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Tag: perils

  • Perils of ethnic profiling

    If you are emotionally attached to your tribe or political leaning to the point that truth and justice becomes secondary considerations, your education is useless. Your exposure is useless. If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments, you are a liability to mankind.” – Late Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman (1945-2005).

    We are about eighteen months before the 2019 elections and as is the norm in this clime, the polity is heated. However, the heat this time – for those who know their history – should not be waved aside as part of another election blues. We have a clear and present danger ahead and this is the time we need real statesmen with love for country to act as bridge builders and not hate merchants.

    Over the years, I have had cause to speak to an array of Nigerians about Nigeria. While we almost all agree that we face enormous challenges, the consensus is that we are better together than apart if we can just get our acts together to ensure that all Nigerians – irrespective of tribe, tongue or religion – have a sense of belonging. However, some ethnic champions and jingoists’ would never see anything positive about the country; they will pick holes even in the best of intentions.

    Yes, there are enormous challenges in Nigeria, but are these challenges insurmountable? I do not think they are. Some of our challenges are elite inspired – and this cuts across board. We may have an imperfect constitutions and laws, but are we even following what the imperfect laws and constitution stipulates? Things that are very clearly written and stated are not often “clear” when it comes to application.

    If you can take your time to understand our elites and their interests than you’ll begin to have a clearer picture of what I’m driving at. Read in between the lines whenever you hear a pronouncement or an “agitation” from our elites. If you have your ears to the ground and conduct a due diligence, you can put the jigsaw puzzle together.

    One of these jigsaw puzzles is ethnic profiling or sentiments which have been with us even before independence. Simply put, it is the use of ethnic or religious characteristics as a way of singling out people for identity. Nearly all the ethnic groups in Nigeria are profiled one way or another. These profiling’s – which of course comes through the spoken word – is often powerful and “incontrovertible.”

    Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.

    Considering the ‘powerful force’ of the words we utter, we must discipline ourselves to speak in a way that conveys respect, gentleness and humility. One of the clearest sign of a moral life is right speech. Perfecting our speech is one of the keystones of mature people. Before speaking take a few moments to contemplate what you will say and how you will say it; while considering the impact they will have on the listener/s.

    Gary Chapman in his book, “Love as a Way of Life” uses the vivid metaphor for words as being either ‘bullets or seeds’. If we use our words as bullets with a feeling of superiority and condemnation, we are not going to be able to restore a relationship to love. If we use our words as seeds with a feeling of supportiveness and sincere good will, we can rebuild a relationship in positive and life-affirming ways.

    In our country today the hate merchants are having a field day. From the Biafra agitation to the “quit notice” from some group in the North and South-South, a single trajectory flow through – leave our region. But have they thought through the repercussions of their action? Are they aware of a country called Rwanda?

    One of my areas of research interest is Rwanda because of the lessons and danger of ethnic profiling; especially how a single event can be used as a spark to cause mayhem by a politically deceptive elite. Many have purported ethnic hatred as the cause of the Rwanda Genocide and while an ethnic divide was indeed present in Rwanda around the time of the conflict, the reasons for the genocide are multiple and far more complex.

    In analysing the Rwanda Genocide as an ethnic conflict it is essential that ethnicity be examined as it influenced and was influenced by economic, political and social factors. The challenge for defining the violence in Rwanda as an ethnic conflict is that while – on the one hand – the atrocities were a clear cut case of genocide, committed with “the criminal intent to destroy or to cripple permanently a human group,” according to one writer, the lines along which the victims were grouped were not just ethnic but also political.

    And what was the spark used to ignite the genocide? On April 6, 1994, the plane conveying crash of President Juvenal Habyarimana crashed. A local radio station, Radio Milles Collines was used by the Hutu political elite to blame the RPF and a contingent of UN soldiers for Habyarimana’s death and urged revenge against the Tutsi. This set the genocides in motion.  Forty eight minutes after the crash, the Presidential Guard erected the first road blocks and fanned out around the city, picking up and murdering leading Tutsi and moderate Hutu politicians.

    The question to ask is this: why did it take less than an hour before the mayhem started if it was not planned before hand?

    The massacres ensued for a hundred days and were finally ended on 18 July 1994, when the RPF seized almost complete control of Rwanda and declared a unilateral cease-fire. While media sources regard the 1994 genocides as just another episode in a long, historic line of ethnic feuding, the  reality is that the brutal assassinations of more than half a million people did not result from a widespread “ancient hatred” among the Hutu people, but rather a strategic plan of “self-defense” that mobilized ordinary civilians into ruthless killers.

    For three and a half years, the Hutu elite worked to redefine the population of Rwanda into ‘Rwandans,’ meaning those who backed the president, and the “ibyitso” or “accomplices of the enemy,” meaning the Tutsi minority and Hutu opposed to him. Ultimately, the Hutu elite initiated the genocides to maintain political control by wiping out their opponents. By employing “ethnic norms” and a system of punishments and rewards, the Hutu elite managed to gain supporters that joined the genocides in some instances with enthusiasm and in others with little choice.

    This was achieved mainly through the spoken word, – hate speech – especially through the radio. However, from the ashes of a gory episode like the genocide emerged a new Rwanda which is today one of the choice tourist destination in Africa.

    Prof Nail Fergusson, a Harvard historian in one of his books “The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die” said the real issue for societies is the quality of public reason. He shows how the degeneration of western society occurred or could occur. What stands out from his analysis however is that the quality of institutions for coordinating social transactions makes the critical difference between prospering and declining societies. So, when societies think clearly and act intelligently, they create superior social institutions to solve their problems. But when public reason is weak then problems persist or compound.

    The dilemma of public reason in Nigeria is very evident and troubling. The quality of debate is also depressing. In the place of logic there is anger, emotion and fury. The government must do all within its power to stem the tide.

     

     

     

  • Re: Ogbemudia: The perils of longevity

    Re: Ogbemudia: The perils of longevity

    Reading through the write up on late Ogbemudia by Louis Odion, I have no problem in coming to the conclusion that he is unrepentant. A case of defamation filed against him by Chief Tony Anenih is still pending in the court.

    It is sad that Louis Odion who is one of our own people in his naivety has continue to give reprobate and depraved interpretations to issues in his interrogation of the great works and achievements of Chief Tony Anenih which speak for themselves nationwide.

    What on earth could possible be the reasons for bringing Anenih into a publication in honour of the late Ogbemudia if not pure mischief? What has Ogbemudia’s death got to do with all the nonsense he chose to write about Anenih in that publication?

