The Nation Newspaper

Tag: silence

  • Ekiti APC lawmakers deplore silence of elders on Assembly crisis

    Ekiti APC lawmakers deplore silence of elders on Assembly crisis

    The 19 All Progressives Congress (APC) members of Ekiti State House of Assembly have expressed concern on the silence of eminent citizens on the alleged impunities being witnessed in the state.

    They also vowed not to give up on the struggle to free the state from illegalities and constitutional breaches “where a lawless minority is lording it over the majority.”

    Addressing a news conference in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, the deputy speaker, Adetunji Orisalade, expressed regrets that the state is being pushed down the precipice of avoidable and self-inflicted crisis “by an executive that has become power-drunk and bent on throwing the state into chaos.”

    Orisalade maintained that the APC legislators have no regrets for their stance on the assembly crisis and would never apologise to the state governor, Mr. Ayo Fayose, for toeing the path of constitutional order and abiding by the rule of law.

    Deploring the alleged propaganda mounted against the APC House members by the PDP-led administration, Orisalade denied that they were being influenced by external forces to destabilise the state.

    The lawmaker, who represents Ido/Osi Constituency 2, expressed dismay that thugs have been permanently stationed at the House of Assembly complex with the intent of wounding and killing APC lawmakers.

    Wondering why the thugs are yet to be arrested and prosecuted by the police, the deputy speaker noted that any attempt by the APC lawmakers to forcefully resume work at the assembly might result into violence, adding that they are not ready to engage the thugs in street fight.

    He explained that all members of the APC caucus are back in the state and are ready to carry out their legislative functions but are being hindered by “deliberate emasculation of the legislative arm of government.”

    He, however, expressed sadness on the perceived silence of eminent citizens of Ekiti who have failed to condemn the gradual slide of the state into lawlessness, urging them not to stay aloof in the face of attacks on hallowed institutions.

  • Singing silence

    Singing silence

    • Maya Angelou, 86, was regal in poetry, politics and battle against patriarchy

    Perhaps one of the most definitive indications of what Maya Angelou represented was her insightful statement following the 2009 emergence of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the United States of America. “We are growing up beyond the idiocies of racism and sexism,” she declared profoundly when Obama won the historic presidential election.

    Of particular relevance to Nigeria, her impressive perspective on another idiocy, specifically despotism, was instructively supplied in a posthumous tribute by a fellow writer, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, who said she “mobilised emergency forces, and personally led the charge to beat down the doors of a lethargic – and/or ambiguous – US administration during the Sani Abacha murderous dictatorship.”

    According to Soyinka, “She kept her finger on the nation’s pulse throughout a people’s travails,” referring to Abacha’s brutish military rule from 1993 to 1998. This picture is remarkably representative of her phenomenal activism and civil rights consciousness. Black and proud of her colour, she lived and worked in Ghana in the 1960s, which deepened her sense of identity and influenced her trajectory.      By the time Angelou made her exit on May 28, aged 86, there was no doubt that hers was a well-rounded life. The African-American woman of many memorable parts personified a can-do spirit that inspired numerous people across the world and she told her dramatic life story to huge international applause. She achieved fame for her chain of seven autobiographies, especially the first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), which captures her life up to the age of 17.

    Significantly, her devotion to documentary writing was mirrored by the fact that in 2013, at the age of 85, she published her seventh autobiography, Mom & Me & Mom, which is about her relationship with her mother. Indeed, she was reportedly writing another autobiography about her experiences with national and world leaders, which her death aborted.  It is a testimony to her distinctive quality that her non-fiction narratives of her life experiences, which centred on themes of racism, identity and family, were consciously stylised and, paradoxically, attracted description as autobiographical fiction.

    Like her personality, her oeuvre was expansive and transcended autobiographies. Characterised as “the black woman’s poet laureate”,  she also published several volumes of poetry,  three collections of essays,  and got credit for a number of plays, movies and television shows in a writing life that spanned about 50 years and earned her multiple awards and more than 50 honorary degrees.

    Her stature was reflected in her momentous poetry performance at the 1993 inauguration of US President Bill Clinton where she recited her poem, On the Pulse of Morning, setting a record as the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961. Notably, the occasion was regarded as a massive boost for her celebrity “across racial, economic, and educational boundaries,” and the recording of the poem got a Grammy Award.

    It is noteworthy that two years later, she drew global attention with the presentation of what was described as her “second ‘public’ poem”, A Brave and Startling Truth, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. Other honours distinguished her, including three Grammys for her spoken word albums, the National Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

    One defining incident in Angelou’s life is worth recounting. Raped by her mother’s boyfriend, the fact that she exposed the man led to his murder by avengers, and the shocked eight-year-old became mute for almost five years. She said:  ”I thought my voice killed him; I killed that man, because I told his name. And then I thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone …” It was during this period of silence that she found her voice as a writer.

  • When silence is golden

    One of the prominent features of modern urban living is the firm grip that Nigerian religious pundits have over our early morning sleep. I tell you, the prison warden’s grip over his prisoners cannot come anywhere near it. Each dawn, I am rudely pulled out of my dreams by the vehemently inconsiderate shrills of religious men and women from mosque-church loudspeakers calling me to pray or shout ‘Amen’ willy-nilly when all I want to do is get a little more sleep. Sometimes, I wonder what the gates of heaven and hell must really look like – perhaps they are lined with marketers touting the advantages of the two places. It is quite enough to make me appreciate the age-old adage which I whisper repeatedly to myself: Silence is golden! Silence is golden! I think somewhere in my sub-conscious, I believe that if I repeat the sentence long enough, the noise will stop. It does, but well into the sunrise, when it is time to get up anyway. Grrrr! They always win but someday, I intend to win too.

