she said.

    In his comments, Kunle Ajibade observed that Soyinka has chosen to live for humanity, for the common people, for a better society. “He is a moving tank of ideas; ideas that do not in any way go obsolete but remain relevant for all time to come. Soyinka’s life is for people to realise who they are and what must be done to have a concerted change in the society.”

    In his opening remarks, Ogunbiyi commended CORA for the outing and noted that this is the time to draw attention to serious literary issues to make the society change. “Whether it is the Port Harcourt Book fair or LABAF, we need to keep books alive in the society and in the lives of the people themselves. Biodun Jeyifo has written series of articles on the complexity of Soyinka’s works. We are today to listen to him and to learn more on the redical aspects of Soyinka, not only as a writer but as someone who brings himself into what he writes.”

    Ogunbiyi who is also a literatti reminded the gathering that Soyinka uses his deep Yoruba cultural values to shape his works, projecting the people for total effect. “Yes, indeed is a deep political activist who situates his works within the context of the people, the society, the leadership and sustains the interest of readers to follow him all through. This is why his works are of stupendous quality which often gives his literary productions some level of complexity”.

    The discussion was part of series of activitists to give vent to the freedom of the word, in honour of Wole Soyinka at 80. It was to truly see how the man as a writer has fared in his numerous works to effectively touch humanity. It showed that Soyinka even at 80 years of age has not slowed down, has not relented in his quest for an ideal society for all peoples of the world.

  • Season of anomie

    The Nigerian Leviathan has finally decided to bare his fangs. He has moved from being an emperor to a Leviathan; one in whose temple all must worship or be sacrificed to the political gods of the land. I have always had reservation about operating a one-party state. It is the only reason why I rejoiced when a coterie of relatively weaker parties decided to fuse into one in order to challenge the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The resultant All Progressives Congress (APC) was able to attract discontents from the PDP and it appeared the 2015 general elections would not be a stroll in the park for the party that has monopolized the hold on power in the past 15 years. It appeared that the boast that PDP would maintain its hold on the levers of power at all levels for 60 years could be vigorously challenged.

    At the time, no one reckoned with what the man in the saddle could do to ensure that power did not slip off. We have since realised that the PDP has enough resolve to decapitate and decimate others and gobble up opposition leaders and democratic institutions. An obvious move has now been made to destabilize the APC. As was the situation during the Obasanjo regime, especially between 2005 and 2007, the Federal Government has now chosen to encourage dissension in the major opposition party and is using impeachment as weapon of enforcing compliance with its diktat.

    As was the case under Obasanjo, institutions of state are being subverted and used to hound opponents of the government. Wherever the governor refused to dance to the music supplied from Aso Villa, the Leviathan deploys money and other weapons to suborn the lawmakers on spurious charges and, within a few days, the governor, and possibly his deputy are pushed away from the dais to make room for a quisling. It is a dangerous turn- dangerous for the President, his party and the country. It could be likened to using a hammer to slaughter a fly that perches on the eyelid.

    Does the President have the moral right to raise issues with ethical standards in the states? What has he done with the popular quest to bring sanity to bear on the management of our oil revenue? How has he responded to the call for removal of the powerful Oil Minister-Diezani Alison-Madueke? She is being shielded from accounting for how the subsidy money is being expended. And, how has his Attorney General handled the prosecution of cases against former PDP national chairman Vincent Ogbulafor? What improvement has been made in terms of transparency in budgeting and financial management? Why is the country wittingly moving into the debt trap again? Could anyone justify what the money being borrowed is being used for?

    While state governors and officials are being persecuted, what example is being set at the federal level? Stella Oduah was indicted in the reckless purchase of two armoured vehicles by the aviation ministry, but rather than make her face the music, she was helped out of the system and presented as a paragon of hard work. The journalists are also being hounded by federal agency. The outlook is indeed ominous.

