The Nation Newspaper

Tag: versus

  • National interest versus rule of law

    Since President Muhammadu Buhari posited that for national security, individual liberty must give way, bang at the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) conference, the polity has been in a whirr — torn between the lobbies of security (the law and order ensemble) and the lobbies of liberty (press your freedom and the heavens won’t fall).

    Both however would appear to hug the extreme, the fantastic black-or-white.  Much –if not all — of life is the ordinary grey.

    For starters, pristine government came with some surrender of individual rights, to a common collective.  To checkmate the strong from rolling over others, the collective craved a Leviathan, surrendered some of their rights to this all-powerful juggernaut, so the Leviathan be a protective shield for all.  It was the original “social contract”.

    But down the ages, that contract had somewhat been abused: first, by the absolute monarch, by the so-called divine rights of the king, put in place in concert with rogue priests; then some rogue theocracy itself, with the church or mosque, grabbing power; then by feudalism, in which the quickest to seize the means of production crowned themselves the lords the land must worship; down to the tragedy of military rule, where the gun, and absolutely nothing else, shot up the wielder!

    Still, all through the ages, something has stayed constant: the imperative to balance the security of the collective with the liberty of the individual.  That ding-dong is not about to be settled.

    But while this tension rages, there is always the penchant, by both sides of the divide, to wax emotive, abuse the process and swing the balance to their side.

    A law-and-order government would often wave the security imperative; and why, before it, every knee must bow — and be slaughtered.

    But that is not the only guilty party as, from the citizen liberties front, smart crooks often forge citizens’ right as shield against just comeuppance, waxing lyrical and romantic over the rule of law, even if their motive is to escape due and fair sanction.

    With the British Common Law legal system without the British ethos that makes it work, it is natural for frustrated governments, who want to do good, getting justice for the majority but being pecked back by legal technicalities, to flip; and show their frustration by waving the security imperative.

    But the good thing is for the courts to be alive to their responsibilities, to interpret the law, fair and square.

    Rule of law, though a right, comes with grave responsibilities.  That is why a convicted criminal, once in gaol, loses the most basic of citizens’ rights: liberty.  Even pre-conviction, it is trite that personal liberties are subject to collective security — and no amount of poetic gushing on the rule of law can wish that away.

    But then again, it is the courts’ bounden duty: to push back a government gung-ho on the security imperative but also hold to account lobbies that seek undue advantage, by crass abuse of the rule of law, to corral illicit gains.

    The courts therefore hold the ace to maintain this delicate balance, of personal liberty and security.  They must never surrender it, no matter what.

  • Broom revolution versus umbrella united

    Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria will next year complete uninterrupted 20 years of democratic governments. The Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) formed in 1998 by merger of numerous groups after the annulment of June 12-election by General Ibrahim Babangida’s military junta, controlled power at the centre uninterruptedly for 16 years from 1999 albeit under three respective presidents; Chief Olusegun Obasanjo – late Umaru Yar’Adua – Goodluck Jonathan. Unfortunately, the administrations had same records in common, monumental fraud, fantastically-corrupt system, administrative deficiencies and autocratic tendencies, though Yar’Adua’s administration was short-lived, thus a decisive clamour for change.

    In 2014, to actualize a change of government against admitted maladroitness then, some radical forces fused which led to the ‘broom revolution’; hence, All Progressives Congress (APC) was birthed with litany of promises.  And by a resilient electoral wind in 2015, Muhammadu Buhari won as APC’s first government thereby swept out PDP from power. Since then, APC navigates the nation as ruling party. Incidentally, whilst some give the government credit including international community, opposition punctures it simultaneously from all sides.

    However, as Nigeria runs a quadrennial system, the present administration is winding up on May 29, 2019 either for a second term or stepping aside. The ruling party, APC, most likely with President Buhari as its flag-bearer will contend with other parties. To strengthen their capacity, PDP has rallied around other parties including Obasanjo’s ADC for a merger, hence the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) towards presenting a consensus candidate against APC.

    Recently, some distressed APC members in the National Assembly, strategically, first tagged themselves as rAPC – some interpreted ‘recalcitrant-APC’, some as ‘rejected-APC’ and another set, ‘reformed-APC’. They copiously made threats of defection and finally did lately. Incidentally, whilst they issued threats, other ambitious bigwigs wished their threats come through, and energetically work towards securing their positions. Among their grievances were the president’s non-preferential treatments to lawmakers in the fight against corruption and purported abuse of laws particularly express purchase of a fighter-jet to aid security in the country, among others.

