The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Myth

  • Myth, power and satire in Abdullahi’s plays

    Denja Abdullahi’s Death and the King’s Grey Hair and other Plays is a classical collection of plays filled with great humor, myth and satire.

    The three plays are experimental plays. The first is in movements, and broken in to seven movements, while the second is in Acts and the third in scenes. Pretty much different from the usual Act and Scene style of play writing.

    The plots are unique as the playwrightsucceeds in crafting out the conflicts and providing good resolutions with good characterisation and dialogue that blend with the period and situation of the time.

    Death and the King’s Grey Hair is not a historical play, but a play based on an oral mythology attributed to the Jukun people of middle belt region of Nigeria. It highlights the effect of the abuse of power and total disregard for tradition. The playwright does not attempt to go in search of the facts of the story, but feels the need to weave bare myth into dramatic fiction. The play is centred on the king of the land of Shakaga, King Esutu, who defies the tradition of his people that says the throne is for ‘’young kings and short reigns’’, as kings in that land are normally given poison to drink and die to be reborn into a lion at the sprout of the first grey hair on their royal heads.

    Like it is with such typical tradition, all is not well with the people of Shakaga at the beginning of the play. The attempt of the King to wilfully defy tradition in search of absolute power and the people’s resistance to that form the conflict framework of the play. The play is noteworthy for its cultural setting.

    The playwright explains to the reader in the preface that power is “power no matter the period of time a leader rules”. King Esutu of Shakaga and the man of the cave in the ancient period are not different from the modern man, who can go to any length to remain on the throne.

    First Wiseman: We all know that it is a taboo for a king to show signs of aging in our land. Our land is a land of young kings and short reigns. But something tells me that Esutu has stayed longer on the throne than any other king we’ve had since Jigulu, our founding father (Death & the king’s grey hair, pg. 14)

    To unravel the mystery, the tribe is confronted by the tragedies as faced by Gabisi and the poison bearer. I like the poetic rendition of the character of Gabisi the poet and guardian of wordsPage 13: I am Gabisi, the poet of the ancients. Those who do not respect what is old should await the sting of my tongue. Whenever you see brave grey-haired men bent with many moons of wisdom, look for Gabisi, Gabisi is the messenger of tradition, the poet of the ancients.  

     In the second play entitled: Truce with the Devil, Abdullahi brings to the table his experiment with Marxist ideology as opposed to capitalism. Through this theatre of experiment, the playwright says it is nearly impossible to dethrone capitalism and enthrone Marxism. He uses real characters in fictional perspectives. Suleiman, a devotee and advocate of Marx and Engels is oppressed by his capitalist uncle; he gets expelled from Jarasite University as a result of his crusade for the proletarians. Like Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s I will Marry When I Want, the principle of collectivism cannot work as most people are oppressed by poverty and joblessness. Suleiman submits to capitalism because he cannot fend for his siblings and he explains to Dapo on Page 77 how he only needs to play the devil’s advocate to get what he wants.

    Suleiman: No, you got it wrong. I was seduced by reality after all those student days of sloganeering…My friend let me tell you, I have stopped living on Marxist books. Marxism is dead, Communism is crumbled.

    Fringe benefits, the third play, is written through the eyes of the playwright as a participant-observer. In this play, Abdullahi explains the social realities of life in tertiary institutions and the society at large and the benefits that accompany the job we do. Imagine if we have to go to library where books are non-existent to do a research or where the only way out is to buy handouts or take our lecturer’s order?  Imagine if the only better option for us is to go beyond the shores for a greener pasture due to the economic situation of the country.

    Abdullahi is an award-winning poet, literary essayist, cultural enthusiast and technocrat, who has many works to his credit. They include A Thousand Years of Thirst (2011); Abuja Nunyi (2008); the Talking Drum (2008) and his much celebrated narrative poetry, Mairogo: A Buffoon’s Poetic Journey Around Northern Nigeria (2001) and Themes Fall Apart but the Centre Holds (2009) a book co-edited with Joe Ushie on the 50-year Anniversary celebration of Achebe’s most acclaimed novel, Things Fall Apart in (2008). Death and The King’s Grey Hair and Other plays is his current collection of plays. I will suggest this book be recommended for Tertiary institutions, secondary schools and the theatre.

  • Yoruba marginalisation: Myth or reality?

    Yoruba marginalisation: Myth or reality?

