The Nation Newspaper

Tag: mentality

  • Love-us-or-buzz-off mentality

    The presidency is a heady place. No, let’s retake that. Let’s say the presidency is another country or a giddying entity. And by this we do not mean Aso Rock per se, but any residence of power the world over. Unless you are a president in your own right (by this we mean a sovereign president and not any other contraption of that nomenclature, please), you are bound to be subdued, circumscribed or get big-headed.

    In some circles, it is called the aura of power; that magical, illogical power of power. It is of course buoyed by the very supposition that within this precinct, nothing is impossible; or rather, everything is possible. Herein lies the power of life, the power of death, the power of wealth; immense wealth. Indeed, every other power at all you might seek can be sourced here if you are rooted enough and know the buttons to press.

    Should you perchance have a stake or operate from within the presidential coven, you are immediately ensconced unto the realm of gods – and mind you, you don’t have any say in this. It happens in spite of your better self. Now begins the problem: it all now depends on your capacity to carry your newly acquired godhead. Again, mind you, it is a heavy load only the humble and gracious can carry.

    This happens even to the very best of us – when your fathers, mothers, teacher and hitherto superiors begin to genuflect superfluously before you then you are bound to begin to think that you have morphed into a god except that you still find yourself using the small room.

    Well, Hardball is actually interrogating a statement attributed to the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu who said in Abuja last week that the critics of President Mohammadu Buhari were favour seekers.

    Hear him: “As for those critics who are used to being settled by successive governments, with false claims to being so-called conscience of society popping up from the cupboard on and off to drive the country towards religious and ethnic polarization, they have no other motive but to rock the boat of good governance.

    “What they yearn for is to be picked out to be paid to keep quiet. The Buhari government has abolished ‘settlement’.

    First, this remark from a presidential spokesman and an erstwhile senior media man is unfortunate, ill-tempered and in bad taste. It is settled that every government needs a robust regime of critics. To therefore blackmail such critics as seeking to be ‘bribed’ is low and may well be self-indicting as Shehu himself was a strident critic.

    Finally, examples abound showing that President Muhammadu Buhari has been less than inclusive in his policies. This point must be made.

  • Tragedy of Nigerian poor’s herd mentality

    What President Muhammadu Buhari was persistently ridiculed and condemned as a failure even before his second year in office, was a direct consequence of his inability to uphold the corrupt but highly lucrative systemic bazaar of the past. Although Buhari’s leadership suffers the affliction of crooked men and women, his glamourised aversion to corruption and his ongoing anti-corruption campaign, resonates dangerously to the country’s crooked divide. Too many men and women accustomed to pocketing and spending money that they didn’t earn are suddenly aghast and petrified by their inability to conduct ‘business as usual.’

    That former President Goodluck Jonathan took God for a fool also attests to the plague and degenerate sway of money. Jonathan, in abject desperation for acceptance and goodwill of Nigerian masses, travelled from the presidential villa in Aso Rock, Abuja, to stage a dramatic communion with God, on his knees, before Enoch Adeboye, a respected cleric.

    Cut to another hodgepodge of the ex-president on his knees, before Ayo Oritsejafor and other self-appointed “men of God” in faraway Jerusalem, Israel. Jonathan in flagrant disregard of religious tenets advising that man’s communion with his Creator should be personal and unpretentious, deserted his abode in Abuja to embark on a spiritual jamboree of his self-styled ‘humility’ and communion with God across the country and overseas.

    Predictably, psychologically and materially-impoverished loyalists cum the ex-president’s media aides argued that he simply loved to ‘lead by example’ thus politicizing his “humility” and “love of God” to the fascination and appreciation of all. It is however, unclear by what standards they will prove that heartfelt prayers muttered by the former president on his knees, in the corners of his room, would have been less significant than his theatrical communion with God.

    Were these spiritual shows emblematic of Jonathan’s unpretentious love of God or were they symptomatic of a desperate wish to perpetuate him in power for the attendant fiscal and material perks? Cut to Stella Oduah, aviation minister’s N255 million bullet-proof automobile scandal Sambo Dasuki’s $2.1 billion arms purchase scam and Abdulrasheed Maina, former pension boss’ N21 billion pension fund racket to mention a few, and you have an interesting picture of the Nigerian ruling class’ inexorable lust for money and other material things.