    Let him ask Ogbemudia ‘s children how much of a father Chief Tony Anenih has been to them! I seriously think it is better to ignore people like Louis Odion with fixated satanic mindsets and without respect for the old age! If Louis thinks Anenih hasn’t done enough for Edo people or as much as Ogbemudia, let (he) himself try.

    History will have the record and I assure him that the record will be objective! Peter Abulu, Edo State. LOUIS Odion got it right on Ogbemudia. My dear Louis Odion, greetings. I have read your various writes up many times. I may not have agreed with your views on some occasions and that is within my liberty to so do.

    This one on Ogbemudia and the under dealings of certain power mongers to politically undo him in his life time, you were spot on. It will be difficult to have another Ogbemudia in a long time from this region. He was industrious, hard working, studious, research-oriented, reative and an uncommon administrative finisher of high quality.

    But he was too trusting of some of his contemporaries and very often donated his good will to them. They ended up compromising his political interests each time he so trusted them. He was too simple and humble as a person. I was often amazed with such humility each time I had the privilege to be around him.

    I was an active member of Edo Mass Movement (EMM) led by Dr. Ogbemudia in 1998 and was privy to how he accommodated a much smaller body known as Edo Peoples Congress (EPC) led by Chief Anenih, despite being warned by many to tread carefully in that relationship at Dorris Day hotel in Benin City. Months later, the PDP was given birth to and the union of EMM and EPC was the mainstay of the party in Edo State.

    A few months down the line Ogbemudia was sacrificed by his contemporaries and like a mirage, his national relevance vanished gradually and those who wore his borrowed cap soared like the eagle. One thing is sure, Ogbemudia in death would be like death that never dies, as many will gather in his name to seek future directions for the good of Edo State. May his worthy soul be received by Almighty God, the giver and taker of life.

    Good night General! Like your colleague, General Douglas McAthur, said: old soldiers never die, they just fade away! Dr. Ehiogie West-Idahosa, (Former Chairman, House of Reps Committee on Petroleum), Benin City. LOUIS, I had thought I had read the most reprehensible thing imaginable about man’s self-centreness after reading your piece until I encounter the foul verbiage by one Peter Abulu (who I suspect to be a pen name of some shameless hireling) that was put on social media (The South Post) by way of response to your insightful article.

    It is clear he is Chief Tony Anenih’s apologist. To the charge that his paymaster stabbed Ogbemudia in the back politically, his defence is “Let him ask Ogbemudia ‘s children how much of a father Chief Tony Anenih has been to them!” Is that the issue? Why are they always in a hurry to flaunt blood money in our face? By that, I assume he is insinuating what his paymaster has extended to Ogbemudia’s children. What a shame! Must every thing be reduced to financial handout to Ogbemudia’s children. We are talking of principle here, not sharing of crumbs from ill-gotten wealth. In any case, we did not see Anenih at Ogbemudia’s burial event in Benin.

    All notable political figures in Edo State were gathered at the event, including former head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, who is an octogenarian too. If all was well between Ogbemudia and Anenih in the former’s last years on earth as the busy-body Abulu would have us believe, how come he could not honour his “Comrade” before his remains were lowered into Mother Earth in Benin on March 17? Was he afraid of being stoned by the crowd of mourners who know the truth? What a shame! At least, one is glad and consoled to note that Ogbemudia will be remembered for great landmarks in Edo and Delta States.

    Some other characters will be remembered mostly for ill either as ‘Mr Fix It’ – the election rigger or the squandering of N300b federal budget for roads, a crusade Chief Orji Uzor Kalu once championed. John Osazuwa, Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, Edo State. LOUIS, I was quite surprised at the level of your knowledge of the “oppression” Ogbemudia suffered at the hands of Tony “godfather” Anenih in PDP. Now, you can see your own ordeal at the hands of The Godfather in 2012 is no big deal at all. You can see that a whole Ogbemudia also tasted the bitter portion brewed by The Godfather.

    In 2012, you had alleged that Anenih openly threatened to deal you while serving as Information Commissioner under Comrade Adams Oshiomhole during a ceremony at the palace of Oba of Benin in the presence of then Governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Nduaghan. You said Anenih said to you “You will soon see what will happen to you” four times. An accusation Anenih never denied.

    Two months later, some gunmen stormed your Benin residence and you narrowly escaped being killed. In your reaction, you addressed a world press conference in Benin urging the security agencies to quiz Anenih over this chain of bizarre development.

    But nothing was done. Because, I guess PDP still controlled Federal Government then. Four days after the incident at your residence, Oshiomhole’s Special Adviser, Olaitan Oyerinde, was brutally murdered at his own residence. But it is well, Louis. The God of justice reigneth in heaven. Alhaji Ahmed Abubakar, Mississippi, Maitama, Abuja. Iknew of Late Ogbemudia while I was in Primary a Class 2 and 3 (1970-1971) under “General Paper”.

    His name alongside J. Esuene, Olu Rotimi, Mobolaji Johnson, D. L. Bamgboye et al rang bell as performers despite being military regime. Where are the socalled civilian rulers (not leaders) of today? May his (Samuel Ogbemudia) soul continue to Rest In Peace. Amen. Lanre Oseni: 08023023745 AMONG all the miltary governors appointed by General Gowon as the then Head of Federal Government, Brigadier S. Ogbemudia shone out.

    His performance in Bendel State had no match in civilian garb as he did not take Edo State’s affairs for granted. The onus is now on Governor Obaseki to be captured in the performance net by continuing in the tradition of good leadership in Edo State. Let him rejuvenate/upgrade the Afuze Sports Centre and rename it after the visionary and ‘Edoistic’ leader for youth and sports development. You recalled,”From virtually nothing, Ogbemudia built something”.

    It was “Up Bendel!” Elder L .O David; Efon-Alaaye, Ekiti State: 08059096244 LOUIS, I just read your piece on Dr Ogbemudia. You are such a great writer. Keep the flag flying. 08029982779 GROWING up, Ogbemudia was a legend in my hometown of Ogori. He, it was, who built the main road through Akoko Edo ending at Ogori market even when we were part of Kwara State.

    This ensured Ogori became a transit point for vehicles going to Auchi, Ikare, Oja, Ojirami, Ibillo, Igarra And Okene among others. My father named my younger brother Ogbemudia as he was a huge admirer of this man. Fate played a part in ensuring that his wife also delivered a baby at the same time my brother was born at the famous Lagos Island Hospital (I think that is the one they call Massey Street?). Indeed stories abound that many fathers named their sons Ogbemudia around 1967 because of their admiration for him.

