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Tag: Nelson Mandela

  • Nigerian leaders lack commitment, courage, says Osinbajo

    Nigerian leaders lack commitment, courage, says Osinbajo

    •’Citizens have a role to play in national growth ‘

    Nigeria is faced with multiple challenges because its leaders are not committed to the people, former Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) has said.

    He said Nigeria needed courageous and passionate leaders like the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Mr. Nelson Mandela and Mr. Martin Luther King Jr.

    Osinbajo said good leaders must have self-discipline, integrity, humility and must be honest and selfless.

    He spoke in Lagos at the Surulere Leadership Conference organised by a firm, Unboxed 2.0, and sponsored by The Nation, Lagos State Internal Revenue Service and Fidelity Bank Plc.

    Speaking on “Leadership and legacy: The power of one”, the professor of law said it takes one man to conceive ideas that could transform the lives of millions.

    He said some leaders, such as Mobutu Sese Seku, Adolf Hitler and Muarmmar Ghadafi, had opportunities but left no inspiring legacy.

    Osinbajo said: “I do not think that good attributes are country-specific or region-specific. They are general attributes that we can see in anyone. We have our own great leaders as well, who we see those attributes in, but there are so many things that are missing.

    “As far as I am concerned, the first is the commitment to the people; commitment to any kind of ideals. We do not find that a lot in leadership, especially national leadership. You may find in some states some measure of decent leadership, people who are committed, such as Lagos, Osun, Rivers, where there is some commitment to something, but in terms of national leadership, it is sadly missing. You do not find a commitment to serve the people, rather they, deceive and blame everyone. You cannot find courage if you do not find commitment.”

    He said good leadership is manifested in “even how an official ceremony is organised”.

    Osinbajo showed the audience two short video clips showing United States (U.S.) President Barrack Obama and his wife, Mitchell, at a ceremony to remember victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack. The other video showed President Goodluck Jonathan swearing-in the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mariam Aloma-Mukhtar.

    In the first video, Obama and his wife marched in unison to the praying field, placed their hands on their chests and closed their eyes. Everyone else followed their lead. Two military officers of the same height opened the door as Obama and his wife stepped out, with other officers artistically forming a guard of honour in a beautiful scene.

    In the other video, a man was seen searching through a book for the page containing the CJN’s oath of office. Another man was seen adjusting the microphone while President Jonathan and Justice Aloma-Muktar watched. After a page was opened, President Jonathan looked in and realised it was the wrong page. He opened the right page himself.

    Osinbajo said Obama and his wife, despite their busy schedule, must have practiced their movement and what was expected of them before the ceremony, highlighting the attention to detail that is required for state functions.

    He said: “It is that kind of attention to detail that makes people respect a government. Why are you bringing a whole book? Why can’t you bring a page? And the whole world was watching.”

    Founder of LeapAfrica Mrs. Ndidi Nwuneli, who spoke on “The power of five loaves and two fishes: Collectively using little to achieve much”, said everyone is guilty of how beautiful or ugly their environment is.

    To make a positive impact in the society, she said people must determine their visions, take stock of their assets and utilise them well; prepare; be willing to work as part of a team; galvanise others to buy into the vision and re-invest the returns.

    Grooming tomorrow’s leaders is also crucial, she said, adding: “We tend to cling to power and the limelight and are rarely willing to share the risks and rewards with others. This remains a huge stumbling block. Leaders who are willing to galvanise others to do the work achieve greater results.”

    Unboxed 2.0’s Chief Responsibility Officer Mr. Wale Adenuga said the meeting was an opportunity to bring leaders and youths together to explore how to better the community.

    Adenuga said: “People do speak a lot against leadership, but the purpose of this conference is to make people realise that we also have a role to play. We need to take responsibility for some things. The government ought to take responsibility for a whole lot of things, but we ourselves need to take responsibility. We need to be our brother’s keeper; we need to realise that life is not just about ourselves and that we can make a difference even within the spheres of our influences.”

  • MTN ambassadors tweet about Valentine

    With Valentine’s Day a few days away, MTN celebrity ambassadors have been engaging youths on the social media, sharing love tips, stories, personal experiences, and providing answers to issues raised by fans on the MTN twitter handle.

