The Nation Newspaper

Tag: nation

  • Death wishes of unlearning nation

    SIR: The president went on a break for about a week and news infiltrated the media about his ailment. The knack for spreading false hood about public figure is quite legendary in Nigeria.

    The country has been on the rumour path since independence and it is not just part of African culture to let truth out in piece and euphemism to suffer children and the unwise. It is considered as part of our heritage in handling royal matters. We have shattered the myth in the archaic system of governance in form of monarchy and traditional systems in mainstream governance by replacing it with democracy. The deliberate clouding of information with sentiment is not democratic. Electorate ought to know about elected leaders and what is happening in their offices on time.

    It has been taken as fashion to hide information under the guise of security. It doesn’t only generate anger but hatred for leaders who perfect the act of hiding information about themselves to the masses who elected them. There is a very thin line between hiding the truth and lying. When the government tries to train citizens in the act of lying by hiding information and playing with it deliberately; it is a harbinger of bad omen. It is out rightly wrong when sincere concerns of citizens are taken for granted; you might never get best of wishes from them.

    We do not seek to violate human right of the president and the elected officials, when the need arises for some key information they have to give it. To prevent citizens from spreading rumours and negative insinuations about their persons, updates are necessary and important. If they are hell bent on their old ways of hiding information from people, they should be prepared for the worst in what is imagined and said about them. We have to learn from history that our wishes and rumours are very strong, no matter how immaterial, false and abstract they are.

     

    • Peters Unekwu Onyilo,

     Federal University Lokoja,

    Kogi State.

  • Igbo nation dumps PDP?

    SIR: General Collin Powell says: “A dream does not become reality through magic, it takes sweat, determination and hard work” John Lennon also tells me that “Being honest may not get you many friends but it will always get you the right ones”.

    The biggest political news in Nigeria today is the massive movement of Igbo political leaders into APC. From Enugu to Anambra, Ebonyi, Imo and Abia the story is the same – APC all the way. Now what did they see? Why this unprecedented movement? Did they just wake up from the slumber? Did they learn anything different today? Are there emerging tendencies they suddenly discovered? What are those emerging tendencies? Why APC now? What are the political calculations? Will it be beneficial to Igbo and Nigeria as a political entity? Can this move reintegrate Igbo into the mainstream proper? There are other many questions that bother me.

    In 2015, few of us appealed to Igbo nation to join APC because we know PDP will die because of corruption and impunity and what did they do? They abused us and called us names like saboteurs, traitors and betrayers. Today they are lining up to join APC.

    I welcome my brothers and sisters into APC because of one man called, Senator Ken Nnamani, a great son of Igboland, a decent man, very intelligent, honourable, wise, cerebral, sensible, honest, and truthful. When they descended on me, it was only Senator Ken Nnamani that consoled me. No wonder he is now the South-east leader of APC. Do not forget that it was Senator Ken Nnamani as the President of the Senate that led the onslaught that killed the Obasanjo’s third term agenda. God is not unjust! He chooses whom to lift up and who to bring down!

    Today history has taught that every leader writes his own history through his own actions, deeds and choices he makes. I have also learnt from history that all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of one candle. It is always good to follow the majority in a democracy but it is always good also to listen to the voices of the minority because the majority can be wrong and foolish.

    The lessons are there for the Igbo leadership. Proper analysis, permutations and calculations in any issue that concerns Nigeria, Igbo and other Nigerians should be strictly adhered to.  Jumping into serious political decisions with heads, hands, legs, mouths, ears, eyes etc. portends grave danger for the Igbo commonwealth. The decision to support Jonathan in 2015 to rule Nigeria for 10 years when Obasanjo had done eight years was a terrible decision that was at once potentially dangerous for Nigeria’s corporate existence. The permutation that an incumbent cannot be defeated in Nigeria was an attack on history and civilization. The lazy and timid assumption that Jonathan would hand over to Igbo in 2019 if he had won the 2015 was a celebration of mediocrity and poor understanding of the dynamics of Nigerian politics.

    Now let me use this medium to appreciate men like Governor Rochas Okorocha, Dr Chris Ngige, George Moghalu, Osita Okechukwu, Osita Izunaso, The Igbo Conscience(TIC) the late Chukwuma Azikiwe, and few others. Thank you for accepting all the abuse. Governor Okorocha was the biggest victim of this assault. I appreciate Rochas for taking the heat with courage, power, love and a sound mind.

    My advice to Igbo: please work with other Nigerians to make sure the North complete its eight years as adopted in 1999 for equity, justice and fair play. We must begin now to position ourselves for 2023.  Igbo Presidency in 2023 must never be negotiated away again the way we did in 2011 with Jonathan. Old ways will not open new doors. The difference between an animal in the bush and human being is education not money. The future belongs to be efficient.

     

    • Joe Igbokwe,

    Lagos.

  • ‘Rebuild the nation’

    The Chairman, Nigerian Law Reform Commission, Kefas Magaji has challenged technocrats, administrators and administrators to join hands with the Federal Government to rebuild the country and  the continent.

