The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Ode

  • ‘Why Ode arms procurement panel was disbanded’

    The Air Vice Marshall John Ode (rtd) Presidential Arms Procurement Committee was disbanded because its activities became unwinding and money consuming, it was learnt yesterday.

    Besides, the panel came up with limited results, a top government source said.

    The committee was constituted by National Security Adviser (NSA) Maj. Gen. Baba Gana Monguno, last October, to investigate among other things, arms procurement contracts in the office of the NSA during the Jonathan administration.

    Although the panel was expected to work within a 90-day period, it sat for 18 months without completing its assignment.

    It was gathered that the panel might have deliberately elongated its assignment because some of the members were allegedly enjoying the perks extended to them by the Federal  Government.

    A source said the federal Government might have spent more than N600 million on the panel’s assignment but this could not be independently confirmed.

    “The government could no longer continue to fund people who were not ready to conclude their work as specified by the terms of reference. They veered off their core mandate and started investigating some top officers in circumstances that suggested personal agenda,” a top security source said.

    It was learnt that the panel even submitted a report on some of the officers it went out of its way to investigate only to send the report to other unauthorised persons.

    Following the disbandment of the committee, its functions have now been handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

     

  • Ode to ideas and compassion

    Ode to ideas and compassion

    For Asiwaju Bola Tinubu at 65, it is ode to brilliant ideas and deep compassion — and just as well; for no politician of his generation better epitomizes these two concepts.

    But the remarkable thing about this year’s birthday: that Tinubu philosophy, of razor-sharp ideas founded on deep compassion, is seeping into the grassroots.

    That was clear from the adoption, as part of the Tinubu 65th birthday, of 300 indigent pupils, from all of the 18 public primary schools, in Eredo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), in the Epe Local Government of Lagos State.

    That charity’s punch-line could well have come straight from the celebrator himself: “No child will be left behind”.

    Now, to some lexical arithmetic: if you graft compassion with ideas, what you get is compassionate ideas.

    That would appear the fundament of the Social Contract, that theoretical basis for the pristine government, in which the people surrender parts of their rights, in exchange for welfare and protection, by the mutually empowered Leviathan.

    Until neo-cons, under US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (both late) seized the globe by the scruff, and left the world much poorer, hungrier and angrier, compassionate ideas, as government policy, was given.

    Indeed, the democratic concept of the vote-for-sound-governance would appear a logical flow from that given, subject, of course, to voter renewal or rejection, at periodic elections.

    But then the neo-cons came, changed state compassion to capital worship, and condemned the people to scrounging majority need from minority greed.  Governance has since never been the same!

    So, when Asiwaju Tinubu, at the 9th Bola Tinubu Colloquium, with the theme, “Make it in Nigeria: use what we make and make what we use “, declared the political economy must work for the people, he was only reasserting an instinct that had endeared him to millions of Nigerians.

    Tinubu, as grand symbol of compassionate ideas, as the cornerstone of governance, was apparent from the attendance mix at the May 28 colloquium in Lagos.

    The policy geeks were there in numbers.  So were entrepreneurs, thriving or budding, eager to mix and mingle with the governmental royals,  on fresh ideas for national economic redemption — all under the grand mastermind of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

    But so too were the political hoi polloi, beneficiaries of the legendary Tinubu empathy, no less eager to celebrate with their champion.

    From the inaugural colloquium in 2008, Prof. Osinbajo had been the quiet but acute mind, bossing this yearly festival of ideas.

    The inaugural theme, “Every vote must count” was a logical response to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “do-or-die” election of 2007, that foisted the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as president, in what would prove the beginning of the end for the former ruling party.

    But even poor Yar’Adua — goodly soul! — recoiled at that “election”.  He therefore set up the Justice Muhammadu Uwais Electoral Review Panel.  That inspired Tinubu’s own Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reforms (CODER), which drove the theme for the first-ever Tinubu colloquium: Every vote must count.

    So, from the harsh Siberia of opposition, when the PDP loomed, as if it would swing its threat of 60-year uninterrupted rule, Prof. Osinbajo had run the colloquium; to engage the polity on cutting ideas, in a political economy neither proud of its past nor clear about its future.

    This year, the Tinubu colloquium has engaged the Buhari government, in which Osinbajo serves as vice-president; aside from other Nigerians.  Between Tinubu and Osinbajo then, it is as Chief Obafemi Awolowo, himself the most vigorous ideas man of his generation, quipped: only the deep can call to the deep.

    Unlike the Shakespearean Ides of March that doomed Caesar, the Tinubu Colloquium is morphing into grand Ideas of March, that could well save a nation.

    So is the novel Eredo Epe charity, saving the rural poor.  No less striking was its symbolism: an act of compassion, to toast Tinubu at 65, to kick-start the birthday celebrations, their unique Eredo way.