    So, from sunrise to sunrise, the average Nigerian seems to be surrounded by nothing but noise; which he seems to take in his stride. If the irreverent loudspeakers of religious or music shopkeepers are not assaulting our ears, then party persons are doing their stuff right into them. And now, we have to contend with the noises of and from mobile phones. Recently, I saw a cartoon showing a man and a woman at a dinner date in a restaurant. Instead of doing the reasonable things such as looking deeply into each others’ eyes, holding hands or, at the least, eating, they preferred to talk into their individual phones. I just thought, the blessed things that had been invented to keep the world out were being used to bring the world in.

    Even more recently, I read of our dear federal government, which never tires of putting its foot in, obliging our Nigerian farmers to purchase mobile phones willy-nilly. Come now, I am thinking, is it for lack of mobile phones that we have no food to eat? Ever heard the children’s refrain, and I think I have used it here before, for want of a shoe the horse was lost and all that? Well, we have a new take on that. For want of a phone the farm was lost; for want of the farm the farmer was lost; for want of the farmer the citizens were lost; for want of the citizens, the country was lost.

    Honestly, I had no idea we still had farmers, let alone farmers whose farm lives would depend on the mobile phone. I have since regarded Nigerian farmers, and I mean no disrespect here, as charming antiques who made themselves but have been relegated to the shelves for posterity as showcases for aliens who once lived here. I thought no one, least of all the government, cared about their existence. No one, least of all, even knew their uses. The Nigerian farmer is the least considered of the low. Seriously again, I mean no disrespect either to them or the government, but all at once, too much is happening and too late. Suddenly, the government seems to have turned around, seen the farmers and exclaimed, oh look, the farmers!; let’s see what the mobile phone will look like in their grubby hands. And so, it is even now shoving the strange things into the farmers’ calloused hands and asking them to grin into the camera. I tell you, I tell you.

    Growing up at my grandmother’s, a worthy farmer in her own recognition, I believe I have had a few farm experiences; not what you would call the heavy duty kind, but somewhat enough to help me know which end of the yam to dip into my plate of palm oil at lunch. Now, you believe me, don’t you? Of course, in the course of gaining my farm education, I also came across a few farmers. Yet, in all those days, I never did come across one farmer who sat down moaning that his greatest problem in life was not being able to talk to his neighbours. No sir; to talk to their neighbours, most farmers simply hollered. Believe me, I have heard whole conversations enough to fill your ears conducted over the air waves and over long distances. The golden silence was sufficient to ensure perception. WHY DID YOU NOT COME TO THE FARM YESTERDAY? YOU WERE SICK? YOU THIS LAZY THING, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR WIFE’S PEPPER-SOUP IS FOR, SLEEPING? NO, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE STRENGTH FOR MY WIFE’S PEPPER; YOU WILL COLLAPSE. FOR THAT, WHEN YOU FINISH ON YOUR FARM, COME TO MY FARM AND SERVE YOUR PUNISHMENT. And the laughter rang through the air, pure and delightful, energising the work.

    True, farmers are no longer what they used to be; but honestly, in Nigeria, who is? It is quite clear that the problem of the federal government at any season seems to be that it never realises that the people are often smarter, more advanced, knowledgeable and forward thinking than it is. For some queer reason, however, it seems to think that it is always smarter, more advanced, knowledgeable and forward thinking than the people, so it thinks that it can think for the people. Big mistake. The farmers have told the government that they do not want mobile phones. Each farmer can procure his/her own phone or their children will. Yet, the government insists on going ahead. Why?

    Come, government, let us reason together. Pre-paid mobile phones have habits of consuming money either to purchase them or to run them. On whose account can that be charged to: the farmer’s anticipated profit, or will there be a regular subvention from the government for that? More importantly, what is the phone for – to talk with the government or their neighbours or their families? Most farmers are tired of talking to the government: it has not listened to or heard them so far, and is even now not hearing them say they do not need or want the mobile phone. To talk to their neighbours, they visit; and to talk to their families, they send SOS. Even most importantly, a large number of our farmers do not have the required literacy to manage those demanding things, and who is to teach them? But what do you know? The government insists it knows what the farmers want: mobile phones. I suspect those phones are coming from a source which has tied the supply of fertilizer to the purchase of the phone to farmers. In other words, the government has done what it thinks to be some neat packaging of ideas and products without considering all the issues.

    I honestly do not know how this phone thing can work. Do you know sir how many phones will be spoilt, lost or stolen within a week of taking delivery? Besides, how on earth can a phone enhance the growth of a farmer’s farm or his farming methods? Listen, dear government, what farmers need is a facilitated access to soft loans from banks so that they can have some long-term plans for their farms and be able to purchase items they want such as fertilizer or tractors on the open market like anyone else. Fertilizer can be subsidized; even end products can be subsidized but not at the expense of the free will to grow. Then, each can move from subsistence farming to large-scale farming at their own pace. Otherwise sir, you just may hear your phone lines crossing one day and someone saying, ‘Eh hen, Baba Sikira, now I have a phone; are you going to let me take Sikira as my third wife now?’ Then you will appreciate, as I have done, that silence is golden.