The Nation Newspaper

Tag: madness

  • Finding a cure for madness

    Finding a cure for madness

    Perhaps the most important aspect of writing a weekly column is to retain relevance throughout the period of its existence. Your readers deserve to come away with something tangible from reading any of your articles as this is the only way that they would come back week after week to share a few minutes with you. This does not mean that they would always take sides with your argument. Indeed, if this is one of your motives for writing then, you are bound to be disappointed if only because your readers arrive at your column with many different perspectives and there is no way that you can give satisfaction to all your visitors. You can only try but, no matter how hard you try, the thought must always be at the back of your mind that all you write will sooner or later  find its way to a rubbish dump both physically and figuratively, no matter how hard you try. And yet your primary focus must be to give some measure of room to your readers, to complete a circle of trust within which you derive the authority with which you command the attention of those who take the trouble to bring themselves up to date with the current state of your mind.

    When I turned my mind to writing this week’s edition of this column, my first inclination was to continue where I left off last week in my discussion of the current dire situation of academia in Nigeria. After all, whatever relevance I have cannot be separated from my academic career. Whatever the colour of my academic experience however, I cannot expect everyone to share my enthusiasm or interest in that subject, especially in the light of recent developments all around us. Midway through the first paragraph which was to launch my discussion on the travails of contemporary Nigerian lecturers, I found that my mind had strayed into fields of other pressing issues stirring the hearts and minds of the great Nigerian public to the virtual exclusion of everything else, except of course, the issue of the pressing matter of settling the issue of keeping body and soul together. In the interest of satisfying my readers I have therefore chosen to pivot to what I can only describe as a more exciting field of interest this week.

    I remember with startling distinction, the horror I felt that day, it was a Saturday, when I read in a newspaper that the leader of the Boko Haram group (or sect) had, to use contemporary description, been neutralised whilst in what should have been safe custody of the Nigerian Police. There was a time during the civil war when the term wasted was used to describe such an act. However, whichever way we care to say it, the man had been summarily executed and I knew quite instinctively that grave consequences were bound to follow that extrajudicial murder. What I had no way of knowing at the time was the quantum of the mayhem with which we were going to have to cope with, a decade and a half down the line. So many years of our discomfiture have passed and a huge deluge of dirty water has flowed under the bridge since then. And yet, the only thing we are clear about at this time is that our collective suffering over this matter, however painful it has been, is very far from over. The intensity has increased past fever pitch from time to time. It is no wonder that it has flared up recently and begun to raise our temperature in the manner of a herpes attack. The sad thing about herpes is that it is incurable. It comes and goes unpredictably but it is always there waiting to remind the sufferer of its maddening presence. Boko Haram and other related off shoots of this group have inserted themselves

    Read Also: Awakan’s The Madness That Cures Our Land  premieres

    with murderous intent into the very soul of our country. Curing it is presenting the level of difficulty associated with curing cancer. It cannot be done without inflicting a great deal of pain on the patient. Even after going through the terrible pain associated with this attempt at a cure, there is no guarantee that the attempt, any attempt at a cure, is eventually successful.

    One of the phrases trending these days and one from which you cannot get away is that you cure madness with madness. The madness of insurgence, whatever its form, can only be cured with the madness of high intensity military action, a form of insurgence on its own. The people responsible for our current troubles answer to many names; Fulani herdsmen, kidnappers, plain old fashioned terrorists, bandits and the odd armed robbers who operate within urban spaces. Their activities have made nonsense of our security and are now in a position to dictate terms to the government of Nigeria. In other words, they have left our sovereignty in utter ruins. Long gone are the days when our roads, all of them, in different parts of the country could be traversed with confidence at any time of day and night. This brings back to my mind a journey I made from Ife which ended in Kano at 3.30 am in Kano. Even as we made our lonely way through that dark night not once did any fear of danger cross my mind. That was in 1998, a date which has now been completely swallowed up in the murky mist of time.

    Gone also are the days when going to the farm to till the compliant soil was just part of everyday living. Now, farmers carrying on their calling in any part of the country, even those very far from the active theatre of insurrection have become members of a seriously endangered species. They are hunted down like vermin and their farms systematically looted and turned into sterile spaces where only sadness grows. When will the government, responsible for our collective security, dredge up the madness with which to cure the madness of those people who think that their madness is a ticket to some fantastic paradise. A massive time bomb is ticking in this respect.

    The threat of societal collapse in the face of the madness which has been unleashed on the country is a common factor which binds the disparate groups involved in undermining the sovereignty of Nigeria together. Another crucial factor they have in common is their stated allegiance to the Muslim faith and this is a complication which we could deal without. The vast majority of Muslims in this country have not been inflicted with the madness of insurgency but have not been spared the pain of the violence dealt out by some of the adherents of their faith. As a matter of fact, it may even be true to say that because the area of operations for these insurgents are inhabited mainly by Muslims, they are the primary victims of this madness. However, the equation is further complicated in those areas of majority Christian inhabitants. These people stand nakedly vulnerable to this mad situation and the charge of genocide or at least ethnic cleansing has has become increasingly difficult to refute. In some parts of the world this charge has become irrefutable and this has precipitated the furore which has gripped the nation in the last couple of weeks and continues to reverberate through it, picking up an unhealthy head of steam with every passing day. According to Donald Trump, the self proclaimed strong man of the United States and also the self appointed policeman to the world, he has ordered his sidekick in the so called Department of War to develop plans for the invasion of Nigeria. He has made it clear that this decision had been taken in the light of his determination to rescue Nigerian Christians from the hell that Nigeria has become.