    It is equally interesting how the Indigent Pupils Adoption Programme came about.  Shamsideen Adeniyi, former secretary to the Eredo LCDA, whose Ojo Ibukun Foundation is chief driver of the charity, recalled how he observed the acute discomfort of a bare-foot pupil, one hot afternoon, in the Eredo country.

    As his boisterous mates barged on the tar, seemingly without a care, the poor child skipped, now on the hot tar, then in the adjoining bushes — all the “kokoma” dance just to relieve the searing afternoon heat, on his shoe-less sole!  Even then, his short was tattered.  So was his shirt. Of course, he logged a rude sack for a school bag, which was all the more remarkable for its full emptiness!

    That set Adeniyi furiously thinking — with a mere N5, 000, this child could get two pairs of uniforms, a pair of school scandals, a doughty bag to carry his books and some dozen exercise books for school work.  The Indigent Pupils Adoption Programme was born — and in its first coming in 2016, it benefitted 100 pupils!

    But then, Wasiu Odeyemi, aka Wastab, another big shot in the Eredo political universe, bought into the idea, adopting 120 of the 300 beneficiaries this year, under the ambit of his Hassmowun Foundation (after his late parents, Hassan and Omowunmi who, especially his mother, were great lovers of education).

    Both foundations agreed to use the event, the second in the series, to celebrate Asiwaju Tinubu at 65; and in that, drew virtually every who-is-who in that community.

    From 100 in 2016 to 300 in 2017, Adeniyi’s Ojo Ibukun Foundation, with collaborating partners, would continue expanding the scheme until it achieves its ultimate goal — No child will be left behind.

    What is more?  Every beneficiary child would be yearly kitted throughout his or her primary school years. That is the term for adoption, and donors have bought into it.

    Asiwaju Tinubu must feel doubly proud: his persona inspiring charity to the society’s most vulnerable; and his policy temper, spawning progressive thinkers, even at the grassroots.  For Lagos, that is good news.

    In Achebe-speak, for Tinubu-esque compassionate ideas, it’s morning yet, on creation day!

  • Ode to a master artist

    Ode to a master artist

    In this tribute, an avid Lagos art collector, Jess Castellote, writes on the life and times of one of Nigeria’s contemporary artists, the late Ben Osaghae, who died  last Monday. 