    Without a doubt, a good merger will boost the numerical strength of the opposition for a tough battle to unseat the present Aso Rock number-one occupant. Nonetheless, the overriding factor is the presidential candidate vis-à-vis profile and political-will that the union will produce. To oust the present government by the same groups with egotistic mindsets that drained the country for almost two decades into economic recession will not be an easy one putting into account some laudable policies President Buhari administration put in motion especially diversification of the economy and the ongoing fight against corruption.

    The APC-led federal government may not have done too well in the last three years and the reasons are not far-fetched. The administration was inaugurated amidst collapsed economy; stone-broke that the previous government finally resorted to loans for workers’ salaries. The treasury was drained that appointment of ministers was halted for six months while completion of ongoing projects let alone awarding new contracts wasn’t practicable. Pensioners’ pay had become no-go areas and same replicated across various state governments except Lagos, Anambra and few others. Visibly, things fell abysmally, apart. The World Bank icon, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala then as supervising minister of the economy, couldn’t hold onto it but shouted at the top of her voice on the looming dangers. Unfortunately, she was surmounted by cabals in the government.

    Presently, having prudently exited the recession, 2018 budget for the first time since Buhari’s assumption of office rekindled hopes of Nigerians with myriad of capital projects spread across all the geopolitical zones in the country. Unfortunately, despite the timely presentation, precisely on November 7, 2017, the budget danced around and round at the National Assembly until May 27 it was passed with some questionable increments by lawmakers. Evidently, the system is adding values. For example, JAMB recently remitted N7.8billion unlike before and similar reports across other agencies. Again, most states in the federation have migrated to producers – an index of economic progression irrespective of high cost of living at the moment. By economic theory, market forces will on its own pull down the prices in no distant time by persistent productivity. Thus, all things being equal, the present administration improved the system.

    Resultantly, the onerous challenge facing the merged CUPP is the leadership material that can beat Buhari’s scorecard which redeems the nation’s hitherto impaired image. The merger’s dominant party, PDP is disreputable in the minds of Nigerians over its previous monumental havocs on the economy. Another remarkable feat of Buhari’s administration is the political will to bring to an end the ‘Ghana-must-go’ money bags that hitherto characterized the legislative arm during PDP’s era.

    Irrefutably, prior to this administration, no legislative duties ever took place in the National Assembly without inducements; screening of appointees, confirmation of appointments or budgets defence. It became a norm for MDAs (ministries, department and agencies). Thus, with the same dramatis personae as the coalition’s arrowheads with prejudiced tendencies, majority will reasonably shun the alliance. It goes beyond merger but the actors alongside their values. It is insufficient to merge for power but essentially, goals to accomplish and mischief to remedy. If not, it is to say the least, a collection of fifth columnists.

     

    • Umegboro is a public affairs analyst.

  • Lawmakers versus executive

    With barely three weeks left in the first quarter, Nigerians watch incredulously as the executive and the legislative arms bicker to no end on the 2018 budget. Like Budget 2017 which would not become operative until June when it was signed into law, indications are that things would not be too different.  Early in the month, the Senate had accused the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, of delaying the passage of the budget. Its vice-chairman, appropriation committee, Sunny Ogbuoji, during plenary would inform the parliament that the committee was having difficulty harmonising their report on the budget.

    “Most of the sub-committees (on the 2018 budget) have huge challenges with the MDAs because majority of them are not coming forward to interface with them,” he said.

    Penultimate Sunday, Ben Akabueze, director-general of budget office, refuted the claim. While asserting that President Muhammadu Buhari submitted the budget with all the usual details required by the National Assembly to process it, he insisted that “ministers and heads of agencies have made themselves available to explain and defend the budget,” adding that “Given the seriousness the presidency attaches to getting the 2018 budget passed so it could earnestly focus on achieving the goals set out in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), 2017-20 which formed the basis of the budget, it had directed heads of ministries and extra-ministerial agencies to attend to any requests for meetings/information by the National Assembly (NASS) with despatch.

    “To the best of our knowledge, this directive has been complied with,” he said; although he would in the same breadth, admit that “complaints about additional information with respect to the budgets of government-owned agencies (GOEs) are being addressed”.