    There is the oft-repeated logic and inclination to blame this persistent malaise on capitalism; however, attractive as such sophistry may resound, the impulse for acquisition, pursuit of gain and money in fact, has nothing to do with capitalism – it is merely a symptom, like perverse capitalism, of the society’s steady descent the slope of the decadent and grotesque.

    Max Weber, the late German economist and social historian would say it has been common to all sorts and conditions of men at all times and in all cultures of the earth but I would say that the Nigerian malaise is brought about by the absence of an enduring moral code.

    This deficit manifests in deficiencies of personal and societal ethics – the consequence of which is the preponderance and regeneration of eejits, tyrants, greedy-guts, fraudsters, narcissists, murderers and bloodhounds of all kinds and of all nature, across the country’s landscape.

    The trials of Nigerians’ moral degeneration as exemplified by the citizenry’s inordinate lust for money, the country’s recurrent tragedies and propensity to self-destruct, reveals an overarching tendency to savour short-term greed and relief over long-term prosperity. Despite a protracted and tumultuous history of impoverishment and bad leadership, Nigerians continue to look for quick fix solutions thus mortgaging the country’s present and future for short-term benefits.

    Through decades of moral perversions and self-inflicted disasters, Nigerians continue to bemoan their tragic fate. While many argue that the country ruins because the youth are too weak and too selfish to spill as much blood as is required to rid the nation of every human and institutional affliction, many more contend that the country’s woes will disappear immediately poverty is eradicated by the ruling class.

    Today, the fear of poverty as the irrepressible lust for money, drive too many to commit gross acts of dishonesty and irresponsibility. Personal greed is pervasive and poverty is endemic. It represents the triumphal punch delivered by the proverbial system against the country’s poor, hopeless masses. Nigeria suffers the consequence of the supremacy of money. Money elevates and ennobles the possessor of it; whatever the nature and import of the rich’s membership of society, as long as he has money to flaunt and throw around, nobody cares what value he adds to and denies society.

    Thus the pardon and acquittal of several corrupt politicians and deposed bank chiefs; even after insurmountable evidences were marshaled against them by prosecution, they got off too easily with court sentences that were tantamount to a pat on the back.

    The poor, on the other hand, epitomise more of what is wrong and contemptible with the society. They represent that segment of the society that is easily swayed, viciously condemned and trodden by the power of money.

    The power of money is indeed frightening and overwhelming. Like Okwudiba Nnoli notes, it uplifts and crushes, enhances and debases, exhilarates and disenchants, dignifies and dehumanizes, enlightens and blinds, unites and divides. Under the influence of money, humaneness and the quest for the collective good are ferociously smothered by disruptive and selfish considerations. Materialism is fostered and greed is ennobled in the mad dash for money. Consequently, justice, freedom, equality, dignity and other human rights, are sacrificed.

    More worrisome is the reality of the poor in Nigeria being unquestioningly docile to the power of money. This impoverished lot is hardly impressed by humaneness and promising leadership. To them, these are manifestations of weakness. Their loyalty and sympathies are reserved for tyrants that treat them like dogs on a leash. It is to these latter that they exhibit the greatest obsequiousness and erect the greatest statues.

    While it is true that the poor would often trample maniacally on the despot, who by a poetic twist of fate – be it by class politics or masses revolt – gets stripped of his power and authority, they do so because having lost his strength, the despot becomes relegated to an ignoble spot among the weak and repressed, who are to be loathed and not feared.

    This is emblematic of Gustave Le Bon’s philosophy of ‘The Crowd,’ which was valued not only by Pareto, Freud, Mussolini, and de Gaulle, but even by Horkheimer and Adorno. Le Bon contends that the type of  “hero dear to crowds will always have the semblance of a Caesar. His insignia attracts them, his authority overawes them, and his sword instills them with fear…Should the strength of an authority be intermittent, the crowd, always obedient to its extreme sentiments, passes alternately from anarchy to servitude, and from servitude to anarchy.”

    Democratic ideas are therefore in profound disagreement with the psychology and experience of the Nigerian poor. It is unsurprising then, that materially and mentally impoverished folk would distrust democracy and its promise of collective good, to covet and pursue the vain and ephemeral perks of socio-political harlotry.