    Quite predictably, this announcement has gathered a great deal of interest within the country. It is generating a great deal of heat but very little light and heating up the polity to no discernable purpose. It is however important to point out that it is wishful thinking for us to look up to foreigners, least of all, any American of whatever hue or stripe, to prepare and administer what would be a magic potion with which to cure the madness with which we are now afflicted. This is a home grown affliction which requires a local remedy for any expectations of an eventual cure to be entertained.

  • So, madness is good for you, eh?

    Oh, for the days of great passion! No, not the type that makes your breast heave in rapturous wonder at a lovely creature standing before you. I’m thinking more of the type that makes men to go out in search of great discoveries for the benefit of mankind. I’m thinking, for example, of scientists who offered, not just their time, but their bodies for science out of passion for the job.

    Take Humphrey Davy for instance. (No, please, don’t admire my science savvy; I got it off the internet.) He was said to have sometimes performed all kinds of experiments with nitrous oxide (or laughing gas) on himself, his pets, his friends and his friends’ friends en-route to discovering anesthesia. Ho, ho, my friend, all I can say is that I’m glad I was not his friend, for with friends like that, you don’t need enemies.

    I bet you there are many husbands conducting unrecorded, unacknowledged experiments on their wives right now. When half of the month’s salary has gone on illegal activities like the pool or the bar, then out will come the test tubes, beakers, tripods and the pronouncements. ‘Listen, Mama Bisi, we have to tighten our belts this month. Our employer has cut our salaries into two this month.’ He then watches for her response to determine whether to cave in and simply hand over his life (you know, as in, ‘Your money or your life’ and you say ‘Take my life but please leave my money’).

    Finding a need to somehow provide herself with the required intimate articles, Mama Bisi wonders aloud if she may not just cream a little off the top of the house keep, as they say, and see what effect it would have on the family. Whoever used to eat ice cream may find him/herself eating a finger of banana and whoever used to eat two pieces of meat may have to make do with one. I’m not sure but I think it is on that last note that the various experiments may break down and substitutions may become restitutions. Don’t you just love this free market economy where everyone goes home happy?

    Anyway, back to our scientists. You have just got to admire their sense of total commitment to the cause which, you’re quite sure, can only be propelled by madness. What else but madness would prompt a man like Davy to go contracting tuberculosis by inhaling carbon monoxide just to be able to find a cure for it? If my dress maker were to be as committed as he was, believe me, I would be better dressed.

    There, I digress again. Commitment means totally giving over one’s mind to a cause in a way that can raise suspicion in others. I would imagine that friends of Davy or Joseph Priestly would be mightily suspicious of them and would only associate with them if they needed their services, such as when they had to go through surgery. But there cannot be any doubt that their efforts resulted in something that benefits mankind today. Now, people need not go through amputations again without anaesthesia, unlike before when they had only a bottle of whiskey between them and the surgeon’s blade, although I can hear a few people mumbling, ‘I’ll pick that bottle of whisky any day.’

    That is the problem. Many of us Nigerians, including me, are choosing too many easy ways over trying to create something beneficial to mankind. Many of us have only one vision in our heads – a picture of Aso Rock. All of us, to a man, have lost our ability to pursue our dreams with the required zeal and necessary passion. Too many of us are pursuing either money (ask our politicians) or our enemies (ask our religious zealots), even if those enemies reside right inside us. And so, we go on living with our potentials untapped, unexplored, unexcavated, and unexposed.

    You see, for dreams to rise to the surface, one needs a good measure of madness, without which nothing can be achieved. The madness will take you through days of hunger, poverty, deprivation and any other effects your tests may wish to visit on your little body. This madness will also mean a great deal of aloneness, aloofness and total lock-in. Finally, the madness we are talking about will mean a readiness to burn down the house. I guess this is difficult to achieve in Nigeria.

    Well, to begin with, there are your relations. I believe the major problem Nigerians have is this inability to divorce themselves from their relations. This is why, come every weekend, caps and geles are criss-crossing the country to attend ‘a relative’s’ burial or child’s marriage ceremony. Then there is, of course, the most important relation to you who would refuse, on point of death, to allow you burn down the house because you are conducting one ‘yeye’ experiment. If you persist, she would simply go to the village, ferry in your eldest, dying relatives to come and convince you to see the error of your ways.

    If you insist on going on with your mad desire to discover something beneficial to mankind, your relatives may cease all arguments with you. You would just wake up one morning in Aro Hospital to find that you have been wrapped and parcelled there in the dead of night while you were sleeping. After all, all it takes is for a relative to sign you in, and no one is ever short of those. In fact, I have recently discovered that mine are giving me suspicious looks… I don’t know, but it may have something to do with the things I write…

    So, this madness thing is difficult in Nigeria, but not impossible. First, select your dream. Scroll down the road of your mind and pick that activity you love doing which brings that special joy to you and benefit to mankind. Please note that adding more people into this already over-populated world hardly counts as beneficial. Painting, inventing, writing, or just making things like radios, TV sets, computers are more acceptable. No wait, those have been discovered. So, go find your own article to invent.