    It is less than four months since we mourned the death of Sammy Olagbaju, less than two since Rasheed Gbadamosi passed away and now, we are confronted with the death of Ben Osaghae.  Rasheed, I knew him well, but Sammy and Ben were personal friends. In 2012, with the help of Sammy, I published a book: “Nigerian Contemporary Art in Lagos Private Collections”. Just a couple of years ago, Akinyemi Adetunji and I wrote “Ben Osaghae. Visual Chronicles of a society in flux”, a book monograph on Ben.
    Working on these books, I spent countless hours with both of them. I enjoyed their company, I learnt from them and they offered me access to their artworks. It was a privilege to have Sammy telling me stories about when, how and where he acquired some artworks. It was also a great fortune to let Ben talk at length, as he usually did when he was at ease, about the why and how on his works. He was a witty person and his conversations were always sprinkled with proverbs, words in pidgin and ordinary expressions. Though, frequently, he tended to be ponderous and philosophical, he could also be poetic and light. Chatting with him was never dull.
    Osaghae was probably the most gifted draughtsman Nigeria has had in recent times, but, above all, he was a storyteller. He was the artist-seer and the artist-prophet of his society. Usually, there was a “narrative” in his works, but one that is not at all linear, unequivocal or direct. In his works, there is always an ambiguity of meaning that challenges the viewer to interpret metaphors and discover subtle references. He was not one to belabour his paintings with precise or accurate details in an attempt to get his message across; he merely suggested. Some could read his works as lazy, or even incomplete, but it is this quality that lends itself to multiple interpretations.
    Ben Osaghae was, without doubt, one of the most prominent figures of a generation of Nigerian artists born in the years around the country’s independence in 1960. For three intense decades, Osaghae chronicled the adventures and misadventures of his land and people; he, like few of his colleagues and contemporaries, remained attentive to social and cultural developments in his environment. For the abstract expressionists of the middle part of last century, there was the art work and the viewer. Mark Rothko refers to “the consummated experience between picture and onlooker. Nothing should stand between my painting and the viewer.” For Osaghae there was another element: social reality; and the painting was a medium between the onlooker and that reality. Through his works, he communicated; he commented on what was happening around him. He straddled the thin divide between the artist as a creator of self-referential objects and the artist as a communicator.
    He was always on the lookout for societal or personal miseries and joys, with a full awareness of the limitations and weakness of human nature. Osaghae captured them sometimes with the cool detachment of a historian and other times with the fire of a social reformer. I remember well how, when showing me in his studio a painting on NEPA, he exclaimed in his usual forceful manner: “How can somebody continue painting landscapes when we do not have electricity for days?” Osaghae’s works are inextricably linked to the society in which they were produced. They are “political”, not because they propose specific, partisan, solutions to the organization and government of society but because they always refer to the “polis”.
    Sammy and Ben were a special collector and a special artist. Sammy, genuinely, cared about art and artists. He did not put together a wonderful collection as an investment or as vehicle to proclaim his status and feed his ego. Ben cared about art and he cared about his fellow citizens. Few Nigerian contemporary artists have been so independent from the dictates of the art market as he was. Trying to please the market was not a motivation for him. At times, he was a chronicler, telling us a story; at other times, he was a voyeur. His paintings were, most frequently, an instrument of social critique. He painted with a “photographic perspective.” He did not describe in detail; he merely suggested.There is great empathy in the way he looked at the people represented in his works. He documented their struggles, and offered a social commentary. In his animal series, for example, he satirises corrupt politicians that use their positions for personal enrichment. His figures are always close to the viewer, like snapshots at close range. He gives great attention to expressions, feelings and dramatic gestures, drawing inspiration from the events of daily life. Frequently, his figures are in movement, and he repeatedly looks at children at play.
    As he matured artistically – especially in his best period, 2000-2010-, his human figures became more and more emotionally charged. In trying to make meaning of the cluster of forms, lines and splashes of colours on the canvas, I was tempted to tilt the painting, flip it on its sides, rotate it or, at the least, cock the head and angle of vision. A recurrent preoccupation with the human condition pervades his works. For years, there were always groups in his paintings. Only later, does the solitary human figure appear.
    In Osaghae’s works, the “psychological distance” between the viewer and the scene is collapsed. The viewer finds himself immersed inside the scene.
    Osaghae told me many times how he painted from memory. He was able to do this because he was an excellent draughtsman with an uncanny gift for portraying the human figure even in the most contorted positions or from the most unusual angles. After his first, formative years, Ben never painted a landscape, a self-portrait. He did not paint out-doors. He preferred to work in his studio, to sketch some ideas from memory and develop them on the canvas. His works sometimes are humorous, playful and light-hearted, but they are never trivial. Osaghae’s passionate and intense personality does not leave much room for shallow artworks reduced to mere decoration. With every painting he wanted to say something. He wanted to compel the viewer to confront a situation and take a position. There was no room for neutrality. That is why a formal analysis of his paintings is never enough to understand and fully appreciate them.
    In his works there is no horror vacui the fear of emptiness that seems to grip many contemporary Nigerian artists of more “decorative” inclinations. He is not afraid to leave large areas of the canvas covered with a single background colour. For this reason his human figures frequently seem to be “floating” in an indeterminate context, detached from their surroundings. Colour plays a central part in all his works, but drawing is the anchor that keeps them in place. His lines become outline, sign, sketch, contour, text, graffiti or boundary. In his best works, the line remains clear underneath the ragged edges of the colour masses. Because of the flat backgrounds the characters of his paintings are brought to the foreground. He painted with sweeping brushstrokes and great gestural intensity. Undoubtedly, this way of painting helped him transmit the emotional intensity of the subjects.
    Art historians will need some time to write about Osaghae’s legacy, his place in contemporary Nigerian art, his influence on other artists and his contribution to the Nigeria art discourse. But, undoubtedly, in his three decades of artistic production, he left a mark.

  • Ode to Beauty Haram

    Expresso is back. After about a six-month interregnum, your award-winning column returns. Nigeria is in the harmattan of her nationhood; a time of despair and unbelief perhaps too tenuous for column keeping. It is a time reason has given way to anger, guns and gunboats. Our docile and acquiescent pasts have today brought us culminations of a bitter kind. But is this by any chance denouement?

    The above-titled article was published on May 2nd, 2014. Ardent readers of this column will remember it. But the truth is that it was written about six months earlier under the title: “The beautiful thief.” It was stuff from the furnace of a columnist’s deviant umbrage at the wanton pillage of the treasury back then. It was irreverent and explicit, taking liberty on the dowager, Diezani Alison-Madueke. Of course that was pure ‘defamation’ and no responsible editor-in-chief would let it run. Evidence was at loggerheads with proof and in this trade, what you can’t prove you must spike regardless of the weight of circumstantial evidence. So the original piece had to be reworked and re-jigged and fettered with the cold chains of nuance.

    Diezani, the powerful oil minister in the last administration has not been convicted still but the revelations emanating from all quarters are as mind-twisting as we all conjectured. We knew she had her hands almost six feet deep into the till and that she was impunity cast in the mold of a beautiful woman. But we all watched helplessly as our commonwealth was being voraciously gobbled by those charged with their keep.

    She defied the National Assembly and railroaded the judiciary. Of course the presidency was her plaything. The EFCC now acting up was blind-sided and the ICPC was busy chasing petty civil servants and drawing the fine line between stealing and corruption. Meanwhile Lady D was on the rampage! Her N3.58 billion ($18m) home in Abuja, was only discovered by the EFCC recently. And her swaggering allies, Jide Omokore and Kola Aluko, did they just accumulate an alleged $1.8 billion assets today?