  • Of Nigerians’ ostrich mentality

    SIR: The ostrich mentality depicts a mentality somewhat lacking intelligence and incapable of rationalization. Oftentimes, the culture and religion that creates such mentality reducing the capacity of the human mind to think intelligently and rationalize logically.

    Trapped in this cycle, people are exploited, seduced and controlled by the elites to achieve their selfish ends. The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi obviously saw through these follies when he appealed to northerners to change their attitude to marriage and child-bearing. He urged then to marry only the numbers of wives and produce the number of children they can adequately cater for in the interest of themselves, the nation and the entire nation.

    He reiterated that he had no quarrel with anyone who undertook a family he had capacity for.He noted that only children brought up with close parental love and care could have value to themselves and the larger society. He stressed, “We are obsessed by number as anything produced en masse is cheap. We have produced all these children like commodities; they are there on the street and that is why they die and people do not care.”

    He called on northern leaders to seriously look at the failure of social policy in the region, including altitude to marriage, early marriage, family planning, polygamy, and divorce, rights of a child over the parents and the responsibilities of fathers.

    He averred that, many northerners feel that a father is anyone who is able to produce a child and parenting is all about biological reproduction and not about proper upbringing. From the viewpoint of a seasoned Banker, policy maker, scholar and leader, the Emir has been able to speak to the barrier of culture and religion to expose the half buried ostrich head in the sand.

    His advocacy is a mere re-echoing of past and continuing concerted efforts by non-governmental organizations, private sector, scholars and foundations to refocus attention of northern state governments to social policy, schools, teachers, equipment and scholarship.

    The wind has been blowing to expose the fowl’s anus like the folly of the giant ostrich bird. It exerts energy on hiding it head that perches on a very long neck and always exposed to the full glare of the people.

    What a folly though, that a society would trap its people in the vicious cycle of poverty in the name of culture and religion. Who then is to blame for the abject poverty ravaging the northern part of Nigeria? We are living in a Judgment Day as we witness the dire consequence of a people forced to live in the past even when the world changes at the speed of sound. It is a clear case of Clash of Culture as they tried to recreate old identities that are fast fading into oblivion.

    Must the world stand still or maul culture and religion on its way as change remains the only constant phenomenon in life? It is a herculean struggle between conservatism and liberalism and the land and its inhabitants live to bear the brunt.

     

    • Comrade Ogbu A, Ameh,

     Owukpa Akatekwe Kingdom,

    Ogbadibo LGA, Benue State.

  • The crab mentality

    As I tell my white friends, we as black people, we’re never going to be successful not because of you white people but because of other black people. When you’re black, you have to deal with so much crap in your life from other black people. It’s a dirty, dark secret.” – Charles Berkley

    Basketball fans of my generation know former NBA player Charles Berkley – now a sports analyst – very well. Both on and off the court of play he is known as a controversial sportsman who never avoids sensitive topics no matter how painful they may be with his signature tact. To date, he says it as it is. Without generalizing, I often look at the black man and the black world and ask if we are jinxed. Yes, other groups have their challenges but they know how to forge ahead for the common good, but not the black man. A deep look at Nigeria and Africa will give us a clearer picture,

    As a teenager growing up in Lagos, we have a past time of regularly visiting the lagoon to catch crabs and fishes in the area where the famous Alagbon close is situated, that was before part of it was reclaimed. While catching fishes is often easy, we normally have challenges with crabs because of their uniqueness. Oftentimes we come with closed containers to put our crabs until an old fisherman taught us a trick that has remained with me ever since; a “trick” that has a strong correlation to issues of life.

    He told us that we need not place the crabs in closed containers thereby suffocating them in the process; all we have to do is to learn from the elders. “If you catch crabs, you do not need to cover the basket, container or basin where you put them if they’re more than one. Just leave the basket open because once one of them starts to climb out, the others will drag it back down.” We couldn’t make sense of what he was teaching us in our little minds until we tried it. Amazingly, the crabs serve as policing agents against one another while we concentrate on our fishing!

    When I became an adult I related better with the term “crab mentality” because of the practical life lesson I learnt as a teenager. The term simply refers to the behaviour of crabs in the basket. The crabs could easily escape one after another but they pull down each other and prevent anyone from escaping and in the process collectively continue to suffer.