    He said through this collective effort the dreams of the founders of democracy will be delivered to the citizens and future generations.

    Mr. Magaji added that Nigerians currently live in a situation when “practically all indices of development are embarrassingly low as indicated by statistics within the region and globally.”

    The chairman of the Nigerian Law Reform Commission said this in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, at the first international conference organised by the Department of Public Administration of the University of Ilorin.

    The theme of the conference was “Democracy and new public management: Emerging issues and challenges in Africa.”

    Magaji said, “These are challenging times in the affairs of our nation. Suffice it to say that recent happening in Nigeria within the confines of democracy and public administration do not give any cause for cheer but rather challenge the efficacy of new public management.

    “To keep the democracy project ongoing in Nigeria and the African continent, professors must keep professing; preachers keep preaching; advocates keep advocating; administrators keep administering; politicians keep politicking; electorates still queue for voting in elections; executives keep executing; legislators keep legislating; judges keep judging while prosecutors keep prosecuting.

    “There is still hope for a better Nigeria and Africa. Otherwise we would not be gathered here today. It is our individual and collective duty to keep hope alive.

    “For governments at all levels; these are times of shrinking resources and rising demands from citizens. The litany of conflicting pressures is all too familiar by now. On the one hand, the public continues to demand more and better services, on the other hand, the cost of providing these services continues to rise steeply coupled with an increase in the cost of doing business.

    “Given the importance of public goods, and the corresponding demand by taxpayers and consumers of government services for the best quality and value for their hard earned money, government has realised that in order to continue to retain the confidence and support of the populace, they must ‘accomplish more with less.”

     

  • Legion to cadets: render selfless services to nation

    •Sewing machines donated to 65 widows 

    The Nigerian Legion Corps of Commissionaires has warned its cadets against harassment of the people.

    It urged them to render selfless service to the nation and conduct themselves well in the course of their duties.

    The Legion’s National Chairman, Col. Micah Gayya (retd.), spoke at the weekend during the passing out parade of Batch “B” cadets of the Delta State Command at the Petroleum Training Institute in Effurun.

    Gayya said there were usual misgivings about the legion because of alleged misconducts of some members.

    The Legion chief, who inaugurated a new patrol vehicle for the state command, advised the members to avoid being used for “contraband or to harass” the public.

    He said the Legion was not competing with any security agency but was established to create jobs.

    Gayya said: “The idea is to get them jobs to do and the service we know best is security. We are deployed in government offices and private homes, but we are not in competition with any security outfit.”

    The Legion chief presented sewing machines to 50 widows of fallen heroes from the 25 local government areas of the state and 15 others from Nigerian Army’s 3 Battalion Barracks in Effurun.

    He hailed the state command for remembering the women, saying it was impossible to reach out to all widows across the country.

    Gayya said: “It is utterly impossible to reach out to all the widows in the country. Some state chairmen are doing well; others are not. Please, do not sell these items, but do what will get you something to support your family.”

    The state commandant, Corps Commander Anthony Ohiri, urged the new cadets to “maintain high level of ethical standards” and render selfless service to their fatherland.

    Dignitaries at the ceremony included corps commandants from Bayelsa, Cross River and Edo states as well as officers at the national office of the legion.

    Others included Veteran Affairs Division of the Ministry of Defence, Dr. Jude Alozie and Delta State Head Pastor of Deeper Life Church, Pastor Jude Chukwocha.

  • Prayer for our nation

    In my early years of travelling out of country, I never ceased to be amazed about the level of our underdevelopment compared with that of many other countries. I could understand that of the developed nations, but not that of many developing countries on the continent and some others who we have no basis not being better than.

    I remember always writing about my experiences and lamenting how we were not making enough progress to match our status as a supposed giant of Africa, but I have since stopped, to save myself the agony of the depressing comparisons.

    Though I no longer write about our shameful lack of basic infrastructures, my secret prayer has always been that the present and future governments in the country will make up for the past mismanagement of our resources by implementing projects that will make our country the desired destination on the continent.

    On a recent trip to Rwanda and stopover in Qatar, I was again reminded of our infrastructural deficiencies in terms of power supply and good airport. During a week stay in Rwanda, a country which about 12 years ago experienced genocide that left the country in shambles, I and some Nigerian colleagues looked out endlessly for generators. Electricity supply did not go off for a minute.

    We travelled seamlessly from Kigali the capital to Lake Kivu on the border with Democratic Republic of Congo on a long winding road without having to contend with pot holes. The road had street light.

    If a small country like Rwanda, without oil revenue like ours, could get its acts right and make itself a major tourist destination, why can’t we do much more. Why should Rwanda have a national airline and we don’t have one?

    For a trip to the United States, we had to fly Qatar Air which meant a stopover in Doha, the country’s capital. The airport is undoubtedly world class with none of our airports comparable to it.

    Qatar is an oil-producing country like Nigeria. From what I could see of the small country, oil is indeed a blessing not a curse like ours.