    Then, assemble your materials as cheaply as possible. Note that expensive materials cannot be discarded in times of failure without you bursting into tears. Now, select a quiet spot around you where you can carry out your experiment in peace, such as your mother’s or wife’s kitchen. Lastly, gently persuade your spouse or parent that you are full of good intentions, you only want to discover something beneficial to mankind, and no, you hope the house will not burn down.

    I do agree with you; the government’s yo-yo economic policies are right now not very favourable to us all. Nevertheless, we can still do a great deal in spite of it. Let the government carry on with its work of self-extinction, let the citizens carry on with their own seriousness; and one day, with a great deal of luck, the serious citizens will leave the unserious government behind.

    The moral of this story is that men ought always to go more in search of madness than money. Just listen. When you have madness, you will be pushed beyond the limit of endurance as you chase your dream to leave humanity a little better than before, and men will remember you always for your efforts. Today, we credit and remember Priestly and Davy for what they did for mankind, not for how rich they managed to get by having access to government coffers. No one remembers such. Thanks to inventors like those, you and I can now have our appendix removed while watching our favourite shows on TV.

     

     

  • Fuel shortage madness

    Fuel shortage madness

    It is only a mad person who does things repeatedly in one fashion and expects  to get different results. The political economy of petroleum resources is too important and critical in Nigeria to be left to the government alone. Supply and distribution of petrol (benzene) for fueling internal combustion engines whether vehicles or generators are not rocket science or neuroscience to be left to experts alone. It is simple economics of supply and demand. Countries that do not  have or produce petroleum  have to import and distribute the stuff without the agony and trauma that regularly befall Nigerians especially annually at Christmas.

    Our basic problem is that we are not refining enough petroleum for domestic use. We have four refineries, two in Port Harcourt, one each in Kaduna and Warri. These are refineries established at different times and with different capacities starting with the first one in Port Harcourt in 1965. The one in Kaduna is poorly located and its location was probably influenced by political considerations. This was a wrong decision for a purely economic matter. This is because transportation of refined petroleum is easier and cheaper than  the transportation of crude oil. This is more so since the Kaduna refinery was built to refine heavy crude imported from Venezuela at a point in time. We may in future be able to refine in Kaduna crude oil from Niger republic. However, the locational issue is now academic.

    The reality is that all the refineries are not working  at optimal level. This means we rely on imports to satisfy local need. The cost of imported fuel is subject to the vagaries of the up and down of global cost of petroleum. When the cost is low, government does not need to subsidize but when it is high the government in order to keep  pump price low has to subsidize to keep importers to continue in business. Unfortunately this scheme has been so thoroughly abused in the past to the extent that trillions were used in one calendar year as subsidies. People who knew nothing about the oil  and gas trade jumped unto the bandwagon and overnight became gas and oil business men and instant billionaires.

    During the Jonathan regime politicians and their children used their connection for financial aggrandizement at the expense of the state and poor struggling Nigerians who bought fuel at prices dictated by cartels in cahoots with people in government. The huge amount spent on importing petrol led to the downward spiral of the Naira. So much foreign exchange was used for oil importation that the real sector of production was neglected because there was no hard currency to import spare parts and raw materials for local industries that unreasonably depended on imports. But because crude oil was selling sometimes close to $120 a barrel, it was easy for operators of the domestic economy to allow all kinds of imports thereby giving a feel-good effect for everybody while kicking forward the lean years which were bound to come when the price of crude oil drops. This came with the change of government in 2015 and drastic drop of crude oil production and price globally due to over supply of the world market. This overproduction came as a result of increased oil production in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the re-entry on a large scale of Iraq, Iran  and the United States whose local production increased exponentially because of fracking which is now responsible for 50 percent of America’s oil output.

    When this Buhari government came two years ago, subsidies were mercifully stopped to wide acclamation and trillions of naira were  therefore saved.  Subsidies could not continue because the country was broke. If Jonathan had won  the election, he would have had to cancel the subsidy regime or allow the country to go bankrupt like Venezuela. The  Buhari government however failed to educate Nigerians that the price of petrol would rise if the depressed price of crude oil at that time about $35 rose. The price of crude oil is now double what it was two years ago so the pump price of petrol must go up  unless huge subsidies are again paid to importers. If  after subsidies current pump price is maintained, Nigeria through smugglers will be providing refined petroleum products and gasoline to her neighbours. The point to make is that as long as we do not refine  adequate amount of petroleum for domestic use, the price of petrol at the pump will vary with the vagaries of international price of crude oil. How much will be enough at the pump to encourage oil importers to continue in business without subsidies? How much can the people pay in a period of economic depression? What price is politically wise to ask hard pressed and struggling Nigerians to pay? Should market forces be allowed to operate without government intervention? These are the issues.

