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  • Uncle Sam: Silent crusader for press freedom

    Uncle Sam: Silent crusader for press freedom

    • By Adebayo Bodunrin

    I am sure there will be no objection that Prince Samson Oruru Amuka Pemu, otherwise cherished as Uncle Sam Amuka or who his numerous admirers lovingly call Uncle Sam, the publisher of Vanguard newspapers and co-founder of Punch, is a respectable father of journalism. He is certainly the oldest Nigerian still plying his trade as a journalist.

    Media entrepreneur, Nduka Obaigbena describes him as an icon and leading light in Nigerian journalism. Ten years ago, ex – President Muhammadu Buhari described him as a “Gentleman of the Press” because of his simplicity, humility, modesty, generosity and friendliness on his 80th birthday.

    But make no mistake about his professional standing. He is a stickler for principles and unbendingly passionate about ethical conduct, discipline, decency and hard work.

    As a journalist, Uncle Sam has bestrode the Nigerian media and emerged admirably as an outstanding reporter, gifted features writer, first rate features editor, consummate title editor and exceptional manager of men, women, materials and resources, media entrepreneur and most importantly as a star columnist.

    There are many engagements in the print media. One of the most tasking and really creative endeavours is column writing. Not all editors or journalists dare to venture into it. Don’t blame them. Column writing is usually missing in the “intellectual menu” lists in journalism schools.

    Uncle Sam courageously dared into column writing. He is comparable to William Connor who wrote a regular column under the pen name, Cassandra, for 32 uninterrupted years between 1935 and 1967 in the London Daily Mirror. Uncle Sam wrote dazzling columns, sometimes twice weekly, under different pen names (pseudo) Sad Sam and Off Beat Sam bursting with satire, wit and humour depicting him as an informed people’s writer who unpretentiously exhibited nationalistic passion during his years at the old Daily Times.

    I do not intend to write on Uncle Sam’s journalistic odyssey. This is purely a piece on what many may not know about this inimitable and versatile journalist as he joins the nonagenarian club. He was born on June 13, 1935.

    The date was Sunday, April 22, 1990. Dawn broke with the bewildering news of a bloody coup attempt in Nigeria. It was led by Gideon Orkar, a Major in the Nigerian Army. It was an abortive coup to overthrow the administration of military president, Ibrahim Babangida who himself took power after a coup d’etat on August 27, 1985.

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    The identified 42 coupists who killed Babangida’s aide de- camp, Lt. Colonel U.K. Bello were apprehended. In one fell swoop 13  journalists and media workers were similarly arrested and detained. The detained journalists’ family members, professional colleagues and sympathizers were in the throes of agony, pain, apprehension, anxiety and outright anger. The veiled threat to try them along with the coupists was hair raising and mind boggling. How can professional journalists who do not usually carry arms be thrown into the gulag, presumably for coup plotting?

    For days there was great apprehension. This was informed by the unpredictability of dictatorship under military juntas. Over 14 years earlier, February 13, 1976, to be precise, a media worker, Abdulkarim Zakari of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Radio Nigeria, was convicted of treason and executed by firing squad along with 36 soldiers and two police men for a similar abortive coup which claimed the lives of the then Head of State, Murtala Ramat Mohammed, his aide de-camp, Lieutenant Akintunde Akinsehinwa and the then Kwara state governor, Ibrahim Taiwo.

    In the instance of the 1990 coup, the great apprehension in the media community was not wearing the alluring garments of guiltlessness. The feeling of uneasiness that they could be put on trial was not taken lightly. The umbrella organisation of all practicing journalists, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), not only raised an alarm but equally demanded their immediate and unconditional release.

    The effort by the NUJ leaders received a boost when the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria, NPAN, collaborated with the journalists’ body to demand and succeeded in holding a meeting with top security operatives. It was unpublicised. It was hosted by Uncle Sam. The venue was the great canal canteen at Vanguard headquarters at Kirikiri Canal, Apapa, Lagos.

    The meeting yielded fruits immediately. The initial figure of 19 detainees was reduced to four. They were the Deputy General Manager of News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, Willie Bozimo, who was accused of having a close link with the financier of the failed coup, Great Ogboru, the late Deputy President of NUJ, Bassey Ekpo Bassey alleged to be sympathetic to the coup plotters, the former Deputy Editor of The PUNCH, Chris Mammah who was accused of writing the coup speech and a reporter with the defunct National Concord, Onoise Osunbor accused of attending meetings with the coup plotters.

    Negotiations with the top security operatives drawn from State Security Service, SSS, Directorate of Military Intelligence, DMI and allied agencies led by the Chief Intelligence Officer of the Babangida regime, General Haliru Akilu did not end with the first meeting. The heart-warming outcome of the negotiations by the NUJ team was that all the allegations have no basis. In fact, all the allegations turned out to be falsehood dressed in inelegant robes as truth. The detained journalists emerged from the shadows of incarceration or was it death, into the warm embrace of freedom. If they had not regained freedom, perhaps, they would have been tried along with the leader of the coup, Gideon Orkar and 41 others who were executed on July 27 1990, in what has been described as the bloodiest coup d’état in Nigeria’s history.