    The metaphor – when applied to a human situation – refers to the mentality of an individual or group that endeavours to pull down literally, any person who reaches for the heights of success. Less successful individuals with a selfish and constricted thinking consciously attempt to pull down those who are on an upward scale.

    Crab mentality is common in our country, communities or workplaces which have a very competitive environment. It is something that can be found in all segments of the society. Even charitable and religious institutions fall prey to the malady of crab mentality which can wreck its reputation in society.

    Could it be that crab mentality has a lot to do with why we have not developed over half a century after independence? Why do we seem to have the “misfortune” of having the “wrong” people in leadership positions? What is it about the black man that ‘makes’ him abhor the right way of doing things? Do our leaders really need psychiatric evaluation as one official suggested recently? What about the followers, do they not need same? Why do they always vote for people they know deep down would oppress them?

    Countless books and theories have been written and propounded trying to figure out why a country so blessed like Nigeria is in this pathetic condition. Some years ago, news break in the media that a government parastatal claimed it spent millions of naira to clear the grass at some airports in the country. The parastatal didn’t feel good about the story, and to “rub salt into injury” – as Nigerians are wont to saying – they took up paid advertorials showing pictures of the “grass” they spent millions in “clearing.” Don’t forget that the advertorials were still part of the “grass clearing” process. Many years later, we are still in the grass clearing business!

    As a result, some people have given up on Nigeria saying we deserve the type of leaders we get – meaning we are all part of the bigger problem. One cannot fault such people in their analysis. A close look around us painfully points in that direction. What does it really cost to have quality education, functional health care service and other social programmes that directly impact the vulnerable in the society?

    As an individual, I strongly believe that every problem has a solution; there is nothing that cannot be changed. People can rise above the crab mentality and better their own position. Even if this seems to be difficult they can, in the least, stop behaving like crabs in a basket by allowing others to chart their own progress. On an individual level it is possible to be the change which would bring forth a number of positive changes in the immediate environment to foster growth, and prosperity.

    For us to make headway, the individual must first liberate himself by deliberately training his mind to discern and differentiate good from evil and wrong from right. If this can be achieved, the road to an analytic mind has begun. If such individuals now come together as groups – devoid of tribal or religious toga – the road toward an egalitarian society would have begun in earnest. Other countries have done it and we flock there for our holidays, while our corrupt politicians buy houses there; unfortunately, houses no one occupies.

    An anti-crab mentality example I love so much was the recent policy reversal by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). Recollect that a couple weeks ago, the NCC instructed GSM firms to increase their tariffs on data. As expected, this move sparked outrage amongst Nigeria’s youth who rose up spontaneously against it, especially at this critical point of recession. Was someone really thinking somewhere or were they flying a kite? No one told the NCC to back down when they saw a united reaction from the youths.

    This victory – to an analytic mind – speaks volumes. Why did they back down? Was it because the youths were suffering from recession induced anger? Was it because someone was scared of social unrest? While these and many more were real, my analytic mind tells me the NCC backed down because Nigeria’s youth were united in their rejection of the data tariff increase.

    This calls for cautious hope. I deliberately used the word “cautious hope” because crab mentality may be effective in this regard, but when it comes to other strong issues like politics and religion – which concerns our immediate wellbeing more – a complex interplay will surface. My analytic mind also tells me that those holding the nation back are not afraid the youth numbers or their anger or political affiliation – even though all these are important. They are afraid of a united front. Is that telling us something?

    Rather than feel despondent about the daily revelations that oozes out of the corridors of power, I believe we are making headway. In the past, issues like these are quietly resolved behind closed doors or resolved as “family affairs” (apologies to the PDP). It’s time to shed the crab mentality and focus on those that have held us back for more than half a century. Let the elites fight themselves and commit class suicide while we work and pray for a better Nigeria.

     

  • A-maze-ing mentality

    Why is Hardball daily assailed with images of mice scurrying in a maze? Especially so, a maze without an exit? Perhaps it comes from reading that phenomenal business and motivational book, “Who Moved My Cheese” (an amazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life).

