The Nation Newspaper

Tag: class

  • Class formation

    Class formation

    Virtually every literate person knows or should know that in the autumn of the year 1066 of the Christian calendar, William better known to the world as William the Conqueror but also as William the Bastard, as he was born out of wedlock, backed by his followers in more than two hundred ships, crossed the English Channel from Normandy in Northern France.

    William and his men did not come on a joy ride nor were they in England on a picnic. They had come to wrest the English crown from Harold who at the time was regarded by many as the legitimate king of England. William the Conqueror had come across the Channel because he disagreed with the consensus concerning the legitimacy of Harold’s hold on the throne of England. According to William, the former king, Edward the Confessor, his uncle who had died without producing a heir had promised him the crown. On this basis, he was convinced that his own claims to the throne were not only legitimate but were superior to those of Harold. A polite request that the status quo be resolved in favour of William was no less politely rejected by Harold leading to the launching of those ships bringing William and his troops to settle matters violently.

    At that time Harold’s cup was full to overflowing with trouble as he had to take his army to the North East of England to confront a Viking army which had come to  relieve him of his crown. The two armies clashed at what has come to be known as the battle of Stanford Bridge, a battle which Harold won and by doing so, brought the centuries old confrontation with the Vikings who raided the coasts of England from time to time, to an end.

    Before going further with the story of William the Conqueror or the Bastard, it is useful to look at the antecedents of his people, the Normans. Originally, they were Vikings, bands of vicious raiders who arrived on the shores of European settlements in Britain, France and adjoining countries raping, pillaging, and spreading terror all round. Such was the fear they struck all over their hunting grounds that the Roman Catholic Church offered special prayers to God beseeching him to save them from the fury of the Norsemen who blew in from the North sea, not to settle but to pillage and gather hoards of treasure. They found churches particularly attractive targets for their depredation because they were repositories of gold and silver ornaments and being pagans, the Vikings attached no stigma to stealing all those glittering artefacts from unguarded churches. Eventually however after centuries of catching fun at the expense of Christians, they went through the pain of conversion to Christianity themselves and became domesticated. Consequently, they began to settle down in parts of their former stomping grounds which is how a large group of them was able to force the king of France to cede part of his kingdom to them. This is how the duchy of Normandy was created a little over a century before the attention of William was turned on England only a few miles off the coast of Normandy. Thus it was that Harold was assailed at the same time by different groups of Vikings and former Vikings from the north and south of his kingdom respectively. On this occasion, he saw off the invaders from the north and immediately wheeled his army around to face his adversaries closing in on his kingdom from the south. The two armies clashed in what has come to be known as the battle of Hastings, an encounter that proved to be a bridge too far for Harold. Towards evening, as the closely fought battle began to swing in favour of the invaders, an arrow pierced Harold’s eye and killed him instantly. Following his death his army disintegrated around their positions and the battle was lost. England fell to the Normans and William the Conqueror also known as the Bastard , grand father of the reigning king of England twenty six times removed was crowned king of England.

    William’s claim to the throne of England was supported by a band of nobles who came on that adventure with him. It stood to reason that all of them were entitled to fair shares in the booty that was England after their comprehensive victory at Hastings. Consequently, all the land in the kingdom was distributed among these nobles, all of them moving in smartly to take over the lands allotted to them. Everything on those lands and below ground now belonged to them. They went ahead to build formidable castles, stuffed them with soldiers and laid down the law in their respective domains. Their law had jurisdiction within their domain and that of the king dubbed the Common law held sway throughout the kingdom. There were only a few dozen of these nobles and each of them had very sizeable portions of land but none of them had enough power to threaten the power and awesome majesty of the king. However, acting together, they could form a formidable opposition to the king when their collective interest clashed with his. This is why they were able to force the king to sign the Magna Carta, the famous document which curbed some of his power in 1215. Today, the Magna Carta is erroneously hailed as victory by the common man over kingly privilege and tyranny. Nothing could be further from the truth as the concessions squeezed out from the king were restricted to the pleasure of the dukes to the total exclusion of the common people who lived under the suffocating shadow of the nobles. It has to be said however that many years down the line the breath of fresh air which the Magna Carta generated wafted down ever so gently to the oppressed commoners and brought a little relief from their drudgery but, it has to be said that any such relief was minimal. The life of the common man in England continued to be circumscribed by the whims and caprices of their rulers right until recent times.