    Perhaps, the role played by Uncle Sam in securing peaceful resolution of the issue and eventual freedom of the four journalists is one of the several things yet unsaid about him. The NUJ President Mohammed Sani Zorro, during the coup crisis said in an interview that unknown to many, Uncle Sam is a strong voice and one of the distinguished figures in the profession of journalism in Nigeria.

    It is incontestable that on several occasions, Uncle Sam waded into feuds between media houses and government. For instance, in June 2019, when it mattered most, Uncle Sam with support from two other publishers, the late Isa Funtua and Nduka Obaigbena resolved the “face-off” between the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC and Daar Communications Plc when the regulator withdrew the operating license of the latter.

    Every passing year, since 1994, May 3, is celebrated globally to appreciate the important work of journalists and to highlight the basic principles of press freedom. It is World Press Freedom Day.

    There are chances that many people haven’t got the faintest idea about the role of Uncle Sam in the proclamation of the day for this yearly global event. He had chosen the ennobling path of quietude.

    The World Press Freedom Day is traceable to inclement environment under which journalists plied their trade in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, even though it was a season that the wave of democracy was sweeping across the continent but journalists were gagged. The media was muzzled. The journalists’ right to know was abhorred. The watchdog of the society was chained.

    It was an agonizing era in Nigeria. The democratic transitions had become lengthy and uncertain. Journalists witnessed repression, persecution, oppression, unjust imprisonment, abduction, detention, physical elimination, and arrests in gestapo style. There were forced closure of media houses, seizure of market ready publications, disruption of printing and distribution of tabloids etc.  In some extreme cases, journalists paid supreme price and suffered deprivations including means of livelihood.

    This deluge of despicable acts prompted a conference of African journalists under the aegis of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, in Windhoek, Namibia between April 29 and May 3, 1991. A remarkable outcome of the conference was a Windhoek Declaration for the development of a free, independent and pluralistic media.

    The Windhoek Declaration was a profound statement by African journalists that Press Freedom is the rotor that drives all fundamental human rights, good governance, justice, fairness and equity.

    By a programme drawn up for the conference, the UNESCO secretariat insisted that two top media executives should be in the delegation of the Union of Journalists from Nigeria. The NUJ settled for the publisher of Vanguard, Sam Amuka Pemu aka Uncle Sam and the managing director of defunct African Concord, Lewis Obi. In fact, Uncle Sam was nominated by UNESCO on the recommendation of one of its officials, late Akintola Fatoyinbo in recognition of his professional career as a notable reporter, editor and publisher.

    A year after the conference in Windhoek, there was a follow up review in the capital of Benin Republic, Cotonou. Uncle Sam and my humble self, represented Nigeria.

    A cheerful news was broken in Cotonou that the General Assembly of the United Nations will hold a special session to proclaim a day for a global event to mark Press Freedom.

    Two years after the Windhoek Declaration, the United Nations General Assembly held a special session and proclaimed the date of its adoption, May 3, as World Pres Freedom Day. That was in 1993. The first World Press Freedom Day was celebrated on May 3, 1994.

    •Bodunrin is journalist with Africa Independent Television and RayPower FM

  • The saga of unbreakable Uncle Sam

    The saga of unbreakable Uncle Sam

    • Dare Babarinsa

    Sam Amuka-Pemu (Sad Sam) has staying power.  He has remained a prominent Nigerian for more than half-a-century.  In 1967 when he was appointed the editor of the Sunday Times, he was just 32.  Before then, he had been the editor of Spear magazine, also published by the Daily Times group.  In 1973, he collaborated with Chief Olu Aboderin, a wealthy accountant, to start the phenomenal Punch newspapers.  It was a collaboration made in heaven.  Amuka had the idea.  Aboderin had the money.  The Punch remained till today, but not the friendship or collaboration between Aboderin and Amuka-Pemu. 

    In 1985 – 40 years ago – Amuka-Pemu established the Vanguard newspapers. The truth is that Uncle Sam has been everything possible in journalism and beyond.  On Friday June 15, many of those who gathered in Lagos to celebrate this living legend were not around when he was a roaring lion on the pages of the old Sunday Times.

    At 90, Uncle Sam has become a Living Deity of the Press. His impact on Nigeria, especially on the press, is great.  Around 1988, I had gone to see him at his office at Kirikiri Canal overlooking the sandy waterway.  I was assigned by my boss in Newswatch to do a story about a young publisher who allegedly was owning money to Vanguard for printing and other services.  Amuka said the story was true, but he would not want any story about it published.  He promised to reach out to Ray Ekpu our Editor-in-Chief,  

    “The young man is restless, but he is trying to do something good,” Uncle Sam said. “We should not discourage him, but help him.  His success may be good for journalism.”

    He was clairvoyant. The restless young man of that day has now become an iroko tree of Nigerian journalism. The truth is that Uncle Sam is an excellent human being. His serenity and royal poise belie the battles he had fought and won.  As the editor of the Sunday Times, he was running the most important weekly in Nigeria the Nigerian Civil War.  It was a testy period when news could have more implications that mere intellectual curiosity.  He made good friends, and remained the journalist  he has always been.  He never tried to trade places with any other profession.