    It broke my father’s heart that Ogbemudia joined the NPN in 1982, my father being a great admirer of Obafemi Awolowo (of UPN). He could not imagine Ogbemudia would be in a party different from Awolowo! Sadly, my father died at age 53 in 1988 and would not see the final redemption of Ogbemudia. He will be celebrated. He should be celebrated by algorithm people too.

    The road he built many years ago is now decrepit. When passing through Okene to Lagos, the only thing that tells you a land exists called Ogori is a solitary signboard pointing towards Ogori at Magongo just before the Edo border.

    No one passes through Ogori to Auchi or Ikare anymore. Rest well, Ogbemudia. Mekafiye Kilem Adebija Nice job. God bless you my dear brother. Aduloju Sikiru, Lagos. A great ode to the incarnate General. Abdul-azeez Ahmed Kadir VERY well done, Mr. Odion. Please keep up the good work of celebrating the best of our beautiful nation!!! Adedamola Jolaoso A wonderful piece, Odion. Kanayo Madu

  • Ogbemudia: The perils of longevity

    Ogbemudia: The perils of longevity

    To secure a durable place in history, said John Kenneth Galbraith, you have to die young.

    By this assertion, the late great American economist would seem to underline the paradox of early bloomers, the hyper-achievers who, on account of packing so much Alphas into their early lives, often end up being sentenced to the drudgery of spending their remaining years on earth in acute redundancy.

    In a way, Dr. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia partly fits Galbraith’s typology.

    Before losing out in the power-play that trailed General Yakubu Gowon’s overthrow in 1975, the Edo-born warrior had undoubtedly become a household name and his visage engraved on the national memory.

    It is however debatable whether any thing significant was added to that golden identity by his political engagements in the decades ahead or any respect earned from the lesser company he found himself.

    One, his 3-month reign as civilian governor of Bendel State in 1983 was rather too short for him to make any appreciable impact that could, in hindsight, be cited as enough justification for accepting to be used by NPN mercantilists to truncate the progressive march led by Ambrose Alli of UPN then.

    Nor could his flirtation a decade later with the despotic and discredited Sani Abacha as Labour and Productivity minister be said to have, in good conscience, added any feather to his cap as a progressive maestro.

    His appointment, by the way, was an accident. Abacha used to be his boy back in the 60s. After he became head of state in 1993, Ogbemudia was said to have stormed Aso Rock with a view to having his nominee appointed minister.

    Instead, Abacha, never one to forget old favour or forgive ancient score, reportedly insisted his old mentor should join his cabinet as minister.

    Taken together, what could then be counted as perhaps the redeeming feature of the General with the trademark dimpled smile was that he, by a few inexplicable mercies of history, had continued to draw from an usual staying power that ensured he often rebounded to the zenith as often as he sunk to the nadir in the last four decades of his mercurial life.

    It then explains why, despite many personal setbacks, his shadow miraculously remained undiminished till he drew his last breath last week. Thus defying the Newtonian law of gravity.

    Now, since his obituary announcement last weekend, the supreme irony is that the wailings of those who had openly fought tooth and nail to make life miserable politically for the Bini folk hero in his old age seem the loudest at the doorsteps of his Benin home.

    Ogbemudia’s fame which they tried in vain to extinguish actually began to grow from the late 60s on account of exceptional valor as war commander and, more crucially, later as an administrator with visionary eyes and a Midas’ touch.

    His footprints and imprints stamped on the old Bendel have remained indelible across Edo and State States till date. In fact, they are now too familiar and well documented to warrant a recap here.

    But what came to be known as the idolization of Ogbemudia was over something much deeper than the issue of brick and mortal erected. It was partly fed by the communal sense of nostalgia of the denial suffered at one critical moment.

    There is a story the older generation of Mid-Westerners handed down to the younger ones. It is the story of alleged abject deprivation after the region was carved out of the western region in 1963 following a local referendum.

    The new region, dubbed the enclave of “minorities”, left the old union without benefiting much in terms of asset-sharing with the Ladoke Akintola- led western region government based in Ibadan.

    From virtually nothing, Ogbemudia built something. So, the communal adulation of him was in recognition of his creative spirit.

    The original Mid-West had morphed into Bendel State in 1967. David Ejoor who arrived after the 1966 coup is perhaps best remembered today for “disappearing” when the Biafrans invaded Benin City in 1967 only to re-appear in Lagos before the Commander-in-Chief with a rather apocryphal tale that he rode down on “a bicycle”.

    (Hence, the addition of “bicycle story” to Nigeria’s bourgeoning political lexicon.) Enter the brave Ogbemudia. He led the titanic rally of federal troops that dislodged the Biafrans from the land of Igodomigodo.

    In the years ahead, it took his vision, vigour and vivacity to turn Bendel (covering the present Edo and Delta States) into Nigeria’s new center of excellence in sports and mass industrialization despite the ravages of a fullblown civil war, thus investing the doughty people of that province with a new sense of identify marinated in pride.

    So domineering had Bendel become in national sports that it came tops in the National Sports Festival of 1973. The feat was easily attributed to Ogbemudia’s personal touch. And so impressed was the formidable Dr. Tai Solarin, ordinarily never one given to flattery, that he penned a glowing tribute for Ogbemudia in his popular column in Tribune newspaper then.

    On account of such sterling performance in sports and breakthroughs in other spheres of human endeavor, the appreciative people of Bendel naturally began to view Ogbemudia as a pathfinder.

    But, overall, the most nightmarish of his post- Army engagements should be his political association with the swashbuckling Chief Tony Anenih who, until Adam Oshiomhole’s emergence in 2008 as governor, held court over Edo landscape like a medieval potentate.

    Even though Ogbemudia’s golden name was leveraged to sell PDP at formation in 1998, he was soon shoved aside by the scheming Uromi chief. At a personal level, my earliest direct contact with Ogbemudia was about fifteen years ago as a newspaper editor.

    From time to time, he sent articles to Lagos from his Benin redoubt for publication, usually hand-delivered by his aide or couriered by our circulation driver on the Benin route.

    Ever so humble, there was usually an accompanying note “soliciting for space”, as if a mere line by the legendary Ogbemudia in itself was not already news-worthy. A deep thinker with restless mind, he found time to weigh in on national issues periodically.

    Two years later, this writer witnessed, in the course of duty, what one had considered quite abominable in Benin. A motley crowd of PDP chieftains were seated in a lounge.

    As Anenih, Obasanjo’s then reigning “Mr. Fix It”, walked in, Ogbemudia, otherwise a giant of history and orator with prodigious intellect, was – like the rest – obliged to rise in near idol-worship of the lesser Uromi chief who left the police unceremoniously as assistant commissioner, long after the great Ogbemudia liberated the Midwest from Biafra, invented the “Up Bendel” brand and had been inducted as an authentic modern hero of the acclaimed “cradle of black civilization”.

