The Nation Newspaper

Tag: slaves

  • Your children will be slaves

    Your children will be slaves

    Nigeria is filled with beautiful boobs, human mass with luscious glands for politicians to slurp.

    Ask the presidency, your state governor, legislator, the itinerant lobbyist and power broker and they would oblige you the adventures of their souls atop thickset spoils.

    To this conniving band, the electorate is simply a mass of organs by which they nourish their lusts. Nigeria is their jungle, an eden of boobs and wildlife. In this degenerate eden they inhabit, the they survive by preying on electorate blessed with mouth like the parrot’s and the will of the catfish.

    When brackish waters recede, the catfish burrows deep into mud earth but that hardly prevents the fisherman from yanking it out of its filthy haven. Picture the electorate as catfish, the fisherman as the country’s ruling class; Nigeria becomes brackish waters and she recedes.

    Nigerians love burrowing into proverbial mud earth to evade negativity. They scurry deep into unlikely havens – ethno-religious bigotry and other sentimental foolery – to evade the violence of governance savagely doled out to them by the ruling class.

    In the crevices of mud earth, they immerse in filthy fluid. They soak in shameful rivulets like sanitary towel and hope to emerge sparkling clean.

    It’s a familiar scene, a Nigerian reality that often resounds like the fable of doomed Odysseus and the labouring ships.

    At the backdrop of this shameful proceedings, the argument persists in academia, social and political circuits, that the future is blurry and bleak because of the youth’s absence in politics. But I maintain that by Nigerian standards, the youth  are in politics.

    ‘Youthful men and women’ in their 60s, 70s and 80s control the country’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and major opposition platform, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    To sustain their legacies, their clannish pride covet incestuous bond with self – nurturing dark, chthonian parts of their innate nature. Hence Nigeria’s youthful-senior oligarchs impose their wards as successors and the country’s administrators even as they molest boondocks young in a never-ending cycle of sleaze and moral pedophilia. But the latter are hardly the preys they are thought to be.

    They are willing participants in a dehumanising ritual of violence, biological and mental retardation. From the hopeless to the vain, presumptuous and credulous, the country pulsates with nourishing boobs. Unlike the literal, fleshy sacs, often the delight of old and young, the Nigerian boob is neither pouch nor sac but human youth.

    It’s 2018, and the image persists of the nation’s youth as human assertions imagined in degenerate stillness by specific and random politicians.

    Unlike the artist’s masterpiece, sculpted in bronze and stone, the youth evolve like plasticine, easily malleable and amenable to devious politicians’ plots. As 2019 approaches, the country’s ruling class once again perfects its grand plot and counter-plots to tame the youth, preserve its ill-gotten wealth and tyranny. The youth predictably become willing pawns in the designs of the criminal ruling class.

    From the herdsmen murders in Benue, Boko Haram’s terrorism, Niger Delta militancy to random political killings and rumblings in Rivers, Taraba, the youth become the nub of discord and deathly rally ripping the country apart.

    Many have attributed the afflictions of the Nigerian youth to bad leadership, nonstop dominance of a predatory ruling class and tiring recalcitrance of the younger generation to engage in communal and national politics in a beneficial manner. Many more would readily diagnose the maladies of the nation’s youth to structural banes and the perverse culture of citizenship by which they are weaned and ushered into adulthood.

    In the wake of plausible and often farfetched analyses, too many ‘patriots’ conveniently excuse themselves from the nexus of blame and severally propound the tragic theory of Nigerians as being innately incapable of self-determination and self-governance. Many have recommended the American example, the British palliative, the Chinese abracadabra and Malaysian ingenuity to mention a few, as the ultimate measures to resolve the nation’s ills. How?

    These arguments have overtime, attained a language of their own and thus evolved as a dialect of dissent and exaggerated self-abnegation. The nation’s academic elite, political and economic ruling classes frequently marshal clashing precepts as solutions and justifiable putdown of the ruling class and the lower working class as their politics dictate.