    Amuka-Pemu’s career can be calibrated into three phases.  First was his experience with the Daily Times during the Golden Era of Nigerian journalism.  That was the era of Alhaji Babatunde Jose, the legendary editor who became the Managing Director of the Daily Times in 1962.  There were too many stars in the Daily Times firmaments: Peter Enahoro, Alade Odunewu, Henry Odukomaya, Segun Osoba, Tunji Oseni, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, Tola Adeniyi, Areoye Oyebola,  Tony Momoh, Femi Sonaike, Idowu Sobowale and many more.  We grew up to know them.  They were the heroes of my youthful years. 

    Under Jose, Daily Times was the tree that made a forest.  No reporter thought of leaving the Daily Times except Sam Amuka-Pemu, the irreverent columnist of the old Sunday Times writing under the pen name, Sad Sam.  His writings were witty, filled with sarcasm and ironic twists of words.  He made use of short sentences and crisp elucidations.  He was bold and often ran into trouble.  He was totally unafraid.  Then he thought of leaving the phenomenal Daily Times group! It was fortuitous that he met with Aboderin and they soon start the sassy Sunday Punch, noted for its racy prose, its irreverence and its barely clad page three girls.  Then the two friends fought and Sam-Amuka was pushed out of the Punch.  He went to court and won! Thus began the third phase of the Sam Amuka-Pemu’s story.

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    After Punch, he founded The Vanguard and proved to sceptics that there is life after disaster. The Vanguard is Uncle Sam.  His open personality, his effervescence and his sheer humanity are all expressed in the openness of the Vanguard; its irreverence, its great prose and its damn-the-consequence reporting. The paper attracted intellectual gipsies; those who preferred radical and unorthodox opinion typified by the radical rhetorics of Alhaji Kola Animasaun, Dap Dorman, Chuks Iluegbunam, Eric Teniola, Bisi Lawrence, Pini Jason, Tony Iredia and Chris Momah.  The Vanguard Alumni lists some of the most iconic journalists in modern Nigeria: Muyiwa Adetiba, a living legend of the profession, Toye Akinode, first-class reporter in the old National Assembly, Frank Aigbogun, cerebral, fearless,  Fola Arogundade, informed, courageous, and the incredible Uncle Sam’s alter ego, Gbenga Adefaye, the journalists’ journalist whose delicate dance with trouble has earned him some deep stripes.

    There are many proud Vanguardians, including Professor Ladipo Adamolekun, Hubert Unegbu, Uche Onyebadi, Chris Okojie, Kunle Oyatomi, Tunde Ajani and Wole Akinola, who regards themselves as eternally part of the fraternity.  The truth is that once you have joined the Vanguard Family, you may move on, but you remain parts of the orbit.  Uncle Sam is an incredible mentor; unbreakable under pressure, resilient, fearless and steely stubborn as the military regime of General Sani Abacha found out.  During the Abacha era many newspapers and magazines, including TELL and TheNews, came under intense pressure and they paid dearly for their opposition.  Alex Ibru, The Guardian publisher, escaped an assassination attempt, but was fatally wounded.  The Punch, under the resilient and unbending leadership of Chief Ajibola Ogunsola, was closed several times and its editors and reporters faced incredible oppression and harassments.  The Vanguard, with its irreverent and iconoclastic reporters and editors, paid dearly for their daring. One of the Vanguard reporters, George Onah, the defence correspondent, spent his one-year detention in solitary confinement at the underground cell of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, DMI, Apapa, before he was transferred to the underground cell under the Ikoyi Cemetery on the order of Colonel Frank Omenka, the fiendish boss of the DMI. Yet the Vanguard remained the vanguard of our freedom. Time has moved on, but the Vanguard newspaper remains on the beat.   

    The leader of the team, the Unbreakable Uncle Sam, has lived 90 incredible years, witnessing the transformation of our great country.  That Uncle Sam agreed to be celebrated at 90 is a testimony that he too at last has been transformed.  Ten years ago,  as his 80th birthday was drawing nearer, I called him, reminding him that we needed to celebrate him.

    “What is the hurry all about?’’ he asked.  “Wait until I am dead, then you can have all the celebrations that you want!!”

    This time around, I was told that it took deep conspiracy, led by the iconic investigative reporter and living legend, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, to ensure that Uncle Sam attended his own 90th birthday.  Osoba, former Managing Director of the old Daily Times, drew on his experience and resources, including Gbenga Adefaye, to ensure that Uncle Sam was successfully kidnapped and brought to attend his own birthday!

    The truth is that Uncle’s Sam has lived an incredible life.  Every Nigerian leader has known him on a one-to-one basis: Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Muhammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and Bola Ahmed Tinubu.  While the tapestry of power was changing, Uncle Sam remains the incredible witness, a Voice of Reason, a temperate interlocutor, a towering symbol of our national resilience and possibilities. What a life! 

    Congratulations Uncle Sam! Please get ready to be kidnapped for your 100th birthday!!