    The strategy appears to be working for the brand, with a huge followership by fans, who read the thread and have been rebroadcasting some of the comments.

    One of the celebrities, Kcee (Kingsley Chinweike Okonkwo), has also seized the opportunity to talk about love, using one of his hits, Pull Over.

    The song is said to have recorded over a million downloads on MTN Callertunez, barely two weeks after his album launch, and the Limpopo Master, as he is fondly called, thinks his fans have shown him great love by taking to his songs.

    “Valentine is a day for the exchange of tokens of affection,” he said, explaining to a fan that the occasion can also be used to visit the less privileged and physically-challenged.

    Kedike crooner Chidinma Ekile, who came to reckoning having won the MTN Project Fame reality show in 2010, was also a special guest on the MTN twitter handle. She engaged her fans in a lengthy discussion, telling them about her career growth since she won the third edition of the show, while also commenting on her relationship status. The diminutive singer advised her fans to engage only in social activities that will empower them positively.

    There was HarrySong, who won the best MTN Callertunez last year, for his song on the late Nelson Mandela.

    Harrysong shared his experience from the 56th Grammy Award, showering encomiums on MTN for facilitating his journey to the prestigious award.

    Other artistes who made comments on the MTN twitter handle are Praiz and D’Prince, who said they would perform with other top Nigerian artistes like Don Jazzy, Wizkid, Iyanya, Davido, Sound Sultan, Banky W and Tiwa Savage, at the MTN Valentine Rave Party, at the Eko Hotel and Suites on February 14.

    Feelers from the ICT company say at least one celebrity will be special guest on the MTN twitter handle, to interact with followers, every day till Valentine’s day on Friday. The artistes will include those listed for the Rave Party like comic character, Hafeez Oyetoro, popularly called Saka.

     

  • Mandela left $4m estate

    Mandela left $4m estate

    South Africa’s former President Nelson Mandela left an estate valued at more than 46m rand ($4.13m; £2.53m), the executors of his Will have revealed.

    The Mandela family trust will receive $130,000, plus royalties. Others to benefit include the governing ANC, personal staff and several schools.

    Mr Mandela’s third wife, Graca Machel, may waive her claims to the estate, the executors said, although she is entitled to half of it.

    Mr Mandela died on December 5, last year, aged 95.

    The former president left behind an estate that includes an upmarket house in Johannesburg, a modest dwelling in his rural Eastern Cape home province and royalties from book sales, including his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.

    Executor Justice Dikgang Moseneke said he was “not aware of any contest” to the 40-page Will.

    Speaking at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, Mr Moseneke said some of the estate would be split between three trusts set up by Mr Mandela, including a family trust designed to provide for his more than 30 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

    Schools the former president attended are due to receive 100,000 rand each, as are Wits and Fort Hare Universities, for bursaries and scholarships.

    The family trust will receive 1.5m rand, plus royalties.

    The ANC will also receive some royalties, to be used at the discretion of the party’s executive committee, to spread information about the principles and policies of the ANC, particularly about reconciliation.

    Mr Mandela’s children each received $300,000 in loans during his lifetime and will have that debt scrapped if it has not been repaid.

    Close personal staff, including long-time personal aide Zelda la Grange, each get 50,000 rand.

    The home in Houghton, Johannesburg where Mandela died on December 5 will be used by the family of his deceased son Makgatho.

    “It is my wish that it should also serve as a place of gathering of the Mandela family in order to maintain its unity long after my death,” the former statesman wrote.

    The mood of the Mandela family when the Will was read was “charged with emotions, but it went well,” said the executor, who added that the Mandela family were “well pleased” by his Will.

    Despite this, there are fears the Will could set off another round of squabbling among members of his large and factious family.

    Justice Moseneke, who is also deputy head of South Africa’s Constitutional Court, said there was a 90-day period in which the Will can be contested.

    The Will was first written in 2004 and last amended in 2008.

     

  • Madiba resurrects… in Osun

    Madiba resurrects… in Osun

    There were drumming, singing and chanting, dancing, masqueraders and more when the Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding (CBCIU), Osogbo in the Osun State capital, began the new year. It was more than a celebration of Africa’s rich heritage as the late African icon Nelson Mandela “resurrected” at the centre, reports Evelyn Osagie.