    A more damning view identifies the electorate’s persistent ‘claims to victimhood and sense of entitlement’ as whiny and symptomatic of a dense and irresponsible citizenry. Between the conflict of hyperboles and sentimental vituperation, Nigeria suffers the affliction of intellectual miscreants and promising youth-turned-foetal-adults.

    The coordinated tragedies afflicting our consciousness daily, append the only real structure to our lives as impoverished Nigerians. From burdensome realities of fast slipping youth, recurrent rites of bigotry to the ethical quandary of coping with strict moral codes of adulthood and ideal society, our lives obscure in purpose and meaning.

    Thus the scorning of ethics by the youth for fast, illicit riches even as ripples of their actions keep hundreds of millions more in binds of despair.

    Consequently, the revolutionary dissent that sprouts from oppression is pitiless and unbending. It radically splits our world into ‘insensitive ruling class’ and ‘clueless lower class,’ ‘elite’ and ‘downtrodden,’ ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ It fosters even more fragmented discord that continually pits Nigerian Christians against Muslims, Hausa against Igbo, Igbo against Yoruba, Yoruba against Ijaw.

    While this piece too may resound as hackneyed howl and lamentation, a regurgitation of towering monstrosities we have become, it need be said that our ultimate solution lies in our will to effect true change.

    Do not vote for APC, PDP and others. Let the youth unite; register a party of true patriots, elect men and women of unimpeachable character. Effect change. Failure to do this will sustain your status quo as slaves and your children as slaves to your oppressors’ children.

  • The return of slaves: Organisers call for entries

    The crazinisT artisT, in collaboration with the Department of Painting and Sculpture, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), is calling for volunteers to participate in a performance project, The Return of the Slaves which will hold within the Elmina Slave Dungeon from Friday, July 3rd to Saturday 4th. The Return of the Slaves will be a 12-hour durational performance staged overnight from 6:00 pm to 6:00am as an enactment of contemporary human slavery and the series of human violence within and outside Africa. Deadline for registering is May 25.

    A statement by the organizers says the performance will investigate the ostensible ‘Dungeons without Wall’ as a social process in our contemporary time. The performance evokes the unpleasant objectification of humanity as an institutional or private patronage and consumption of the body in relation to time, displacement and redefinition of cultural identity.

    Applicants should be at least 18 years and not older than 55 years by 28th June. All are eligible to participate regardless of their protected characteristics: culture, race, genders, sexuality, disability, nationality, ethnicity and religion. Participation is accepted from any kind of professions who are interested in the project. You don’t have to be an artist to apply. But participants should not the followings:

    *Participants will stay in the slave dungeon from Friday, 6:00pm to Saturday, 6:00am (12 hours overnight) with loosed chains on their hands and legs,

    *Participants are not to communicate verbally during the 12-hour stay but they will be free to move within the dungeon,

    *Participants will wear only red wrappers around their waist and on the breast (females),

    *Participants are not to exit until the end the performance,

    *No physical pain will be inflicted,

    *The public will be able to view performance in the dungeon by lantern or torchlight only.

  • Gberefu: Echoes of slaves’ footsteps

    Gberefu: Echoes of slaves’ footsteps

    Gberefu, also known as Point of No Return, in Badagry, Lagos State, is a small island facing the Atlantic Ocean. The island was where slave ships  berth to load slaves during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade era hundreds of years back. OKORIE UGURU writes on his experience during a visit to the island. 

    Roots tourism had  always been an area of interest to many blacks in the Diaspora. And often they return back to Africa to have a re-connect with their ancestors. Many countries within the west coast have reaped tremendously from this. Chief among them are Gambia, Ghana, Benin Republic and some few other countries.

    It is on record that many places in Nigeria had experiences with the obnoxious trade. However, a  prime point of slave trade in Nigeria is Badagry. Few places still have graphic images of the obnoxious trade like this town. One of such historic places in Badagry is the Gberefu Island, also known as Point of No Return.

    Stories relating to this place leave one horrified at the magnitude of the inhumanity committed on this soil many years ago.