    Our President is desperate. The PDP would stop at nothing to win the next presidential elections and capture the states. The same gale that blew across the land in the Second Republic when the NPN could not read the mood of the nation and deployed federal resources to rake in fake votes from states controlled by the opposition is about being released on the political landscape now. Realising that the North and the discerning and politically conscious Nigerians would do all possible to halt the clueless administration of the man from Otuoke, the President is now resorting to strong-arm tactics. Knowledge of the Nigerian political history would help the President avoid pushing this country off the precipice.

    As the Commander-in-Chief, he should also call military tacticians to teach him what happened to all Generals who decided to open too many flanks at the same time. Why would attempting to remove the governors of Rivers, Nasarawa and Edo be considered smart by anyone? Anyone who understands those involved would realise that Rotimi Amaechi, Adams Oshiomhole and Tanko Almakura would not go down like trhe lamb; they are unlikely to yield the other cheek as the PDP deals them slaps on one. They are suave and charismatic. Unwittingly, the President and his men could be setting this house on fire.

    The Yoruba talk about the monkey who, trusting its dexterity at prancing from tree to tree decides to jump beyond the leavers of the tree. It finds itself calamitously writhing in pains or broken.

    Let the hawks make way for the doves in the cabinet to have the ears of this President.

  • Season of anomie

    Season of anomie

    •That vandals challenge the police to gun duels, over petroleum pipelines, is bad for the integrity of the Nigerian state

    When felons challenge the police to a gun duel over a petroleum pipeline they are bent on breaking, what are they doing — staking their divine right to crime?

    That is the worrisome question emanating from the reported police, suspected vandals gun face-off of August 24 through the night of August 25, in Arepo, an Ogun-Lagos border town and community in the Obafemi Owode Local Government of Ogun State.

    According to news reports, the suspected vandals drove towards the oil pipelines in the community, sighted the  police Task Force guarding the facility and opened fire.  The police returned the fire, and an all-night long battle ensued, resulting in a huge fire from exploded pipelines.  When the dust cleared, no less than three suspected vandals lay dead.  But four policemen involved in the operations were also declared missing.

    “While four of them have returned to base,” a newspaper reported, “four others are still missing.  We have yet to ascertain their fates,” it quoted an unnamed security source.

    What has the country turned into? The security arms of the state (which ought to boast supreme, if not monopoly of force) engaging rogue groups, and suffering higher casualties, even if yet no definitive account is available on the fate of the four missing police personnel?

    Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno State, in the vortex of the Boko Haram murderous campaign, caused a stir when he claimed Boko Haram insurgents boast superior arms than the security agencies.  President Goodluck Jonathan, in an emotive response, issued a veiled threat to withdraw the armed forces from the area; and see how the governor would fare.  The governor also came under severe flak.

    A few weeks later however, even the military high command has admitted what the army faces in the North East emergency areas are not the ragtag Boko Haram militia but a ferocious war by Al Qaeda, the global terrorist group — somewhat lending credence to the group’s sophisticated weaponry, which appears to easily compete, if not superior, to the Army’s arsenal.

    The Arepo shootout is again a grim reminder that, North, Middle Belt or South, felons now openly dare the might of the Nigerian state.  That is no good news, since the most basic function of the state is to secure life and property.  That fundament of the state is being threatened.  The authorities must rise to stop it forthwith.  Failure to do so is creeping anarchy.

    Of course, there is a lot to be decried in blind greed that makes felons take to heinous crime.  There is much to be decried in mass poverty that leads to murderous desperation and anger.  There is also much to be said for jolting the government to sit up to its responsibilities on the economic front: more jobs and ample opportunities; and ensuring a fair, equitable and equal-opportunity society.

    But what must not be tolerated is brazen crime and utter paralysis.  What is even worse is a systems collapse that appears to be creeping on the country.  If the present anomie is not arrested and fast, it is only a matter of time before anarchy creeps in — with disastrous consequences.