     •CBCIU unveils tallest drum as emblem

    My sheer coincidence, the authorities of the Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding (CBCIU), headed by the Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka, chose to reanimate the centre on a day Nigeria was remembering its fallen heroes – men who gave their lives while serving the country.

    As part of activities marking its reopening, months after the death of the late icon, Nelson Mandela, they not only revisited his legacies and achievements but also resurrected his spirit, as culture advocates put it, in the centre at Osogbo Osun State’s capital.

    The day began with bata drumming renting the air and displays of African prints and art works. Not minding the heat of the morning sun, guests made their way to the white canopy in front of the Ulli Beier’s Hall of CBCIU. The symbolic tallest drum, which measures 11 feet in height and six feet in circumference, was also unveiled as the emblem of the centre along with other cultural and artistic activities such as an exhibition by Osogbo artists led by Chief Muraina Oyelami and Chief Jimoh Buraimoh, the Tie and Dye exhibition by Nike Art Gallery and other artists, performances and displays. However, the high point of the event was the unveiling of the Egungun Mandela.

    “In recognition of Mandela’s place in African history and culture, the centre, under Soyinka who is its new Board Chairman, with the state government, created a masquerader in his honour called the Egungun Mandela, in commemoration of this great African liberator, now an ancestor,” CBCIU Board member Dr Olu Wale-Adeniran said.

    Celebrating Mandela on the Armed Forces Remembrance Day, a few days after Nigeria witnessed an “assault on democracy”, as some critics put it, in which the police allegedly attacked a group rally in Rivers State, was not deliberate,

    Soyinka described it as a “troubling coincidence” that was both “ironic” and “singularly appropriate”.

    At a time when the nation is facomg one of the most perilous phases of its history, tormented by an enemy that seeks to choke all aspects of cultural and artistic preoccupations that do not conform with their beliefs, the Nobel laureate named culture as “an unquantifiable asset, a weapon that answers that consistent yearning of humanity which, I believe, can be summed up in one word: Peace”.

    “It is a depressing coincidence that while we are opening this place with the celebration of Mandela and what he meant to the African continent, we have in another part of the country what I might call a travesty of what I call the Mandela Principle: a complete and shameful travesty of what I like to refer to as the Mandelan Example, not just principle. People have principle but don’t lead by example.

    “If Mandela had been at the head of this nation, that psychopath called Mbu would be in jail by now, commissioner or no commissioner, Inspector-General of Police or no Inspector-General of Police.”

    Culture, he said, is a timeless and dynamic process that offers both spiritual and intellectual liberation. He added that it is “an additional ingredient in the intellectual armoury on which youths are weaned and adult experience extended, a new fodder for ingestion and a prism for viewing both historic and contemporary human phenomena”, adding that failure to recognise this is the fatal problem that besets fundamentalists.

    He urged Nigerians to stand up against those who see books, learning, art and aesthetics as violations of a divine order.

    Soyinka said: “In critical times such as ours, culture provides a bedrock resilience to the front-line targets and casualties of the onslaught of the mindless, atavistic hordes of extreme religionists.  It expresses solidarity with those victims who, so far, have borne the brunt, who daily bear the brunt of a demented minority with their psychopathic hatred of the historic, indeed organic modes of existence of human society. Building on this imperishable bequest from those who came before us, we are enabled to reach out beyond our immediate confines, across national borders, to make common cause with all who also seek merely to bring their wares to the open market of human creativity.”

    He urged Nigerians to emulate the late Mandela, who knew when to fight for what he believed in, and when to make peace. This, he said, is what the centre seeks to promote.

    “We cannot, therefore, claim to be more virtuous than today’s ancestral Guest of Honour whose transitional masquerade – his egungun – showers this gathering with both honour and blessings. That universal avatar, Nelson Mandela, knew when it was time to take up arms, and when it was time to become a paraclete of the Culture of Peace. We, therefore, salute and honour our armed forces.

    “While they play their part with a self-sacrificing commitment that responds to assaults on the integrity of society and its physical survival, we, on our part, must deploy that weaponry of which we are capable – culture – as our means to the same survival ends – but in the spiritual domain.  Across religion, gender, profession, class or race, culture calls to the spiritual in every one of us.