    You may need to cast your mind back to the slave trade era to really appreciate  the pains of the trade in human cargoes across the Atlantic. Gberefu Island was the final outpost before slaves are shipped through the Badagry natural harbour  to the New World. For the captured slaves, the journey began from the hinterland from where they are transported to Badagry. At Badagry, there were slave compounds known as baracoons, where the slaves were initially kept. One could still see relics of the slave merchants’ baracoons  along the Badagry Marina area. They can be seen along with the other tools used to keep and subdue the slaves.

    The Mobees and the Seriki Abass compounds are some the families whose forefathers actively participated in the trade. They still have relics from the obnoxious trade.

    The slaves were kept in these family baracoons along the Badagry Marina at the lagoon waterfront to wait for the merchants’ vessels. When it was time to depart, they slaves were ferried across the Badagry lagoon to Gberefu Island. The stretch of the lagoon water separating the Marina shore and Gberefu is about a kilometer.

    According to history, the shallow nature of Badagry waterfront made it impossible for the big merchant ships to berth, hence the choice of Gberefu as a port. The island has the Atlantic Ocean lapping its shores.

    It was from there that the slaves were shipped to the Americas. History has it that once a slave crossed the Badagry lagoon and stepped on the Gberefu island, the slave’s fate was sealed. That was how the island got the name Point of No Return.

    Because of the historic value of Gberefu, it has become a tourist site where many tourists, especially blacks in the Diaspora, visit. Such visits are usually very interesting and life-changing for the tourists.

    To get to Gberefu,  you need plenty of patience. First, the local speed boats that run between the island and Badagry come to the shore at intervals. But because the number of people at the island are few,  tourists have to wait for the boats to come. Even when the boat arrives, the waiting may last a bit longer as it takes time for the boat to get filled up. At weekends, it is a bit better, because the number of people making the trip to the island are many. The traffic is made up of tourists and others who visit the island for spiritual purpose.  However, if it is a group trip, the best is to charter a boat to take the group across. The  ferry trip takes about five to ten minutes. From the Gberefu jetty, one would have to walk for about 20 to 30 minutes to get to the beach front.  The way to the beachfront is probably one of the oldest foot paths in the country. It has been a foot path for up to 400 years now. It is a path many had trodden to get to the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a foot path many had taken, but only few returned. The rest got shipped to the new world or died at sea. It is only the slave traders and their acolytes that came back.  The route has the landmarks of key points in the journey to the ocean shore. Tourists would have the  opportunity of seeing signposts informing them about notable points on the route. One of these is the well where water was drawn to quench the thirst of  famished slaves.

    At the end of the un-tarred path, one gets to the shore. A cenotaph is built at the end of the route in remembrance of  the slaves. From the shore, one could watch the ocean splashing the white sandy beach with foam. By the right hand side, some small white garment churches have sprung up. Intermittently, you hear their raised voice singing and praying. The soothing breeze from the ocean caresses one’s face.

    Far into the ocean, some fishermen go about their business on the ocean. From the ocean shore, the fishing boats looked like black dots on the blue water. Though the slave ships are long gone,  the memory of their activities on the shore would  last for ever.

    In addition to Gberefu, there are many places to visit in Badagry. They include the Vlekete slave market; the slave museum; the first storey building in Nigeria, the Mobee family museum, the Chief Seriki Abass compound and many others.

    Despite this rich harvest of tourist sites in Badagry, the town is very difficult to access. The road to the town is in a bad shape. To go to Badagry, a town less then 50 kilometres from Lagos, takes almost three hours. The story is the same on the return trip.  Thankfully, the efforts by the Lagos State to expand the route and introduce a metro rail service have gone far.

  • Slaves eternally (1)

    Isha Sesay is adorable. The management of Cable News Network (CNN) must love her; the youngster undoubtedly measures up to and glamourizes the news organization’s established style of grilling perceived and verified nincompoops or nitwits amongst African leaders. And gradually, Sesay, is perfecting her skills at showing up fellow Africans as nitwits and predominantly ‘black monkeys’ incapable of self-governance and leadership. My bad, Sesay would never identify herself as an African. Though of Sierra Leonean parentage, she is “Briton.” But this is hardly about Sesay; this is more about Nigeria’s crop of contemporary public officers and their irascible lust to appear on CNN.