    First of all, what can be done to speed up local refining of petroleum? The answer is not annual Turn Around Maintenance ( TAM). Some have wickedly described it as “ Automated Teller Machine)  those working in NNPC. Can anyone blame them? This is a drainpipe of government revenue which has been going on since these refineries were built. Any sane man would have expected government to have signed maintenance agreements with those who built the refineries right from the start. I remember Sani Abacha asking TOTAL petroleum of France to do a TAM at the Kaduna refinery at a cost of US$100million when he was in power. This was at a time when a modest new refinery in Singapore was costing the same amount.Now we are being told  again that NNPC is planning TAM for the old four refineries at $1.2 billion. This contract should be stopped immediately. The refineries should all be sold to oil companies doing business in Nigeria at buyer determined price.

    If I was advising President Buhari, I will ask him to give them away at zero price with the condition that the companies buying them will make them work within a year.  The other condition will be that continued business of these oil companies will depend upon cooperation with government to make these refineries work. The money saved from TAM will be used to import petrol while waiting for the repairs to be carried out at no cost to the national exchequer. The huge cost of TAM would therefore have been saved and used for importation and what would have been used for importation will sit pretty in our foreign reserves and be used to support economic development. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo had a plan like this in 2007 but those who moved in with President Umaru Yar’Adua sabotaged this plan and forced the health-challenged president to change course so that they could benefit and did benefit in the shady and corrupt Nigerian oil and gas business.  These same people for two years prevailed on the Yar’Adua government to cancel contracts for building much needed electricity generating plants. It is not too late for Buhari to go back to the past and embrace this solution so that he can leave a lasting legacy.  The annual Christmas headache of fuel shortage will end hopefully by the time the old refineries come alive at no  cost to government and the much ballyhooed Dangote refinery in Lagos comes on stream. A private company would have come to the rescue of Nigeria and we will all be able to say like Martin Luther  King junior “ Free at last,  Free at last ,Lord God Almighty , we are free at last”.

  • LBD madness

    LBD madness

    EVERYONE looks good in black. So, it’s a bonus that the little black dress (LBD) is a huge fashion trend this season. The great thing is that black basic items are classic.

    The little black dress will never go out of style, and we know that you can never have too much black in your wardrobe.

    The mainstream fashion and celebrities are going back to black because a  little black dress can always be counted on to deliver a best-dressed look with hardly any extra effort.

    Basic tips to rock the look: Glam up your little black dress without piling on many accessories Opt for bold and innovative accessories.

    Whether your black dress is sleek or frilly, kick up its volume by adding a pair of creative tights

    Leopard-print shoes will fill your ladylike little black dress with a sexy edge.

    A tailored jacket will make the whole day-to-evening-to-dance-floor transition a total easy task.

  • Ending the cycle of madness

    SIR: I voted President Buhari in the last election. But no, it wasn’t because I thought he could change anything; I voted for him because I overrated the ability of Nigerians to think and reason correctly.

    My thought was that if President Buhari failed – as I knew he would – Nigerians would sit, think, and consider a “third option”. I wrote then that the problems of this country are systemic and will never be solved by mere electoral gimmicks and reforms, but by a revolutionary third force.

    As at that time, PDP had ruled. A Yoruba man had been President. A southerner had been President. My thought was that if a northerner and a product of the merger became President and failed too like the ones who came before him, Nigerians would see that Nigeria’s problems surpass an APC, PDP, North, South thing and unite to birth a third option that will painstakingly erode the old order, end this current shitstem that glorifies looters and celebrates lawless leaders and establish a new order where illegality and the madness that characterised the old system can no longer thrive. But I was wrong.

    Look, Nigeria has bigger problems than Buhari, APC, PDP or the north. We are suffering from systemic failures resulting from a system that harbours countless social contradictions. You don’t patch up systemic failures this pronounced; you either rise to end the system or continue in the four-year electoral delusion, hoping things would change only to discover that they won’t.

    Come 2019, President Buhari will either be re-elected or somebody else will become President. We will restart the cycle of hope and right before our eyes see it dashed like before. We will come on Facebook and our blogs and write beautiful grammar about how we have been let down and how we have to wait till 2023. We will console ourselves with: “Your voters’ card is your power. If he fails, we will remove him too.” But we lie.

    How many failures do we have to witness before we become old and grey and leave a horrible country for our children? It is delusional to think that any real power lies in that voters’ card. The real power lies in our ability to think and take unpopular steps.

    Our search for sanity in the midst of the chaos will yield no fruit until this system is torn down. Until then, we will continue to elect the same folks under different party names. Party names will change. Slogans will change. Emblems will change. Portfolios will change. But what will remain constant is the suffering and groaning of the ordinary people.

    The children of the ordinary people will continue to get crumbs and continue to be offered N23, 000 jobs for two years while the children of the illegal beneficiaries of this system will continue to get backdoor appointments to CBN, FIRS, etc. Ordinary people have no future.

    Their only hope for a better life lies in the struggle for a new system where merit, equality, freedom are more than mere words on paper.

    This cycle of madness has gone on for long enough; the time to end it is now.

     

    • James Ogunjimi,

    ogunjimijamestaiwo@gmail.com

  • ‘Collective madness’

    Ironically, Nigeria’s luminary of letters, Nobelist Wole Soyinka, lost the election for the prestigious poetry chair at the University of Oxford for non-poetry reasons. His defeat by British poet Simon Armitage ranks as a stunning literary upset, considering that 80-year-old Soyinka was a clear and comfortable front runner with an impressive number of 149 nominations. Armitage had 54 nominations. The election demonstrated that “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.” Armitage, 52, polled 1221 votes, while Soyinka got 920 votes, followed by EA Stallings with 918 votes, Haldane Sean (206) and Gregson Ian (75). The Professor of Poetry is, among other things, expected to give a minimum of three lectures a year, for a stipend of £12,000, and the tenure is five years.