    I can go on lamenting the bad fate that has befallen us over the years but the independence anniversary marked yesterday is yet another opportunity to pray for a better future for our country. There is a lot to pray for about our country.

    We sure need good leaders that can take us to our desired promised land.

    More than ever before, our economy is troubled and we need solutions that can take us out of the recession we have found ourselves.

    The level of insecurity in the country is alarming with kidnappers and other criminals having a field day.

    The second stanza of our national anthem is a very apt prayer for all to always sincerely recite and take necessary steps to accomplish.

    Oh God of creation, direct our noble cause

    Guide our leaders right

    Help our youth the truth to know

    In love and honesty to grow

    And living just and true

    Great lofty heights attain

    To build a nation where peace and justice                              shall reign.

    Yes we must pray, but prayer without work, according to the scripture, is death. Prayers in the words of Bishop David Oyedepo will not replace planning.

    The choice is ours.

  • Opium of a nation

    Opium of a nation

    Preamble

    History is an invisible object with two wings flying across generations in time and in space. One wing is positive, the other is negative. With history, the present becomes the heritage of the past even as the future awaits the baton of continuity from the present. No living nation or tribe or even individual can dream of a realizable future without a viable present based on the experience of the past. The web of life is like a magnet which no iron element can bypass on its way to ornamental glory.

    Fabric of uncertainty

    Against what ought to be her heritage, Nigeria is, today, passing through a fabric of uncertainty as she rolls back the fibres of the future into those of the present and weaves both into the vestiges of the past. Such is a sign of a dead nation waiting to be interned. What war is not ravaging Nigeria today in spite of Allah’s abundant bounties? The forces of the present seem to have connived with those of the past in planning to wrestle the future aground thereby depriving the generations yet unborn of any hope of existence. From all indications, Nigerians live in a country where the ruled are evidently enslaved to their rulers.

    For decades, this country had been forced by her so-called rulers to fight wars ranging from political to economic to social and to ethnic without winning any. Now, a religious war with political bayonet is being added. Religion is likened to an opium in human beings because of its seeming addictive effect on an average believer. Literally, opium means a brownish gummy extract from unripe seed of the opium poppy that contains highly addictive narcotic alkaloid substances like morphine and codeine. When such a substance is mixed with an unstable powdery matter, it turns it into a disadvantageous hardened substance.

    A Land of curses

    Thus, like a billow vigorously storming around at the instance of an invisible tempest, a melee of religious hullabaloo engendered by a vicious political Pandora has virtually turned Nigeria into a land of curses.

    Ordinarily, by its design and intent, religion is supposed to be not only a panacea for all human psychological ailments but also a soothing balm for any spiritual ache. But ironically, it has been turned into a poison in our society which seemingly has no provision for an antidote. And through our attitudes, we seem to be bent on swallowing the pill of that poison without minding its consequences.

    Factors of opium

    The factors that culminated in what we now variously call religious militancy, extremism, fanaticism and terrorism emanated only from the yoke of injustice audaciously engendered by bad governance. And could anything have influenced bad governance as much as ignorance? Yet ignorance would not have had a role to play in our religious or political lives if we had demonstrated the will to genuinely follow the tenets of our religions and learned from the lessons of history without banking on mere assumption and rumour. History as a teacher always has a lesson to teach those who are ready to learn. But unfortunately, most human beings especially Nigerians refuse to learn any lesson from history and the price is what we are paying today.

    From the archive

    In 1962, Nigeria’s Governor General, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (who later became Nigeria’s first President), paid a three day official courtesy visit to the Premier of Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello in Kaduna. He was accompanied by his wife, Flora. The host Premier mobilized all the paraphernalia of office in honour of his guests whom he gave an unprecedented hospitality. The visit enabled their wives to become so familiar with each other that Flora also invited the Bellos to the East on a similar visit. By the end of the visit, Dr. Azikiwe had become so much impressed that at the point of departure he held Ahmadu Bello’s hands and gently told him to “Let us forget our differences”.

    In response to that emotional but infatuating gesture however, Sir Ahmadu Bello said in an equally gentle but emotional baritone voice: “No sir! Rather than forgetting our differences, let us understand them. I am a Muslim from the Northerner and you are a Christian and a South. It is only by recognizing and understanding those differences that our friendliness can truly endure”. There and then, Dr. Azikiwe nodded in agreement with his host’s logic and accepted the fact that one could not forget what is not understood.

    Lesson to learn

    The lesson to learn from this experience is that of mutual understanding without pretentiously sweeping anything under the carpet. That is the principle upon which the marriage of political strange fellows who find themselves in the same political party is often based in Nigeria. It is also the principle upon which the partnership of many Nigerian businessmen and women is based despite their cultural diversity and incompatibility of interests.

    Effect of ignorance

    For thousands of years, peoples of all races and tribes across the world thrived vaingloriously on cultural ignorance attributing their calamities to mysterious forces and blaming such mysteries on what they called witchcraft. Here in Nigeria, millions of children were forced to die in infancy as designed by their own parents out of sheer ignorance while the same parents turned round to blame on what the Yoruba called ‘ABIKU and the Igbo called OGBANJE’ and the Hausa called MUTIETENDA for the mass infanticide. With time, however, education and knowledge of science brought about the invention of various vaccines with which children are now immunized against all diseases thereby acquiring the mechanism for survival. And this has enabled us to know today that the mystery once called ‘ABIKU or OGBANJE’ was a euphemism for ignorance in the days of yore.