  • A tribute to Uncle Sam at 90

    A tribute to Uncle Sam at 90

    • By Azu Ishiekwene

    I   encountered the relic of his presence long before I met Sam Amuka, known as Uncle Sam. Inside a room in the far corner of the old Kudeti PUNCH building, predominantly constructed of plywood and steel frames, there was a wooden armchair that had been a fixture in Uncle Sam’s office when he served as managing editor.

    When I joined PUNCH as a staff writer eight years after his departure in 1981, this piece of furniture was in my first office, sitting like a totem in a shrine, while stories about Uncle Sam floated in whispers.

    The stories could not be told freely in PUNCH at the time because of the bitter dispute between Uncle Sam and his friend and Publisher, Olu Aboderin, which would later end in an out-of-court settlement.

    So, if one were looking for stories about Uncle Sam’s early professional life, particularly his works, the Daily Times would have been a good place to find them.

    In the 1990s, however, the Times started having its own problems, leading to frequent changes at the top, and a dramatic sale that imperilled not only access to the records of the newspaper’s leading lights like Uncle Sam, but even the history of the newspaper which, in its heyday, was Nigeria’s most prosperous, authoritative and vibrant brand.

    From ‘Offbeat Sam’ to ‘Sad Sam’

    Uncle Sam made his name at the Daily Times, but his journalism career did not start there. According to Ben Lawrence, in an article entitled “An artiste and a builder,” published in Voices from Within, a collection of articles edited by Lanre Idowu to mark Uncle Sam’s 70th birthday, he made his first call at the Sunday Express, where John Pepper Clark was features editor.

    J.P. Clark nurtured him, but it was at the Times that his talent blossomed. He started with “Offbeat Sam,” which, as the name suggested, was an unconventional, straight-from-the-heart weekly column that stripped many social and political issues of their cloak of hypocrisy.

    Like many elites in the 90s who criticised gossip magazines as street rags but never missed reading them behind closed doors, “Offbeat Sam” made politicians and government officials uncomfortable. But it was a foretaste of what was to come.

    When Uncle Sam moved from the Sunday Express to become editor of Spear magazine (he later edited the Sunday Times), a Daily Times publication set up to rival Drum of South Africa, he started the “Sad Sam” column. His entry expanded a vibrant and robust field of punditry that included the likes of Hadj Alade Odunewu, Peter Enahoro (Peter Pan), Clarkson Majomi, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, Haroun Adamu, and Uche Chukwumerije, amongst others.

    Writing for a living

    “Sad Sam” was not interested in the news. He exploited the foibles and follies of politicians and those in authority to entertain, provoke emotions, or instigate deeper thinking about who we are.

    An article by Gbemiga Ogunleye, “The columnist’s power,” quoting Sad Sam in the Sunday PUNCH of August 12, 1973, said, “I (Sad Sam) write for the same reason that a houseboy cleans the house or a secretary-typist takes shorthand and types or a taxi driver rides the street, touting for fares…or an executive in business or government goes to the office or a professional burglar steals. For a living, that’s all. It’s none of my business to correct the ills or save this country!”

    I’m a bit like Sad Sam these days, chastened by the years and weary of making any fuss about changing the world by writing. However, one area in which I could never be like Uncle Sam is his management style.

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    Be ‘a little mad’

    In an industry where he once admitted in a sticker on the wall of the PUNCH newsroom, “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but a little madness helps,” how did he manage a steely coolness in his small body frame amidst the turmoil of the newsroom, never mind the many tempests of a life forged in the vicissitudes of the streets of Oguanja in Sapele?

    Was his stoicism partly shaped in his formative years, including his time as a left-winger for the Government College, Ughelli football team and his education at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Enugu, where he studied architecture?

    As Odunewu wrote, the intensity of the newsroom creates more of the likes of Lord Beaverbrook, the publisher of the Daily Express or MKO Abiola of the Concord – or even Sam Nda-Isaiah of LEADERSHIP – a breathless and restless stock in whose corner I find myself, than the likes of Uncle Sam who would rather go to the office with a peace offering than drag the office to their presence by the scruff of the neck.

    An eye for talent

    Eric Teniola, who worked with Uncle Sam in PUNCH between 1977 and 1981, as Oyo State Editor, Constituent Assembly Editor and Lagos City Editor, told me that one of Uncle Sam’s greatest gifts is his capacity to always look on the bright side, the opposite of the essence of a Sad Sam.

    “He knew how to spot a talent and to bring out the best in the people who worked with him,” Teniola said. “From Muyiwa Adetiba to Toye Akiode and Frank Aigbogun, he identified some of the most remarkable talents in the newsroom and created the environment that inspired them to work. He was always informal, unpretentious and spontaneous, looking for a reporter to give a big break or a miserable bloke to give a free lunch.”

    Ademola Osinubi, former MD/Editor-in-Chief of PUNCH, who started as a reporter in 1976, and later became the chief reporter under Uncle Sam, said, “With Uncle Sam, you couldn’t be sure your script would pass the test until it’s been published. He was an editor’s editor.”