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    Each of the nobles had a dukedom which was passed down to their respective descendants who today are still deriving a great deal of wealth from their inheritance and together, form the ruling class in England, many of them retaining the French names they brought with them from Normandy. Their enormous wealth is not derived from any form of work but from the rent they collect and have collected over close to one thousand years and will collect for another thousand years. The wealth they have is for them to spend whichever way catches their fancy. More than anything else, their wealth confers on them a level of amorality, the consequences of which is far beyond the comprehension of those who do not belong to their class. They have blue blood in their veins and stand above the common herd in the way that the sky stands above the earth.

    England was not empty when the Normans arrived but for the influence that the former inhabitants exerted on the kingdom thereafter, they might just be regarded as having been absent. They were only useful to the kingdom as tillers of the soil and hewers of wood. The Normans created and maintained an apartheid system every bit as brutal if not more so, as anything the Boers practised in South Africa several centuries later. They were reduced to the status of serfs whose daily life was as circumscribed as that of any slave on a cotton plantation in the Civil War period in Alabama. For five hundred years the language of the English court and nobility was French and today, there are at least two words for anything in the English language, one of them derived from French and the other from an Anglo-Saxon word, not to talk of words borrowed or stolen from Latin, Greek and other languages. And right there you  have an explanation for the word density and beauty of the English language. After all,  every cloud however dark has a silver lining no matter how thin it is.

    On the opposite end of the English social register are members of the working class. These are the direct descendants of the serfs who served the ruling class in the capacity of workers on the manors many hundred years before. Their descendants still carry the names which described their roles on manorial grounds; Fletcher, Thatcher, Cook, Smith, Hunter, Bowyer, Taylor, Baker, Fowler, Cooper, Miller, Milner and of course many more are all examples of roles played by their ancestors who served the nobles ensconced in their castles with enforced diligence over many generations. Passing through successive generations of servitude has bred an endearing docility in the English working class who like their ancestors offer nothing other than the labour of their hands. They had little more than the most elementary possessions to call theirs and even the little they had was at the pleasure of the lord at his ease in his impregnable castle, waited upon hand and foot by a large retinue of servants each of them bred to provide service to their lord.

    Apart from anything else, they were used to taking orders and because of this they made good, obedient soldiers who were used against members of their class who entertained any notion of rebelling against their lord and master. They were also used in many wars abroad, principally against their nearest neighbours, the French. They were therefore used in the service of the ruling class at home and abroad and they performed these tasks faithfully and for little reward.

    ●To be continued.

  • ‘Nigerian varsities require impactful research to be world class’

    ‘Nigerian varsities require impactful research to be world class’

    The Vice Chancellor of Covenant University, Prof. Abiodun Adebayo, has said Nigerian universities require intensive and impactful research, alongside teaching and community service to become world-class.

    Adebayo said this at a workshop at the University of Benin, organised by the University of Benin’s Centre of Excellence in Reproductive Health Innovation (CERHI).

    It was tagged: University Ranking: Experiences of Covenant University.

    The vice-chancellor said that universities in Nigeria could not continue to do what they were used to and expect different results.

    Covenant University, he said, had long resolved to be doing what world-class universities, such as Harvard and Oxford, were not doing; hence its high rating among the world’s higher institutions.

     “Most universities in Nigeria concentrate on teaching and, perhaps, community service and have left out the area of research.

     “Impactful research is almost non-existent in most of the universities,” Adebayo said.

    According to him, to secure first ranking in Africa, the university had set a vision of 10:2022, meaning to be among the best 10 in the world by 2022.

    He said that although the University of Benin was not doing badly, it would need to improve on its publications, particularly in Q1 and Q2 journals.

    Besides teaching, research and impact, Adebayo identified citation, reputation, international outlook and industry income as other metrics considered for university ranking across the world.

     “You have to go beyond your best to accomplish some of those things. If we want to become world-class universities, beyond classroom teachings, we have to spend extra-time doing researches. We must go beyond the kind of civil service work we do.

     “The world is a global village and the rankings of universities have really come to stay.

    Whether or not you wish to be ranked, you will be ranked. It is high time, whether management, staff or students, we must work together to see that we place our universities on the world map, standing at par with other world universities,” he said.

    Read Also: Fasoranti, Falae, others intervene in Akeredolu, Aiyedatiwa’s feud

    University of Benin Vice Chancellor Prof. Lilian Salami said the lecture had brought out the deficiencies as well as the things that the institution was doing right.

     “I think the most important thing is that we all have determined that we can do it because he has simplified how we can get to that world-class level. At the University of Benin, we are also proud to be the university of the universe, but we must match our words with our actions. So, our students and staff; we challenge you to step into the shoes of a digital generation.

     “Some of our students are coming up with some innovations that we never thought would happen at the university. We are almost there and we can get there. What is left for us is to be determined, dedicated, and willing to learn. There is no one who is too old to learn,” Salami said.