    More important, has the NNPC, the cove of corruption, been rid of all the conditions that bred Diezani? Not at all, the sleaze probably goes on, perhaps on a lesser scale… we must begin to re-imagine our processes and rethink our methods… now the flash back.

    ODE TO BEAUTY HARAM: Beauty is transcendental. It is providence’s final testament to man’s elevated status. Beauty, no matter the form or configuration, is imbued with the divine: a bougainvillea tree in glorious bloom; a stream coursing merrily  through the country side; the setting sun in blazing orange radiance over white-caped kilimanjaro  and the mother of all beauties – a sculpted damsel set down all so delicately among earthlings by our creator.

    Yes, womanhood is the mother of all beauties ever created because it is the only kind of beauty with fluttering, seductive eyes. It is through femininity that our creator found a collocation between man and celestial beings.

     

    To the grand old man of Law @ 85

    This is to Professor Obi Benjamin Nwabueze, (SAN) who turned 85 recently. A lawyer, university teacher, administrator, statesman and patriot, he is probably the most luminous legal mind of his time and certainly the most prolific having authored no fewer than two dozen books in constitutionalism and constitutional law.

    Just a sampler of his sturdy intellectual stature: starting from 1962 he taught law in England, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland and Ghana. He also helped draft the constitution of some of these countries. In Nigeria, he left his imprint at the universities of Lagos, Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello, Ife, Jos, Anambra State University and the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs.

    Among the first laureates of the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) Nwabueze’s life of brilliant scholarship, industry and zealous national service probably has no comparison today.

  • Ode to Iya Legun

    Dear Great – Grandma,

    Forgive me for thrashing the bucket you bought without pricing, the earthenware you dusted free of cobwebs and the excesses you obliged me. Another year has passed but I hope it’s not too late to find my voice in the folds of your silence and among other things, acknowledge the gift of the weaning years.

    I remember the two great gourds from which I nourished like a drunk. It was in those days when papa was a god and mama was an angel; when heaven was, sneaking to your eko and gbure while Alhaja kept the flies away from our rice.

    I remember Christmas in Itoku when Iya Onigaari could still see us. I remember our trips down to the cathedral in Isale Ake, where we sang hymns in harmony with the Anglican choir. Those were the better days. Now our lives are very complicated. We have grown from kids with bright future to people who should be living their future and making the best of it. We get mad when we think we are not living the life of our dreams and we get lost when we think we are.

    While we fret, we do not worry about what we have done with the world you left us nor are we bothered about what state we would be leaving it for our children. You counted your destiny in moons and seasons, we measure our lives against mishaps in passing seconds. Our roads are still death-traps and the roof still crashes on our children during lessons, across the boondocks where trodden kids resume to learn with tears and inverted joy, every day.

    Too many of us got extinguished in split seconds, on the watch of Goodluck Jonathan the ‘meek’ and ‘timid’ President that perverted our luck. Now, we are in the era of Muhammadu Buhari and our hearts still hang in our mouths, like crushed porgies on ice or the proverbial trout wriggling in the beak of the starving pelican.

    It is the season of the holocaust. The drizzle at dawn has harvested the unripe cobs and mother earth writhes in painful throes of a belated abortion. Daylight jostles with the darksome splendour of our might and Nigeria capitulates in obeisance to the demonic stance. Little wonder we suffer terrorist attacks, religious bigotry, racial profiling and so on.

    Thus is our new awakening; we have found fresh joy in knowledge that comes with a dark shade but you spoke of knowledge in glowing terms. You said in pursuit of enlightenment, it is alright to be connoisseurs of facts and random sentiments, but only if we drink from the brightest springs. We have drunk water from an unnamed stream and our lives have become tragicomedies in process. Guess you see us as we feed our inner demons by gorging on other people’s demons.

    Your fables, folklores and colourful tales on moonlit nights are passions lost on us and our children. The new dawn you extolled as our brighter future is radiant with moonshine. Some of us labour daily to turn it into the triumph you swore it would become but many more among us struggle to turn it into everlasting dystopia.

    Now everyone lives the lie that’s marketed to us on TV. In any case, you wouldn’t understand the thrills and frills; you wouldn’t understand the toll and flicker of ravenous klieglights, the vanity of our ‘Reality Shows’ and the price we have to pay for glamour.

    The price of living has become very steep. Very few of us can afford three square meals and our mores of morality are accommodating greater excesses by the day.

    I remember the harmattan of 1984 when your favourite grandson bought a new Volkswagen Beetle car. It cost just N3, 000 and we all pranced and danced about it in joy, stealing for the fleeting second when we could cop a feel of the dazzling piece of steel. You said it was a gift from Eledumare. Today, no one prays for such heavenly gift.