    Gene vs. lifestyle

    As for his longevity, that is a different story. It’s probably part hereditary. Uncle Sam’s mother died at 109. Apart from his older brother, Oritsedere, who passed in 2002, the other three from the same mother are still alive, and the youngest is a woman, Amanaghan, 76. Uncle Sam’s daughter, Omasan Dudu, told me he is a good swimmer and, until recently, maintained a personal yoga coach.

    “He still goes to the office every Monday and takes his exercises seriously,” she said. “I remember he fought against the attempt to convert the open space in his community in Lagos, Anthony Village, where he exercised. But most of all, his longevity is down to his generosity of spirit and God’s grace. That’s how he has managed multiple ulcer surgeries and other big challenges in life. It’s grace.”

    In my obsession to live a long, healthy life, only God knows how many things I have given up. I can’t remember when I last used a sweetener or milk, even gluten-free ones, for my tea or pap. Last year, when I visited him, Uncle Sam had his tea with plenty of honey and topped his tea with several spoonsful of sachet Cowbell milk. Packets of Kemp’s crackers biscuits littered the cane table.

    Daddy DJ!

    To create the perfect ambience for his refreshment, he turned on music stored on a flash drive. “You don’t know I’m called Daddy DJ?” he joked in response to my puzzled look. That was new to me from a man I consider Nigeria’s answer to Jimmy Breslin.

    In a tribute to Breslin after his death, The Guardian wrote that he was the champion of the trials and troubles of the ordinary people in New York. “He filled his columns with gangsters and thieves, whom he knew first-hand from drinking in the same bars. He told stories that smacked of blarney behind their anger.”

    That could have been Sad Sam, a man punctual as the clock, passionate about press freedom and sustained by righteous rage.

    Live and let live

    Three years ago, he had a fracture. He had undergone a back surgery and was on his way to an appointment for an acupuncture procedure. Instead of walking over a plank in front of the place, he tried to jump over the gutter and fractured his leg. I asked the editor of Vanguard, Eze Anaba, how the Vanguard publisher, who was then 87 years old, had survived the fall.

    “He believes that life has a NAFDAC number,” Anaba said. “Nothing can take you out if your number has not expired.”

    I asked Osinubi how he would describe this man he has known for 49 years. “He lives life on his terms,” he said. “Live and let live.”

    Here’s to another 20, Uncle Sam!

    •Ishiekwene is Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the book, Writing for Media and Monetising It.

  • Uncle Sam and John Bull as identical twins

    Much has been said about Great Britain and the United States as having special relations that grew out of shared history and worldview. It is common knowledge that the early settlers of the early AMERICAN colonies came from Great Britain. These were people running away from religious persecution and intolerance in Europe. On settling down they swore not to be involved in the wars and diplomatic entanglement that characterized old Europe from which for political and economic reasons, they severed their ties by their Declaration of Independence from Great Britain in 1776. Massive migration from all over Europe has diluted the British component of American population to the extent that by now people of German ancestry outnumber those of British descent. Overtime  and In spite of traditional American isolationism, the United States have been drawn into two world wars by the old Country and since 1945, the United States has had to remain militarily engaged to protect American will, order and worldview in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. The air campaign against ISIL (Islamic state in Iraq and the Levant) is the latest of American engagement with the world in spite of President Barack Obama’s pledge not to go to war but to wind down American military intervention and putting American boots on the ground anywhere during his presidency. Events however seem to force Obama to go back on his pacific commitment because as we write, American special forces are increasingly being deployed in Iraq and northern Syria to stiffen the forces fighting the Caliphate forces and in the case of Syria, those fighting the caliphate and Bashar -al-Assad’s regime. In all the American military interventions outside the Americas since 1945, the British has always followed American lead whether in Korea, Iraq or Afghanistan. This must be seen as the British reciprocating American support for the British in the First and Second World War when it was with reluctance that the USA went into war during those two global conflagrations. Since 1941 at the height of the Second World War, Great Britain and the United States have coordinated their plans about the running of the world. So we can say up till the premiership of Winston Churchill and the presidency of Delano Roosevelt, American and British relations could be described as that between twins even if not identical twins. This does not mean they always agreed. In fact, in the immediate post Second World War global politics, the USA was not in favour of Britain holding on to its colonies and disagreed with Winston Churchill when the British politician stated that he was not going to be the first prime minister to “preside over the liquidation of the British empire”. His successor Anthony Eden was rebuffed by the USA in 1956 when an Anglo-French force with Israeli support invaded the Suez Canal after Colonel Gamal Abdel-Nasser had nationalized the canal thus expropriating the Anglo-French company that built and owned the canal. When the Russians issued a threat against the invasion, the British asked for American support to which the USA responded that the USA will carry out its responsibilities under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s protocols which was a loaded omission used in diplomatic communication which in this case meant America would not support Britain because the NATO protocols call for support of NATO members only in Europe not when such members were waging a colonial war outside Europe. The lesson of not expecting unquestioned American support encouraged a future Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to issue the statement about the wind of change blowing in Africa and persuading his country men and women that independence for African countries was inevitable. Even the residual settler colonies of the Rhodesia, that is (Zambia and Zimbabwe), Namibia and the big elephant of South Africa until it became clear, received coordinated resistance of the British supported by the USA. But since we have transited to a new world of sovereign independence of nations, cooperation between the two English worlds of America and Great Britain has been in the area of economic cooperation worldwide and military cooperation to secure the dominance of the English world which sometimes goes under the Anglo-Saxon world. English, thanks to America’s global dominance remains a universal language just like Latin was the dominant language at the time of the dominance of the Roman Empire thus signifying a correlation between power and global language. Even though NATO remains the pivot of western security, the special relations between Great Britain and America within NATO is a major factor in American diplomacy. We can even say we live in the AMERICAN century in which English is the language of technology, particularly ICT and diplomacy. This fact is traceable to American military and economic might as epitomized by the fact of the dollar being a global reserve currency. The British benefit tremendously from this American glory. This special relations is however under increasing scrutiny.