    Speaking with reporters, Leader, CERHI, Prof. Friday Okonofua, said the lecture had opened the university to what it should be doing. We thought that what we needed to do was to rejig the university towards high ranking, for the entire institution to be aware of what the issues are.

     “I knew the university community was not fully aware. That is why I organised this lecture, and we are going to do more because we want to create awareness. It is only when staff and students are aware of this fact that the university ranking will improve,” Okonofua said.

  • TECNO hosts smartphone photography master class

    TECNO hosts smartphone photography master class

    TECNO Mobile has hosted Nigeria’s biggest smartphone photography master class at the Social Media Week in Lagos.

    The event held at the Landmark Towers, Victoria Island, Lagos.

    The yearly event was attended by top executives and experts. They discussed smartphone camera craze, which has been an important subject matter in the past year.

    To educate and empower photography lovers, service providers and mobile phone users, TECNO Mobile partnered Wakafire Photography to host the smartphone photography masterclass.

    At the Masterclass, speakers, such as popular freelance journalist, celebrity YouTuber and Founder of DIY Dose – Torera Idowu along with seasoned tourist, Documentary and Lifestyle photographer – Abdusalam Hamza and Lead Photographer at Wakafire Smartphone Photography – Obasa Olorunfemi were on hand at the training sessions with senior executives from the smartphone brand.

    YouTuber and Idowu took attendees through the creating of magical videos on their mobile, emphasising on how smartphone adoption has made it easier and affordable to shoot a full documentary.

    She also recalled how she won ‘The Thompson RTE Mobile Journalism’ award for her first documentary which she filmed with a mobile device.

    “My mind was blown, when I won the award despite the fact that more experienced journalists from all around the world competed for the same award, but I won and got to meet mobile enthusiasts who actually used mobile to create TV packages, documentaries and others,” she said.

    Hamza and Olorunfemi took the audience on a journey of pictorial bliss with their hands-on presentations which touched on the steps to great photography, editing apps and using light to achieve photos that speak.

    PR Manager TECNO Mobile Nigeria, Jesse Oguntimehin, expressed delight at the success of the master class, adding that it was set up not only to discuss the importance of smartphone camera, but also to also re-emphasise TECNO position on making life easier for the public and e-commerce merchants by continually providing them with the best smartphone camera features.

    Deputy Marketing Manager at TECNO Nigeria, Attai Oguche said the brand would launch a new device to trump all devices in April. He reinstated the brand’s commitment to creating quality devices that provide the best value to consumers.

  • The Nation confirms class with harvest of 13 awards at NMMA

    The Nation confirms class with harvest of 13 awards at NMMA

    With 13 prizes at the Nigeria Media Merit Award (NMMA) in Lagos last night, The Nation has confirmed its rating as Nigeria’s leading newspaper.

    The awards were won out of the 26 nominations this newspaper received.

    New Telegraph won in four categories.  The Punch won two prizes from its 14 nominations.

    The Nation‘s star writer and Associate Editor Olatunji Ololade won three awards— Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola Prize for Sports Reporter of the Year, Gani Fawehinmi Prize for Human Rights Reporter of the Year and Sonny Odogwu Prize for Business Reporter of the Year.

    The Head of Investigation Desk and multiple-award winner Adekunle Yusuf also won two awards—Adamu Mu’azu Prize for Tourism Reporter of the Year and Chevron Nigeria Prize for Oil and Gas Reporter of the Year.

    An Assistant Editor, Seun Akioye, won the Olagunsoye Oyinlola Prize for Culture and Tradition Reporter of the Year. He was a runner-up in the Olusegun Mimiko Prize for Foreign News Reporter category.

    A Correspondent on the Features Desk, The Nation on Sunday, Gboyega Alaka, won the Olu Aboderin Prize for Entertainment Reporter of the Year.

    Senior Finance Correspondent Collins Nweze  won  the Union Bank Prize for Banking and Finance Reporter of the Year and the UBA Prize for Money Market Reporting.

    An Assistant Editor on the Business Desk Lucas Ajanaku won the MTN Prize for Telecommunication Reporting.

    Senior Correspondent Adeyinka Aderibigbe won the Abubakar Imam Prize for Newspaper Feature Writer of the Year. Abiodun Williams won the Photographer of the Year.

    Reporter Hannah Ojo clinched the Etisalat Prize for Most Innovative Reporting.

    Others who made good showing in The Nation stable are Sina Fadare, Chikodi Okereocha, Joseph Jibueze, Azeez Ozi-Sanni and  Olatunde Odebiyi, who were runners –up in various categories.