    The motive is always clear, being interviewed by CNN is expected to bolster their political and social profile. Hence in the wake or heat of any topical happenstance, it has become fashionable for the Nigerian President, Ministers, Governors, Ambassadors and even Special Advisers to pose and speak for the camera during interviews with any CNN anchor or correspondent.

    It becomes instructive to note that while the nation’s ruling class hustle to be interviewed by any CNN or BBC news anchor, they treat with disdain, requests for similar interviews by local journalists and media. This is why it is exceedingly difficult to read and watch interview sessions granted by the Nigerian ruling class to local journalists or media.

    In rare instances, when the nation’s president decides to hold the familiar charade of the “Presidential Media Chat,” participants, comprising a docile and fawning panel of pro-government media practitioners are carefully selected by Mr. President’s media advisers. Throughout such interview sessions, the nation is subjected to a boring and highly patronizing ‘media chat’ devoid of the essential requirements of professional media practice and truthful disclosure by Mr. President.

    Had it been that the country’s public officials accord local journalists and media the kind of obsequious deference they accord Sesay and her ilk, the country’s lot may improve remarkably; particularly in its need and use of vital information in times of tragic social and political crisis foisted on the country by terrorism masterminds like Boko Haram.

    In the wake of the crisis, particularly the terrorist sect’s recent abduction of over 200 secondary school girls, the Nigerian leadership, predictably, has behaved true to stereotype; President Goodluck Jonathan, his aides, Doyin Okupe and Labaran Maku, have granted interviews to CNN’s Sesay. During such interviews, it was amusing to see Sesay summon her element to rip President Jonathan and his aides’ farcical invisibility and dignity to shreds. Her latest victim was staff of a Nigerian consulate in the United States; Seshay treated him the same way she treated Mr. President and company.

    While they struggled to answer vital and significant questions asked by her, Seshay bullied them with frequent interruptions and forceful emphasis on veiled insinuations in her questions that suited CNN’s agenda. More horrifyingly, she rolled her eyes and casted side glances to chuckle and sneer at their desperate and futile attempts to answer coherent and sensible answers to her questions. Of course they could muster none and Seshay wasted no opportunity to show them up for the ineptitude as leaders and timidity as interviewees. That was quite pathetic.

    Seshay’s body language, her tone, manic sneer and dismissive manner of cutting them off chanting: “We do not have time. We do not have time anymore, we will probably invite you back later,” revealed among other things, CNN’s gross disrespect and disdain for Nigerian leaders. And like an over-excited predator closing in for the kill on hapless preys in its sight, Sesay pounced on the Nigerian public officers and made mincemeat of them all.

    I am happy for Sesay, for with such brutish elegance and approach to her job, she will rise on the totem pole of CNN’s celebrity news anchors and correspondents, until she hits her head on the glass ceiling. Yet I cannot help but feel sad for the exuberant CNN staff. Essentially, Sesay epitomizes and perpetuates the kind of slavish mentality that drove black African, my bad, “African-American” slaves of old to betray and despise their fellow workers on American slave plantations in previous centuries.

    Sesay and the Nigerian leadership epitomise everything that is wrong with the black race. So pronounced is their inferiority complex that the tragedies of their civilization perpetually wail in its littlest details: like the Nigerian leadership’s desperate quest for approval of the Western world in its shoddy handling of the nation’s terrorism affliction and Sesay’s maniacal, feverish quest to measure up to her employer’s expectations and institutionalized disdain for African leaders.

    Who will uninvent the Nigerian as a pitiful nigger? Who will unschool Seshay’s mind and forelock of the retrogressive ideals she has learnt to bandy as knowledge and survivalist tactic in her mad, desperate search for applause and political correctness?