    He was harassed and oppressed with ill-gotten federal talisman. Such was the hands-behind-theback humiliation the foremost Army General in Bini history had to endure at the hands of his intellectual inferior in the twilight of his political odyssey.

    But as legends always prove, a true soldier can only be destroyed, not defeated. In a final act of defiance – thus self-redemption, Ogbemudia would muster the energy to stand up to his political hostage-taker for once in 2012.

    As then Information Commissioner in the Oshiomhole administration, this writer had the privilege of a ringside view of a bit of the dark conspiracies, feints and derring-do that paved the the road to the July 14 election in Edo.

    When it became clear that Ogbemudia, a big PDP masquerade, would not openly identify with Charles Airiavere around Benin, a powerful team was drafted by the “almighty” godfather, the capon of Tuketuke politics, to persuade him to join the train. After listening to their impassioned entreaties that night, Ogbemudia reportedly began, in his characteristic sardonic humor, by asking them which road the emissaries took to his residence. Of course, they chorused “Iheya road”. “Good,” he continued genially.

    “Don’t you see how beautiful the newly constructed road is, not to talk of the streetlights shining brightly and the solid walkways?” At that point, his guests, unwilling to compliment Oshiomhole for the remarkable infrastructural stride, simply lapsed into a convenient silence. Seeing an opening, Ogbemudia then reportedly landed the killer punch.

    For ten years PDP ruled the state, he whined, Iheya never featured on the official radar, even if only to save him a personal shame. Now, it has taken Oshiomhole, his supposed “political opponent”, to revamp not only only Iheya road but also reclaim the adjoining 12 streets long written off to silt and erosion. So, his final big question:

    “Do you think the people in this area will clap for me if I tell them to vote against the man who did this wonderful job for them? I’m afraid they may not even hesitate to stone me.” Now thoroughly deflated, the PDP team gathered their tails between their legs and soon disappeared into the night. Of course, Ogbemudia saw tomorrow.

    By the time the votes were counted on July 15, Oshiomhole, an Etsako man, won an unprecedented 75 percent of the ballot, with the no less historic distinction of humiliating his opponent, the homeboy, right in his polling unit and ward in Benin City.

    That finally signposted Ogbemudia’s parting of ways with the now jaded godfather and his wrecking Tuketuke crew in Edo PDP. Expectedly, few months later, he formally renounced his membership of the party of umbrella and would henceforth wish to be addressed simply as a statesman.

    Ogbemudia’s accustomed prescience was again on display last year on the eve of Oshiomhole’s exit. He was the first notable political heavyweight to openly endorse Godwin Obaseki as the worthy successor. The rest, as they say, is now history.

    Doubtless, Oshiomhole did the right thing by celebrating and immortalizing Ogbemudia lavishly while alive – the last of such efforts being the hosting of a state banquet to mark his 83rd birthday last September.

    But that could only be decorative of the Ogbemudia mystique. For his past golden record had already etched his name in people’s minds.

    To live in the hearts of loved ones is not to die. It is precisely from that point that Ogbemudia attained political immortality.

  • Perils of the post-truth era (3)

    In the last two week, there has been an intensification of the ongoing spat between the media and U.S. President Donald Trump. It took on a different dimension when Trump break with tradition by opting out of the White House correspondents’ dinner and by calling the media the “enemy of the people.”

    There are several perils I can point out with this style of governance and communication. Like I mentioned in previous parts, I’m concerned that leaders with dictatorial tendencies – especially in Africa and the third world – would latch onto this style and limit the fundamental rights of free speech. In the first instance, deliberate misinformation is notoriously hard to correct once it is released, and social media, in particular, has a reputation for spreading factually inaccurate statements and conspiracy theories. A classic example back home is the controversy surrounding President Muhammadu Buhari’s health.

    One study I came across examined five years of Facebook posts about conspiracy theories. The authors found that people tend to latch onto stories that fit their preexisting narratives about the world and share those stories with their social circle. The result is a “proliferation of biased narratives fomented by unsubstantiated rumours, mistrust, and paranoia.” They found that although corrections to errors eventually emerged, they didn’t have the same reach as the original misinformation.

    Second, because Trump’s communication style relies heavily on anger, people who are predisposed to his message may become even less critical of potential misinformation. Research suggests that when people are angry, they evaluate misinformation in a partisan way, typically accepting the misleading claims that favour their narrative. Most Nigerians can relate to the pre and post 2015 elections events in the country; something that is still very much around and shaping several narratives.

    Thirdly, a communications strategy based on Trump style inherently makes enemies of anyone who would seek to reinstate the truth and expose statements as misinformation. Journalists, scientists, experts and even government officials who disagree with this style are subject to charges of ineptitude, partisanship or conspiracy.

    Let’s now switch focus to how Trump was able to “bulldoze” his way into the White House against “all odds” and the communication lessons we can learn from it. This is against the backdrop of his speaking mistruths with little consideration for their factual accuracy.

    It doesn’t matter whether you love him or hate him; it’s hard to deny the man is a master of communication. His style simply resonates with many people. Although Trump’s candidacy will undoubtedly change how future politicians approach communication, the implications of his success are much broader.

    The first lesson is “understanding the time.” It is glaring now that we live in a post-modern and post-trust era where citizens looks at every institution – government to business – with incredible scepticism. Voters are anxious, angry and open to alternatives – whatever alternatives. Trump understood this and worked feverishly to fill this void. Gaffes aside, Trump used his strategies to shift his image from an insensitive capitalist billionaire to influential ‘man of the people.’

    He has a “clear narrative,” a master story that he sticks to. He preys on the people’s fears of terrorists and immigrants and made that a consistent narrative. Not even former President Obama’s reminder that all Americans – except Native Americans – were once immigrants could deter those that believe in him. Everywhere he went, this message was consistent; “no shaking,” to use a popular Nigerian lingo.

    He also understands and taps into simple, emotional truths. As a result of globalization and competition, some jobs left the U.S seeking cheaper sources of production and profit – in tune with classic capitalism. This shift left a lot of workers jobless – the so called “white working class.” In reality, this cuts across all races, but Trump cashed in on this to gain the support of disgruntled whites.

    Understanding the people’s emotions meant he also speaks their language. He reframes every debate question into language he prefers. He is deliberately; decidedly different from his peers in both his style and approach. He defined this as not being “politically correct.” He hit hard on the “establishment” which was why all his fellow contestants fell on the wayside.