    “These constitute the transformative agenda of the centre. The aim of the Centre, after all, as its title indicates, is to promote mutual understanding both internally and externally, to extend the social deductions and humanistic aspirations of a people’s experience onto the international arena, and vice versa. The celebration and enhancement of the banquet of life that surrounds us, and the extension of their extracts to the global arena of human discourse, leading to an understanding that can only promote the eternal quest of human interaction. That quest – if Christians will kindly permit my variation on their theological phrasing – that quest is not so much a ‘Peace that passeth all Unders2tanding’ but, a Peace that comes with – Understanding,” Soyinka said.

    Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola said politicians should lead by example and emulate the qualities of the late Madiba for which he is being celebrated. He said his administration is committed to the promotion of the arts, culture and tourism.

     

    Mandela’s Masquarader appears

    Dressed in a traditional attire, the Egungun Mandela appeared accompanied by his three other comrades who died in the course of the struggle – Steve Biko, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu.

    Along with Mandela, In explaining the significant of having Mandela’s masquerader in Osun, culture advocate and artist, Chief Muraina Oyelami said: “In Yorubaland, the egungun is celebrated to honour the dead and to assure them a space among the living. It is the period of re-enactment of moral and ethical codes of the past generation among the living. The egungun ritual is also meant to cleanse the land and bless the living. Beyond the annual celebration, egungun is invoked in Yorubaland during the funeral ritual.”

    Former Dean Faculty of Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Prof Dipo Salami urged African leaders to emulate the character of the late Mandela, saying in Yoruba cosmology great men of iwa (character) are honoured by funeral rites where his egungun will be celebrated.

    He said: “We are celebrating Mandela today because of his ‘iwa’.  Mandela was an olooto (truthful personality) and that was why he did not die in prison even in the face of the machinations of his enemies. Truth is eternal and cannot die… The returning ancestor, who is symbolised by the egungun, is believed to be able to convey messages to heaven because he has become a ‘four-eyed person’ who can see both worlds and he is also considered capable of discerning the concerns of the living and the capabilities of the ancestors/living-dead.

    “For a great person like Mandela, whose egungun is processing at this celebration, may be asked to inform the ancestors that if and when they wish to send another personality to replace him on earth, the ancestors should send a soul personality of character like Mandela. In the alternative, they may request that if Mandela himself wishes to come back, that is reincarnate, he would be very much welcome back to Africa, particularly Osun.”

     

  • Letter to Pastor Kris Okotie

    Letter to Pastor Kris Okotie

    SIR: Initially, I did not want to write this. For one, I never believed it when people said that while preaching in your church you said all Catholics will go to hell. You did not stop there; you even went as far as calling Pope Francis an anti-Christ and a friend of Satan’s. And that the Church is a counterfeit church set up by Satan.

    When ever we are ignorant of anything we create false impressions in our mind. But as the scriptures say “there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is destruction”. And your ignorance about the Catholic Church is manifest.

    I know people like you often say Catholics worship idols because of the images that Catholics use. God never condemned these images that were used to worship him. Even the world stood still when the revered Nelson Mandela’s statue was unveiled. People and even tourists flock to see it, almost deifying him. Even today people, even atheists keep the picture of Mother Theresa in their homes.

    And for Mary, we will not stop to honour her as we would honour anyone who is outstanding. Even some football and music fans have given more honour to their idols. But any right thinking person will honour a woman whom God’s son took her flesh. It is proper to fulfil God’s words through angel Gabriel that she is “full of grace”, and that the Lord is with her. And Christ himself made us adopt her as our Mother when he spoke to Saint John on the cross. In Mary, perhaps, as a writer said, God the Father has a feminine side.

    The contributions of the Catholic Church to the world cannot be quantified. Western civilization today owes a lot to the Catholic Church. Think of culture, art and philosophy. Even the Easter and Christmas holidays are Catholic heritages. Pope Gregory XIII’s Gregorian calendar is what is used internationally as the civil calendar; even time is measured by the West from the date taken as the birth of the Church’s founder, Jesus of Nazareth: the Year One AD (Anno Domini). The Catholic Church fought against slavery, human sacrifice, abortion, incest, polygamy and infidelity in marriage.