    President Obama for example has publicly stated that while not dismissing the idea of the special relations, he has been more interested in emphasizing the America-pacific relations. He said having been born in Hawaii, he naturally sees more sense in the pacific orientation of American foreign policy. First of all, Asia particularly the Pacific Rim countries of China, Japan and other countries in South Asia and South-east Asia hold the future of the world in their hands. Secondly, Asia is where  two-thirds of the world resides and the increasing economic prosperity of the area constitutes the largest market in the world. These factors are also leading to a loosening of ties between the Anglophone Commonwealth countries of Canada and Australia and Britain and a pull towards China. Does this mean Chinese may displace English in the future? It does not appear likely because  there may be one and a half billion Chinese, but they do not enjoy the spatial distribution that English language enjoys.

    The recent pull out of Great Britain from the European Union  has apparently  diminished  the  importance of Great Britain in global  significance. President Obama said this much when he advised  the British electorate not to vote to leave the European Union. He was rebuffed and the current British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson  even insulted him that he was anti-British because as he said Obama has anti-British proclivity because of his Kenya origin. There is a growing isolationism in Britain and the United States. The Brexit  vote showed what one would call little englandism,  a tendency that has a long beginning in British history where the British have always shied away from European entanglement. The vote was also a vote against immigrants and the possibility of people flocking into Britain particularly from Eastern Europe and against the economic policies of the David Cameron government. The result is that Britain is pulling out of Europe. This withdrawal from Europe has resonated with Donald Trump who has styled himself Mr Brexit, supposedly meaning he would shock the world by winning the presidential election. If one can make sense from Donald Trump’s  numerous incomprehensible statements about American withdrawal from NATO, NAFTA, WTO and asking Japan and South Korea and perhaps Germany to develop their own nuclear weapons instead of relying on American nuclear umbrella, there is a growing feeling in building fortress America and allowing every other country to build and take care of its own defences. The leader of the BREXIT campaign  Nigel   Farrage has been seen campaigning with Trump  and saying America must take its own country back just as the British have taken their country back. This  is a coded phraseology of putting non-white people in their place. The Trump rise in American politics hinges on his anti-immigrant posture and racism. The important thing is that there is a meeting of minds between American and British conservative politicians  in recent years and if Trump wins there certainly will be more rapprochements between the Trump White House and No 10 Downing Street. The tie of the English language and culture is so strong that it will really not matter  who wins the presidential elections in the USA the special ties will  continue to remain strong. Of course the old days of WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) domination of AMERICAN politics may be on the wane since  Catholic J. F. Kennedy ‘s election in 1961 and the demographic diversity  of the American population. This diversity indicates the fact that there will be other factors that would drive American policy than the interests of the previously dominant  Anglo-Saxon  sentiment.

    Finally the increase in American power compared with the diminution in Great Britain’s power would lead not to equality of relations between the two countries; rather the United Kingdom will have to increasingly dance to American tune as if it were one of the states of the American Union. In African parlance, Britain will be a junior brother to its senior American brother, thus leading to a historical reversal of role in the world. Britain’s exit from Europe rather than increasing its leverage and independence will rather quicken its decline as a major power. But it will continue to have influence   but not power because of its historical ties with the Commonwealth countries and America itself with which it shares a common language, culture, common law and judicial tradition and democratic praxis.

  • No, ‘Uncle Sam’

    •America should stop pestering us to devalue Naira

    Despite its firm resolve not to devalue the national currency – the naira, the United States government, it would appear, cannot wait to see the Buhari administration go that route. Moments before President Muhammadu Buhari jetted out to the country last week, US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, spoke of the US government’s desire to bring up the matter for discussion. According to her: “Our recommendation is, and we will have discussions about it … is that they should look at the exchange rate and try to make the exchange rate more realistic to what the value of the naira is to the dollar”.

    Are we surprised that the US government would seek to arm-twist the government on an issue that the Nigerian government would ordinarily consider as settled? Only when one forgets that the United States-based lender, JP Morgan, had in September last year expelled Nigeria from its Emerging Market Government Bond Index (GBI-EM) citing “alleged lack of liquidity and transparency in the nation’s foreign exchange market”. The measure came after it could not get the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to lift foreign exchange trading restrictions imposed in the wake of the relentless surge in demand for forex.