    New Telegraph’s Isioma Madike won two prizes—Energy Correspondent of the Year and Insurance Reporter of the Year.  His colleagues, Oluwatosin Omoniyi (Agric Reporter of the Year) and Juliana Francis (Defence Reporter of the Year).

    The Punch reporters Arukaino Umukoro won Real Estate/Construction Reporter of the Year and Dayo Oketola won the Power Reporter of the Year.

    Abuja-based Daily Trust won the Babatunde Jose Prize for Newspaper of the Year and its Editor Nasiru Lawal was declared Editor of the Year.

    Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode congratulated the winners, saying it was reward for hard work. He advised journalists to uphold the culture of investigation, adding that they should beam their searchlight on the socio-economic development of the nation. He was represented by Special Adviser on Community Communication Kehinde Bamigbetan.

    Chairman of the NMMA Board of Trutees, Mr Vincent Maduka said: “We believe that the objectives that we seek to promote at NMMA should strengthen the Nigerian media in carrying out their responsibilities with diligence, ethics and professionalism.”

  • The other class narrative

    The democracy we declared has recoiled into a spent shadow. Sixteen years on in the grip of blood-drenched mascots, it steals from our sweetest fantasies like the proverbial slut making a surreptitious exit with her drunken lover’s wallet.

    Consequently, we suffer poverty of character and this manifests as mean-spiritedness. It’s akin to that patience of the wild that holds motionless for endless hours the motorist at the police checkpoint, the kidnapper in his lair, the assassin in his ambuscade and the public officer on his perch – this patience belongs primarily to the predator while it hunts its prey.

    Oftentimes, it manifests in uncontrollable spasms that have seen us bury our best and elevate our worst in abject negation of the cycle of the universe and morality. But who needs morals in a nation where fair is foul and foul remains fair?

    As you read, many a Nigerian of commonplace roots live through each day without ever contemplating or criticizing their living conditions. They find themselves born into dehumanising squalor or somewhat indecent circumstances and they accept such sordidness as their fate thus exhibiting no conscious effort to better their lot beyond what their immediate circumstances dictate.

    Almost as impulsively as the beasts of the wild, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought and consideration that by sufficient endeavor, they just might improve their living conditions. However, a certain percentage – comprising men and women of privilege – guided by personal ambition, consciously strive in thought and will to attain higher status but very few among these are concerned enough to secure for all, the advantages which they seek for themselves. This explains the number of self-centred and treacherous human rights activists, women’s rights activists, journalists and columnists parading our streets.

    Very few men are indeed capable of that humaneness that drives martyrs to persistently rebel against glaring social evils in the interest of less fortunate members of the society. But there exists a few however, that are truly bothered by the impoverishment of their fellow citizens regardless of any risk or discomfort it might attract to them personally.

    These few, driven by compassion tirelessly seek, first in thought and then in action, for some way of escape; some new system of society by which life may become richer, more joyful and devoid of avertable evils that mars the present. But surprisingly, such men oftentimes, fail to curry the support of the very victims of the injustices they wish to remedy.

    This is because more unfortunate sections of the Nigerian populace are hopelessly ignorant, apathetic from excess of toil and disillusionment, apprehensive through the imminent danger of instantaneous chastisement by the holders of power, and morally defective owing to the loss of self-respect resulting from their degradation. To excite among such classes any conscious, deliberate effort in pursuit of general improvement of the status quo, proves basically a hopeless task, as antecedents of such efforts have proven.

    Thus despite our claims to modernity, higher education, sophistication and relative rise in the standard of comfort among wage-earners in the country, the Nigerian society have failed woefully to achieve better living conditions and a better society even in the throes of rising demand for more radical intervention and reconstruction of the social order.

    It is no surprise however that the Nigerian working class has persistently proved a dismal failure. And the reasons are hardly far-fetched: Nigerians have a problem with differentiating between appropriate and inappropriate political behavior.  That is why the nation’s democratic experiment like any other system of governance practicable by us was doomed from the start.

    What exactly has democracy offered? A 4-1-9 progressive plan that booms circumspectly like it had been doctored as part of a cold-war era propagandist scheme? But despite our self-righteousness and persistent cynicism with the current order, we really cannot explore a more worthy alternative than what we have now. The average Nigerian can’t bear to be led by a truly honest, visionary and accountable leadership. That explains our choice of the incumbent leadership.

    Apparently, we possess an overwhelming and oft-convincing inclination to self-destruct thus our lack of a coherent and defensible political ideology essential to the evolution of a progressive leadership and state.