    Elders and leaders of the Southwest geo- political zone have been complaining of glaring marginalisation of the Yoruba in today’s Nigeria. In this report, Assistant Editor, Dare Odufowokan, takes a fresh look at the claims

    It started like a subtle complaint. Not many people gave it a thought. But in no time it assumed the dimension of an agitation. That was when Nigerians started paying attention to what was then an emerging issue. Today, the issue of Yoruba marginalisation is nothing short of a burning national issue with more and more people lending voice to the raging debate.

    First, it was the Afenifere Renewal Group that formally called for discussion on the issue a few months ago. A few days after that, a group of older Yoruba professionals and politicians, held a press conference and reeled out details of efforts by the Jonathan regime to neglect and relegate Yoruba interests to the back burner of Nigeria’s socio-economic process.

    Shortly after that, a delegation from the zone visited President Goodluck Jonathan to complain about non-inclusion of Yoruba politicians in top-notch positions in his government. Though the delegation met with the President, it was not clear what was achieved with the trip as the allegation of a systematic marginalisation of the Southwest continued long after the team returned home.

    Checks by The Nation revealed that the alleged relegation of the Yoruba is not just about the composition of the federal government. Concerns are also being raised about how the region is left out of appointments in several agencies at the federal level.

    Comrade Soji Korodo of the Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM) said. “A situation where the total appointment for the entire Southwest falls short of those of a certain states speaks of either a deliberate effort to ignite ethnic resentment or a glaring outcome of total collapse of coordination in the machinery and records of government.

    “Available data indicates that the Yoruba have lost more than half of their appointive positions since former President Olusegun Obasanjo left office. This is why we are alleging that this is a deliberate attempt to shortchange us for reasons best known to the people perpetrating this.

    “Obviously, the situation is not due to lack of qualified and experienced men and women of integrity in their numbers and quality across all spheres of human endeavour in the Southwest.”

    However, there are others who saw nothing in the allegation of being marginalised, as claimed by Yoruba leaders. According to this school of thought, the situation is not as bad as ARG painted it.

    “It is bad sportsmanship for the Southwest to claim it is being marginalised now. This is a zone that was in the presidency for eight years just a couple of years ago. Aside the presidency, the Yoruba occupied several other juicy positions for years. Nigeria is not for one tribe and it should be understandable that these things will move round all the federating units. That is the principle of rotation. That is what is keeping us together as a nation,” Sanni Abba Yerima, a chieftain of the Northern Union said.

    Yerima, who was quick to remind the Southwest that the position of Speaker was zoned to the region by the ruling party but was lost because the zone voted for the opposition party, added that the issue of marginalisation is being championed by politicians who failed in their bid to corner certain positions in the current dispensation.

    But for a fact, no Yoruba man occupies any of the top six political positions in the country. This forms a major grouse of those promoting the allegation that the region has been shut out of the nation’s power corridor. These top six positions and how they are currently distributed are as follows:

    President (Southsouth); Vice President (Northwest); Senate President (Northcentral); Speaker (Northwest); Deputy Senate President (Southeast) and Deputy Speaker (Southeast)

    It is also instructive to know that currently, the Chief Justice of Nigeria is from the Northwest; Secretary to the Government of the Federation ( SGF), Southeast; Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF), Northeast; Chief of Staff to the President (COS-P), Southsouth; Chairman Federal Civil Service Commission, Southeast; Chairman Police Service Commission, Southsouth; National Security Adviser (NSA), Northwest. Non of these is a Yoruba.

    “It is so bad that there is no Yoruba person in the CJN succession radar for the next ten years,” a judiciary source said.

    Findings by The Nation also revealed that there is no Yoruba man among the chairmen of the 10 key federal agencies listed in section 153 of the constitution. These bodies include Code of Conduct Bureau (Northeast) and the  Federal Character Commission(North central)

    The others are Federal Civil Service Commission( Southeast); Independent National Electoral Commission( Northwest); Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission(Southeast); Independent Corrupt Practices and Allied Offences Commission( Southsouth); Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(Northeast)

    This was the situation when some Yoruba elders met recently in the rocky city of Ibadan, Oyo State, to once again take another look at the place of their race in the nation’s political configuration. And by the time they were through, it was no longer easy to believe that the issue of Yoruba marginalisation is being raised by a few politicians.

    At the end of the February 7, 2013 meeting, the gathering, which had eminent sons and daughters of Yorubaland across party and religious divides, unanimously submitted that the people of Southwestern Nigeria have been shortchanged in the scheme of things politically.

    In what can best be described as a collective lamentation of woe, the leaders rose with a demand that what they described as the socio-political marginalisation of the Yoruba race should stop forthwith.