    Everyone wishes to drive the big man’s car. We all want to live the big man’s life. And we are prepared to do so even if we have to sell our souls at the crossroads of vanity, to the devil. So I hope you understand even if many of us do not; why the congressman obtains the commoner’s vote with a dazzling smile only to bargain his fate away with a toothy grin in fits of greed and conceit in the legislative chamber.

    I am sure you understand even though it befuddles us still, why the orphan is always left to his own devices and the widow’s cry is forever smothered in the raucous din of greedy kin.

    Like heat-maddened summer flies, we swarm towards annihilation, armed with lust, gluttony and a yearning for the good life. I guess you have heard of the human parts dealer, the street prostitute, the corrupt policeman and the duplicitous journalist. Guess you’ve heard of the scheming evangelist, the unrepentant Reality Show contestant, the disillusioned student and the starving, idle graduate patiently biding his time for the nanosecond when his fortune will change and he would become the devil’s chosen one in the workshop of the idle.

    Everything you feared has come to pass; the white man’s civilisation is a double – edged sword. It cuts both ways. We have survived the curiosity and covetousness that made your generation barter our youth, our pride and future for the novelty of looking glasses and silver chronometers into the century that spliced the genes, separated the atom, probed the psyche and cloned a sheep. Today we incline towards more devious enterprise, like the mutilation of humaneness for the love of a buck.

    We have risen from the ashes of our misadventures in military dictatorship, civil war, aviation and space technology, nuclear democracy and perverse sexuality, into a scarier millennium. Now we sit faithless at bare tables, cursing our luck and cursing the times. We wonder if our children would have better lives.

    We wonder if the future of our dreams will ever come. I hope it does. And if it doesn’t, I will seek the comfort of your wise cracks from dawn through dusk. I will remember your sudden heaviness at every sunset and the weight of your silence as we swallowed your maize morsels with gbure.

    I will live for those moments when you sat on goatskin to mutter heartfelt prayers and our mothers rejected the part where you wished that their husbands married a second wife. Even Abewo worries I might take a second wife, many decades after your heartfelt prayer.

    I will remember your silences so that I can speak them. If I could do so perhaps I would understand my deepest scruples and rediscover the essence in your definition of humaneness and life.

    In my confusion, I hasten to your bedside seeking the eloquence of your headrest. I reach for the balustrade that cushioned your deadly falls as you stubbornly made your way to and fro our neighbourhood bath.

    An intuitive fellow once said that there is no life so pure it can thrive without its incarnations. Papa is still a god. Mama is still an angel. But will memories of yesterday comfort the reality of today?

    Still, you refuse to rise from your slumber. Iya Onigaari has stopped groping in the dark. She finally discovered the path that leads to yonder. And those of us left behind grovel in the ruddy radiance of a tyrant eternity.

    I long for your “good old days.” I would like to know you once again over your chipped plates steaming with wheat.

  • Ode to a political icon

    Ode to a political icon

    The Eighth-Day Islamic prayers for Alhaji Jimoh Akanbi Kareem-Laka Orelope, father of Lagos State Deputy Governor Mrs Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, has been held at the Police College Grounds in Ikeja, reports TAJUDEEN ADEBANJO

    He made his mark in politics  and commerce. The late Alhaji Jimoh Akanbi Kareem-Laka Orelope, father of Lagos State Deputy Governor Mrs Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire was a man of many parts.

    As an entrepreneur, his entry into the transport business heralded what is today known  as Mass Transit System.

    His service to the Action Group (AG),  Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), precursors of the All Progressives Congress (APC), according to  APC National Leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinibu, will forever be rememberd. It was the greatest service one could ever render to one’s country,” Tinubu said.

    He was wise, knowledgeable and highly-placed; he walked and dined with great men.  Yet, the late Orelope was humble and dedicated to the cause of his people. He gave those who knew him joy and rekindled their faith in the goodness and kindness of mankind.

    Alhaji Orelope died on December 18  during an illness.

    He was 101 years.

    After his interment, a short prayer was held for him at his Egbeda, Lagos home Residence in Alimoso Local Government Area the following day.

    Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) led the state executive Council members to the prayer session.

    APC Lagos governorship candidate, Akinwunmi Ambode and his running mate, Dr Idiat Adebule joined other dignitaries to condole with Mrs Orelope-Adefulire at the event.

    Last Friday,  the Eighth-Day Fidau was held at the Police College Grounds in Ikeja, Lagos.

    Guests turned out in red and white attires, the chosen colours for the ceremony.

    They sat under large canopies.

    A horde of Islamic clerics led by  Lagos Central Mosque Chief Mufasir Imam Tijani Gbajabiamila sat on the high table facing the children of the deceased and the guests.

    The event featured prayers, recitation from the Holy Quran and a lecture.