    Perhaps the most thought-provoking reaction to the election result and Soyinka’s loss came from Andrew Franklin, who has published the laureate’s work. He reportedly described the outcome as   ”collective madness,” and was quoted as saying, “Why couldn’t Oxford have voted for its first ever black professor of poetry?” Franklin added: “Simon Armitage is good but this is a collective failure of imagination. It just would have been nice to see Oxford do something different. Maybe Oxford is just full of dull old farts who only vote for the obvious. I don’t think they have anything to be proud of here.” The question is: Was Soyinka’s colour a disadvantage?

    The barely disguised hint at possible racism may not be an over-reaction. While the publicised anti-Soyinka factors were his advanced age, his allegedly suspect commitment, and his failure to provide a tenure agenda, the deciding consideration may have been unstated and unspeakable.  As his backers pointed out, the age argument is unsupported by the history of the over 300-year-old position, and it was not obligatory to supply a plan.  On the question of his commitment, Soyinka himself said in self- defence:  ”How curious that anyone would even speculate that I would allow busy and committed people – friends, colleagues and total strangers – to waste their time nominating and campaigning on my behalf for such a prestigious position if I were not serious about contesting.”

    The path of reasoning by elimination leads to that dark possibility of discrimination on the basis of colour. Indeed, it would require a transparent demographic delineation of the electors to disprove or prove the suggestion of racial bias. According to the University, “Voting is by members of Convocation… Convocation consists of all former student members of the University who have been admitted to a degree (other than an honorary degree) of the University, and all members of Congregation (the ‘dons’ parliament’ of the University).” Were there racists among the voters? Or, put differently, how many of the voters were slaves of racism?

    To be fair, the world has progressed to more benign forms of racial prejudice, even to the point of delusion built on the cloudy concept of post-racism. However, the reality of colour-related discrimination is still too real to be unreal.  If Soyinka’s towering literary stature was rubbished by racist dwarfs, it underlines the distance between humanity and a non-racist world. And for a writer known for his passion for the promotion of human rights, it may be an eye-opener for Soyinka that the world of letters is not colour-blind, meaning that the right to skin colour has not become unchallengeable in that supposedly sublime  sphere.

    Was it payback time for Soyinka, the protester who registered his anti-racist punch in his marvellously and magically nuanced famous poem “Telephone Conversation”, first published in 1963? It is understandable that his supporters are puzzled. For a literator who in 1986 became the first black and African winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the world’s ultimate literary recognition and decoration, it is too bad to be true that he failed at Oxford.

    It is worth recalling that the Nobel Committee painted Soyinka as a master of form and content “who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence.” There is no question that the accomplishment had the quality of a redeeming feature for the black man in a world corrupted by racism.

    From a romantic perspective, a five-year period as poetry professor at Oxford, which is regarded as perhaps just short of the Nobel, would have been a befitting climax to Soyinka’s writing life. The only qualification is “that candidates be of sufficient distinction to be able to fulfil the duties of the post”. The anti-climatic development raises the question whether Soyinka has suffered a decline in distinction which the Oxford voters validated.

    It is interesting that Soyinka’s rapier wit and broad imagination, as well as his capacity for thoughtful parallelism, were brilliantly communicated in his post-election statement in which he admitted to having been “truly caught up in the excitement generated by this historic union of the poetic and democratic Muses.”  His punch line was delivered with practiced subtlety: “Mind you, if only they’d allowed me to import a small team of our seasoned electoral jugglers from the home front….”

    The reference to Nigeria’s crisis of democratic integrity was unmistakable.  It was Soyinka the poet and playwright, but also Soyinka the political activist. Undeniably, in Soyinka, there is a rare conflation of the artist and the activist at a superlative level; and it is to his credit that in the almost 30 years since he won the Nobel at age 52, he has not gone artistically cold and remains politically warm. It is noteworthy that Soyinka was Armitage’s age when he was crowned.

    It remains to be seen how Armitage will champion the cause of poetry, but his statement submitted ahead of the contest indicated a useful direction. He wrote that he would take advantage of the position “to discuss the situation of poetry and poets in the 21st century, to address the obstacles and opportunities brought about by changes in education, changes in reading habits, the internet, poetry’s decreasing ‘market share’, poetry’s relationship with the civilian world and the (alleged) long, lingering death of the book”.

    Armitage’s anxiety about the future of poetry in what Harold Bloom called “an age of visual overstimulation” is certainly appreciated, but Soyinka’s magnetism and lateral thinking are probably more appropriate for rescuing the genre at this juncture. It looks like the real losers are Oxford University and the art of poetry.

  • Stop the madness in Edo House

    For the past few weeks days, peace has taken a flight from the Edo State House of Assembly. This is not unconnected with the crisis which followed the congress of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state. Some members of the party were aggrieved as a result of the outcome of the congress, which either did not afvour them or their political caucus.