    That is why Nigerians must never surrender to the current situation but continue to ask questions of, and demand service from their governments at all level.  But Nigerians too must play the civic citizens that avail the authorities with quality intelligence, to help the government face down and defeat these noxious forces.

    In return, the government has no choice but to act its name: invest in the economic wellbeing of the greatest number and secure the environment for all.  As things stand, it is a race against time, to fend off state failure.

  • Season of anomie

    In Nigeria today, every youth is a potential artiste. It is either one can sing, dance or act. But is that all about us? Where is the place of building intellectual capacity of the growing youth population? Not many are privileged like a very few of us, who are opportune to get educational training to reinforce our desire to strive for excellence.

    Will I, for instance, ever forget the many workshops I attended, which were sponsored by the Coca-Cola System in Nigeria and The Nation newspaper? Once upon a time, I had been under the tutelage of Dr Reuben Abati and Grace Egbemode. These personalities educationally shaped my thought and I dream for a better future.

    Nowadays, the youths’ thinking has been changed towards reality show or programmes promoting promiscuity and nudity. Little wonder most youths always troop to auditioning of television reality shows such as Big Brother Africa or film auditioning.

    Why won’t they? If they can be so daring to expose the very private parts of their body for public consumption and sing lewd and salacious song and dancing in a sexually suggestive way, they can be the celebrated ‘celebrities’ and asked to be youths ambassadors. We never stop to celebrate ordinariness.

    I cry from the inside brooding over this form of youth development in Nigeria. When are we going to be celebrating intellectualism in our youths? No country will ever grow promoting a culture of decadence. What new technology have our youths invented in recent time? How are we making sure that the innovation of a young man struggling to change our world did not die with him? How do we harness the beautiful ideas contained in proposals rotting away in shelves of many ministries and companies just because the writers do not know “who is who” to help facilitate the request?

    Nigeria is fast becoming a metaphor for moral debauchery, misplaced priorities and politricking. These have ingrained in the minds of fellow youths. For a young citizen, whose parents don’t know “who is who”, it is a double jeopardy. A system that impoverished their parents has equally captured the children.

    Corporate bodies have been insensitive to the challenges of the youths, turning a deaf ear and blind eye to a long term goal of the impact their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) would have on the beneficiary of such sponsored programmes. Most of them praise-sing their effort in sponsoring programmes that are not adding values to the economic development of the country.

    What else could one call an advert asking the youth to come bare it all at a reality TV show? This is an invitation to breach all rules of decency. What a nation of misplaced priorities! Creative performance has been relegated to the back door while frivolities take the pride of place.

    This piece is not written to dole out catchy sentences, but it should be seen as a wakeup call to bring about a new thinking in re-generational revolution. I dare say this is the way out to get Nigeria on the right path. Hiring prayer warriors to invoke the holy spirit is never a way out as our (s)elected but clueless leaders may have believed.

    Pastors that go to government houses don’t go there to pray, but to share in the national cake. Religion is now a shadow of itself, with prayer grounds turning to strategic campaign grounds, the way jobless youths find succour in the recording studio to wax lewd song.

    Jobless youths are everywhere. Instead of creating jobs through medium-scale scheme, pastors are buying every available building on the streets and converting them to churches with such funny names. Worse, a 12x12cm shop that could be useful for a young graduate to start a low-scale enterprise is converted to a church where gullible members pray for economic prosperity.

    Don’t get me wrong. I am not a religion antagonist. I am just speaking the mind of many worried citizens, whose means of production have been converted to the benefit of a few religious leaders, who never worked to earn a living. They take our tithes and purchase posh vehicles. Yet, many of the faithful cannot pay their children’s school fees.

    The same thing is obtainable in governance. There is so much duplicity of work and position. It is only in this part of the world that we see a president or governor having Senior Special Adviser on Youth Matters, Special Assistant on Youth Matters, Personal Assistant Youth Matters and Commissioner for Youth.

    These people are working towards a common goal and draw salaries from the government’s purse. They may also have their own personal advisers and assistants working with them. Whereas, one or two of them could do the whole job for the governor or president. Is one not right to say this duplicity of role is a profligate wasting of public funds?