    The same sentiments were echoed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after it emerged from its 2016 Article IV Mission to the country in February. “The foreign exchange restrictions introduced by the CBN to protect reserves have impacted significantly on segments of the private sector that depend on adequate supply of foreign currencies”. It then recommended “as part of a credible package of policies…the exchange rate should be allowed to reflect market forces more and restrictions on access to foreign exchange removed, while improving the functioning of the interbank foreign exchange market”.

    As in cases of this nature, the US is hardly an uninterested party.

    And what is the position of the Federal Government? Perhaps more than any other subject, the Buhari administration has set out its arguments most forthrightly – shorn of ambiguity: First, that a country whose dominant export is oil, one with limited export potentials, has very little to gain from devaluing her currency. In other words, devaluation, given the current virtual absence of an export base will boost nothing; rather it will only lead to a general rise in prices of goods – a case of double jeopardy. Second, that in the face of continuing slowdown in the rate of accretion into the nation’s foreign reserves, the forex restrictions had become necessary to halt the inexorable march into a balance of payment crisis. Flowing from this is the need to ensure that the limited forex are allocated to sectors considered as priority by the Federal Government.

    It is not exactly that we expected that the Buhari administration’s argument would sway the US government, the IMF or even the hordes of portfolio investors who have neither the stake in the economy nor the stomach to appreciate the resolve of the Federal Government and the imperative of the controls put in place to stem the negative flow of capital.

    However, for good or for ill, the Federal Government has made its choice. To the extent that Nigerians who daily live with the consequences have had the opportunities to debate the pros and cons in an open and unfettered atmosphere, the least we expect from a government that considers itself friendly is to understand and accept the choice by the duly elected administration. In the circumstance, we find the resort to subtle blackmail not only scandalous but unacceptable.

    So, rather than baulk, the Federal Government should rebuff the pressure; indeed, it should stick to what it considers the nation’s primary interest, which is that both devaluation and removal of the foreign exchange trading restrictions at this time can only bode ill for the economy.

  • Uncle Sam has gone nuts again   

    How, this is no harmless pun of Ola Rotimi’s comedy, Our Husband has Gone Mad Again; but a real grim fear at the re-enactment of the Biblical Tower of Babel; an audacious earlier attempt to technologically challenge the natural order of things.

    The Bible is a book of faith.  But were it a non-religious book, amenable to scholastic critiquing, the Tower of Babel could well pass for an apocryphal tale decrying vaulting ambition — over-ambition, even! — of cocky technology (on one hand) and the Almightiness of God (on another).

    Recall: the tower, to link the earth with the heavens (an audacious technological bid in those days, Hardball would imagine), was on course; and Man was a virtual heart-beat away from rudely looking in, into God’s celestial secrets — or so to say — until the Almighty played the language joker.

    That clinical break in communication put Man back in his place; and the heavens reigned forever — hallelujah!

    But comes a fresh challenge, after that pristine triumph.  Hardball talks of no less than the 5-4 US Supreme Court verdict, legalising same-sex marriage (a modern era deodorisation of bad, old sodomy, a pervasion under Mosaic law; and traditional African values), under the axis of human rights.

    Too true, President Barack Obama hailed it as a triumph for America.  But if you look at the less upbeat side, it is America’s triumph, in its human rights, to wilfully de-populate itself — fair enough, won’t you say?

    Still, looked at more deeply, it appears an audacious challenge, maybe the most serious, after the Tower of Babel debacle, to the natural order of procreation — for how can same-sex couples procreate: or do American scientists harbour, in their laboratories, a technological joker to grant Adam and Steve (to borrow that fast-growing cliché); and Mariana and Belinda, the fruit of the womb?

    But an Arab lobby is not particularly bothered, even if it views what it terms an American sexual pervasion, with cocky indignation and contempt.  It has come up with a documentary decrying what it calls America’s fouling of the globe with its home-made pervasion, rebranding homosexuality and lesbianism, in the guise of some avant-garde culture, that must be zestfully embraced by a new global civilisation.

    It, however, figures that by the time America is done depopulating itself by its newfound sweet poison, the booming  Arabs of the generations next would swoop on and take over the American homeland.  That, in its view, would be the ultimate sweet revenge for America’s past and present rascality!

    Another troubled Nigerian emigrant weighed in with his own troubled musing.  ”When I came to America, homosexuality was a crime.  Later, it became acceptable.  Now, it is legal.  I better leave America before it becomes compulsory!”

    Well, well, well!  Will we soon have neo-Andrews, checking out from goddamn America, across the Atlantic, to Naija, the new God’s own country, in a reverse trek of what happened in the 1980s and 1990s, at the height of the military misrule?  That would be the day!

    Meanwhile, it is heart-warming churches here are quite radical in their anti-gay posture, particularly as it relates to procreation and family life.

    If America presses her rights to gay rights, we sure can press our rights to our cherished values of marriage, procreation and family life!

  • Uncle Sam’s confused wisdom

    It is puzzling that the internationally powerful and influential US government, which apparently enjoys playing the role of the world’s policeman, may be more willing to render assistance to victims of the terroristic Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria than help in quelling the Islamist guerilla force. This odd sense of responsibility is a possible implication of the picture painted by the Press Attache, US Embassy, Abuja, Sean McIntosh, in an effort to clarify his country’s position.