    After special supplication for the deceased and his family members, Chief Missioner of Ansar-ud-Deen Society of Nigeria (ADS), Sheikh AbdurRahman Ahmad delivered a soul-inspiring lecture.

    He said Alhaji Orelope lived well.

    Sheikh Ahmad urged the children   to live up to their name.

    “He was a Muslim, he was upright, honest and the children would be judged by those qualities,” he said.

    The revered cleric enjoined politicians to take a cue from Pa Orelope’s exemplary life.

    “His politics was without bitterness, it was constructive and upright. May Allah forgive him his shortcomings,” he said.

    Osun State Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, who delivered a goodwill message and vote of thanks, said the deceased was among the five political gladiators in Alimoso federal constituency.

    Governor Fashola said Pa Orelope’s 101 years on earth were well spent.

    “Prince Orelope was by every standard a remarkable man, one who retained his humility despite the great strides he made during his time. He was a man whose life we must all strive to emulate to make our society better,” he said.

    Asiwaju Tinubu said Pa Orelope’s death evokes a feeling of loss and serves as a poignant reminder of the gradual disappearance of a great generation of activist-politicians whose struggles, dedication, passion and service continued to inspire people.

    According to Tinubu, the Jagaban of Borgu, nature, zeal for public service and decent politicking were well mixed in Pa Orelope. The deceased, he said, represented the quintessential Awoist politician who could lead, inspire, mobilise and serve the people all at once.

    In a tribute, he wrote: “I am personally honoured to be one of the inheritors of the mantle of that great generation and therefore pleased to write this tribute in honour of this late titan.

    “The late Pa Orelope was a complete man who balanced and carried out his duties to his God, to his family, to his people and to his country.”

    Secretary to the Lagos State Government and running mate to the APC Lagos Governorship candidate Dr Idiat Adebule described Alhaji Orelope as a father to all.

    “Baba was a nice person and a philanthropist of repute. I pray Allah grants him Al-Jannah firdaus,” she said.

    APC National Publicity Secretary Alhaji Lai Mohammed described Pa Orelope’s demise as a great loss to the nation especially the political class.

    His son-in-law, Mr Abiodun Adefulire, said Alhaji Orelope dedicated his life to serving humanity.

    “As my father-in-law, he was always concerned about my well-being, my progress in life, in terms of my career and my matrimonial affairs… he was a political icon who preferred to spend his money on political aspirants than collecting any money from them. He is indeed worthy of emulation. I believe if all politicians can follow his footsteps, the society would be better for all,” Mr Adefulire said.

    Mrs Orelope-Adefulire, Deputy Governor, described her father’s life as a testament of excellence.

    “Whatever he did,” she said, “he did it excellently well. As a businessman, he excelled. As a politician, he excelled. As a religious man, he was devoted. As a family man, he left behind illustrious legacies. As a community leader, he left indelible milestones.”

  • Ode to Beauty Haram

    Beauty is transcendental. It is providence’s final testament to man’s elevated status. Beauty, no matter the form or configuration, is imbued with the divine: a bougainvillea tree in glorious bloom; a stream coursing merrily  through the country side; the setting sun in blazing orange radiance over white-caped kilimanjaro  and the mother of all beauties – a sculpted damsel set down all so delicately among earthlings by our creator. Yes, womanhood is the mother of all beauties ever created because it is the only kind of beauty with fluttering, seductive eyes. It is through femininity that our creator found a collocation between man and celestial beings.

    Supple, two-legged beauty is the ultimate weapon that can be deployed for good or for ill. Tried and tested over the ages, carnal beauty is therapy as well as  potent ammo in man’s arsenal. Humanity and his history are at their roots, the story of beauty on the wings of carnality. Races have been saved and races have been razed from the face of the earth on account of this phenomenon. Great wars have been waged and empires have been pulled back from the brinks just by the timely flash of a demure smile. Among carnal earthlings, there is nothing the heart cannot wreak while at play on the lush landscape of beauty’s canvas. Yes, kings have given away entire kingdoms; let the kingdom and all that is in it be damned! Let all souls therein perish!

     King Herod Antipas staked half the empire to his illegitimate wife’s daughter. I will give anything, up to half my kingdom, Herod vowed, bewitched by a dancing nubile beauty. No, the head of John the Baptiser it must be, insists the fiendish Queen Herodias. And pronto, it is served up to her on a platter, still dripping and still misting (Mark, 6v25). On the other hand, Queen Esther’s enthralling beauty saved her race from annihilation. After Esther had worked on the great King Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces stretching from India to Ethiopia, he would sacrifice even his own race to sustain Esther’s as revealed in the Biblical book of Esther.