    The craze for public funds by the citizens has further threatened the peace of the country as we have a president that pardons corrupts public officers and throws money at every crisis that is ravaging the nation.

    Alamiesiegha’s pardon may have shown that it is good to steal public funds. Many youths that are still battling with poverty will not have the courage and determination to work hard and make clean money.

    What we are experiencing is a season of anomie, which is an indicator of a dysfunctional society and a failing state. Acute poverty, religious fundamentalism and economic mismanagement amongst others are the tragedies that have befallen this crawling adult nation at 53.

    Given the plethora anomalies we face today, we all might tell a story of “once upon a Nigeria” to our yet unborn children. It is not just by praying, criticizing or inviting religion leaders to the villa or wishing Nigeria good luck. We need to act fast and restore the lost values that promote hard work and intellectualism.

     

    Jumoke, ex-Campus Life student, writes from Lagos

  • Fiscal anomie

    Fiscal anomie

    • The allocation of N4 billion for the president’s wife’s NGO is a new low in fiscal recklessness

    Appropriation bills in Nigeria these days seem to defy rhyme, reason or even sensitivity. And as for economic principles; perish the thought, for jungle instincts seem to hold sway. This is the overwhelming perception since early February when news broke that a handsome N4 billion is to be set aside in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) 2013 Appropriation Bill for a ‘pet’ project.

    The Senate, reviewing the FCT’s proposed budget, had frowned at a number of seeming outlandish allocations, chief among which is N4 billion for the construction of the headquarters of the African First Ladies Peace Mission (AFLPM), a project which is the pet dream of the wife of the president, Mrs. Patience Jonathan. The list of what seems like booty sharing in the FCT spending plan is long. There is N2.4 billion for securing the capital city which boasts of no police, army or security agency of its own; N5 billion for some social malaise in the city, including the rehabilitation of prostitutes and the destitute, and N150 million for the renovation of the vice-president’s guest house.

    We acknowledge that the document before the Senate is just a proposal, a plan which is subject to changes and reviews, but we cannot come to terms with N4 billion being proposed for what is at best, a non-governmental organisation owned by the wife of the president. How could this have happened; and who is responsible? The ‘Office of the First Lady’, as we have come to know it is the whimsical creation of the wives of successive presidents and governors which has no place in the law or Constitution of the Federal Republic. The Office of the First Lady is an aberration that has lingered for so long in the polity that many are beginning to forget that it is a mere charitable, if not ceremonial, set- up.

    Today, offices of first ladies are burgeoning across the country, from the local council areas through the 36 states and at the presidency level. There are massive office buildings being erected inside the precincts of government houses for her ladyships; a retinue of staff employed and deployed and recently, entire ministries and agencies are farmed out for the exclusive control of the “First Lady.” All of these, we hasten to state, are illegalities; they are unconstitutional and represent acts of impunity and abuse of office by successive governors and presidents.

    However, the current proposal in the FCT Appropriation Bill must be a new low and indeed, a new frightening dimension in the annals of first ladyship in Nigeria. It is only symptomatic of a reckless era when fiscal prudence and responsibility has been jettisoned. Budgets in Nigeria in recent times have been like garbage bins where all manner of things are dumped. There seems to be not a modicum of thinking, not to mention rigour, applied in budgeting these days. We are still nonplussed by the N14 billion proposed for the completion of a new residence for the vice-president; N6.5 billion for pushing a petroleum bill and multibillion allocations for presidential repast, among such other figures that simply jar the senses in their sheer illogicality.

    We urge the Senate to expunge from the FCT Appropriation Bill without further ado, the proposed N4 billion for the AFLPM headquarters. The Appropriation Bill is too important to the polity to be treated with levity. The National Assembly should, as a matter of urgency, restore sanity to Nigeria’s budgeting process and rescue the nation from the current fiscal anomie.