    The average Nigerian is no more electable than the leadership he endures yet he loves to speak truth to power even as he functions simultaneously to smother his own voice in the riotous gabble of his exultation of the same ruling class, whose dominance he seeks to terminate. No matter who is elected, the demographic and economic realities of Nigeria will persist, and there is a very limited range of politically-viable solutions for dealing with them.

    No man, be he a distinguished columnist, lawyer, soldier, or public officer in any office can command the tides of history. The few that appear to have done so–the Napoleon’s, Caesar’s, Hitler’s–were really nothing more than the most capable at making it appear that they command the tides, when in fact they were simply skimming along with them.

    Thus the need for the Nigerian working class to consciously evolve in thought and will in pursuit of a more balanced social order. Such conscious evolution could only be achieved by a re-orientation in scholarship and purification of thought and action.

    The foundations of scholarship and knowledge must be tirelessly reconstructed to guarantee more progressive responses to internal problems of social advance — problems of work and wages, of families and homes, of morals and the true value of life – and all these and other inevitable problems of civilization must be resolvable largely by an average member of the working class by reason of his exposure and constitution.

    This informs a greater need for study and thought and an appeal to the rich experience of past and current mistakes in the journey towards the reduction to the barest minimum, the possibility of future mistakes. The answer to Nigeria’s widening income and social gap – which has so far manifested in preventable crises and persistent state of insecurity – is to found an educational process geared to steer successfully, the commonplace trains of thought away from the dilettante and the fool stereotype.

    It’s about time poor, struggling members of the nation’s working class and youth divides learned to scorn the maxim that holds that if their stomachs be full, it matters little about their brains; the paths to stable peace and security winds between honest toil and dignified manhood. That proverbial better society that we seek calls for the guidance of skilled thinkers, the loving, reverent comradeship between the low income earners and ambitious middle class emancipated by training and culture.

    Such human elements would no doubt be conscious of the fact that not even the sustenance of oil subsidy, higher wages and a fairer economic system could protect its members from the usual handicaps and monstrosity constituted by the incumbent and predatory ruling class.

    Hence they would be able to understand that the much clamoured social enterprise and gesture towards change must be mooted and achieved by the Nigerian youth and working class in further substantiation of their capacities to assimilate the culture and refinement of humane civilization. A veritable step towards such reality is to vote the incumbent administration out of office and elect a younger, less ethnic, less directionless, visionary and humane leadership. But to achieve this, the Nigerian youth would have to establish a more youthful, brilliant, truly progressive and detribalized political platform.

  • The other class narrative

    The democracy we declared has recoiled into a spent shadow. Sixteen years on in the grip of blood-drenched mascots, it steals from our sweetest fantasies like the proverbial slut making a surreptitious exit with her drunken lover’s wallet.

    Consequently, we suffer poverty of character and this manifests as mean-spiritedness. It’s akin to that patience of the wild that holds motionless for endless hours the motorist at the police checkpoint, the kidnapper in his lair, the assassin in his ambuscade and the public officer on his perch – this patience belongs primarily to the predator while it hunts its prey.

    Oftentimes, it manifests in uncontrollable spasms that have seen us bury our best and elevate our worst in abject negation of the cycle of the universe and morality. But who needs morals in a nation where fair is foul and foul remains fair?

    As you read, many a Nigerian of commonplace roots live through each day without ever contemplating or criticizing their living conditions. They find themselves born into dehumanising squalor or somewhat indecent circumstances and they accept such sordidness as their fate thus exhibiting no conscious effort to better their lot beyond what their immediate circumstances dictate.

    Almost as impulsively as the beasts of the wild, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought and consideration that by sufficient endeavor, they just might improve their living conditions. However, a certain percentage – comprising men and women of privilege – guided by personal ambition, consciously strive in thought and will to attain higher status but very few among these are concerned enough to secure for all, the advantages which they seek for themselves. This explains the number of self-centred and treacherous human rights activists, women’s rights activists, journalists and columnists parading our streets.

    Very few men are indeed capable of that humaneness that drives martyrs to persistently rebel against glaring social evils in the interest of less fortunate members of the society. But there exists a few however, that are truly bothered by the impoverishment of their fellow citizens regardless of any risk or discomfort it might attract to them personally.

    These few, driven by compassion tirelessly seek, first in thought and then in action, for some way of escape; some new system of society by which life may become richer, more joyful and devoid of avoidable evils that mars the present. But surprisingly, such men oftentimes, fail to curry the support of the very victims of the injustices they wish to remedy.