    Fundamentally, Trump consistently relates all of his ideas back to a master slogan: “Make America great again.” While he was doing this, a more experienced candidate like Jeb Bush did not even clarify to the public just what he stood for – beyond being anti-Trump. None of the contenders questioned what being great again portends. On the other hand, Trump ensured his campaign carries momentum by practicing consistency and discipline in his message.

    The struggle for power – in some instances – is sometimes fought using unconventional means. This means that elections are not fought using reason; they’re fought using emotion. Trump recognises this, and while his rivals focused on debating various issues, Trump was busy leading an emotional movement. Lindsay Graham had the best technical understanding of any of the candidates, but he dropped out of the GOP race because he couldn’t convey his message in a captivating way.

    Often, the way to persuade people is to tap into what matters to them emotionally. Trump offers that by persistently raising issues that strike emotional chords with voters. A close parallel in Nigeria is Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State to whom “stomach infrastructure” was attached. Fayose knows his people and they know him. He effectively branded opponents as “arrogant” and “far from the people.” He has continued with his unique system of governance to date.

    Trump was probably the wealthiest of all the candidates, but he came across to many as “deeply human” by using the peoples’ vernacular. He cuts through the complexity of political conversations and talks as he would every day. For example, Rand Paul had more populist ideas, but his language is often “academic” and “sophisticated” to the people. Paul comes across as though he was speaking only to an intellectual elite; Trump aims to speak to everyone.

    In 2013, it was widely believed that Mitt Romney’s 47 percent comment derailed his campaign. Although he had many of the same vulnerabilities that Trump had in the just concluded election, but Trump dealt with his problems more effectively. If voters accuse him of being racist, he says he’s for security. When he’s accused of being sexist, he reframes the argument – and says he’s not sexist, but simply against imposed “political correctness.” Whatever the issue, Trump often reframes the question of his character and puts things into more favourable narrative.

    Though his peers fight to be better than one another, Trump focuses his time on a simpler task: “being different.” Most voters can predict what will come out of the mouths of most politicians, but Trump keeps people interested with the possibility that he’ll say something unexpected. Every other GOP candidate sounds similar, but there was only one Trump.

    Trump really did his homework by understanding citizenship communication. He fully and expertly exploited the discontent in the society just like Daniel Kanu did with the Biafra issue in Nigeria. If we dig deep, the hundreds of thousands of youth falling over the rallying cry of Biafra have other grievances at the back of their minds, Biafra happens to provide the springboard for them to vent their frustrations.

    The lesson: whenever there’s discontent in the society you need a higher kind of communication to counter populists who would exploit it. Two things are critical in analyzing Trump. First, there is definitely a pattern to his patois. And second, whether deliberate or not – and there’s reason to think it may be more deliberate than it seems – the man’s style of speaking developed into a remarkably effective delivery mechanism for his message. No matter how much the media mocked it; “Trumpese” – as we’ve seen – helped Trump rather than hurt him.

    Interestingly, Trump didn’t employ speechwriters. He rarely relies on Teleprompters. He barely even uses notes. He basically “improvises his speeches.” At a point in his campaign, his twitter account was “taken away” from him to prevent his angry tirade on twitter which can come at any time of the day. This is the uniqueness of the post truth era.

  • Perils of the post-truth era (2)

    “It is crazy what we are watching every day, it is absolutely crazy. He keeps repeating ridiculous throwaway lines that are not true at all and sort of avoiding this issue of Russia as if we are some kind of fools for asking the question.”

    Shepard Smith, Fox News anchor made this comment after a blustery press conference by President Donald Trump last Thursday. At the conference, Trump slammed the media as peddlers of “fake news” – or, when it comes to CNN, “very fake news.” For the benefit of those who don’t know, Fox News is the unofficial mouthpiece of the Republican Party, so this comment by one of their news anchors is a big deal.

    Not done, Smith added, “Really? Your opposition was hacked, and the Russians were responsible for it, and your people were on the phone on the same day it was happening, and we are fools for asking those questions? No sir, we are not fools for asking those questions, and we demand to know the answer to this question. You owe this to the American people.”

    Smith was referring to reports in the Washington Post and New York Times that Russian intelligence meddled in the last elections and that Trumps campaign team was in contact with them before and after the election. One of the fallouts was the resignation of the National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn who resigned after it was revealed that he discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and then lied to the Vice President.  It is now getting clearer that the intelligence community is leaking sensitive information to the media to let the American people know what is happening.

    These developments indicate we are indeed living in very interesting times. I’m concerned for one reason: whatever happens in America has a strange way of touching other nations. For us in Nigeria this should be worrying because we have a set of politicians who do not care if the entire country burns down, politicians we all know do not play by the rules. I’m talking about politicians who have enough resources to start and finance a war. This is why we have to pay careful attention to what is happening in the U.S. and Europe.

    What just happened in the U.S. has emboldened extreme right wing groups in Europe. We have to wait to see how the elections in Germany and France go to fully comprehend the Trump bug. Already in Nigeria, we have government officials who speak like Trump and have the capacity of turning truth on its head when it suits them. So what Trump is doing may end up being a good case study for our politicians: in essence, say whatever you want to say and damn the consequences thereafter.

    While trying to make meaning of what is happening in our post truth world, I came across an interesting article written by Lauren Griffin of the College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida. “Don’t Call Trump a Liar – He Doesn’t Even Care About the Truth” is as incisive as they come. “A liar,” she wrote, “cares about concealing reality; a bullshi**er, like the president, is totally indifferent to how things really are.

    “If you’ve been paying attention to the news over the past week or so, you know that last weekend America was introduced to the concept of “alternative facts.” After Trump administration Press Secretary Sean Spicer rebuked the media for accurately reporting the relatively small crowds at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Spicer wasn’t lying; he was simply using “alternative facts.”

    With that interview a new lexicon “alternative facts” was included in political lexicon. Analysts are still working through the process of figuring out what to call these mischaracterisations of reality. To me, this is simply looking people straight in the face and saying what you “think” is right to the detriment of whether they are factual or not. This – I can deduce – cannot be divorced from Trump’s obsession with TV and other ratings.

    Jake Tapper of CNN was amazed that for close to 80 minutes nothing was discussed about the American people who voted Trump into power. He simply told Trump to grow up “stop whining” and face governance.

    The media is divided on whether “alternative facts” is an outright lie or another way of putting an issue across. Griffin pointed out that some outlets have resisted labeling Trump’s misstatements as lies. The Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief Gerard Baker, for instance, insisted that the Wall Street Journal wouldn’t label Trump’s false statements “lies.”