    But for me, it is not so much what you said about Catholics as the effect a brainless utterance can have on your person. Unless your presidential ambition is a joke, no right thinking person who has his eyes set on 2015 will want to play with votes. As they say in politics every vote counts, not to talk of the votes of Nigerian Catholics, and perhaps even Nigerian Christians and non Christians in general who have come to love Pope Francis. By your actions alone you have committed political suicide even before INEC blew the whistle.

    • Dr Cosmas Odoemena

    Lagos

  • Mandela’s family, ex-wife Winnie, clash over successor

    Mandela’s family, ex-wife Winnie, clash over successor

    THE AbaThembu royal family was outraged over the statement by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela that Makaziwe Mandela was now the head of the Mandela family, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) reported yesterday.

    “Winnie Madikizela-Mandela misled the public about the custom of the Kingdom of AbaThembu,” spokesperson Chief Daludumo Mtirara was quoted saying.

    Mtirara said former president Nelson Mandela pronounced to the Thembu nation six years ago that his grandson Mandla Mandela was the head of the family and the traditional spear was handed over to him.

    “The royal family of the Kingdom of AbaThembu recognises Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandla Mandela as the head of the Mandela family,” he said.

    On Wednesday, Madikizela-Mandela expressed disappointment at the media’s interference with the matters of the Mandela family.

    She said through her spokesperson, Thato Mmereki, that there was no succession or dynasty debate in the Mandela family.

    Nelson Mandela died on 5 December in his Houghton home in Johannesburg and was buried in Qunu in the Eastern Cape on Sunday.

    Mandela was survived by his three daughters Makaziwe, Zenani Dlamini-Mandela and Zindziswa Mandela.

    In her statement Madikizela-Mandela said in accordance with customary law and tradition, the eldest daughter, Makaziwe, would head the family and would make decisions with the support of her two sisters.

    “To this end there is no misunderstanding, or debate. Mr Mandla Mandela is respected as one of Nelson Mandela’s grandchildren, the next generation of the Mandela family,” Mmereki said in a statement at the time.

  • Tale of four letters; Three Pretoria people; Road/Niger Bridge Travel as ‘National Disasters’

    Tale of four letters; Three Pretoria people; Road/Niger Bridge Travel as ‘National Disasters’

    The world buried Nelson Mandela and begins the search for a successor-an international honest political hero, Meanwhile Nigerians read the horrible revelations in two letters from Sanusi of CBN and Obasanjo, ex-President and look at the third ‘letter’, a Supreme Court Judgement in favour of Bode George and a fourth ‘letter’, a High Court ruling in favour of Nasir El Rufai. Nigerians shudder at the consequences of corruption, poor governance, vindictive prosecution and abuse of investigative organs of justice since before 1999 and questionable court judgement. Nigerians must remember that there is no difference between government trained snipers, killer squads, thugs and police KAG –‘Kill and Go’. They all kill and all parties use one or another. If we can stop one, we must stop all. A sniper’s bullet in the heart or brain has the same effect as a cut throat from a machete or brains spilt with a thug’s stick. For example how many were imprisoned, executed and died mysteriously during the dreaded Abacha regime, yet he still has a stadium named after him and his henchmen and offspring will soon again run for President if not governor? How many die each election.

    Christian Amanpour of CNN reminds us all that Pretoria and South African experiences link three great heroes of this generation. They were all burnt or seared by apartheid and miraculously went on to personal greatness. Churchill was held in Pretoria during the Boer War and escaped to become a war hero and later the great leader of Great Britain during World War 11 and though he later described Ghandi as ‘bloody kafir’, Churchill in the heat of WW11 in 1943 still managed to set up the machinery that would bring higher education to English speaking Africa with the founding of the Universities Ibadan, Legon and Fourah Bay. Ghandi was thrown off the train to Pretoria for being Indian. He subsequently fought apartheid and became the non-violence icon during struggles to lead India to independence in 1947.  And then there was Mandela, Madiba.