    There can be no looking far to see the truth. Neither side, as far as we can see, can claim to be telling the whole truth. Between and executive branch notorious for tardiness and bumbling incompetence and the lawmakers with their shameless predilection for promoting group-interest over and above national interests, the truth about the corporate dereliction obviously lies in-between.

    The tragedy of course is that the development has become the pattern in the fourth republic. If we had expected the change administration, which incidentally controls the executive and the legislative branches, to beat a different path, it has been more of the same with every cycle of budget since its inception –  just as acrimonious if not more.  Where the executive has not been needlessly tardy, sometimes obdurate, to the point of abdicating the duty of timely defence when called by the parliament to do so, the National Assembly would insist on refashioning the budget in its own image.

    Truth be said, it is hard to gloss over the alert last November by Senate spokesman, Aliyu Sabi, over an alleged refusal by heads of key agencies to honour the body’s invitation to discuss the budget. Earlier, the same Senate had accused the executive of inexplicable delay in the submission of the 2018 to 2020 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).  This is why the claim by the DG, Budget Office regarding the complaints of the lawmakers being addressed is not only hollow but mischievous.

    If only for the sake of the still-fragile economy, we call on both arms of government to seek the path of amity. Despite the modest recovery in oil prices, the economy currently is still managing to limp, hobbled by the yawning infrastructure gap as a result of which the quest for diversification has remained herculean.

    Already, there are real bases to fear that the modest Gross Domestic Product growth rate projected by the International Monetary Fund (2.1 percent) and the World Bank (2.5 percent) for the current year may turn out to be an illusion. Should that happen, it will constitute an intolerable self-inflicted pain – smacking of criminal irresponsibility.

  • It’s Fayemi versus pretenders

    SIR: Three and half years into the administration of Governor Kayode Fayemi in Ekiti State has witnessed transformational and infrastructural developments in various sectors. The patriotism and selflessness that characterised the socio – political and economic transformation of the state speak volume of the integrity of Fayemi.

    Considering Governor Fayemi’s achievements, it is curious to note his main challengers for the June 21 poll,  Micheal Opeyemi Bamidele of Labour Party, Kole Ajayi of Accord Party and Ayo Fayose of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in particular have not really come out with any identifiable manifestos and programmes of their plans for the people of the state.

    It is rather unfortunate that the trio have resorted to inundating the poor masses with barrage of attacks on the eight-point agenda of Governor Fayemi..

    Fayose’s name will not be forgotten in a hurry by an average Ekiti indigene because of the way he governed the state in three and a half years before he was unceremoniously removed after he was found guilty of financial misappropriation by a panel of inquiry. His case with EFCC over his billion naira deals with a non-existing Ekiti State Poultry project is still pending before a court of competent jurisdiction.

    That Fayose, who was defeated in the last senatorial election because of his antecedents has now garbed himself in the robe of honour has not made him an honourable man. Nothing has changed in Fayose’s attitude, behaviour and disposition to warrant the people of the state voting for him to govern the state again.

    Apart from Fayose, Bamidele is another candidate in the June 21 poll. MOB, a member of the House of Representatives became Fayemi’s estranged political soul mate when it became obvious that his efforts to have a shot at the seat of power were going to be checkmated by the leadership of the party.

    It is obvious that MOB’s defection to labour party, an off-shoot of PDP is borne out of his desire to play a spoiler game in Ekiti governorship election. However, Fayemi’s achievements and performance are obvious for all to see.

    The question Bamidele has to answer before contesting for the governorship is what Ekiti has benefitted from the eight years of service in Lagos State and his membership of House of Representatives.

    Kole Ajayi of Accord party is certainly contesting in the governorship election to probably play to the gallery.

    All said, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must use the Ekiti state gubernatorial poll to redeem it battered image. INEC must get it right in Ekiti. “War” must be averted in Ekiti state. A repeat of the Anambra governorship election debacle must be prevented.

    The aftermath of the 1983 political shenanigans which started in old Ondo State is still very fresh in our memories. We cannot afford another crisis in Ekiti when Boko Haram insurgency is still a major concern. The new found peace in Ekiti state must be sustained. The credibility and the outcome of the June 21 poll in Ekiti state will either make or mar the integrity of INEC.