    Baker argued that lying requires a “deliberate intention to mislead,” which couldn’t be proven in the case of Trump. Baker’s critics pushed back, raising valid and important points about the duty of the press to report what is true. As important as discussions about the role of the press as fact-checkers are, Griffin stated “Baker’s critics are missing the point. Baker is right. Trump isn’t lying. He’s bullshi**ing. And that’s an important distinction to make.”

    And what does that mean? Bullshi**ers, as philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote in his 1986 essay “On Bullsh*t,” don’t care whether what they are saying is factually correct or not. Instead, bullsh*t is characterized by a “lack of connection to a concern with truth (and) indifference to how things really are. Frankfurt explains that a bullshi**er “does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

    In addition to being unconcerned about the truth (which liars do care about, since they are trying to conceal it), Frankfurt suggests that bullshi**ers don’t really care whether their audience believes what they are saying. Indeed, getting the audience to believe something is false isn’t the goal of bullshi**ing. Rather, bullshi**ers say what they do in an effort to change how the audience sees them, “to convey a certain impression” of themselves.

    In Trump’s case, much of his rhetoric and speech seems designed to inflate his own grand persona. Hence the tweets about improving the record sales of artists performing at his inauguration and his claims that he “alone can fix” the problems in the country.

    I quite agree with Frankfurt. Each time I listen to Trump, I miss former President Obama greatly. The way Obama connects with people is simply legendary. I’ve not seen that with Trump, except maybe with people who cherish his ideology. It is therefore little wonder that Obama is rated the 12th best president ever in U.S. history by presidential historians.

    I listened to an interview on Aljazeera where a former Bush adviser said if he were not an American living in America, he would’ve thought Trump was talking about another country. He was referring to Trump’s inaugural address which contained rhetoric about the “decayed” state of the country and rampant unemployment. He said this is a verifiably false statement which most Americans know.

    So why does misinformation spread so quickly, especially on the social media? Why doesn’t it get corrected? When the truth is so easy to find, why do people accept falsehoods? That’s a big question in this era. A new study led by Michela Del Vicario of Italy’s Laboratory of Computational Social Science, explores the behaviour of Facebook users. It provides strong evidence that the explanation is confirmation bias: people’s tendency to seek out information that confirms their beliefs, and to ignore contrary information.

    This finding highlights a wide range of issues, especially the last presidential campaign in the U.S. where the acceptance of conspiracy theories and competing positions in international relations became the norm.

    Next week we shall conclude on how Trump was able to “bulldoze” his way into the White House, what impact his approach played and the communication lessons therein.

     

     

  • Perils of the post truth era

    In 2016, the Oxford dictionaries declared “post-truth” as the international word of the year. It defined it as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” The editors said that use of the term “post-truth” increased by around 2,000% in 2016 compared to the previous year. The spike in usage, it said, is “in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States.”

    Every year, the Oxford dictionaries’ word of the year is intended to “reflect the passing year in language. One of the closest contenders for the title had included the noun “alt-right,” shortened from the fuller form “alternative right” and defined as “an ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterised by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content.”

    It is only those living in denial that would not agree that we are today living in a world where many things are no longer certain, a world where truth is deliberately twisted or turned on its head to achieve goals that suit its purveyors. The election of Donald Trump as president of the USA has further emboldened ultra-right wing groups in Europe and elsewhere to adopt the post truth template. We should not be surprised if our own politicians start exploiting it from next year in the build up to the 2019 elections.

    First coined by David Roberts – then a blogger on an environmentalist website, Grist – post truth is helped by new technology, a deluge of facts and a public much less given to trust than it once was. It is on record that some politicians are getting away with a new depth and pervasiveness of falsehood. If this continues, the power of truth as a tool for solving society’s problems could be greatly affected with devastating repercussions.

    Today a growing number of politicians and pundits simply no longer care. They are content with what Stephen Colbert, an American comedian, calls “truthiness”: ideas which “feel right” or “should be true”. They deal in insinuation and question the provenance, rather than accuracy of anything that goes against them. And when the distance between what feels true and what the facts say grows too great, it can always be bridged with a handy conspiracy theory.

    Though statistics are difficult to come by here, but conservatively, one can say nearly two-thirds of adults in Nigeria now get news on social media. On Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp, anybody can be a publisher. Content no longer comes in formats such as informed articles in newspapers that help establish provenance and set expectations. Now, it can take any shape – a video, a chart, an animation. A single idea, or “meme”, can replicate shorn of all context, whether it is based on facts or not.

    Global events of the last two years are throwing more light on the mechanisms of these new media which are only now beginning to be understood. One crucial process is what is termed “homophilous sorting.” It simply means like-minded people forming clusters or groups. The rise of cable and satellite television channels in the 1980s and 1990s made it possible to serve news tailored to specific types of consumer; the internet makes it much easier.

    In his book “The Wealth of Networks,” Yochai Benkler of Harvard University said individuals with shared interests are far more likely to find each other or converge around a source of information online than offline. Social media enable members of such groups to strengthen each other’s beliefs, by shutting out contradictory information, and to take collective action.

    Welcome to the post-truth era, an era where borders blur between truth and lies, honesty and dishonesty, fiction and nonfiction. Deceiving others becomes a challenge, a game, and ultimately a habit. Take the recent news that made the round that our president has died. Till date, some people in some news clusters have deliberately shut themselves out and nothing you say would make them interrogate that the president is alive. They want to choose what they believe, even if it is a lie!

    Post-truthfulness builds a fragile social edifice based on wariness. It erodes the foundation of trust that underlies any healthy civilization. When enough of us peddle fantasy as fact, society loses its grounding in reality.  Society would crumble altogether if we assumed others were as likely to dissemble as tell the truth. We are perilously close to that point.

    We live in a generation where traces of fact and reality are sometimes deliberately blended together with elements of myth, guesswork, theory, falsehood, fiction and feeling – and then released in the form of a dark mist in order to make the concept of truth itself seem like a murky, mysterious vapour with no real substance.

    It is in this light that few would have predicted that Donald Trump would now be in the white house. It was thought – way back then – that as a reality show host he would merely provide an exciting entertainment bent in the race for the presidency. A bit of breaking from the norm and including “outsiders” would perhaps do.

    With experienced and established politicians like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz amongst other contestants, analysts, pollsters and even the media believed he would fizzle out before the race heats up. But his steady rise baffled many of them; even the Republican Party was baffled with his steady rise. It was eventually too late for them to throw a spanner in the works to stop him. Not even an open denunciation from conservative Republicans like Mitt Romney and others could stop him.

    So what did Trump do right and how was he able to achieve the “unthinkable?” There’s no doubt that experts in political communication are now dusting up their books and theories once again and asking what kept the New York real estate billionaire going and what communication lessons can we learn from him. The society is also being analysed like never before and questions are being raised on why people choose to read and believe fake news.