    From adversity and pollution sometimes comes magnificent resolve and unimaginable greatness leading often excruciatingly slowly to purifying the society and FREEDOM. But during the process of ‘purification’, many, in their miserable millions, are ‘contained’, minimised in needs and deeds, crippled, killed, die in reality or economically, of their wounds, mental and physical. They remain unsung except by loved ones. How many must suffer for one suffering hero to emerge? How many suffered and died in slavery before abolition? How many times did Mandela’s name come up for execution or appear in the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle? What saved Mandela when other mortals in Sharpsville and Soweto and victims like Chris Hani were fair game for dog attacks, beatings, brutality, bullets and murder?

    When good men and women keep quiet or are silenced bad people fill the vacuum. That is why the EU is trying to solve the electricity problem spawned in Nigeria by the serial failure and collective small mindedness of past political and military visionless leaders with no spark of national energy during the dark ages 1983 to 2013! God gave us the sun but we need someone with solar-vision to harness it for development. Will that be the new Mandela’s task? What is the new apartheid to be confronted by the new Mandela? Is depriving Nigerians of their livelihood, security’, health and education by removing electricity from their expectations the new apartheid leading to oppression by denial of power, exploitation of the people by petroleum and generator oppressors? Will they be defeated by solar power?

    So we MUST suffer at the hands of contractors to smile. The 20,000 vehicles in five lanes on each side and 25 kilometres long caught in both sides of the Saturdays of 7-12-2013 and 14-12-13 traffic mayhem cannot all be wrong. What manner of supervising governance, contractor-customer care and country is this? RCC and Julius Berger should have a better CONTRACTOR-CUSTOMER CARE pact. And do not forget the Niger Bridge. The FRSC must redefine its role to keep traffic moving at all times and not pluck unfortunate suffering vehicles for ‘particulars check’. Why is ‘travel’ a ‘Natural or national Disaster’ in Nigeria? We are our worst enemies. Uncaring FRSC, contractors, events like religious events, queue-jumping as a way of expressway life, too few points of turning on the expressway, absent pedestrian walkways all contribute to 4-6 hours for a 127km trip. Judge Nigeria by absent flyovers or pedestrian walkways at Redeem and the slow pace of work on the Lagos Secretariat Alausa pedestrian walkway taking more than six months, the same time as it is taking to build the tallest building in the world! Is there a light at the end of this tunnel? There will be light only if all Nigerians, every Nigerian, join hands to shine their eyes and torches to dispel the evil. Nigeria is dying, not rising. Nigerians must rise up and demand a seat at the table, directly or indirectly. Nigerians must contribute to, eat, drink, thank, talk, walk and sleep and dream ‘The Nigeria of their Dreams’. As we clock 100 years of ‘AMALGAMARRIAGE’ it is time for all to make the changes to our polity and politics, economy and education, humanity and health, safety and security, fiscal and excusive list in the constitution, now with this ‘Sovereign’ -National Conference. Merry Christmas, will you have electricity on Christmas Day?

  • The Mandela files (2): Mandela in America

    The Mandela files (2): Mandela in America

    In the age of television and instant mass communication, we ought perhaps to revise Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quip and insist that every hero becomes a bore not merely at last but very soon, maybe after only two or three television interviews.

    To do so, however, would be to reckon without the phenomenon that is Nelson Mandela.

    If one week is a long time in politics as a British statesman once remarked, the six months that have passed since Mandela was released from prison and has been the focus of media attention constitute nothing less than an eternity in the murky world of international politics.

    And yet, his stature has continued to grow, and his admirers to multiply. Everywhere he speaks, his message gains in urgency. He has been winning friends for the African National Congress and the liberation struggle of which he is the foremost symbol.

    After scores of television appearances, innumerable newspaper interviews and speeches, he is still displaying an intriguing knack for saying the right thing in the right place at the right time in the right way.

    At 72, Mandela maintains a schedule that would have fazed many a man half his age. But rarely has he shown the irritability that usually flows from weariness that not even a person of his singular energies and willpower can conceal. To admirers and opponents alike, he has shown uncommon civility and a graciousness that is all the more remarkable for being so totally natural.

    In America, the land of the anti-hero, where the news interview is an inquisition by another name, it was widely expected that he would be cut down to human size at last. He had set out on a14-nation, six-week trip only four days after undergoing surgery. The calculation in some quarters was that by the time he reached the United States, signs of exhaustion would be so manifest in his conduct, his temperament would have become brittle, and he would not be able to stand up to the tough questioning for which the American news media are reputed.