    Cross River State government took reporters round some of its legacy projects. The tour started in Calabar and terminated in Ogoja, the far end of the state which is no less than five hours away from the state capital.

    Some members of the House of Assembly were wooed by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into their fold. Governor Adams Oshiomhole later alleged that each of them got N50 million to defect.They have since fired back, saying the governor has earlier offered them money too to remain in the APC. They claimed to have rejected the money.

    The defection has since polarised the House with the leadership suspending the defectors, who have since teamed up with other PDP members to send peace on leave. A court has ordered them to stay suspended. They have threatened to go ahead and sit claiming to have suspended their other colleagues. A new mace has even surfaced, which it has emerged was an old one stolen in 2010.

    The day they ‘sat and removed’ the leadership of the House  a fracas broke out when the Speaker and his colleagues stormed the floor of the Assembly. It was a hectic day for the police. And since then, hell has come down to the Edo House.

    Both parties are not ready to give in. It is like fire for fire and like they say, when two elephants fight, it is the grass, which in this case is the people, that suffers.  It is a funny case in which eight lawmakers are trying to play the majority.

    Oshiomhole has washed his hands off the crisis. The governor’s spokesperson has said he knows nothing about the crisis.

    Justice A.M. Liman ruled on June 6 that the Speaker was right in suspending the four lawmakers but that he had no right to declare their seats vacant.

    Justice Liman held that: “That the disciplinary power of the House is not subject to the judicial review of the Court, accordingly the application to restrain the 2nd Respondent from suspending the applicants from the House is hereby refused”.

    This ruling cleared the way for the suspension of Festus Ebea, Patrick Osayimwen, Jude Ise-Idehen and Friday Ogieriakhi.

    The APC, in a statement, said: “Despite the service of the processes including the Order of Injunction on all the parties, the suspended members have continued to create tension and chaos in the House of Assembly and its environs by forcibly entering into the premises and chambers of the House of Assembly aided by numerous thugs and (rather unfortunately) officers and men of the Nigeria Police force.

    “We are informed that these contemnors claim, rather erroneously, that they can act in defiance and disobedience of the positive order of Court on the ground that they are pursuing an appeal against the order.

    “It is an elementary principle of our Legal System that an Order of a Court remains valid and subsisting which all parties must comply with unless and until it is set aside by the Court which issued same or a Court of Appeal.”

    The court has spoken and the law should be allowed to stand. The time to stop this madness of going against the law is now.

     

  • A different kind of madness

    “Madness need not be all break down. It may also be break-through. It is potential libration and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.” R. D. Laing

     

    There is so much madness going on in our nation Nigeria that a youth leader once asked on his Facebook page “Has madness become normal in Nigeria?” Many of us are probably asking the same questions too!

    For months I have been asking myself the following questions about this madness going on in our nation. Who can stop this madness? Who will stop this madness going on all over Nigeria? Who will step up to the plate of leadership and give this “madness” a deadly blow?

    I like to turn problems, questions and challenges upside down and inside out just so that I can see and find solutions that are not obvious – unique solutions. I love to put a twist on things! So, I put a twist on this madness issue by asking a new set of questions about madness.

    Such as “Is it possible to have a different kind of madness? Is it possible to have a good kind of madness? Is it possible to have a constructive and a productive kind of madness? Is it possible to have a kind of madness that creates positive energy? Is it possible to displace and replace one kind of madness with another kind of madness?

    A French writer and philosopher Voltaire said of madness: “To have erroneous perception and to reason correctly from them?” To Indian-born British writer Rudyard Kipling: “Everyone is more or less mad on one point.” Spain-born American poet, philosopher and novelist George Santayana says “Sanity is madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.” Italian poet and dramatist Ugo Betti alleged “‘Mad’ is a term we used to describe a man who is obsessed with one idea and nothing else.” German poet and philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche states “Insanity in individuals is something rare but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule.”

    Napoleon said “The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one’s designs to one’s means.”

    U. S. writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes said “Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed.” British rock star and songwriter Mick Jagger said “The only true performance is the one which attains madness.” Canadian-born American writer Saul Bellow said “Of course, in an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness too.”

    French mathematician, philosopher and physicist Blaise Pascal said “Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.” American writer Robert M. Pirsig said “The insane person is running a private unapproved film which he happens to like better than the current cultural, one.” Russian-born anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin said “The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!”

    From what all these people have said about madness one can deduce that it is possible to have kinds of madness (a) the negative kind of madness that destroys (b) And the positive kind of madness that builds, constructs and is creative.

    So, what kind of madness do we need to create that will tip the scale in favour of a new Nigeria?

    The Irish poet and playwright once said “The best lack conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity!” How can we have a constructive kind of madness for positive change?

    Is it possible to have a madness of hope for Nigeria? Is it possible to have a madness of faith for the future of our nation?

    Some synonyms of madness are aberration, craziness, dementia, derangement, insanity, lunacy, mania, delirium, frenzy, fury and rage. Synonyms of mad are crazed, crazy, delirious, demented, deranged, distracted, insane, irrational, lunatic, maniac, maniacal, enraged, furious, rabid, raging, violet, angry, incensed, provoked, wrathful, distracted, infatuated, wild, frantic, frenzied and raving.