    But now that the days of cultural ignorance seem to be over, Nigerians have devised another means of restiveness by shifting to religious ignorance which enables them to replace the infanticide of the yore with modern day genocide in the name of religion. It is however hoped that one day, knowledge will also help us to overcome the spectre of religious ignorance and enable tomorrow’s generations to tell the story of ignorance as we are telling the story of ‘ABIKU or OGBANJE’ today.

    Allah’s design

    If it had pleased the Almighty Allah to make all human beings one single race with one colour, one tongue and one religion, He would have done so without receiving any query from anybody. But as the Omnipresent and Omnipotent, His decision to diversify His creatures cannot be faulted as it is from that diversity that all creatures have consistently derived benefits. In the world today, there are different races and tribes of human beings with different colours, languages and cultures each functioning as predestined and yet they all interact positively with one another to the benefit of all and sundry. This is in accordance with the words of Allah in Chapter 49 verse 13 of the Qur’an thus: “Oh mankind! We have created you from a male and a female and classified you into races and tribes that you may interact with one another (and thereby draw from the advantages therein). Verily, the most honourable of you before Allah is the most pious among you. Allah is All-knowing and He is most acquainted with all things”.

    Parable of an arable land

    What is true of human beings here is equally true of other creatures. For instance we can all see that on a single arable plot of land, a variety of plants may grow to form an orchard but each with different foliages and fruits. Some of those fruits may be sweet, some may be bitter and some may be sour. Some plants may be fruitful and some may be fruitless. On that same plot of land some plants may grow to become trees of gargantuan posture while others may not grow beyond ordinary shrubs and legumes. Yet they are all fed by the same soil, watered by the same rain and photosynthesized by the same sun. Their different foliages, sizes, heights and tastes notwithstanding, they all function effectively and advantageously according to the purpose for which they are created.

    Similitude of ecosystem

    In the ecosystem, no tree in an orchard will ever accuse another of bearing fruits different from its own and no animal will blame another for carrying a different feature or wearing a different colour. Neither will a whale denigrate even a fingerling in the ocean for sharing the same water with it. Ditto the world of birds and that of insects. Even as plants, animals, aquatics, birds or insects they all know that for everything Allah creates there is a purpose which may not be known to them as creatures. It is only among human beings that discrimination and segregation exist based on ignorance.

    In Islam, all revealed religions are believed to be like an embassy established by a nation in another nation to strengthen her relationship with the host country. The Ambassadors appointed to manage such embassy, may be changed from time to time just like the foreign policy which guides those ambassadors. But the embassy remains intact barring any unforeseen circumstances. So is the case with the Prophets of Allah. They might have come at different times, and from different lands and tribes. They might have brought different books and spoken different languages but their mission was one and the same.

    Muslims believe that all the Prophets and Messengers who have come into the world to guide mankind were from one and the same God who created the universe. Thus, Prophets Ibrahim (Abraham), Ismail (Ishmael) Ishaq (Isaac), Musa (Moses), Daud (David), Isa (Jesus) and Muhammad (SAW) as well as others who preceded them or came in-between them brought the same message of monotheism through which mankind was counseled to worship one God and be upright in conduct.

    Apostles of Allah

    As a Muslim, you cannot believe in one of those Apostles and disbelieve in others. Neither can you believe in one of the revealed Books while disbelieving in others. That is why no true adherent of Islam will ever express foul language against the person of Jesus or that of any other Apostle of Allah for that matter. Though the modalities for worshipping may differ from faith to faith and from sanctuary to sanctuary this does not change the course of their faith in only one God. Thus, the rivalry between Muslims and Christians especially in Nigeria over who is spiritually right or wrong is a product of ignorance which opium feasts upon.

    Similarities

    As taught by Christianity and Islam through their respective revealed Books, the areas of life that need the cooperation of their respective adherents are by far more comprehensive than those in which they differ. For instance, both the Bible and the Qur’an counsel humanity to worship one God. They preach good relationship with other fellow human beings in public and in private irrespective of religious lineage. They advocate good care of our parents, our children, the aged ones amongst us and the handicapped. They urge kindness to our wives and leniency with our adversaries. They admonish us against cheating and any form of corruption. They forbid theft, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism and above all the killing of fellow human beings extra-judicially for whatever reason. They also warn us against provocation, aggression, exploitation and transgression even as they emphasize the ephemerality of this world and the eventuality of the hereafter. In all these, Muslims and Christians have a common affinity to jointly dwell temporally and spiritually.