    • Toyin Omogbemile

  • African Union helmsmen Versus ICC

    We start the week with due apology to our numerous readers for our two –week hiatus from this column due to some operational and logistic reasons. In our absence, the world’s economic engine room, as in the United States of America, was mired in this avoidable economic shutdown and still is; the last time this happened was 17 years ago under President Bill Clinton, the 42nd. Also, another deadline on its debt ceiling extension looms even larger on the horizon than the former because of the disastrous consequences on the nation’s credit rating.

    Also, while we were away, a rash of fatal migrant boat capsizing continues to ravage refugees escaping war-ravaged North African and Middle Eastern countries especially Syria in search of their quest for greener pastures in mostly cash-strapped and recession –ridden Europe.

    Mother Nature had not been too easy on India and the Philippines with typhoons and heart-rending mudslides, while Egypt, Azerbaijan reel under unmitigated unrests.

    Still on the European continent, the colourful doyen of Italian politics, Silvio Berlusconi, is gasping for his political breath on what is now a recur, for corruption and graft charges. Current Prime Mister Letta barely survived a vote of no-confidence by the whiskers after Berlusconi pulled his MPs out of the often fragile political calculus that is the hall mark of Italo-political calibration.

    Berlusconi, the foremost political Teflon and survivor of Italian politics, has pleaded for community service while on home arrest and the beat goes on.

    Greece keeps struggling economically as higher education faces more dire straits with faculty members’ retrenchments under the whimsical whims of the European Union unpalatable palliatives.

    In this global mix enters our very own continent, mother Africa. Our leaders just rose from a one-day summit in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital; where the helmsmen stoutly beat their chest and threatened hell and brim storm to defy and as a matter of fact pull out of The International Criminal Court, accusing the body of bias against leaders.

    By way of historicism, our mostly harebrained and hedonistic greedy and selfish African leaders do not believe they have to be held accountable for their misdeeds; even as their people suffer. They quickly and conveniently forget the African wise saying of when you point a finger at someone; in this case an institution, the other four squarely are in your face.

    Both newly reelected Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and his deputy are facing trial for war crimes at the tribunal.

    Kenyatta, 51, has been in office since April. He is from the Kikuyu ethnic group and is accused of having financed and helped organize the Mungiki, a militia-like organisation that was implicated in the worst atrocities against other ethnicities in the wake of the 2007 poll. Over 1,000 Kenyans were killed in the pogrom.

    In this continent of ours we have had leaders like Idi Dada Amin in Uganda; Charles Taylor in Liberia; Siad Barre in Somalia, Omar Bongo in Gabon, Emperor Haile Sellassie in Ethiopia, Sanni Abacha in Nigeria and countless others with antecedents of murderous infamy and concatenation of inflictions of miseries on their people.

    The question is at what point are we going to keep our leaders accountable for their misrule, privation and pauperisation of this beautiful African continent without laying all the blames on external forces?

    In other climes and other lands, when you do the crime, you do the time. African people are becoming too timid to challenge their greedy, thieving and irresponsible leaders, the judiciary are so corrupt that they can not hold their feet to the fire and if some of these countries have accepted even the notion whether as its’ been bandied in the case of Omar al-Basir’s Sudan, that they have not ratified the treaty, it should not matter; since they had ab initio agreed to the concepts of international agreements and cooperation, and in this case to the ICC.

    For the record, this Court was established under the Statute of Rome which came into effect on 1 July 2002.

    The Court is based in The Hague, Netherlands. According to official sources, “the court is intended to complement existing national judicial systems, and may only exercise its jurisdiction when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes”.

    Currently, 122 countries are parties to the Statute of the Court, including all of South America, nearly all of Europe, most of Oceania and roughly half the countries in Africa. A further 31 countries, including Russia, have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. The law of treaties obliges these states to refrain from “acts which would defeat the object and purpose” of the treaty until they declare they do not intend to become a party to the treaty.

    The Kenyan case is indicative of how self-serving African leaders could get when it suit their purposes. The newly elected President Kenyatta hoodwinked his legislature to formally pass into law the country’s withdrawal from the ICC when his deputy has been physically showing up at the same court.

    In any case, the same statute, clearly stipulates that the withdrawal process normally takes almost one year while the court still holds and takes its legal course.