    The book, a fable written in 1998 by Dr. Spencer Johnson, interrogates how people react to changing conditions using two mice and two ‘little’ people living in a maze. How did they react the very day they found that the cheese they had always enjoyed had been re-moved?

    But we are not exactly about the maze and the cheese today; maybe just the maze and the effect it has on people when they are caught up in it or in the verisimilitudea of its environment.

    Right now, Hardball feels caught up in a maze by the maze mentality of some members of the federal executive. Many seem to speak and act like ‘small’ people trapped in a maze and having run themselves into a frenzy through the maze, are simply wracked, if not wrecked. This situation is exemplified by their conflicting comments, disjointed actions. The other day, a minister told us the recession would be over this quarter only to be countered a few days later by another top-notch who informed that we were in for a two-year haul.

    The oil sector has remained an orchestra of back and forth movements in the last one year or so. Today, our effervescent junior minister tells us he has carried out the mother of all makeovers of that filthy old lady called  NNPC and at another turn, we are warned that the Federal Government proposes a national oil policy that will consolidate all the agencies, scrap most of them and create new ones. A – maze-ing prevarication. What about that famous Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB for short? That elixir touted for five years by the last insouciant administration.

    Just last week, a permanent secretary in the Ministry of Budget and National Planning charged MDAs to come up with PPP (public-private-participation) projects they wish to execute. Speaking at a capacity building programme organised by her ministry, she posited that the call was made because there is a huge infrastructure gap that the federal budget cannot sustain. Wow, what profundity!

    While the call is remarkable by itself, Hardball wonders if this is how government operates now. One thought there ought to be a proper framework and policy direction for PPP by now; and a crack team driving the process? One thought the cabinet would draw a list of critical and strategic projects for execution under the PPP in carefully determined phases and sequences.

    One can already see a chaotic stampede when all the MDAs are asked to generate PPP projects for execution… and that picture again of mice scurrying about in a maze won’t stop playing out in one’s head.

  • Nigerian politicians and “awoof” mentality

    Professor emeritus Akin Mabogunje, NNOM, shared with me a lecture he delivered on the occasion of the inauguration of the Oba Kayode Adetona chair in politics at Olabisi Onabanjo University recently. The thrust of Mabogunje’s lecture was that for a long time our country had been run on an economy in which resources appear inexhaustible and that no matter how buffeted the economy might have been, no apparent damage was noticeable until now when chicken has come home to roost and we are all going to pay for the sins of the past in one way or the other. One military ruler was once quoted saying that after all he had done to the Nigerian economy, he was surprised that the economy had not collapsed! I cannot vouch for the veracity of what the military ruler allegedly said but I can say without any fear of contradiction that much harm had been done to the Nigerian economy and yet it is still standing. We as a country are extremely lucky to have a resilient economy that has survived this far. Venezuela, a country of about 20million was producing eight million barrels of crude oil a day compared with Nigeria’s production at the best of times of two million barrels a day for a country of 170 million, yet Venezuela has collapsed while in spite of the terrible looting of its treasury, Nigeria wobbles on like a drunken sailor.

    We are told that the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president of the Senate rejected the N10 billion each allocated to them to build their residences. No reason was given for this but the report said they are living in their homes or perhaps in hotel suites and apparently drawing financial allowances for this. The question to ask is what happened to the previous residences of their predecessors? Were they also privatized like the ministerial houses and sold to their occupants at paltry and ridiculous prices? Are we going to be building official residences for Speaker after Speaker and their counterparts in the Senate? These two houses are debating according immunity to those who become speakers and presidents of the Senate as well as recognizing for purposes of pensions to the so-called principal officers for both houses. In the USA where we are told we borrowed these oversized legislative outfits from, it is the Vice President who presides over the Senate and in his absence the leader of the majority party. It is high time through legislation or constitutional changes we did away with this anomaly of president of the senate. Perhaps minor constitutional changes are actually needed now such as part time members of a unicameral house and severe pruning of members and reduction in the number of the multitudinous impecunious states. The time for a French-like presidential system combining the British parliamentary system with American presidential system has probably come if we are a serious country.