    This is because more unfortunate sections of the Nigerian populace are hopelessly ignorant, apathetic from excess of toil and disillusionment, apprehensive through the imminent danger of instantaneous chastisement by the holders of power, and morally defective owing to the loss of self-respect resulting from their degradation. To excite among such classes any conscious, deliberate effort in pursuit of general improvement of the status quo, proves basically a hopeless task, as antecedents of such efforts have proven.

    Thus despite our claims to modernity, higher education, sophistication and relative rise in the standard of comfort among wage-earners in the country, the Nigerian society have failed woefully to achieve better living conditions and a better society even in the throes of rising demand for more radical intervention and reconstruction of the social order.

    It is no surprise however that the Nigerian working class has persistently proved a dismal failure. And the reasons are hardly far-fetched: Nigerians have a problem with differentiating between appropriate and inappropriate political behavior.  That is why the nation’s democratic experiment like any other system of governance practicable by us was doomed from the start.

    What exactly has democracy offered? A 4-1-9 progressive plan that booms circumspectly like it had been doctored as part of a cold-war era propagandist scheme? But despite our self-righteousness and persistent cynicism with the current order, we really cannot explore a more worthy alternative than what we have now. The average Nigerian can’t bear to be led by a truly honest, visionary and accountable leadership. That explains our choice of the incumbent leadership.

    Apparently, we possess an overwhelming and oft-convincing inclination to self-destruct thus our lack of a coherent and defensible political ideology essential to the evolution of a progressive leadership and state.

    The average Nigerian is no more electable than the leadership he endures. Yet he loves to speak truth to power even as he functions simultaneously to smother his own voice, in the riotous gabble of his exultation of the same ruling class whose end he claims to pursue. No matter who is elected, the demographic and economic realities of Nigeria will persist, and there is a very limited range of politically-viable solutions for dealing with them.

    No man; be he a distinguished columnist, lawyer, soldier, or public officer in any office can command the tides of history. The few that appear to have done so–the Napoleon’s, Caesar’s, Hitler’s–were really nothing more than the most capable at making it appear that they command the tides, when in fact they were simply skimming along with them.

    Thus the need for the Nigerian working class to consciously evolve in thought and will in pursuit of a more balanced social order. Such conscious evolution could only be achieved by a re-orientation in scholarship and purification of thought and action.

    The foundations of scholarship and knowledge must be tirelessly reconstructed to guarantee more progressive responses to internal problems of social advance — problems of work and wages, of families and homes, of morals and the true value of life – and all these and other inevitable problems of civilization must be resolvable largely by an average member of the working class by reason of his exposure and constitution.

    This informs a greater need for study and thought and an appeal to the rich experience of past and current mistakes in the journey towards the reduction to the barest minimum, the possibility of future foibles. The answer to Nigeria’s widening income and social gap – which has so far manifested in preventable crises and persistent state of insecurity – is to found an educational process geared to steer successfully, the commonplace trains of thought away from the dilettante and the fool stereotype.

    It’s about time poor, struggling members of the nation’s working class learned to scorn the maxim that holds that if their stomachs be full, it matters little about their brains; the paths to stable peace and security winds between honest toil and dignified manhood. That proverbial better society that we seek calls for the guidance of skilled thinkers, the loving, reverent comradeship between the low income earners and ambitious middle class emancipated by training and culture.

    Such human elements would no doubt be conscious of the fact that not even the sustenance of oil subsidy, higher wages and a fairer economic system could protect its members from the usual handicaps and monstrosity constituted by the incumbent and predatory ruling class.

    Hence they would be able to understand that the much clamoured social enterprise and gesture towards change must be mooted and achieved by the working class itself in further substantiation of the working class’ capacities to assimilate the culture and refinement of humane civilization; a veritable step towards such reality is to vote the incumbent administration out of office

  • Excellence Estate to redefine class, quality

    Excellence Estate to redefine class, quality

    A new low-density community is evolving in Arepo, off the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in Ogun State.

    The community, known as Excellence Estate, is close to the Journalist Estate at Arepo. It aims to replicate the ambience of the old Ikoyi, Lagos  State, with lush green areas in tandem with climate change.

    Estate developers on the Lagos-Sagamu axis of the expressway are beginning to add a touch of classy designs in their construction to ensure faster uptake.

    Excellence Estate is about 15 minutes’ drive from Alausa, Ikeja, Central Business District. It is being built on 20-acre of prime land, with construction at an advanced stage. The estate is a combination of horticulture and aesthetics. It comprises homes that are fully detached, semi- detached, terraces, and block of flats. It is subdivided into two; the built-up area, which is about two- thirds of the land, and the site and services plots that form about one-third of the land.

    Other facilities that would be fitted into Excellence estate would include, a shopping mall, church, mosque, school, hospital, corner shops and the recreational facilities like the park/green park.