    Just as beauty is the most beautiful art of all creation, (excuse the tautology) it is also the most ruinous. From age to age, beauty never loses its potency or power to hold man in ruinous thrall. Every generation has its array of bevies and no one is ever inured to their magical powers. But may a people never be caught in the vortex of a catastrophic beauty  –  this must be the king of all prayers. Has beauty gripped Nigeria by the scrotum with her soft, manicured fingers? Are we all under the sedate sensation of a pleasurable pain; the kind of pain we seem too weak to resist? Are we under the spell of a most beguiling beauty? Beauty garnished with kleptomania is raw poison. Have we handed the purse strings of our economy to a buccaneering beauty only to watch the land go to waste in the last few years? Have we been bewitched into dumping our most prized assets on the lush laps of a queen of pearls? Remember what Cleopatra did to Anthony. In Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, Mark Anthony, a member of the ruling Roman triumvirate was seduced by the Egyptian beauty whose perfume wafted right across from the Mediterranean. And Anthony went on a cruise … abandoning the empire.

     Yes, it can only be by the sheer power of feminine sorcery that more income only translates to more misery for the populace. It is only an overpowering feminine aura that would drill harsh conditions into the people while cruising the world in wanton and licentious opulence. Only a beguiling beauty would tell the people that the economy was crashing under the weight of subsidy while cold-blooded corruption prevailed. Our imperious beauty has charmed us all into a coma, yanking off our life support, quickening our demise while perpetuating a treasury-jacking never known in Nigeria.

     Oh, what Beauty Haram; deadlier than Boko Haram, one that cannot be summoned, probed or queried; one that has the presidency, the NASS and the judiciary under her wrapper. One that holds EFCC, ICPC and all critical institutions of state spellbound. Oh, who will save us from this calamitous beauty that has afflicted our land! The headlines may be at variance with the intention of the monarch but the headlines and pictures are what we have to draw our inferences from. He is probably the most respected royalty in the land. He is not known to meddle unduly in matters of state. Indeed, like the great king he is, his power lies in understated eminence and dignified distance from partisan frays. You never find him courting cheap photo opportunity with people in power. In fact he would tell truth to power when he must. Most important, he is known to seek the overall good of the people and he would err on the side of justice.

    Two quick examples: In the heady days of the military when our monarchs were made objects of mockery and were suborned in their dozens upon stepping on the seemingly diseased soil of Aso Rock, only one king in Nigeria is remembered to have kept his head above the muck. Various uniformed rascals wanted royal affirmation to stay forever in power; nearly all crown heads went to pay homage and genuflect to the ‘junta kings’ in Abuja except one. In fact he kept asking that the right thing be done at the risk of losing his crown.

    Again he bucked the trend in his state’s politics recently when he supported an ‘outsider’ against his ‘son’ because his ‘son’ wasn’t the choice of the people and probably not fit for the job. It was a rare show of courage and character uncommon in this age. But the monarch whose word still resonates like law in his domain stood up for the overall good of the people.

    Of course we speak of no other than the revered Oba of Benin, Omo N’oba N’edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Erediauwa. However, last weekend, our exemplary monarch acted out of character; he jumped into petty partisan fray. It may be argued that it wasn’t him as he was represented by the Crown Prince, Eheneden Erediauwa. The story, however, is that the prince had carried a royal missive from his dad to President Goodluck Jonathan in Aso Rock. The Omo N’oba reportedly urged Jonathan to run for a second term or as the headline captured it, he “put pressure on Jonathan to run”.

    Well, in an age that every iroko in the land has fallen, let’s just note that it’s quite un-Omo N’obaic? Is this a sign of the new Benin Kingdom?

  • Ode to teachers

    Ode to teachers

    Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead forever.” Euripides

    We cannot avoid our past, and what fires our memories are incidents of childhood and adolescence. Those were the formative years when energies abounded and rippled with raw activities, minds were malleable, idealism gaped with errors. We had imagination without judgment and strength unseasoned with guile. It calls to mind the Chinese proverb, “when I was young I never had the ex perience; when I was old I never had the strength.”

    We recast the world in the miniatures of our daily dreams. The world was about the scent of the next meal, the classroom hectoring bully, and the football game yesterday when we scored or fluffed a penalty shot, or the coruscating Sunday suit. It was also the love of mother that haunted sometimes like rebuke and the overarching shadow of father that chastened like love.

    Home intertwined with school, but in the last analysis, we were men and women in the mould of what parents and teachers imparted. This article is paean to teachers, and it is inspired by a recent inquiry about Ekiti State education. I discovered that many of the teachers who have kicked against the teacher test launched by Governor Kayode Fayemi paid to have their wards in private schools.

    With their own pockets and parental powers, they have vetoed out the public school. It is a vote of no confidence in themselves. It is a surrender to institutional decay. It is a cynical rejection of progress for the collective but triumph for individual greed. It is the ultimate tribute to primitive capitalism in an ironic bulwark against talent.

    Above all, they gave a verdict of failure to themselves even without taking the tests. The tests came to public attention first in Kwara State when former Governor Bukola Saraki’s move exposed teachers who should have surrendered to tutorials from their students. Some students turned out to be better than their teachers, an absurdist echo of Fela’s teacher don’t teach me nonsense. Other states have done same, one of which is Yuguda’s Bauchi State.