    When we look at these words we can use some of them to describe what is happening in Nigeria in the negative and also they describe how we should feel as Nigerian citizens. As Nigerian citizens shouldn’t we be angry with all the negative madness ripping destruction through our land like a hurricane?

    It is said that it takes ‘fire to fight fire’. I believe it also takes madness to fight madness! It takes one kind of madness to fight a madness of another kind. We must fight this negative madness of hate and death with a positive madness of love, hope, faith, goodness etc

    Nigeria needs patriots in this dark hour of her history. We need to start asking ourselves “Who are our patriots? Where are our Patriots? Why are our patriots not enraged, raving mad, furious, angry and incensed with all the negative kind of madness going on in Nigeria? Why?

    Shouldn’t our patriots stand up and be counted for protecting our country? Shouldn’t our patriots defend our land against negative madness? Shouldn’t our patriots fight madness for madness using the positive kind of madness?

    Different people at different times in history had either the negative kind of madness or the positive kind of madness. Germany’s Adolf Hitler had a madness of racial superiority. And Winston Churchill countered Hitler’s negative madness with a different kind of madness of hope, boldness and courage! These were his words to his people during one of Britain’s darkest hour “We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight…in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!”

    Mother Teresa fought the madness of poverty with a different kind of madness, a madness of compassion. Gandhi had a madness of non violence and he used it to fight the madness of imperialist oppression in India.

    Fela Anikulapo Kuti had a madness of social justice and he used his music to fight the madness of social injustice. Gani Fawehimi had a different kind of madness, a madness of upholding human rights and equity. He used his legal practice to fight the madness of the violation of human rights in Nigeria.

    We need patriots that will renew our pride in Nigeria through a different kind of madness. We need patriots who will restore hope in our hearts through a madness of hope. We need patriots who will call fellow Nigerians to action through a positive kind of madness of love. We need patriots who will give us faith for the future through a positive kind of madness of faith in Nigeria in spite of what we see daily! We need patriots who will give back to Nigeria (and Nigerians) through a positive kind of madness of goodness by sowing seeds of goodness daily in our land! We need patriots who will bring out the greatness in Nigeria (and Nigerians) through a positive kind of madness of greatness!

    At this dark hour on the chequered pavement of our mortal existence, we need the negative kind of madness displaced and replaced with a positive kind of madness that only patriots have and can give! Evil, must bow before good in our land! Our patriots have been equipped to ensure that they run evil out of our town and nation Nigeria!

     

    • Simoyan, a creative leader, innovator and author writes from Lagos

     

  • Giving meaning to ‘madness’

    Poetry is subjective, a romance the poet engages with himself. But, when 18 undergraduates with diverse backgrounds and just a unifying thread amongst them come together to express the innermost thoughts in a poetry anthology, then such collection can only be eclectic. Such were my thoughts as I read Our Legacy Of Madness, an anthology produced by The Weavers Club of the University of Lagos.

    As the most personal form of literature, poetry becomes the first romance burgeoning literature enthusiasts engage in. The book is expressive of the dreams, desires, and life which the youth, future leaders of tomorrow, find themselves. And with no central theme, poems in the book range from cherry dispositions to melancholy, from city hustles to the rural inclines of nature, these poets bare their minds, offering a plethora of vistas to life, nay Nigerian life.

    For instance, it is easy to visualise Nigeria and Nigerians in Olumide Ayodele’s poem, Our United-Dividedness. He writes: In the past/ Many mouths tasted much meat from many hands/ And many bellies smiled in unison/ Whistling me/ Whistling us/ Whistling us/ At present/ A thousand tongues are scarred/ By the skin of soured grapes/ Their bellies testified to the festering worms within/ Screaming me/ Skimming you/ Goat-footedly apart. Also, Chinaza Amaeze Okoli, expresses oneness with nature in his poem, On The Niger Bridge, with lines like I long to watch you spurt/And leap above my eyes. However, in another poem entitled, Name In The Rear, he bears a forlorn frustration at his country, and encapsulates how the pains of citizenship is made light with jokes.

    And reflecting on man’s life on earth, Yemisi Onanuga’s poem, Choice, simply evokes a sense of humanity’s freedom. Onanuga writes that ‘one thing is constant and that is choice.’ The poet then contends that, ‘And even choosing not to choose is a choice of decision.’

    So diverse are the expressed themes in the anthology, as multifarious as life itself, that finding a poem to connect to, is not too difficult. And being young people, there is also of touch of adventure, perception of history and the reality of living the present. These are perhaps the main ingredients that make the book tick. No doubt, we live in maddening times and the potpourri of voices in Our Legacy of Madness perhaps confirm one thing – this is a season of ‘madness.’

  • So, madness is good for you, eh?

    So, madness is good for you, eh?

    The moral of this story is that men ought always to go more in search of madness than money

    Oh, for the days of great passion! No, not the type that makes your breast heave in rapturous wonder at the creation standing before you. I’m thinking more of the type that makes men to go out in search of great discoveries for the benefit of mankind. I’m thinking, for example, of scientists who offered not just their time but their bodies for science out of passion for the job. Take Humphrey Davy for instance. (No, please, don’t admire my science savvy; I got it off the internet.) He was said to have sometimes performed all kinds of experiments with nitrous oxide (or laughing gas) on himself, his pets, his friends and his friends’ friends just to get to the answer he was looking for. Ho, ho, my friend, all I can say is that I’m glad I was not his friend, for with friends like that, you don’t need enemies.