    Sesay and her victims amongst the Nigerian leadership could be likened to fellows gifted with the mentality of the hyena and the sensibility of the guinea fowl. The same may be said of those who approve the misguided CNN staff’s attitude among the country’s citizenry. Their lust for unearned dignity, acclaim and the west’s approval clearly illustrates their shallowness and ignorance among other weaknesses symptomatic of their awfully preadolescent, or to be more candid, undeveloped minds. It reiterates a very shrill cry for help that’s at once self-seeking, infantile and retrograde.

    It is what makes Nigerian leaders pilfer and deplete the nation’s treasury to embark on idiotic trips abroad to learn western-european governance styles to be ineffectually applied back home. It is what makes Nigerian leaders throw their doors open to every visiting foreign cub reporter even as they deny seasoned journalists back home, similar opportunities even as they persistently expose themselves to ridicule, presenting themselves as inveterate idiots by their comportment and utterances which are tailored to glorify the disturbing plots and agenda of the foreign newshounds.

    The citizenry is guilty of the same inanity as indicated by the widely broadcast documentaries on Niger Delta militancy, the insidiously “professional” and manipulative “This is Lagos” and “Law and Disorder in Lagos” documentaries on Lagos which glorifies the city’s shanty and street ‘area boys’ malaise. Such media fare reveals contemptible plots to fulfill derogatory news agendas to the delight and pitiful acquiescence of the news subjects.

    I am yet to see a Nigerian journalist travel to the United Kingdom or the US for instance, to enjoy similar courtesies and stupidity from the countries’ leadership and citizenry. It is even more worrisome to note that the incumbent leadership has never enjoyed and will never enjoy the kind of respect accorded the late Tafawa Balewa, Obafemi Awolowo and their ilk at independence due to their inexplicable greed, complacence, degeneracy, shallowness of thought and character.

    The kind of inferiority complex projected by the ruling class and passed down to generations of Nigerian youth affirms the western belief that we are not as mentally proficient as they are. Consequently, they see us as irredeemably ignorant, inept, corrupt and susceptible to inexplicable violence and inferiority complex. Unfortunately, the average Nigerian’s prodigal nature manifests to further serve as evidence of a collective idiocy and inferiority complex of a crude race that recognizes and accepts and glamourizes its intolerable limitations.

  • Slaves of power

    Slaves of power

    ‘Leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others. It is not an opportunity to satisfy personal greed.’
    ————Mwai Kibaki

    Presumably, Benjamin Disraeli had the Taraba State of Nigeria’s situation in mind when he muttered his instructive aphorism: ‘Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power.’ Disraeli, in February 1868, got his first shot as Prime Minister of Britain when Prime Minister Lord Derby became too ill to hold office. Derby voluntarily relinquished power to him, though Disraeli’s concluding term was brief because a new election voted out the Conservative Party in December of that year. However as far back as one and half century ago, the situation that played out then in Britain is playing out in our own country today as Disraeli’s dictum clearly captures the recalcitrant posture of obviously ailing Governor Danbaba Suntai. Unlike Lord Derby who voluntarily relinquished power at the peak of his ill-health, Suntai obstinately holds on to power despite his visible ill-health

    The consequences of Suntai’s action when he went outside his governorship duties to pilot a chopper is beyond his control but his subsequent conducts of forcing his retention of power since his return from overseas medical treatment, though within his power, bear manifestations of an over-kill. His questionable medical status points in this regard. The man piloted a plane that crashed near Yola, Adamawa State on October 25, 2012. He was rushed abroad for medical treatment where he spent 10 months in Germany and United States so that he could get healed of the injuries he sustained during that misadventure. But the questions are: Is this professional pharmacist-turned-politician now fully healed of the injuries? Is he now fit to take over the mantle of leadership of Taraba State from Alhaji Garba Umar, his deputy and acting governor, while he was away?

    This last question in particular seems belated in view of recent developments. Ailing Suntai, according to Hon. Joseph Albasu, Taraba House Majority Leader, had sent a letter he purportedly signed to intimate the honourable members of his readiness to resume work. But the House, from media reports, is divided on the issue. Albasu gave the governor the go-ahead without the Speaker and political head of the hallowed chamber, Haruna Tsokwa’s consent. Albasu, from the comfort of his office, even swore that Suntai was more than ready for work.