    What has informed the writing of this present piece is what I read in the Nigerian newspapers recently about the pensions and gratuities of governors their deputies and proposed pensions and gratuities of so-called principal officers of the National Assembly, that is, the Senate and the House of Representatives and presumably the state houses and local government legislative assemblies. Since it was not controverted, an ex-governor of Akwa Ibom State would earn as pension  of N300 million a year  plus six new cars every two years, medical expenses of his family at home and abroad, security detail, personal assistants and two houses, one in Abuja and the other in Akwa Ibom, annual holidays abroad for his entire family. I am using the Akwa Ibom case as a template for other states although I assume less-endowed states would not go as wild as Akwa Ibom State has gone. The fact remains that all the states of the federation have allocated this kind of outlandish and obscene largesse to their departing state executives and their deputies. These laws were passed during the time of plenty and awoof economy. One wonders if this kind of thievery can now be justified when states and even the federal government are not paying salaries when due. Even if we were still living in a time of plenty, can we in good conscience justify these humongous financial benefits to people who not only benefited while in office through unaudited so-called security votes? I call on President Buhari to shine some light on this unearned income by people who served their states for between four and eight years. In most cases the same people are again in the Senate or in the federal executive. Take for example the current Senate president who will like to retire on millions of naira while also collecting millions of naira from his impoverished Kwara State to add to his billions! And this in a country where government is not able to pay workers minimum wage of N18,000 a month! This is just not right and if things continue like this, the whole creaky state structure will collapse like a pack of cards. A house built on spittle cannot last. It is in the interest of all of us to do what is right before, in the words of George Rude, the crowd takes over affairs into their hands in a blind fury to correct the injustice in our country.

    I have not included the president and vice president in this veiled criticism of politicians not because politicians at that level are saints while those on other levels are Devils. I am convinced that anybody who has served at the apex of government at the national level deserves some rewards as long as they are not outrageously obscene. If they are, they should be radically pruned down. I do not see why anybody, be he a former president or vice president, should earn a pension of more than a million naira a month. Most of us after years of serving the country in our various capacities make do with a fifth of that amount a month. If we are going to be called to make sacrifices, everybody must be seen to be doing the same. The days of awoof is hopefully over and if we have excess money or windfall, we should learn how to save and invest for the future of our children because no generation has the right to squander what rightfully belongs to all generations. Oil that has gotten into our heads and made us drunk is a wasting asset which will soon finish or become useless and worthless as a result of alternative source of energy the search for which is driven by concern for the abused global environment suffering from hydrocarbon emission. This idea of putting aside money for the future was what informed Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and the province of Alberta to buy into blue chip companies all over the world against a future of scarcity of resources and lean years. I personally had an opportunity to suggest this to a previous civilian vice president of this country but the idea was dismissed as inappropriate for a large country with a huge population which was just an excuse for continued and continuous looting of the national exchequer.

  • Dickson’s mob mentality

    The inconclusive governorship election in Bayelsa State must have come as a surprise to many Nigerians for a diversity of reasons. First is the strong showing of the candidate of All Progressives Congress, Chief Timipre Sylva. Second is the level of violence that was unleashed on citizens during the election and not discounting the attack on APC chieftains across the state and third is the alarm and mob sentiments that Governor Seriake Dickson has been throwing all over the place, despite evidence that it was the APC whose chieftains and potential voters were on the receiving end of the thuggery.

    The results so far released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) shows that the APC performed very well across the state and even in places considered as PDP strongholds such as Ogbia and Yenagoa. In fact, it was clear to watchers of the election that the early results filtering out of polling stations showed the PDP leading in several polling units in Yenagoa and elsewhere only for the final tally to reflect something else. Still, the difference in declared votes between both candidates is narrow and the decider could be the results of the Southern Ijaw Local Government Area, which has about a quarter of the state’s voting population and where the APC has many of its key stalwarts, including Sylva’s running mate, Elder Wilberforce Igiri; former Secretary to the State Government, Alabo Gideon Ekeuwei; the state party chairman, Chief Tiwei Orunimighe among others. It was an area the PDP knew would tip the scale of the election and virtually everything was done to mar the exercise in APC strongholds. Some 120,000 votes are at stake here but it was the premeditated manner the thugs executed the rigging plan that says a lot of their motive.