    Dissimilarities

    The few areas in which they differ are abstract and quite personal. They are not areas in which human beings are given the power to pass judgment. Only the Almighty God can judge on them. Such are the areas which we believe will pave our ways towards the Paradise. But since paradise is a matter of choice for individuals and groups why are we fighting each other? After all, no one can tell with precision those who will go to Paradise or go to Hell. Such is the prerogative of God which He has not assigned to any human being and which no human being can and should arrogate to himself or herself except one who wants to play God.

    As an adherent of a religion, you can only perceive your God according to your faith and that should not cause any rancour between you and adherents of any other religion. As Nigerians, we dwell in the same country, eat the same foods, drink the same water, wear the same dresses, trade in the same markets and spend the same money. Our children attend the same schools, write the same examinations and obtain the same certificates. We intermarry across tribes and ethnicities as well as religions. All these form a stronger bond that ought to unite us much more than the abstract ones which often threaten to divide us. In a situation where the factors of life that unite us grossly surpass those that divide us will it not be stupid to sacrifice unity and embrace disunity?

    Conclusion

    This is the time for change. We cannot wait any longer. Let the Christians in Nigeria engage in Crusade and the Muslims in Jihad against all vices in the society which their two revealed Books (Bible and Qur’an) abhor. Let all of us jointly work towards upholding the values of life as contained in the Bible and the Qur’an that we may find ourselves in a new world of peace and harmony as from now. It is only by so doing that we can progress rather than retrogress.

  • Nation’s open sore: Media as antiseptic

    Apparently tired of the old tactic of charge-and-bail of suspects, Nigeria’s security establishment resorted to a tool that looked rather extreme in novelty sometime in 2014 against the entire fourth estate of the realm. Beginning from the midnight of the D-Day, along key highways across the federation, troops ambushed circulation vans of media houses and held both consignments and personnel captive for the better part of the day.

    Following the outrage expressed by media owners and the general public over the unprecedented assault, the reason advanced by the office of the National Security Adviser was no less odd. It was only a preemptory step, it stated in an accustomed haughty tone, against the new strategy by Boko Haram to ferry IEDs across the country. (In normal times, press vehicles enjoy preferential treatment at police check-points.)

    But only Sambo Dasuki and his master would believe that yarn. The reason was simple: if the hunt was indeed for BK and its lethal wares, how come the press vans and passengers were still held indefinitely when no such contrabands were found besides, inside or beneath the day’s copies neatly wrapped as usual in white sheets torn off the reel stubs?

    Of course, there was more to the melodrama on the highway. A few incidents had happened in frighteningly rapid succession a few days earlier. Tension had arisen over a story of land grab broken by the Abuja-based Daily Trust. The murky tale starred several Army hierarchs and some powerful figures in the security chain. Against the backcloth of the ludicrous theory bandied by the NSA for the highway siege, the popular thinking was that it probably had more to do with the expectation, if not fear, in high places that a more damaging follow up was underway.

    Of course, the clampdown continued, though now sporadically across few locations, for several days in what seemed an improvisation of the Goebbelsian tactic against the public mind. Tell or act a lie repeatedly, according to Adolf Hitler’s inimitable propaganda marshal, and it begins to appear or sound like verity.

    As the account – perhaps the most probable of all the speculations – put it, in their desperation to explain the perfidious act on the first day away, the fraternity of Big Men of Abuja so implicated could not think of a better counter-strategy than drag BH into the mix. (Indeed, just anything could be explained away in those giddy days in the name of fighting BH, the same way $15b carted from public treasury and shared among PDP leaders was boldly documented as funds expended on arms to fight the BH.)

    Anyone with the faintest idea of the use and misuse of naked power in Abuja then would readily attest the dailies actually targeted by the mastermind of the highways lockdown were not more Daily Trust, Leadership and, of course, the heavyweight of the “opposition” press and understandably the nation’s widest-circulating newspaper, The Nation. The trio was seen as the most implacably opposed to the high comedy going on in Abuja then disguised as governance by Jonathan and his people. So, other publications so caught in the middle only suffered what they call “collateral injury”.

    Interestingly, that 2014 lockdown would become the fodder for a sadder story a year later when a section of the print media was dragged into Dasukigate in the name of “compensation” for the losses incurred at the hands of troops on the highway. But once it became clear the provenance was tainted, The Nation, arguably the biggest casualty of the 2014 ambush being the widest-circulating, did not only rush to disclaim the arrangement in the strongest language possible but elicited further applause from the ethicallyminded by being the first to return to the Federal Government the N10m cheque it earlier received as “compensation”, thus imposing a moral obligation on others to follow.

    By returning the N10m cheque, The Nation not only identified with a country mindlessly betrayed by those entrusted with public trust, but must have also made peace with its own corporate conscience. To act otherwise would be a negation of the letter and spirit of its own very motto, “Truth in defence of freedom”. That would be inconsistent with the very lofty value it espoused from the outset, the defence of which it had toiled, even fought, relentlessly in the past ten years.

    Still, by that singular act, it demonstrates powerfully the moral obligation of the media beyond the beauty of the printed word and the smell of fresh inks. As the conscience of the society, the media should strive to live above the social average. Only then can its words make any meaning or its voice carry any moral weight.