    I bet you there are many husbands conducting unrecorded, unacknowledged experiments on their wives right now. When half of the month’s salary has gone on engaging activities like the pool or the bar, then out will come the test tubes, beakers, tripods and the pronouncements. ‘Listen, Mama Bisi, we have to tighten our belts this month. Our employer has cut our salaries into two this month.’ He then watches for her response to determine whether to cave in and simply hand over his life (you know, as in, ‘Your money or your life’ and you say ‘My life’) or whether he will get away with it. For response, there may be no response. Mama Bisi may just tighten her mouth in determination: there is time to conduct her own experiment in the market.

    Finding a need to somehow provide herself with the required intimate articles, she wonders aloud if she may not just cream a little off the top of the housekeeping, as they say, and see what effect it would have on the family. Whoever used to eat ice cream may find himself/herself eating a finger of banana and whoever used to eat two pieces of meat may have to make do with one. I’m not sure but I think it is on that last note that the various experiments may break down and substitutions may become restitutions – gambling given up for articles. Don’t you just love this free market economy where everyone goes home happy?

    Anyway, back to our scientists. You have just got to admire their sense of total commitment to the cause which, you’re quite sure, can only be propelled by madness. What else but madness would prompt a man like Davy to go in search of tuberculosis by inhaling carbon monoxide to his heart’s content just to be able to find a cure for it? If my dressmaker were to be as committed as he was, believe me, I would be better dressed and all those love letters I am getting now would probably double. Or, if my housekeeping allowance were to be doubled, I would take the house to greater heights. There, I digress again. Commitment means totally giving over one’s mind to a cause in a way that can raise suspicion in others. I would imagine that friends of Davy or Joseph Priestly would be mightily suspicious of them and would only associate with them if they needed their services, such as when they had to go through surgery. But there cannot be any doubt that their efforts resulted in something that benefits mankind today. Now, people need not go through amputations again without anaesthesia, unlike before when they had only a bottle of whiskey between them and the surgeon’s blade, although I can hear a few people mumbling, ‘I’ll pick that bottle any day.’

    That is the problem. Many of us Nigerians, including me, are choosing too many easy ways over trying to create something beneficial to mankind. Many of us have only one vision – a picture of Aso Rock – and we can be heard mumbling in our sleep: ‘Just help me get into Aso Rock.’ All of us, to a man, have lost our ability to pursue our dreams with the required zeal and necessary passion. Too many of us are pursuing either money (ask our politicians) or our enemies (ask our religious zealots), even if those enemies reside right inside us. And so, we go on living with our potentials untapped, unexplored, unexcavated, and mankind waiting for us.

    You see, for dreams to rise to the surface, one needs a good measure of madness, without which nothing can be achieved. The madness will take you through days of hunger, poverty, deprivation and any other effects your tests may wish to visit on your little body. This madness will also mean a great deal of aloneness, aloofness and total lock-in. Finally, the madness we are talking about will mean a readiness to burn down the house. I guess this is difficult to achieve in Nigeria.

    Well, to begin with, there are your relations. I believe the major problem Nigerians have is this inability to divorce themselves from their relations. This is why, come every weekend, caps and geles are criss-crossing the country to attend ‘a relative’s’ burial or marriage ceremony. Then, there is, of course, the most important relation to you who would refuse, on point of death, to allow you burn down the house because you are conducting one ‘yeye’ experiment. If you persist, she would simply go to the village, ferry in your eldest, dying relatives to come and convince you to see the error of your ways. And, of course, if you insist on going on with your mad desire to discover something beneficial to mankind, your relatives may cease all arguments with you. You would just wake up one morning in Aro Hospital to find that you have been wrapped and parcelled there in the dead of night while you were sleeping.

    So, this madness thing is difficult in Nigeria, but not impossible. First, select your dream. Scroll down the road of your mind and pick that activity you love doing which brings that special joy to you and benefit to mankind. Please note that adding more people into this already over-populated world hardly counts as beneficial. Painting, experimenting to invent, writing, or just making things like radios, TV sets, computers are more acceptable. No wait, those have been discovered. So, go find your own article to invent. Then, assemble your materials as cheaply as possible. Note that expensive materials cannot be discarded in times of failure without you bursting into tears. Now, select a quiet spot around you where you can carry out your experiment in peace. Lastly, gently persuade your spouse or parent that you are full of good intentions, you only want to discover something beneficial to mankind, and no, you hope the house will not burn down.

    I do agree with you; the government’s yo-yo economic policies are right now not very favourable to us all. Nevertheless, we can still do a great deal in spite of it. Let the government carry on with its unseriousness, let the citizens carry on with their own seriousness; and one day, with a great deal of luck, the serious citizens will leave the unserious government behind.

    The moral of this story is that men ought always to go more in search of madness than money. Just listen. When you have madness, you will be pushed beyond the point of endurance to go chasing your dream that leaves humanity a little better than before and men will remember you always for your efforts. Today, we credit and remember Priestly and Davy for what they did for mankind, not for how rich they managed to get through access to government coffers. No one remembers such.