    Before elections were due on the morning of December 5, thugs intent on murder had stormed the Ekeremor home of the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, and shot severally into his house. Sylva was also targeted at Odioma in Brass Local Government Area by armed thugs but vigilant security men repelled the attack.

    One interesting fact is that it is only APC members that were targeted and suffered these attacks, an indication that the alarm raised by Sylva days to the election that the PDP was stockpiling arms and ammunition for violence was credible. Perhaps the party knew that without such intimidation it stood no chance against APC and Sylva, who has a strong grassroots network and is well respected as a former governor of the state. The protest by youths and women in Yenagoa against the results released so far and the cancellation of the Southern Ijaw elections speaks to this reality.

    Dickson’s mob mentality has become so warped that he equates his victory with that of the Ijaw nation. In several places the governor has tried to pitch the election as a choice between the PDP as the Ijaw party and the APC as an invading force, rather than a referendum on his performance in office, which has been woeful to say the least. In desperation, during the campaigns, he tried to reach out to the people of the state, promising that he would deliver on the earlier promises he made and which have remain unfulfilled as his term in office draws to a close.

    The Ijaw people are a fearless and upright people and with the reports of massive looting that are unfolding daily under the watch of President Goodluck Jonathan cannot be a legacy to the Ijaw spirit of uprightness. It is indicative of the level of pillage that the Bayelsa State economy has been undergoing under Dickson and we must reject a situation where the resources of the state will be used to feed the greed of these visionless elite of the PDP. This is the crux of the current governorship election, where Dickson is determined to pull all stops to distort the voice of the Bayelsa people and the Ijaw nation. He must not be allowed.

    It is important that the security forces do not succumb to the intimidation of blackmail that Dickson and the PDP have been employing, especially in the coastal states of Bayelsa, Delta, Ondo and Rivers. The engagement of criminals, thugs and ex-militants, masquerading as community leaders, to rig and inflate results has been a regular feature of the PDP and this should be checked through intensive policing, for the integrity of the electoral process and the results.

    The PDP tactics have been to portray Bayelsa as its bastion and create a siege mentality that the APC is out to ‘capture’ the state. The truth is that Bayelsa people are disappointed that despite the massive support to the PDP during the Jonathan presidency, nothing was done to address critical issues of road infrastructure, pollution and environmental problems that are of concern to people of the state.

    The results so far released should tell Dickson that his mob mentality and blackmail would not work and Bayelsans are the wiser that neither he nor the PDP represent their interests.

    • By Mabota Alata

    Director of Research and Strategy, Amaebi Foundation, Yenagoa.

     

  • Motor-park mentality

    Is Nigeria no more than a vast motor park? President Goodluck Jonathan introduced that possibility when he received members of the Northern Elders Council (NEC) at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. In reaction to recent criticisms of his administration, especially by two former political helmsmen, on the basis of alleged monumental corruption, Jonathan employed an interesting metaphor. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida were the apparent targets.

    Jonathan said: “Some people call themselves statesmen but they are not statesmen; they are just ordinary politicians. For you to be a statesman is not because you occupied a big office before, but the question is what are you bringing to bear? Are you building this country?” He continued: “Making provocative statements in this country, statements that will set this country ablaze and you tell me you are a senior citizen. You are not a senior citizen, you can never be; you are ordinary motor park tout.”

    It was a stinging comparison, and those who thought Jonathan went too far by likening the unnamed personalities to motor-park touts staged a counter-attack. The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) spokesman, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, said: “President Jonathan should know that in a motor park, there are touts and there are pickpockets. So, if some past leaders are touts, some sitting leaders are pickpockets and thieves. So, you have to pick from them.” According to him, “pickpockets in a motor park cheat the passengers as well as the owner of the vehicles, while touts work for a commission.”

    Isn’t it interesting and food for thought that Abdullahi didn’t reject the image of a motor park? Rather, he elaborated on motor-park structure and operation by bringing in “pickpockets and thieves” as well as “passengers” and “the owner of the vehicles.”

    It is relevant to reflect on the identities of those in the identified categories. Who are the passengers? These must be the people. Who is the owner of the vehicles? Who are the touts, pickpockets and thieves? In the picture painted by Abdullahi, “the passengers as well as the owner of the vehicles” are victims of cheating; and the beneficiaries of the system are the touts, pickpockets and thieves.