    Indeed, in the past week, accolades have continued to pour in torrents for what is easily acknowledged today as Nigeria’s most successful newspaper in the past decade. Overall, those given to reductionism would perhaps be quick to ascribe that to the perceived deep pocket of its promoters. While it is true that enough cash is indispensable in newspaper undertaking, perhaps even more critical is the value it espouses and the cause it chooses to fight and defend.

    If money is truly all that matters in the business, a publication like Compass that had surfaced soon after The Nation and made no pretense about its sole mission to be seen as the arch rival would still be kicking today. The truth is, on top of the mountain of cash, a paper should stand for something. How socially relevant that is will ultimately define its character and brand worth. It determines how it connects with the people and how long that intercourse lasts. That sort of emotional asset is something all the cash in the world cannot buy.

    While it is true the promoters were fateful at the teething stage, it should however be stressed that The Nation’s survival in an industry where mortality rate is high is also rooted in its value of modesty and sobriety. Its continued vitality is only because it evolved not from life on the fast lane, but the old-fashioned way of earning its own existence from only returns from copy sale and still modest advert revenue grown from zero base.

    Little wonder then that from the humble beginnings in the even more humbling neighborhood of Ladipo, Lagos, The Nation has morphed into a big lion whose roar echoes far and wide. The species immortal French hero, Napoleon Bonaparte, says should be dreaded by powers-that-be more than a thousand bayonets or a standing army.

    Doubtless, part of its appeal is a formidable commentariat leaning heavily towards the progressive ideology. Though liberal in creed, the stable is however fanatical in the pursuit of the values it professes. Part of the beauty of its own progressivism is that its advocacy elides all Nigeria’s known ancient fault-lines: ethnicity, sectionalism and sectarianism. Though headquartered in Lagos, The Nation has consistently spoken and fought for pan-Nigerian interest even when some competitors don’t mind being profiled as championing sectional interest.

    Depth has also paid off. Following the wise counsel of the famous American publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, The Nation is not only content with merely printing news. After breaking the stories often in a dramatic fashion unique to it, its voice is never mute or muffled thereafter in the moments of national dilemma. And the position it takes is never inconsistent with the defence of the common man. An instinctive affinity with the underdog.

    Of course, fighting for the poor invariably means opposing the establishment which is never always a materially rewarding adventure for both the newspaper and its workers. Not only would the newspaper be blacklisted from official patronage, its journalists would not be welcomed at some functions. From the foregoing, it then becomes easier to understand why The Nation kept a slender weight for many years on end in terms of advertisement even when verifiable industry records began to show it had overtaken the competition on copy sale.

    From the beginning, the unwritten rule wherever PDP was in charge or had influence was deny the paper patronage. And many a top player in the corporate world simply followed suit, afraid of official backlash.

    It is therefore a testimony to the forbearance of its promoters in not giving up and the loyalty of workers not yielding to material temptation that The Nation survived all the trying moments in the past decade. Their only consolation perhaps being the awareness that by the outstanding stories published steadily the paper was growing where it mattered most: registering in people’s minds more and more, even if the big advertisers still chose to keep their distance.

    In toasting its tenth anniversary today, what should be celebrated also is the price paid for principle by the management led by the self-effacing Victor Ifijeh and the character shown by workers in the face of temptation all the way. It is a testament to that uncommon strength of character that The Nation, till the end of PDP’s naira regatta last year, simply refused to mortgage its soul for the mega fortune in wrap-around adverts. (The source of which has now been traced to the $15b blood money Dasuki shared.) Nor has it been implicated in the cash-for-award scam now so endemic in the industry.

    Indeed, if any media house deserves plaudits today for serving as intellectual clearing-house for the peaceful dethronement of PDP as ruling party last year thereby turning a giant page in Nigeria’s political history, it is undoubtedly The Nation. Even with APC now controlling power at the centre, the paper has not stopped firing.

    By dutifully fulfilling its own part of the social contract in the past decade, the newspaper has in a way helped in nurturing a better society.

  • Flood destroys 50 houses in Kano

    Flood destroys 50 houses in Kano

    No fewer than 50 houses were submerged in Kano following a heavy flood that wreaked havoc within the Kano metropolis as a result of early morning heavy down-pour on Monday.

    The NATION reports that the areas badly touched by the ravaging flood include Hotoro, Badawa and Makarwa, all within the metropolitan Kano.

    As at the time of filing this report, the authorities of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) were yet to come out with an official figure of the victims of the flood who have been rendered homeless.

    However, an official of NEMA told The NATION that hundreds of residents besieged their office on Monday claiming victims of the flood incident.

    He added that NEMA will soon release the official figure of the victims affected by the flood.

    The NATION reports that Kano has remained a major casualty of flood in recent years, a situation  which the state government has continued to manage through support to victims and enlightenment programmes on the dangers of erecting structures on drainage and water-ways.

  • National question/state of the nation

    SIR: Lately, the polity has been heated up by the echoes of restructuring which has become a catchword across the geopolitical divide.   No one is certain what the proponents of restructuring actually means, whether by restructuring they mean negotiation for break up, true or loose federalism or regional autonomy.