    Presently the President of the court is Judge Sang-Hyun Song from Republic of Korea with Malian Judge Fatoumata Dembele Diarra as First Vice President and German Judge Hans-Peter Kaul as Second Vice President.

    The bottom line is this. Whether local, national or international, Lady Justice holds the Sword of Damocles blindly, and it should always fall wherever it needs to fall.

    Back in our own landscape called Nigeria, our greedy politicians steal our commonwealth; both monetarily and electoral and then start shopping around with their conniving SANs for dubious and amenable judges; no thanks to the ineptitude of our so-called crime-fighting agencies.

    Well, the welfare and wellbeing of our globe continue to be our collective responsibility. Let’s keep it green. We will see you next week.

  • Ezekwesili versus our lawmakers

    There is a wacky Igbo saying that if a man undertakes to single-handedly devour a snake (out of greed of course), the slithering serpent would simply regenerate and live in his tummy happily ever after to the greedy man’s eternal discomfort. This seems to apply to our legislators’ ‘gerrymandering’ with our treasury. Remember Hardball had stated on this space that it would not let up on this issue until our compatriots in the National Assembly come to terms with us on what they truly earn.

    And it isn’t only Hardball who is aggrieved seemingly. Since after the damning survey by The Economist of London, which ranked our lawmakers as the highest paid in the world many Nigerians have expressed their bitterness at NASS’ obduracy in the face of unspeakable rapacity. They are worried that the members have elected to live in denial of a situation most of us know as a matter of fact. Last week, the crusade (that is what it has become) got a boost from no mean a personage than Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili who weighed in that NASS members have spent N1 trillion in 8 years. “Since 2005, the National Assembly members have been allocated N1 trillion,” she said noting that “82 per cent of Nigeria’s budgetary cost goes for recurrent expenditure.” She also suggested that: “Things will improve through part-time legislation. It will reduce the number of people who will go into the National Assembly. You must have means of livelihood so that you won’t have to depend on public funds,” she surmised.

    Of course, the NASS would not hear anything of a part-time tenure and they had promptly shut down the idea in the budget amendment debate but that will be a matter for another day. Now we must dam the river of waste flowing through the legislature. Mrs. Ezekwesili is no attention-seeking rabble-rouser; she was a minister twice in the Olusegun Obasanjo administration and former World Bank vice-president for Africa. She spoke at a public lecture and she has a reputation for being rigorous and facts-driven.

    Senate Majority Leader Victor Ndoma-Ebga has described Ezekwesili’s statement as “blackmail” while Victor Ogene, Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs provided more obfuscation than clarification. But the facts of the matter are public and inviolable; a tally of the budgetary allocation to NASS since 2005 amounts to a little over N1 trillion just as Ezekwesili had pointed out. The lawmakers have also tried some finger-pointing by comparing themselves to the executive arm of government; they talk about the fleet of Presidential jets and excessive overhead and we say that we know and we agree but neither the executive nor the legislature is allowed to run loose and licentious over our national treasury.

    Besides, NASS has a bounden and statutory duty to keep a keen eye over our national treasury and do all that is within its powers to see that it is not violated. We do not need The Economist to tell us that we are being utterly profligate with our resources and that our current expenditure profile is not sustainable. Indeed, we do not need experts to prove to us that there is a direct relationship between the unbridled wastefulness, especially in the executive and legislative arms of government and the incipient social upheavals and grinding poverty in the land today. There is no running away from it that the NASS has no choice but to surgically purge itself of the serpent that has curled up in its tummy. It must start on a clean slate. This is the only way it can earn the moral authority to check the recklessness that goes on in the executive. In as much as Hardball loathes to sound apocalyptic, if the NASS would not take the initiative to make amends, the people would have no choice than to force the change someday soon.

  • Achebe versus Soyinka

    Achebe versus Soyinka

    Barely two decades ago, poet and playwright Femi Osofisan delivered a broadside, and it was as a keynote speaker at an annual convention of the Association of Nigerian Authors. According to the big-eyed lover of theatrics, only two serious Nigerian authors inhabited our literary firmament: Wole Soyinka and Niyi Osundare.

    Not a few writers and critics were scandalised by his claim. Many thought it was deliberately contrarian, an act of drama by a dramatist to draw attention to himself not by the pithy wisdom of his declaration but the mere vanity of it. He was a public desperado banging his shoes to gain attention.