    The question must be asked: Why did Jonathan think of a motor park, which then informed the labelling of his targets as “touts”? Could it mean that Jonathan considers himself a motor-park president? If so, what are the implications of such self-perception?  Additional posers: As the self-perceived head of a motor park, what has he done to arrest the negativities of the pickpockets and thieves Abdullahi spoke about? Is Jonathan himself one of them?

    Perhaps Jonathan deserves praise for his enlightening figurative language because it has not only helped to clarify his idea of the space he governs; it has also prompted further clarification by his antagonists who appear to recognise his motor-park mentality. In this metaphorical motor park, the passengers who are perpetually short-changed will need to do something to achieve redemption. That must be the lesson to be learned from Jonathan’s motor-park imagination.

  • Your mentality and your destiny

    Your mentality and your destiny

    YOUR mentality is your characteristic way of thinking, your frame of mind, your mindset. It could be developed right from childhood and it could also develop later in life as a result of your circumstances. Where you see yourself today, determines where you’ll find yourself tomorrow. Your mentality is what defines your destiny. The pig is in the mud because that is where its mind is, so is the eagle in the sky. A lot of people are born into scarcity and lack and because of this, they subconsciously limit themselves by wallowing in the pitiful state of their circumstance and embrace impossibility. What you embrace sticks with you. It’s sad that people around them only make things worse because they have the same mindset and find it very hard to see above their circumstances. As far as I am concerned, a lot of people who wanted to be educated but could not be are responsible for their inability. After all, there are millions of people who were in worse situations but were much too engrossed in pursuing their dreams than be submerged in their unfortunate circumstances. This is Africa where a lot of us believe in the enemy impeding our progress but I tell you, we all are 75% responsible for what happens to us, what we become or achieve in life. In fact, I dare say the worse your situation, the higher your chances of having the life of your dreams and your greatest wishes come true.

    The pain you feel when you lack the resources to fuel your dream naturally creates a gnawing pain and this pain should only make your desire stronger by the day and not weaken you and make you back out. As your desire grows, your soul sees it more, it becomes a part of you and with the intensity of the fire burning in your heart, and your mind attracts it. And it just comes your way. True, life is not a bed of roses and is not ready to give us what we want but it also recognizes perseverance, determination and resilience which all come with some hard work and rewards these. Also, life has given us a very powerful tool which knows no bounds or circumstance, it could go any distance you send it, farther than you can ever imagine and deliver wonders to you; that tool is your mind. As defined above, the state of your mind is what makes up your mentality. Your mentality especially from a young age when you should have a vivid imagination imprints on your soul and once it registers, it carries you through life. I am sure that you also have a certain mentality that may be slowing down an aspect of your life, but as usual, I’ll be concentrating on the female folk.

    It’s appaling that in today’s society, a regular girl, whether silver-spoon or less-privileged or in-between, has this mentality that the female folk have to “give out their bodies” to men to achieve anything that is worthwhile. Did I say today’s society? Well, I remember about13 years ago, when an epoch-making and the most colorful Nigerian magazine which transcends our borders interviewed me on my book thereby presenting me to the world, to my dismay, a friend told me everyone believes the publisher must have been my boy-friend. What shocked me was their level of thinking and cheap mentality and not even the assertion because they all knew my late dad could afford to get me anything I wanted but that just came my way-even without asking and without being loose. And in fact, I had to take permission from my dad before granting the interview because he shunned publicity. Life saw my hard work and felt I needed to be rewarded with some damn good publicity which worked wonders-simple!

    That was 13 years ago. Now can you imagine the latest mindset of girls, ladies, women? Most young ladies don’t think they can get anything on merit, no thanks to some lecherous university lecturers and randy bosses who also complain that ladies throw themselves at them and so they feel every female practice same-married or unmarried; even grandmas. Many don’t even think they can enjoy the good things of life or amount to anything without having an “uncle” or “god-father” they’ll be sleeping with. It is a very ridiculous, despicable and unfortunate mentality which mothers are passing down to their daughters, which have been allowed to linger and eat deep into the fabric of the society. How can you possess virtues that can make you rule the world, be a super-star, and then debase yourself by not even knowing your capabilities and harnessing them?

    •To be concluded next week.