    It was on record that Trump made sexist comments, derided the physically challenged, made racist remarks and broke nearly every rule in the political communication playbook; he succeeded in gaining a zealous following nonetheless. Not even Hilary Clinton’s reference to his supporters being “baskets of deplorables” could stop their support for their “idol” that would “make America great again.” It is instructive to note that no one even asked Trump what making America great again really entails; it wasn’t critically interrogated.

    At some time in his campaign, Trump claimed that former President Barack Obama “is the founder” of Islamic State and Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, is the “co-founder.” Even some of his supporters were perplexed by his allegation that stands truth on its head. When pressed to see if he meant it literally Trump said “No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.”

    Shawn Hamilton, in his article in Huffington Post – The Birth of F**kery: How To Think About Donald Trump’s Lies, wrote: “Yes, he lies – constantly, badly and ridiculously – but the assembled lies create a whole that is greater and more awe-inspiring than the parts. Massive lies for mass audiences are a tool of what author and political scientist Corey Robin calls “reactionary populism.” He writes in “The Reactionary Mind.”

    “From revolutions, conservatives also develop a taste and talent for the masses, mobilizing the street for spectacular displays of power while making certain power is never truly shared or redistributed. That is the task of right-wing populism: to appeal to the mass without disrupting the power of elites or, more precisely, to harness the energy of the mass in order to reinforce or restore the power of elites.”

    Despite these apparent short comings, how did the man make it and what lessons can we learn from him as the face of the post truth era?

  • Perils of opacity

    Perils of opacity

    •Can NNPC be rid of iniquities? We doubt, as NEITI releases more shockers on its finances

    The mind-boggling levels of corruption currently being revealed, particularly under the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration, were facilitated by the lack of transparency in the management of the country’s public finances. The veil of darkness that enveloped the allocation and expenditure of public funds gave unscrupulous government officials ample opportunity to criminally appropriate scarce financial resources. In its latest audit report, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has, once again, demonstrated that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is easily the most opaque and fraud-ridden public institution in Nigeria.

    The audit report found that the NNPC did not remit $3.8 billion (approximately N748.6 billion) and another N358.3 billion to the Federation Account in the 2013 financial year. Furthermore, the country recorded a loss of revenue totalling N20.4 billion and $5.966 billion in 2013 while the oil and gas companies underpaid the federation by $599.8 million in the same period. This was largely as a result of under-assessment/underpayment of petroleum profit taxes and royalties by the oil and gas companies, a situation blamed on divergent pricing methodology by the government and the companies due to the absence of a new fiscal regime.

    According to the NEITI audit report,  $1.289 billion paid to NNPC as dividends, interest and loan repayment for 2013 by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG) for 2013 was not remitted by the former to the Federation Account. Indeed, the total NLNG payments to the NNPC between 2005 and 2013 but not paid into the Federation Account is calculated to be $12.9 billion. Again, between 2010 and 2011, the NNPC divested 55% of the federation’s equity in eight Oil Mining Leases (OMLs) from the Shell Joint Venture to its subsidiary, the National Petroleum Development Corporation (NPDC). While the eight OMLs were valued by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) at $1.8 billion, only $100 million was paid in April 2014, leaving a balance of $1.7 billion outstanding.

    It was partly to avert the perils of this kind of debilitating opacity, which include massive theft of public funds and the consequent deepening of underdevelopment, that the Freedom of Information (FOI) law was enacted to make government officials more accountable through easy access to relevant information by the citizenry.

    But the disdain with which the former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, treated a request by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), to provide information on the spending of N30 trillion alleged by a former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Professor Charles Soludo, to be missing under the minister’s watch, showed utter contempt for the FOI Act.

    SERAP had requested for the information from the minister under the FOI Act on February 2, 2015. Failing to receive any response to its request within seven days of the receipt of the letter as required by the FOI law, the civil society organisation brought a Freedom of Information Suit against the minister and the Federal Government. The suit was filed on February 25, 2015 while Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala and the Federal Government were served on July 3, 2015. As the trial judge, Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court, Lagos, noted, however, “It took about three months for them to come up with technical response to the simple request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2011”.

    Affirming the legal binding obligation on the minister and the Federal Government to obey the FOI Act, including stipulated timelines, the court ordered them to do so immediately. This landmark judgment represents a triumph for public accessibility to critical information through the FOI Act.

    We commend SERAP for its persistence and resilience and urge other citizens and groups to take advantage of the FOI Act in pursuit of good, accountable and transparent governance.

     

     

     

  • The perils of rogue westernization

    The perils of rogue westernization

    Great events often steal upon a people virtually unnoticed.It is when they gather speed and momentum that we begin to wonder what has hit us. This past fortnight has been quite dramatic in its possibilities for the nation. Once againwe are on the cusp of unusual developments.

    Last week began innocuously enough. But by midweek, all illusions of peace and calm have been shattered. Upon all the crippling economic burdens the average Nigerian is forced to bear, a totally unforeseen and unprecedented hike in petroleum pricing was slammed on the nation with the deadly ferocity of a military ambush.

    It all seems so unreal and bizarre in the extreme. All of a sudden, a governmentwhich has bonded so intimately with the poor and injured of the land, a government which has advertised its compassion for the injury inflicted on Nigerians by their ruling class, bared its knuckles in a manner reminiscent of harsh, authoritarian military rule.

    Yet in a strange reversal of role, it was the government that began playing the injured, pretending to be hurt that explanations not offered have not been heard. Glum and uncommunicative at best, jumping from one absurdexcuse to the other, with IbeKachikwu levitating on highfalutin techno-speak and the latest petrolese, this is not the finest hour of the administration.

    Is it any wonder, then, that up till this moment and in the face of looming mass alienation, the president has not found the courage to address the nation? At least, the retired general from Daura cannot be accused of great immoral courage. Like all formidable military commanders, the president has retreated behind a wall of silence, secrecy and stealth. But one suspects that the general is personally hurting from this breach of trust and his inability to guarantee the integrity of his own earlier promise.

    But General Buhari needs not obsess about this failure of policy or be fixated on the dent on his honour as an officer and gentleman. There is plenty of opportunity to make up. Government is not about a single capitulation. There is still much hope invested in the Buhari administration as the very last opportunity for this country to get it right after forty years in the wilderness of aborted promise.

    Yet amidst of all this, the divided and polarized Labour Union has ordered a national strike which has turned out a damp squib, shunned and ignored by majority of the workers on whose behalf they claim to be stirring. This is the first time in the history of the country that Labour has been so comprehensively cuckolded by labourers. In effect, the Nigerian Labour Union stands disgraced and demystified.