    Interestingly, McIntosh reportedly offered a list of help-related figures, including the provision of $19m for the vulnerable and conflict-affected households in Nigeria by the American government in 2014. He said: “More than $7m from the US Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance supports health, water and sanitation services; the delivery of emergency relief supplies and protection activities for women and children in Northeastern Nigeria.” He continued: “USAID/Food for Peace has provided nearly $7m in emergency food assistance and the US Department of State has provided more than $15m to fund protection activities in affected areas.”  McIntosh also said: “In addition, the US government provided more than $54m in humanitarian assistance in Cameroon, Chad and Niger, targeting refugee populations from neighbouring counties, including Nigeria.”

    Perhaps to drive the point home that the US is not short of ideas and plans to help those affected by the violence in Nigeria’s Northeast, McIntosh reportedly mentioned that two new programmes were in the pipeline, including a ‘crisis response’ programme to be funded with between $20m and $30m, and designed to provide basic education, especially for internally displaced boys and girls.

    It is noteworthy that these sweet-sounding words were uttered against the background of a weighty allegation by the Nigerian Ambassador to the US, Prof. Adebowale Adefuye, which implied that America seemed to be enjoying the bloody drama by terrorists in Nigeria and was not doing enough to assist the country in winning the terror war.

    In a damning criticism, Adefuye on November 10 told members of the Council on Foreign Relations: “The US government has up till today refused to grant Nigeria’s request to purchase lethal equipment that would have brought down the terrorists within a short time on the basis of allegations that Nigeria’s defence forces have been violating human rights of Boko Haram suspects when captured or arrested” He also said: “We find it difficult to understand how and why, in spite of the US presence in Nigeria, with their sophisticated military technology, Boko Haram should be expanding and becoming more deadly.”

     Adefuye’s complaint and observation brings to mind the memorable biblical quote, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Maybe in an increasingly individualistic and impersonal world, Adefuye’s words had a ring of naïve optimism about human nature and, perhaps more importantly, what is called realpolitik.

    However, there is the other side of the coin, which is the burden of America’s perceived global leadership ambition. It ought to be easy to see that terrorism in any part of the world is a threat to all, particularly in the context of the reality of the global village. Uncle Sam’s wisdom in this matter is confusing and confused, and suggests that there may be more to it than meets the eye.

  • Uncle Sam has gone mad again!

    Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, by the late Prof. Ola Rotimi (God bless his soul!), was a great one for laughter and mirth. It was theatre as rib cracker!

    But this Uncle Sam’s case is not funny. Uncle Sam has gone really mad and you could tell by the campaign in which he gets involved.

    The other day, John Kerry (in Awada Kerikeri version: comical version, should anyone need a translation) grumbled aloud about Nigeria’s new anti-same sex marriage law. That was funny because the last time it was checked the law was for Nigerians, not Americans. So, is playing meddlesome interloper the latest brief from President Barack Obama?

    Secretary of State Kerry had not quite resolved his self-imposed dissonance before another fella, James Entwistle, sitting US ambassador in Nigeria, entwined himself in a matter strictly none of his business.

    A Vanguard January 21 report headlined “Gay-Marriage Law: US threatens to sanction Nigeria”, quoted Mr. Entwistle as saying, as a “friend” of Nigeria, he felt the law that President Goodluck Jonathan just signed could create some problems with Western donors’ (read American) funding of interventions in AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (ATM), even virtually flexing muscles that Uncle Sam might withdraw his ATM cash! Some friend! Some fiend!

    Well, somebody had better blow the whistle on this Entwistle! He should wake up and, as his compatriots say, smell the coffee! Strictly, Americans could go beyond same-sex marriage, wed their dogs in new-found churches and declare to themselves it’s cool. They could even start post-modern families, integrate rabbits into homes and banish children into pens. If it’s cool for them, it’s cool for them. It’s no Nigerian business.

    But Mr. Entwistle – just as Mr. Kerry – went way out of line by decrying the anti-same sex law and threatening sanctions, not for any superior logic but simply because securing gay rights is the latest American fixation. It is the height of hubris. Americans could turn their own societies upside down. But they must never get the hubris that their new-found folly is binding on every other people. Certainly, not on Nigeria and Nigerians!

    And just imagine that crap about fundamental human rights! Beyond cultural impunity with mindless arrogance, the American lobby ought to have checked and double-checked the meaning of “fundament” before slapping it on human rights and blabbing on some denied rights. If self-extermination (for what is same-sex marriage, if it is not self-extermination?) is fundamental to America’s survival, lucky them! They probably have fulfilled their manifest destiny. But Nigeria cannot afford such licentious luxury!

    Mr. Entwistle rankles particularly on one point, though: if Nigeria with all its wealth still depends on Uncle Sam to treat its ATM patients because of galloping corruption and unthinking leadership, the Entwistle insult is a wake-up call – and a jarring one too!

    Even then, let Uncle Sam keep his cash. But let it not present its new Sodom-and- Gomorrah status as some new-found paradise into which everyone must clamber.

    It is nothing but deodorised perversion.