    What is laughable is that the majority leader, without the benefit of a verifiable medical certificate, certified Suntai physically and mentally fit to govern. This was the same Suntai beamed to the entire world where he was helped out of the aircraft by two hefty men and who till now has not deemed it fit to appear in any public place except through a brief doctored television address to the people that fervently prayed for him during his medical travails abroad. It is perhaps a sign of ingratitude for him not to physically appear, if only once in public, to dispel insinuations by doubting Thomasses, including yours sincerely, that believe that he is infirm and does not possess the mental wherewithal to rule that state again.

    From the avalanche of media reports from that state, the people are truly apprehensive that a certain cabal, like it happened during the inglorious handling of the medical situation of late President Umaru Yar’Adua, have taken over the levers of power in Taraba State. How long can they sustain this game of political perfidy is yet to be seen. If only they were good students of history, they would thread softly. After all, history repeats itself simply because people refused to learn from it – apologies to the great philosopher/thinker, Aristotle.

    The retinue of power bootlickers singing sweet nonsense into Suntai’s ears will leave his wife and children in the cold should anything bad happens to him – God forbid. They would jump into the ship of the next man after him because whatever they tell him now regarding his continuing to rule, even when he does not have the medical capability, is in their own selfish interests and nothing more. Where is the so-called cabal that compellingly ensured that YarÁdua died in power? Perhaps, the man would still be alive today but for the strain of that coveted office. What happened to Turai, wife of late YarÁdua and her children may not be too far from his doorstep except his wife plays the wise one by telling these people to leave her husband alone for him to have time to attend to her obviously fragile medical situation. Performance in office has nothing to do with human frailties; it is about bowing to nature when the demand arises.

    Suntai needs everybody’s help and prayers. Why are our politicians’ turning slaves to their tall dreams only to end up as pitiable objects of regrets? Their immoderate pursuits of power are wantonly dangerous, yet, alluring to them. They willingly circumvent the constitution, giving it interpretation that is a function of power and not truth. Yet, the people share the larger blame because without us (the people that the constitution vested with sovereign power), they could not have been as powerful as we make out of them. Through our fault, the value systems of those with access to power and of those of us far removed from such access have not always been the same. Power and position, unfortunately, attract more of evil than good to the holders. That is what is happening to Suntai at the moment. The earlier the wife, the man and other dependants realise this bitter truth, the better for them – and more importantly, for democracy in the state and Nigeria in general. Slavery to power must end in all parts of the country.

  • ACN will not treat workers as slaves, Akintelure assures

    ACN will not treat workers as slaves, Akintelure assures

    The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) deputy governorship candidate in Ondo State, Dr. Paul Akintelure, has assured the civil servants that an ACN-led administration will not treat them as slaves.

    Regretting that the present government had abandoned the workers for too long, Akintelure said the people must be delivered from the visionless administration.

    He also assured that people in rural communities would benefit from the ACN government which, if elected, will be people- oriented.

    The medical practitioner said the residents and indigenes will experience real dividends of democracy in contrast to the current pauperised situation in the state.

    Akintelure, who cited the ACN- controlled neighbouring states like Osun, Ekiti, Oyo, Ogun, Lagos and Edo as examples of what his party can doif elected, said the sunshine state would start enjoying the benefits of progressive governance with effect from February 13, 2013.

    He said with climates suitable for fish farming, rice and cocoa cultivation across the state, the promised 30,000 job creation within 100 days will not be an impossibility for his administration.

    “This will be generated through Public Private Partnership (PPP). We will also put in place various need-based agencies for waste management, traffic control, environmental sanitations etc,” he said.

    He said workers in the state deserve better treatment than what they currently get from the LP government.

    Akintelure added: “Civil Servants are not slaves. Their welfare would be of paramount interest to the ACN government. Our own government will not treat you as slaves because you are the ones laying the golden eggs.

    “You must vote for ACN to replicate the glorious experience of the western region through the present south west regional integration agenda. We must do this for our children. Let’s keep our date with destiny come October 20.”