    Mandela’s well-known favourable disposition towards some of the bêtes noires of the American Establishment – Cuba’s president Fidel Castro, Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and PLO leader Yasser Arafat – was sure to render him vulnerable to the sniping of the jingoistic right-wing press and the powerful Jewish interests, of which the United States policy-making is hostage.

    But in America, Mandela was at his brilliant and most engaging best. More than one million people in New York lined his route to honour him in a ticker-tape parade. The city’s first African American mayor, David Dinkins, gave him the keys of the Big Apple. At the United Nations, accredited representatives of all nations of the world rose in a prolonged ovation even before he began to speak.

    He told America that that its enemies were not necessarily the enemies of the ANC; he praised Castro and Gaddafi and Arafat for their contributions to the liberation struggle in South Africa. He spelled out without hatred or bitterness what apartheid means in human terms, insisted on the imperative of the armed struggle, and declared that nothing had happened in his country to warrant the lifting of sanctions.

    In Washington, DC, he drew rapturous applause at various points in his address before the United States Congress, the first by a black foreign leader who holds no executive authority.

    In television and newspaper interviews and speeches across the United States, he reiterated his position on various issues calmly and with the grave, measured dignity that is his hallmark.

    Predictably, a few rumbles were heard here and there. The Jewish lobby was aghast that Mandela did not denounce Yasser Arafat as a terrorist chieftain and the PLO as a terrorist organisation. Under pressure from the large Cuban exile community, Miami scaled down the reception that had been planned for Mandela.

    The New York Times in an editorial hailed him as an authentic hero, a manifestation of man’s unconquerable spirit, but remarked that if the United States were to employ Mandela’s standards and judge individuals and organisations by their attitudes toward it and not on the basis of other people’s prejudices, it would never have imposed economic sanctions against the South Africa.

    A.M. Rosenthal, the rabidly pro-Jewish columnist for the paper, wrote approvingly of Mandela but deplored as “amoral” his standards in choosing friends. So did other Times columnist Flora Lewis, whose liberal credentials are unimpeachable on all matters except those that have any bearing on Israel, however tangentially.

    All of them conveniently forget that the United States is only a recent convert to the view that economic sanctions can force Pretoria to reconsider its iniquitous policies’

    Was it not the U.S. that invented the opportunistic and amoral policy of “constructive engagement”? Was it not former Secretary of State, George Schultz, who declared that the U.S. could not impose economic sanctions against South Africa because American women would by that measure be deprived of a source of diamonds? Had the U.S. not always stood in the way of UN draft resolutions condemning the barbarities of apartheid?

    Mandela knows all this but is too gracious, too civil, to dwell on them. He had his own message to put across and was not going to be dragged into sterile controversy.

    *Second installment of a three-part retrospective on Mandela. The article was first published in The African Guardian (September 23, 1990).

    *

    Twenty-three years later, well before Mandela’s lifeless body had turned cold, the right-wing media in the United States resumed its campaign of framing Mandela according to its soulless measure of goodness and greatness.

    Yes, Mandela preached love and forgiveness and may even have practised same. But, you see, he was a Kha.mew.nist (read Communist). A Kha.mew.nist, you understand? He was the leader of a terrorist organisation that murdered thousands of innocent people in Africa and elsewhere, many of them women and children.

    You doubt it?

    Recently declassified material in the British archives, they said triumphantly, shows irrefutably that Mandela was not merely leader of an organisation of which the South African Communist Party was an ally, he was, horror of horrors, an actual, card-carrying, dues-paying member of that party.

    Such labelling is a familiar weapon of the American Right, reserved especially for outstanding black men whose complaisance could not be taken for granted – Paul Robeson, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name just a few.

    Mandela had denied his alleged Communist affiliation again and again. But does it matter whether he was a Communist or not? If it is indeed proven that he was once an active, card-carrying, dues-paying member of the SACP, would that take anything away from his stature as one of the greatest men of our age and any age?

    Apartheid, the pernicious ideology that undergirded the machinery of government in South Africa, was justly condemned by the United Nations as a crime against humanity. To some of the loudest elements of the American Right, however, Communism is a far greater evil apartheid.