    It is a disgrace and demystification that has been long in coming. For over thirty years, many of us have been warning our labour aristocrats that the day is coming when the falcon will no longer hearken to the falconer. That day, it seems, is now upon us. For the post-colonial society battered by the rampaging forces of global capitalism, old labour, with its rustic and rusticated conceptual armature, no longer works.

    When labour is not in collusion and conspiracy with the state to break the back of rampart civil society as it was evident in the watershed January 2012 protests, it has turned itself into an enemy of the very workers whose interests it is supposed to protect. For a long time, some of us have argued that what labour needs is not retroactive and reactive protests whose outcome do not make a dent on the plight of workers but an alternative political platform and ideological paradigm which will challenge the ravages of global capitalism in its current stage and particularly in Nigeria.

    But this has fallen on deaf ear. You cannot give what you don’t have. Rotten mango cannot fall very far from the parent tree. The conceptual and intellectual rigour demanded is beyond the ken of the dinosaurs of “up and at ém” struggle.

    The irony t is that with its reformist consciousness and salary increment per protest mind-set, labour exists in a state of antagonistic but paradoxical collusion and complicity with global capitalism and its transnational oligarchs. The masters of the forces of production are even toying with dispensing with human labour altogether.

    With labour added to the casualty list, Nigeria is a post-colonial morgue of dead and dying institutions. All the vital institutions of the state and civil society are either dead or on life-support machine. This is why there is this eerie disorientation in the nation, as if one is walking in a land of living ghosts.

    Unless Nigeria is remade and rebuilt from scratch, we can forget it. The greatest affliction which can befall a people is not the affliction itself but the inability to correctly identify the affliction.  The current crisis about petroleum pricing is not caused by the precipitate removal of the so called subsidy but something more fundamental. It is a classic case of confusing the symptom with the disease.

    In the hallucinatory haze of the terminally diseased, we often reach for whatever we confuse with the nearest pain killer. When Nigeria was fairly well-governed, particularly before the advent of military despotism, we did not hear of subsidy. When there was no run on the naira by a kleptomaniac ruling class and massive corruption compounded by impunity, we did not hear of subsidy.

    Simply put, what is erroneously referred to as subsidy is State levy or government tax on rogue westernization. It is a case of double jeopardy and a lose-lose situation for the teeming Nigerian underclass. But pray what is rogue westernization?

    Nigeria was never conceived as an organic country but as a trading and retailing outlet of the western imperium. Till date, the nation has retained a proud fidelity to the founding charter. Deliberately peopled by a political elite organically divorced from the aspirations and yearnings of a true nation, a political elite unable to come together to found a new authentic nation, aping the worst aspects of western capitalism without being able to draw on the inner strengths and resources of the new nation, Nigeria is a disaster always waiting to happen.

    In the event, Nigeria has come up with national institutions which are genetic hybrids combining the worst aspects of western societies with the most pernicious carry-over from traditional institutions. They can hardly pass muster.

    Worse, and a result of the programmed inferiority complex of our elite, we hanker after western goods that we do not produce: from the latest cars, household gadgets and even petroleum products that we ought to be able to produce were this not to be a truly dysfunctional society.

    Yet apart from crude oil, we can hardly sell anything to the west. How can we preserve our foreign reserve and strengthen the value of the naira when we are wedded to frivolities and meretricious fripperies from the west?

    On any typical journey by train from London on a weekend, you are likely to run into one of Her Majesty’s ministers on his way to his constituency clutching his red briefcase and his sandwich. Nigeria does not have a viable rail system or even decent road transportation.

    Meanwhile, our own national and state assemblies as well as other functionaries of the state award themselves humongous salaries and emoluments which have no bearing with the dismal economic realities of the nation. All the mass transportation schemes which they claim to be derivative ameliorations from subsidy removals of the past have ended up as gigantic frauds fuelling inflation and the run on the naira. When will Nigeria produce Nigerians?

    To survive, the government must tax this rogue westernization and petroleum products are the softest targets because of the sheer volume of the racket. Everybody, particularly the poor, must bear the brunt of elite malfeasance.We have now been told with commendable if brutal candour that petroleum prices went up simply because the nation was flat broke.

    At a similar point in his nation’s history, Pandit Nehru decreed that if India cannot produce its own fabric or develop its own indigenous car, then the people can trek and walk naked. After mongering platitudes about self-reliance and the need to stimulate indigenous production, Nigerian leaders usually relapse into the despotic opulence of village tyrants. The people take their cue from the rulers.

    The argument for the removal of petroleum subsidy is solely conducted at the level of synchronic manifestation of reality without any conceptual linkage to its diachronic and futuristic dimensions. It is all about where we are at the moment rather than where we are coming from and where we are headed. The faulty answer is embedded in the faulty question.

    This inability to totalize facts is a conceptual subterfuge which allows the mind to avoid uncomfortable political truths and it is the bane of western empiricist epistemology and all the disciplines derived from it, particularly modern Economics which often accounts for their lack of dialectical rigour and delinquent simplification of complex reality. This is perhaps the worst intellectual legacy our colonial masters bequeathed to us.

    It is this endemic crisis of nationhood and rogue westernization which often manifest in the periodic removal of so called subsidy to much national anguish. As long as there is unregulated consumption of western goods and as long as corruption is backed by impunity, there will always be a run on the naira and the subsidy trap will open once again. Once the naira hits 500 to one single dollar, the subsidy experts will be back again to collect their scalp until we reach Weimar Republic and its worthless currency.

    This crisis which has been long in coming has now developed its local pathologies and may no longer be amenable to a national cure-all prescription but a creative and visionary restructuring of the entire political architecture of the nation. We have now reached a point where what is tonic for a particular nationality and its local economy may be toxic to another.

    In retrospect, it is doubtful whetherPandit Nehru, with all his heroism and considerable political clout, could have achieved the grand Hindu consensus about the destiny of the new nation if Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Pakistani militants were still to be part of an amorphous India nation. Colonial India had to be created anew, but in a situation of regrettable mayhem and bloodshed.

    National consensus and cohesion will always elude colonial creations where constituting nationalities retain strong individual identities and a vibrant sense of private destiny within or outside of the superimposed behemoth. Nigeria remains a classic example of this explosive colonial cocktail.

    But it can be made to work, particularly if Nigerian nationalities are willing to surrender this unstated but turbulent sovereignty in exchange for a more creative and cooperative union of fiercely independent nationalities. At no other point in its history has Nigerian been in a greater need of a visionary political genius. The next twelve months will show whether General Buhari is truly the man we have been waiting for, or whether we have to tarry awhile.