    Restructuring, whatever be the intendment would be an issue that goes to the root of our nationhood and touches on the constitution. Therefore, it is a question that can only be decided by the Nigerian people through a referendum or conference of a sort; sovereign or otherwise.   To this end, there must be a legal framework to cloth it with character and content of enforcement.  The proponents of restructuring in their wisdom feel that when the restructuring of Nigeria is defined one way or the other, our problems would be solved while every other thing would fall in place.  To me, this assumption is rather too simplistic and pedestrian as the demographic demarcation of Nigeria has never in itself posed a problem.

    The fundamental problem with Nigeria I dare say is not the issue of structure but leadership.  We have never had national leaders from time; all we have always had are regional leaders and ethnic jingoists.  We have ruling elites who appropriate power for self-aggrandizement and oppression of the ordinary citizens in their acts and life style.

    The defining feature of the nation today is fear, insecurity, ethnic tension and religious intolerance.  There is hunger and poverty as never before and some people literarily feed from the dustbin; not just the scavengers we used to know picking metal and plastic bags for recycling.   There is a palpable fear that the country is heading dangerously on a precipice and the government appears helplessly overwhelmed and preoccupied with trading blames on the failures of the past regimes.  All these have nothing at all to do with the structure of the nation; you have Hausa-Fulani, Ibo, Yoruba and the ethnic minorities all part and parcel of running the government.  That the previous government was engaged in primitive acquisition is a common knowledge which of course led to their waterloo and the aftermath is the current probe going on by the anti-graft agencies.

    Nigeria is bleeding; infrastructures have become decrepit and nearing collapse.  A travel by road to any part of the country is more than a nightmare; more like a journey on the road to Golgotha.  You are lucky if you make it: that is if you escape from kidnappers, armed robbers and the numerous police and other security toll collecting points harassing citizens and commuters.  This is not to talk about the state of the roads that have collapsed completely at different points without diversions.

    Whatever the argument, the issue with Nigeria has gone beyond whether our nationhood was a product of historical accident or design by the British colonialists.  It certainly is beyond whether we are a mere geographical expression to the extent that we have always consciously operated and lived under a unified form of government in whatever nomenclature, unitary or federal but with subconscious commitment to our ethno-religious divide.  Nigeria may have been a product and conscious effort of the British imperialists to bring the amalgam of tribal men and ethnic diversities to live as one with the sole aim of exploiting the rich resources of the various regions for the benefit of the industrial machines of the metropolis.  Again, it would be mental indolence to continue to blame our woes on colonialism.  The United States of America was once colonized; so are countries like India, Pakistan etc.  It is even more infantile to blame our woes on military intervention in politics whereas the military has left power over 16 years. The Nigerian ruling elite have promoted ethnicity and religion above every other consideration in order to continue to remain relevant.

    The issue of restructuring is a huge distraction like the former President Jonathan’s National Conference. Agreed there is nothing immutable or sacrosanct about any geographical expression whose boundary remains forever and never shifts when the conditions are created.  As it is often said, “empires rise and fall”.  Boundaries of great countries and empires have been redrawn before our very eyes especially those that were wielded together and skewed to marginalise some of the ethnic groups; minority or otherwise.   Whatever shape Nigeria takes in the face of sustained leadership failure would not solve the problem of poverty, unemployment, deficit in infrastructure, insecurity, etc.   If we tackle the problem of leadership, we are on our way to solving the Nigerian problems.  It is not at all in the structure because giving the same type of leadership, Nigeria would continue on a drift to a collapse.

     

    • Mike Kebonkwu Esq

    Abuja.

  • What makes a nation?

    What makes a nation?

    More than one hundred years after the birth of modern Nigeria, there can be no credible denial of its tottering steps to true nationhood. The ominous signs are there for the blind to see. The cacophony of divergent voices regarding its true character is too deafening to be ignored by rational minds. Assume that Boko Haram is a fanatical jihadist insurgency without an ethnic or tribal coloration, both the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) have not been ambiguous in declaring the objective of their struggle. Neither of these groups feels a sense of belonging to the Nigerian nation.

    It is a terrible mistake to think that these two groups are outliers in an otherwise assembly of patriotic groups in the Nigerian nation space. No, there has never been a time, especially since the beginning of flag independence, when this country has enjoyed a total commitment and patriotic sentiment of attachment to the nation. Instead, a good number of ethnic nationalities have taken advantage of several policy decisions to rally their groups for ethnic solidarity with various serious consequences, including violent clashes between ethnic groups.

    At every such point in the checkered history of the republic, there is a reminder of the prophetic words of the sage: Nigeria is not a nation; it is a mere geographical expression. The import of that declaration, it’s raison d’etre was to challenge the “mere geographical expression” to strive to become what it was not; to embark on the journey to nationhood. But it was twisted, and the patriot was villainized.