    Better a crime against humanity – especially black humanity — than a doctrine that challenges the foundations of market capitalism.

  • Soyinka gathers poets, activists for Mandela

    Soyinka gathers poets, activists for Mandela

    Prior to the interment of the late South African President, Nelson Mandela, at a private ceremony in Qunu, his country home, on Sunday, the Nigerian art community last Friday took time out to celebrate the memories of the late freedom fighter.

    Led by Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, it was an assemblage of political activists, public commentators and literary figures, who are noted for their undaunted campaigns for good governance.

    The passing of the South African icon provided yet another opportunity to mirror the unique place of sacrifice in leadership. Through thought-provoking poems, musicals and dance drama, the crowd, at the Freedom Park, venue of the Lagos Tribute, savoured with great interest, the eulogies on an extraordinary mortal.

    Grammy nominee, Femi Kuti, excited the crowd, performing with his Positive Force Band. His show at the event was complemented by other groups, including the Lagos City Chorale, Crown Troupes of Africa and the Black Image Theatre, among others.

    High-ranking Nigerians at the event included the Governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; his counterpart from Rivers State, Honourable Rotimi Amaechi; Consulate General of the South Africa, Lulu Louis Mnguni; Director-General, Centre for Black Arts and African Civilisation, CBAAC, Professor Tunde Babawale; Barrister Femi Falana; Professor J.P Clark; President of Campaign for Democracy (CD), Dr. Joe Odumakin; Professor Kole Omotosho and literary guru, Odia Ofeimun, among others.

    Soyinka’s poem, No, I Say, was a rendition that highlighted selflessness, courage and sacrifice, dwelling on Mandela’s refusal to trade his incarceration for freedom at the expense of other activists who were serving in other prisons. The poem explains how Mandela refused to accept some negotiations, in spite of how some African leaders had pressed him into accepting conditions for his release.

    Governor Amaechi launched a direct one on the political situation in Nigeria, asking for a common rise against corruption and corrupt leaders.

    “You heard about $50 billion, but nobody is talking. In some countries, people will be on the streets. If you don’t take your destiny in your hand, we, leaders, will continue to steal. It is because you have stoned nobody that we are stealing,” Amaechi said, with reference to the money said to be missing from the Excess Crude Account.

    Reacting to the governor’s remarks, Ofeimum urged Nigerians to join hands by wrestling corrupt leadership as a way of returning the country to its past glory. His rendition, through a dance drama, A feast of return, complemented his thoughts on the issue. One would have thought that his position was pre-planned to meet the governor’s query.

    Known for his elevated literary style on political matters, Governor Aregbesola noted that Mandela was not only the symbol of the struggle, but an individual who defined the trajectory of his country.

    He took his peg from the rare spirit of forgiveness, which Mandela preached after his release. He described Mandela’s ingenuity as an “unsurpassable grace and that he (Mandela) brought no baggage of malice from prison. And he still forgave his jailers.”

    Everybody who spoke at the event left no one in doubt of the virtuous life of Mandela, hinging their thoughts on the need to immortalize him by emulating his legacy.

    Apparently impressed by the gathering and all that was said about his countryman, Mnguni thanked the organizers, while also noting that “We have lost a giant and we are going to miss him visiting the sick, old people’s homes, orphanages and home of abandoned children. We are going to miss that voice that preaches reconciliation, respect for fellow men and peace.

     

  • Idris Elba’s tribute to Nelson Mandela

    Idris Elba’s tribute to Nelson Mandela

    Hollywood actor, Idris Elba, is set to release an album as a tribute to Nelson Mandela in 2014.
    The British actor of Ghanaian and Sierra Leonean descent has written a love letter to Nelson Mandela through his musical work.
    According to reports, the actor titled the album Mi Mandela, and it was done in collaboration with South African musical greats.
    Idris plays the former South Africa president and human rights icon in the movie titled Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
    Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is a movie based on the late Mandela’s autobiography of the same name. It chronicles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison before becoming President of South Africa.
    Naomi Harris (Skyfall) stars as Winnie Mandela. The film was directed by Justin Chadwick.
    Elba disclosed that he is really proud of the album and would wait until the film has died down, so it doesn’t get muddled up. He, however, disclosed that he would release it in the New Year.