    The first question thrown at him was predictable: What of Chinua Achebe? Wearing a glum mien almost as defiance, he maintained his assertion and said many people paid attention to Things Fall Apart, and that was not even his most accomplished work.

    At the time, I was in my mid-twenties and just beginning to overcome my illusion from my teen years. I was weaned on Things Fall Apart, read it, worshiped its creator and placed Achebe as the preeminent deity in the literary pantheon not only on the African continent but all over the world. But how many writers did I know and how many books had I read? How skilled was I in the art of appreciating the collaborations of words into narratives?

    But as I grew out of my naivety towards the end of my years at the Obafemi Awolowo University, renouncing Achebe as a god of literature was like a shock of atheism in the church. I was abandoning the temple, unfrocking the priests and demystifying the canon. I became an apostate in the true religion. I felt conned by my breeders. I ate the poisoned diet, malnourished by untutored chefs.

    Literature belongs to a complex world, and because everyone can pick a novel or play and read, the impression often comes across that it is everyone’s game. George Bernard Shaw said snidely that “vocations are a conspiracy against the laity.” He was right. Not everyone can be a medical doctor, or software analyst or Supreme Court judge. Everyone can sing but not everyone can tell why a good song is great although they have their personal attitudes and predilections. Not everyone can postulate on good literature. Achebe’s works were good literature, but whether he wrote a great novel, leave that to those who know.

    I never intended to write another column after last week’s in which I echoed William Shakespeare when I characterised Achebe as a self from self. That is, he struggled with alienation throughout his life.

    Since the bard’s death, many people either by subtle references or direct barbs have tried to do two wrong things. First, they claimed he deserved the Nobel Prize but was deprived. Two, that Achebe was greater than Wole Soyinka. By inference, they claimed that Soyinka did not earn the prize and the wise men of Stockholm ought to have given the medal to the author of TFA.

    How come the father of African literature did not win the preeminent prize? The phrase, made popular when he won the Booker Prize Lifetime honour, has been appropriated to imply that Achebe was number one on the continent. So why did he not win the prize? First, TFA was a great book not because of its literary properties but because of its ideological potency. The Nobel Prize does not go to a novelist whose work is signposted by sociological fixations supplanting narratives with long pages of how Igbo villages are organised. When Osofisan asserted that TFA was not his best book, he meant that more attention should go to Arrow of God, a better book. So why do his admirers say less of Arrow of God but pay more encomiums on TFA. It is because they are struck by the timely power of the book. The West, embraced TFA for its introduction of its peoples to the dignity of African society, a thing they did not care to glean from accomplished works that came before TFA. Even the writer, Amos Tutuola, with his Palm wine Drinkard, came long before. But the west wanted an African to write like them so they could applaud him. And Achebe did it in a simple language.

    Did he succeed by using the language as a tool of subversion? Hardly. For a sampler of that sort, read Yambo Ouologuem’s Bound to Violence. TFA was a story of a clash of culture, which was nothing new. He wrote about the assertion of local pride, which was hardly original. But it was a counter-narrative, and it was done with gusto and minimal dexterity, and that was enough for them. They were amazed at the manipulation of proverbs and other manifestations of local colour. But the proverbs were never original, just like many of the proverbs in Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame.

    The other novel often quoted was A man of the People and critics have credited him with prophetic insight. The novel predated the 1966 coup. But it was hardly original because the conversation was already in the air on the continent. So he wrote good works, not great works, not textured by deeper insights that you would see in better accomplished works.

    Achebe was nominated severally for the Prize, but he did not get it because his works had to be weighed against the competition, other works also nominated by various groups. It was the comparison that exposed his works. If TFA was not his best work, it goes without saying that it was a book that thrived on popularity not subtlety. Literature is not about the popular text. It is about high art. If Achebe influenced a generation of writers, that makes him a great writer. But it is a testament to theme and not artifice.

    Soyinka, on the other hand, won based on his plays and poems. If we were to judge by popularity, many would pick the Lion and Jewel and the Jero Plays as Soyinka’s masterpieces. But far from it. They compare in richness to TFA. Many who cavil at his prize have probably not read the following: Death and the King’s Horsemen, Madmen and Specialists, Kongi’s Harvest, A dance of the Forest, The Road, Opera Wonyosi, among others. Each of these works is a stunner, primed with layer after layer of thought and meaning wrapped in narratives.