    The various governments, from civilian to military, have come to perceive their duty in the very narrow and mechanical sense of providing for the security and social and economic needs of the people. But there has always been a crucial need to mobilize citizens for the creation of a nation out of the motley crowd. Unfortunately, this critical need has never been met.

    The intra-party crisis in the Western Region in 1962 took such a dramatic and tragic turn because it exposed the ethnic fault lines, a further exacerbation of the pre-independence tensions. The civil war of 1967-1970 was the shameful gangrenous outcome of an untreated political wound.

    Since 1970, we have moved from crisis to crisis because we have yet to learn the lesson of those first ten years of the life of the republic with the hope of attaining nationhood. But what makes a nation?

    In 1882, only thirty-two short years before the birth modern Nigeria, Ernest Renan, the French philosopher and historian, gave an answer to this important question. In a conference presentation, Renan dismissed all potential answers, including race, language, geography, religion, ethnicity. While any or all of this may help, they do not suffice. For, a nation is “a spiritual principle resulting from the profound complexities of history. It is a spiritual family, not a group determined by the lay of the land.”

    One essential character of this spiritual family is the individual sentiments toward the entity, which they see as representing their interests, and for which they are willing to make sacrifices including, if necessary, the supreme sacrifice. Individuals see themselves as belonging to a history that reaches back to generations before them. They are proud of the labor of their past heroes and willing to contribute to the future life of the entity. It is this voluntary self-abnegation, this dialectic of individual and community being, this remembrance of the past and witnessing to the present, that constitutes the nation.

    Renan suggests that a nation “is a great solidarity constituted by the feeling of sacrifices made and those that one is still disposed to make. It presupposes a past but is reiterated in the present by a tangible fact: consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life.” He then introduced what has become a popular metaphor: a nation’s existence is a daily plebiscite, just as an individual’s existence is a perpetual affirmation of life.”

    Nations are modern. Tribes and empires are ancient. There is something paradoxical about the origin of nations and the Renanian account. Historically, the Germanic invasions of Europe facilitated the creation of nations, including France, England, Italy, Spain, etc. But the nations so created had their distinct characters, independent of, or in spite of the character of their invaders. It helped that the Germanic invaders took over the language of their victims; that the conquerors adopted a new religion shared by their victims; and that conqueror and conquered intermarried. With the virtue of forgetting and forgiving, the brutality of the conquests soon gave way to the molding of nations.

    Nigeria does not share the history of France or England. Rather, the story of some of its ethnic nationalities, the Yoruba, and Hausa-Fulani especially, is closer to the story of the founding of those modern nations. Compare the Oduduwa invasion and hegemony with the Germanic invasion, and you get the founding of the Yoruba kingdom and its spread from Ile-Ife to Benin Republic. Similarly, the Fulani invasion of the Habe kingdoms and its expansion to Ilorin is noteworthy.

    We may not know how each of these kingdoms would have ended up if there was no invasion by Britain and the southern and northern protectorates were not amalgamated in 1914. We know, however, that apart from stopping the emergence of genuine nations in this hemisphere, British invasion created a new entity to which it did not devote the kind of attention and sacrifice that the Germanic invaders devoted to it at its infancy.

    Instead of welding the new entity together in a way that promotes unity and generates a common purpose and sense of belonging, Britain deliberately divided in order to conquer and maintain her stranglehold. Therefore, rather than creating and molding a new nation, Britain created several more nations. The seed of that deliberate strategy did not fail to germinate.

    Whereas the memory of a historic past, of ancestral sacrifices, of common suffering and common joy are integral to the spiritual principle that constitutes the nation, we have a multiplicity of these in the various constituents of the country. Whether it is the memory of the civil war, or the memory of June 12, or that of the Ogoni 9, we are not short of memories. But not everyone identifies with each of these memories and there lies the challenge. We do not appear to have a national memory that serves as a unifying force. Even the memory of anti-colonial struggle had its divisive facets.

    If memory does not unify, or if it serves to divide, then we need the mental attitude of forgetfulness. It is hard but as the Yoruba elders put it: those who don’t learn how to forget past palaver will live their lives in solitude.

    But there is more in our circumstance to worry the nationalist. Many now have problem forgetting the past and joining others towards the writing of the Nigerian history as a nation that we want it to be. They feel that at every point they are still being reminded of past atrocities even when they try to forget. They feel like second-tier citizens or aliens. Whether in reaction to policy decision and implementation, appointments and deployments, a feeling of helplessness and betrayal is hardly a positive factor in instilling the national consciousness that is needed for nation-building.

    Absent these conditions, it is difficult to cultivate that other factor in the creation and sustenance of the national soul. The first, which we touched upon above is memory. The second is the “desire to live together, the desire to continue to invest in the heritage that we have jointly received” as Renan put it.

    A present desire to live together is predicated upon the perceived justice of present arrangements. It falls upon the political leaders, therefore, to make justice and fairness, compassion and empathy, forthrightness and the fear of God, their watchwords. Even at this late hour, Nigeria can be a nation of men and women, desirous of embracing its imperfect present while vowing their contributions to its glorious future. The alternative is too scary to contemplate.