    According to the promoter of the estate, and Managing Director of Inclusive Concrete & Engineering Limited, Misbau Aminu, construction work will take three years and prospective investors would get a million naira payback deal on construction cost.

    The pay back deal, Aminu explained, is an incentive given to buyers into the project, which is in form of discounted amount that will be given to them during construction of the buildings. These will include but not limited to expertise services, cement provision that will be provided to at discounted rate. He assured that his company would bring its wealth of experience in various field of construction in both the public and private sectors to bear in development of the Estate.

    Prospective investors, The Nation learnt, can key into the scheme at various stages. For instance, buildings in the state could be bought in stages either as carcass, semi-completed, and completed. The completed building is, however, targeted at Nigerians in the diaspora who are expected to buy and just move in.

    The carcass stage of a 3-bedroom apartment goes for N9 million; semi completed stage of same sells at N12 million; while the completed stage of the apartment goes for N16 million. The fully detached comes with two boys quarters (BQs) and sells for N24 million at carcass stage; N34 million at semi completed stage; and N45 million at completed stage.

    Others include the semi- detached with a BQ at N17 million carcass stage; N23 million for the semi completed; while the completed building goes for N31million. The terraces also come with a BQ at N12 million at carcass stage; N14 million at semi completed stage; and N17 million for the completed building.

    The promoter is also offering flexible mode of payment with 30 per cent upfront payment, while the balance is spread through 18 months. The estate project is being financed by Zenith Bank. However, the structural elements of these buildings are not negotiable, he said.

    “The regulation will begin from foundation, frame structure, slabs, among others, in order ensure the security of the buildings,” said Aminu.

  • Law School class holds reunion

    Class of 1984 of The Nigerian Law School would  celebrate their 31st anniversary of being called to the Bar this week.

    The event tagged: ‘2015 NLS ’84 Grand Reunion’ kicks off at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) tomorrow and ends on Sunday.

    According to a statement by the chairman, press and publicity subcommittee, Mrs Kehinde Apampa, a cocktail holds at the Chelsea Hotel tomorrow. This would be followed by a business session as well as dinner at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, expected to be attended by Dr. Mamman Tahir (SAN) who was the class monitor.

    “The gathering will provide a unique opportunity to our members to celebrate, rub minds and discuss latest legal education around the world. The event is also an opportunity to chart a roadmap for the organisation,” Apampa said.

    The event would also feature an award to some members of the set. They include: Hon Justice Chima Centus Nweze (JSC), Hon. Justice Theresa Orji Abadua (JCA), Hon. Justice Mohammed Danjuma (JCA), and Hon. Justice Olufemi Akeju (JCA).

     

  • Arik Air among global best in economy class

    Arik Air among global best in economy class

    Arik Air has ranked as one of the top 10 airlines in the world to offer most comfortable economy class seat.

    According to a report by www.airlinequality.com, Arik Air is among 10 airlines in the world that offers the most comfortable seats in Economy Class on its wide-body aircraft for medium and long haul flights.

    The report noted that whereas the majority of airlines around the world offer 31 to 32 inches with some offering even as low as 29 to 30 inches, Arik Air is one of the “elite few that still provide a comfortable 34 ins seat pitch where travelers will enjoy greatest comfort”

    Other Airlines rated in this category include: Qatar Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, Thai Airways, Asiana Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Air China, Garuda Indonesia, and Korean Air.

  • Some wonderful class narrative

    The democracy we declared has recoiled into a spent shadow. Sixteen years on in the grip of blood-drenched mascots, it steals from our sweetest fantasies like the proverbial slut making a surreptitious exit with her drunken lover’s wallet.

    Consequently, we suffer poverty in character that manifests as mean-spiritedness. It’s akin to that patience of the wild that holds motionless for endless hours the motorist at the police checkpoint, the kidnapper in his lair, the assassin in his ambuscade and the public officer on his perch – this patience belongs primarily to the predator while it hunts its prey.

    Oftentimes, it manifests in uncontrollable spasms that have seen us bury our best and elevate our worst in abject negation of the cycle of the universe and morality. But who needs morals in a nation where fair is foul and foul remains fair?

    As you read, many a Nigerian of commonplace roots live through each day without ever contemplating or criticizing their living conditions. They find themselves born into dehumanising squalor or somewhat indecent circumstances and they accept such sordidness as their fate thus exhibiting no conscious effort to better their lot beyond what their immediate circumstances dictate.