    Those who read TFA like clockwork may be put off by some of Soyinka’s opus. So they should not obsess out of ignorance. They should read first. If you knock Soyinka on obscurity, you have a right. But high art is not always easy to understand. Those who claim to enjoy TFA cannot write a literate essay on the book and why it is high art.

    Because of his stature as a playwright, some downplay his other gifts. In the Nobel citation, he was also praised for his prison Notes, The Man Died, as well as his long poems like Ogun Abibiman, which I guess many readers have not even heard of.

    It is true that some great writers are passed over for the prize. But few disagree that those who win deserve the accolades. The other Nigerian I expected to win was Christopher Okigbo, who was tragically lapped up by the Civil War.

    Achebe was a good story teller, so was my grandmother. Turning from a raconteur to an art of sublimity and depth belongs to the masters. Because of his influence on a continent, I compare him with Samuel Johnson of the Shakespearean era. He was described as a great writer but not a great artist.

  • APC versus APC versus PDP

    APC versus APC versus PDP

    Nothing represents more acutely the distress facing the unregistered All Progressives Congress (APC) than the biblical quotation in Matthew 13:25. It says: “But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.” The verse is the opening shot in a parable told by Jesus Christ using farming analogy to describe the kingdom of God. But it could very well describe the predicament the APC is in today. How did matters get so tangled up? The APC, that is, the original APC made up of three or four political parties (Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change, All Nigeria Peoples Party, and a part of the All Progressives Grand Alliance) excitedly came together early last month to activate a paradigmatic change in Nigerian politics. While they were still putting their papers together to seek official registration, they were at the same time irrepressibly bouncing up and down the country acting as if they were already a registered party, making deft moves, giving the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) sickeningly effective uppercuts in faraway Maiduguri, and perhaps already secretly imagining they were going to cause an upset in the 2015 polls.

    Alas, they underestimated the enemy, their old and furtive antagonist, the behemoth with many tentacles and, now, many proxies. While APC slept, perhaps dreaming of political nirvana, the tip-toeing enemy craftily spawned “four or five APCs” and got lawyers to put in application for their registration before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The proxy APCs have so unnerved the real APC that the latter’s top hats are no longer sounding as self-assured as they did when they knocked out the PDP in Borno State about two weeks ago. It has probably come to the APC in an epiphany that, just as this column had warned, the PDP is very much alive and capable of delivering knockout punches even with its back against the ropes. The activists in the more troublesome APC will of course fight the ruling party’s chicanery, but from now on they will respect the enemy and learn not to underestimate it.

    It is expected that INEC would do the right thing eventually, for there are probably still a few men in its top echelon whose consciences are still alive and functioning. The chairman of the electoral body has indicated the issue of a surreptitious attempt to register a proxy APC would be investigated. He will see the investigation to its logical end, and he will ensure that justice prevails. Being a man with an eye on history, it is unlikely he would let such deliberate malfeasance define his accomplishments. More, it is also unlikely that the ruling party, which is alleged to be behind the birthing of the pesky proxies, really wants to permanently disfigure the real APC with one brutal blow to the medulla. All they want to do, it seems, is to discomfit or disorient the political upstart, make it less giddy than it has been in the past few weeks, confound its strategies, and generally earn respect from it. Therefore, they will use the proxy cards as much as is feasible until it becomes untenable. Then they will move on to other more malevolent stratagems, some of which will reach maturity as the fateful elections draw near.

    In many ways, the real APC should thank its stars that the ruling party is showing its hand early in the day. The proxy battle, no matter how it is resolved, should tell the APC that the months ahead are fraught with forebodings. There will be bitter battles, eyes will be gouged out, and ears bitten off. And if care is not taken, what seems a proxy, phoney war today could very well transform into a sanguinary war tomorrow, the type experienced by combatants in the Somme Offensive in World War I. From all indications, the APC can stand a chance only if it adopts unorthodox fighting style. The current fanciful footwork it has embraced, reminiscent of Georges Carpentier’s sweet but ineffective pugilistic style against the bullish Jack Dempsey (Heavyweight boxing match, Jersey City, New Jersey, 1921), will have to give way to more enduring pragmatism and, shall we say, more devilment, if it is to stand a chance of winning the polls and redeeming the country in 2015.