    Teachers are important. So also are parents. Education researches identify two critical factors in education. One is parental background. The other one is teachers. The parent plays a critical role because parents spend more time in a child’s life, especially from age zero to eight, according to the findings of Sigmund Freud. The parents show example by way of either stressing the importance of reading, or value of success through schools.

    Parents can, by irony, also make children good at school. Some children have been drawn to education by the stark poverty of their parents or lack of finesse or sophistication by comparison to what they see around them.

    My father, Moses, always told his children that education was the only thing he owed them. He told me stories about how his power of sight diminished. It was, as he narrated, because his stepmothers denied him access to lamps and his father seemed impotent about that injustice. He hid in the kitchen when all had slept and read by the faint illuminations of expiring pieces of firewood.

    He was his own hero and his own prophet. As a hero, he triumphed with little resources. As a prophet, he saw that education provided his only escape out of the poverty that loomed ahead. He often related to vignettes from Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s autobiography, My Early Life, because it reminded him of his own struggles. Some parents have gone into debts to pay for their children’s schooling. No regrets about that.

    Governments do not have as much power to influence parental attitudes and pressures as they have in schools. Other than give the tools, the suitable classrooms and all the necessary infrastructure, the focus is inevitably on teacher quality. Why have some Nigerian students, with apparently inferior tools and classroom conditions, gone ahead to best their fellow students in Europe and North America? Much credit must go to their teachers, beginning from their primary schools.

    If you had the kind of primary school teacher I had in Methodist School, Oke Ado, Ibadan, you won’t have problems with your tenses. Mrs. Sonoiki’s voice still rings in my ears today. Stern, thorough and a disciplinarian, Mrs. Sonoiki reeled out the tenses, what was acceptable and what was forbidden. And we understood the principle. In Government College, Ughelli, how can I forget the charismatic Principal Demas Akpore and how he taught poetry? His class was on Leopold Senghor’s poems that still dance in my head today. It was only once he taught my class and it seemed he taught me forever.

    Mr. Esareture and Mr. Adeyan brought history to life in the way they dramatised the lives and heroics of dead men. I can see Esareture even today as he summarised in a few sentences the history of Sierra-Leone. I see Adeyan dab across the blackboard gesticulating about the Niger Delta city states. These two men made me study history as my major at Ife.

    My epiphany about literature was lit on a television screen by Professor Theo Vincent. In those days, he reviewed books every Sunday afternoon for about ten minutes. His covered a wide sweep from African to European to American books. It was from him I understood the whys and hows of literature. He provided me with the background to understand literature that was expanded by the classes I took at Ife under able teachers like Biodun Jeyifo, Tess Onwueme, Ropo Sekoni, Adebayo Williams and Chima Anyadike.

    We had a small television set then, only a little bigger than a transistor radio. But my father knew that all was to be quiet at home every Sunday for my ritual date with the bearded literary apparition on television. My insight into history was enriched by two men: Professor Femi Omosini and Professor B.O Oloruntimehin. Omosini, in his shirt and trouser, bearing no notes, taught European history as though he was dictating. We went to his class as to a concert. He was a model of the teacher who entertained rather than an entertainer who taught. Professor Oloruntimehin, more sombre, broke history down with gusto. It was as though he was solving riddles. Each sentence enlightened and his insights haunted us.

    Without these teachers I would not have met the enriching atmosphere of the Newswatch magazine of old under the trio of Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed. From Ray I learned how to bring imagination to journalism, generating stories and excavating perspectives. From Dan, I learned how to turn dreary sentences into journalistic beauty. From Yakubu, I learned how to pay attention to details.

    Governor Fayemi understands all these and that is why he sometimes echoes the point that his Christ School, Ado Ekiti, which stood shoulder high with the best in the country now lags behind because its teacher content has depleted.

    We learn every day, but when we first learn helps us unlearn a lot of distortion. My great journalistic hero today is Roger Rosenblatt, whose style and breadth I have taken after. But without the background of those who taught me, I don’t think I would have met Rosenblatt, or written this essay today.

    Babatope at 70

    For those of us who knew Ebenezer Babatope in his hey days as Ebino Topsy, we did not envisage that this is what he would be at 70. For me, it was not Ebino Topsy who turned 70 recently, it was Ebenezer Babatope. Ebino Topsy was the devoted Awoist, feisty with ideological clarity, planted on the left, unsparing in his barb at Awo’s opponents, a stout progressive. But it is an irony that Ebino Topsy was dumped by Ebenezer Babatope. To paraphrase Poet Wordsworth, the child is the father of the man. Babatope is the apostate, Ebino Topsy the faithful and son. Ebino Topsy could not be a PDP chieftain weeping publicly. Awo must also have wept in his grave over this show of capital apostasy. Happy birthday!