    The current situation was worrisome for the elderly men and women that gathered that day. The leaders, under the auspice of the Yoruba Unity Forum (YUF), buttressed their position with examples of how the race has been less favoured in the sharing of leadership positions at the federal level, especially in the current dispensation where, according to them, a Yoruba man was not considered good enough to occupy any of the first 10 leadership positions in the country.

    The gathering also lamented how the Yoruba race has allegedly been sidelined in the distribution of appointments into Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs of the federal government.

    Leading lights of the race who were part of the Ibadan declaration included Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi, Senator Bode Olajumoke, Senator Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele, Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa, Senator Femi Okurounmu, Chief Tokunbo Ajasin, Chief Olu Falae, Sen. Tony Adefuye and Dr. Kunle Olajide.

    Others were; Chief Charles Ekundayo, Chief Akin Omojola, Alhaji Rasak Folunso Chief Yemi Falade, Mr. Tola Noibi, Chief Biola Ogundokun, Chief Dipo Jimilehin; Prof. Adenike Grange, Chief Biola Ogundokun, Chief Dipo Jimilehin; Chief Akin Omojola, among others.

    According to Professor Grange, the pedigrees as well as the important positions held previously and currently by those at the meeting served as reminders of a once glorious past of a race that was always in the forefront of the socio-political development of the country.

    Speaking to The Nation on the issue, Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi, who convened the Ibadan meeting, regretted that the marginalisation of the Southwest geo-political zone in the distribution of political positions was an attempt to relegate the zone in the federation.

    “There is no argument about whether we are being marginalised or not. It is a fact with evidences all over the place for us all to see. What we are witnessing now is very painful, particularly for people of my age. And this is happening because some of us are very selfish because we do things only because of money.

    “Take a good look and show me a Yoruba man in any of the apex positions like the President, Vice President, Senate President, Speaker, House of Representatives, Chief Justice of the Federation, Deputy Senate President, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Acting President, Court of Appeal, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief of Staff to the President, National Security Adviser and Head of Service of the Federation.

    “You will find none and we say we jointly own the country. It has never been this bad. The degree of marginalisation of the Southwest zone borders on attempts to excise the zone out of the federation,” the retired Anglican Bishop of Akure Diocese said.

    But the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr Doyin Okupe, said the political leadership of the Southwest is to blame for the marginalisation of Yoruba people, not President Jonathan.

    “The issue of marginalisation of the Southwest was a political misadventure and political accident, brought about by the Yoruba themselves. If you would recollect, the Yoruba were supposed to produce the Speaker of the House of Representatives, which is the number four position in Nigeria.”

    “But due to the political mishandling of the leadership of the Yoruba and also the sabotage of the Yoruba people by the Yoruba leadership, I am talking about the people in the political party now, the Yoruba people in the opposition conspired against the Yoruba people and allowed the position to be taken away. That is the beginning of marginalisation.

    “You see, when people sit down to share what is not enough and you don’t have anybody to speak for you, there is a problem,”  he said.

    However, Senator Femi Okunrunmu, chieftain of the Yoruba Unity Forum wants the issue of Yoruba marginalisation to be taken very seriously in the interest of the country. He is of the opinion that the President should promptly address the matter.

    “We met with Jonathan to complain about the marginalisation of Yoruba, but he has not done anything about it. So, we have decided to pay him another visit. We have already made our intention known to the Presidency. We are now waiting for the President to give us an appointment.

    “We have the details of the situation which we intend to present to the President. It is as if the Southwest has been excised from the country. If you look at all the top political positions and appointments in the country, it is not hard to see that Southwest has been marginalised in this administration.

    “Check from number one, which is the President, to number 15, you won’t find a Yoruba person there. Look at the people controlling the economy, the finance minister, the Central Bank Governor, no Yoruba person is there. The first lawyers in this country were Yoruba. Today, Yoruba are marginalised in the judiciary. In the National Assembly, the Senate and the House of Representatives: Yoruba people are not in leadership position. It is bad. It’s as if Yoruba are not wanted,” he said.

    Speaking in the same vein, another prominent Yoruba leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, said the present arrangement is very unfair to the Southwest. He added that even in the distribution of projects like the repair of federal roads in the country, the Southwest is being marginalised.

    ‘While others would be enjoying roads built with money from our national treasury, we, in the Southwest will have to pay for the repairs of the federal roads in our region as our own federal roads are given out to concessionaires who would collect toll from users.

    “The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway concession is an example. That is unfair. Why are there not roads under concession in the North, Southeast and Southsouth? Yoruba people have been marginalised,” he said.