    Almost as impulsively as the beasts of the wild, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought and consideration that by sufficient endeavor, they just might improve their living conditions. However, a certain percentage – comprising men and women of privilege – guided by personal ambition, consciously strive in thought and will to attain higher status but very few among these are concerned enough to secure for all, the advantages which they seek for themselves. This explains the number of self-centred and treacherous human rights activists, women’s rights activists, journalists and columnists parading our streets.

    Very few men are indeed capable of that humaneness that drives martyrs to persistently rebel against glaring social evils in the interest of less fortunate members of the society. But there exists a few however, that are truly bothered by the impoverishment of their fellow citizens regardless of any risk or discomfort it might attract to them personally.

    These few, driven by compassion tirelessly seek, first in thought and then in action, for some way of escape; some new system of society by which life may become richer, more joyful and devoid of avertable evils that mars the present. But surprisingly, such men oftentimes, fail to curry the support of the very victims of the injustices they wish to remedy.

    This is because more unfortunate sections of the Nigerian population are hopelessly ignorant, apathetic from excess of toil and disillusionment, apprehensive through the imminent danger of instantaneous chastisement by the holders of power, and morally defective owing to the loss of self-respect resulting from their degradation. To excite among such classes any conscious, deliberate effort in pursuit of general improvement of the status quo proves basically a hopeless task, as antecedents of such efforts have proven.

    Thus despite our claims to modernity, higher education, sophistication and relative rise in the standard of comfort among wage-earners in the country, the Nigerian society have failed woefully to achieve better living conditions and a better society even in the throes of rising demand for more radical intervention and reconstruction of the social order.

    It is no surprise however that the Nigerian working class has persistently proved a dismal failure. And the reasons are hardly far-fetched: Nigerians have a problem with differentiating between appropriate and inappropriate political behavior.  That is why the nation’s democratic experiment like any other system of governance practicable by us was doomed from the start.

    What exactly has democracy offered? A 4-1-9 progressive plan that booms circumspectly like it had been doctored as part of a cold-war era propagandist scheme? But despite our self-righteousness and persistent cynicism with the current order, we really cannot explore a more worthy alternative than what we have now. The average Nigerian can’t bear to be led by a truly honest, visionary and accountable leadership. That explains our choice of the incumbent leadership.

    Apparently, we possess an overwhelming and oft-convincing inclination to self-destruct thus our lack of a coherent and defensible political ideology essential to the evolution of a progressive leadership and state.

    The average Nigerian is no more electable than the leadership he endures yet he loves to speak truth to power even as he functions simultaneously to smother his own voice in the riotous gabble of his exultation of the same ruling class whose end he claims to pursue. No matter who is elected, the demographic and economic realities of Nigeria will persist, and there is a very limited range of politically-viable solutions for dealing with them.

    No man; be he a distinguished columnist, lawyer, soldier, or public officer in any office can command the tides of history. The few that appear to have done so–the Napoleon’s, Caesar’s, Hitler’s–were really nothing more than the most capable at making it appear that they command the tides, when in fact they were simply skimming along with them.

    Thus the need for the Nigerian working class to consciously evolve in thought and will in pursuit of a more balanced social order. Such conscious evolution could only be achieved by a re-orientation in scholarship and purification of thought and action.

    The foundations of scholarship and knowledge must be tirelessly reconstructed to guarantee more progressive responses to internal problems of social advance — problems of work and wages, of families and homes, of morals and the true value of life – and all these and other inevitable problems of civilization must be resolvable largely by an average member of the working class by reason of his exposure and constitution.

    This informs a greater need for study and thought and an appeal to the rich experience of past and current mistakes in the journey towards the reduction to the barest minimum, the possibility of future foibles. The answer to Nigeria’s widening income and social gap – which has so far manifested in preventable crises and persistent state of insecurity – is to found an educational process geared to steer successfully, the commonplace trains of thought away from the dilettante and the fool stereotype.

    It’s about time poor, struggling members of the nation’s working class learned to scorn the maxim that holds that if their stomachs be full, it matters little about their brains; the paths to stable peace and security winds between honest toil and dignified manhood. That proverbial better society that we seek calls for the guidance of skilled thinkers, the loving, reverent comradeship between the low income earners and ambitious middle class emancipated by training and culture.

    Such human elements would no doubt be conscious of the fact that not even the sustenance of oil subsidy, higher wages and a fairer economic system could protect its members from the usual handicaps and monstrosity constituted by the incumbent and predatory ruling class.

    Hence they would be able to understand that the much clamoured social enterprise and gesture towards change must be mooted and achieved by the working class itself in further substantiation of the working class’ capacities to assimilate the culture and refinement of humane civilization; a veritable step towards such reality is to vote the incumbent administration out of office

    • To be continued…