    “While Okurounmu and people like him continue to wait on Jonathan to address the alleged undue shortchanging of the Yoruba in the scheme of things today, the agitation for an immediate solution continues among several other groups and individuals who daily remember the glorious days gone by when the region held its own in the comity of federating units in the country.

     

     

  • Ondo poll: Myth of Mimiko’s landslide victory

    Ever since the announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Dr Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party (LP) as the winner of the October 20 governorship election in the Sunshine state, there has been a frenzy not just among the governor’s supporters but also in certain sections of the media. Many newspapers have been trying to outdo themselves in dramatising the scale of Mimiko’s purported landslide victory. The headlines have been creative, even entertaining. ‘Landslide Mimiko’. ‘Mimiko crushes ACN, PDP’. ‘How Olusegun Mimiko trounced PDP, ACN, Others’. One could go on and on. The objective is to manipulate public opinion and create the impression that Mimiko won an emphatic victory in the election. But accuracy of reporting is critical to the capacity of the press to help sustain and deepen democracy. Without accuracy of information, people could be easily misled into reaching wrong conclusions and innocently taking harmful decisions. The press must present and analyse the facts with scientific rigour devoid of partisanship. That is the only way it can effectively play its role as the watchdog of the people and facilitate the sustainable development of democracy in the country.

    Now, what do the statistics of this election tell us? The total number of registered voters was 1,546,081. The total number of accredited voters was 645,594. The total votes cast was 624,659 representing 40% of registered voters and meaning that there were 30,415 invalid votes. Governor Olusegun Mimiko of the LP was declared winner in 13 out of 18 local governments by INEC with 260,199 votes, which represents 41.6% of total votes cast. Olusegun Oke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was declared second winning in 2 local governments with 155, 961 votes representing 26.25% of total votes cast. Rotimi Akeredolu of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) was declared third winning in three local governments with 143,512 votes representing 24.15% of the total votes cast. A close analysis of these figures shows that more voters actually voted against Mimiko. Approximately 57% of total votes cast were actually against Mimiko and in favour of his opponents. He, therefore, did not get a majority of the votes and could not logically have won a landslide victory.

    To demonstrate this point further, let us examine the statistical implications of the July 14, 2012 governorship election in Edo state which returned Governor Adams Oshiomhole to office. In the Edo election, the total number of registered voters was 1,651,099. The total number of votes cast was 647,698 representing 40% of registered voters. Governor Oshiomhole scored 477,478 votes, representing 73% of total votes cast. General Airhaivbere of the PDP scored 144,235 votes, which was 22% of total votes cast. The other candidates in the election recorded 6% of total votes cast. All Governor Oshiomhole’s opponents put together polled 152,621 votes, thus trailing the comrade governor by 324,857 votes. Oshiomhole won a majority of votes cast and it is this example that can be accurately and properly described as a landslide victory.

    A perceptive analyst, Mr. Emmanuel Aziken, graphically captured this point in his clinical dissection of the October 20 Ondo state governorship election result. According to him “In the end, the people of Ondo state decided to return Dr. Mimiko apparently based on what has been largely described as his credentials in office. However, it was a narrow escape. Yesterday’s declared results gave Mimiko 260,199 votes out of a total of 624,659 voters representing about 40%. He thus did not get majority of the votes. The PDP candidate, Olusola Oke who came second with 155,961 votes and ACN’s Rotimi Akeredolu who came third with 143,512 votes together mustered enough votes that could have probably sent Mimiko packing. However, the past history of animosity between the PDP and ACN did not allow the two to form an alliance. Remarkably, Mimiko was returned to power by the Court of Appeal in 2009 which scored him 198,261 votes and his rival, Segun Agagu with 128,669. Then he had more than 55% of the votes. How the governor’s votes proportionally diminished between 2007 and 2012 is an issue for the governor and his handlers.”

    It is significant in this respect that the governor enjoys the advantages of incumbency. The PDP is crisis ridden. Believing that Mimiko was coming to join its ranks, the ACN allowed its structure to grow moribund only reviving its machinery a few months to the election. Interestingly, before Governor Mimiko headed to court in 2007 to challenge the election result, INEC had declared Dr. Segun Agagu winner with a landslide of 349,258 votes representing 53.2% of total votes cast. Mimiko was said to have scored 226,021 votes, which was 34.4% of total votes cast. Forensic investigation proved INEC’s declaration a fraud and Mimiko reclaimed his mandate. The results declared by INEC in the October 20 election will surely attract the interest of forensic auditors. The story may have just begun to unfold and the press should simply keep the people accurately informed.