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Tag: World

  • A world of war celebrates the prince of peace

    A world of war celebrates the prince of peace

    I did not plan on writing on religion so soon after last week’s conclusion of my two part series, “Risky path toward theocracy.” But two related events last Sunday changed my course.

    First, in his sermon, my pastor alluded to the troubling senseless violence going on in the country. Kidnappers are on the loose. Militants are wrecking disaster. Armed robbers are on the prowl. To us, it was stale news. Then he threw in the bombshell about human beings beheading fellow human beings and cutting them into pieces as if preparing them for the cooking pot. It must be one of those fake news, I told myself.

    I certainly did not want to believe such a terrible story of human cannibals in the civilised world. But my pastor’s follow-up question was pertinent: what is the role of Christians in a world that is lost in evil? Are we contributing to human depravity or aiding and abetting sin? In the midst of abject poverty that leads people to crime, suicide and homicide, what is the Christian message? It was a sermon, so there was no room for answer.

    Second, however, at a house fellowship in the evening, the discussion topic was the coming of the Prince of Peace and the question was “how can the message of peace that Christ delivered be effectively disseminated today?” Unlike the pastor’s question, this question was a call to open discussion. My contribution to that discussion is the subject of the column today.

    The paradox could not be starker. The world is in tumult. From east to west, from south to north, peace is elusive. There is external aggression and vicious internal repression. International terrorism rivals domestic disturbance. Religions preach peace but practise war in its various dimensions- in word and in deed. How then can the message of peace be disseminated when the messengers are neck-deep in war?

    Let us step back a little. Before Christ, there was religion but no Christianity. That’s pretty pedestrian. What is significant is that the religion of the Old Testament celebrated violence as God’s ordinance through his prophets. Declarations of war were considered divine and any order to destroy an entire nation with its innocent children had to be carried out to the letter. Within communities, it was an eye for an eye. And the ultimate punishment reserved for the blasphemous was death on the cross, which became the lot of Christ himself.

    Then Jesus the Christ was born as God’s final gift to a sinful world. He was to serve as the supreme sacrifice for humankind. He preached and practised peace in word and deed. He fed the hungry. He healed the sick. He blessed the poor. He intervened to save a poor adulterous woman from her hypocritical accusers. He even saved one of his assailants from the sword of an angry disciple who had sliced his ear in defence of Christ. And he taught his listeners to avoid conflicts by turning the other cheek so their attackers can gratify their aggression.

    For true believers, then, Christ had set the bar for the promotion of peace and the dissemination of his message. Believers are to promote the well-being of the poor because doing it for the wretched is doing it for Christ himself. They are to be peacemakers so they can be true children of God. And even if they were persecuted, as he predicted, they should rejoice in the understanding that they have a place in heaven. In any case, he also admonished that just as his kingdom was not of this world, they also are not of this world. They must therefore not build their treasures here on earth.

    Where are those true believers now? The first disciples tried their best to abide by the master’s instructions. They prayed their ways through persecutions in the hands of the established religious traditions. They were martyred but did not give up the faith or betray the cause of Christ. They were poor in material wealth, giving their lives to itinerant preaching and healing without pomposity. It was because those who witnessed their actions saw in them the attributes of Christ that they named them Christians or Little Christs. Generations later, those Little Christs were a rarity. Today, they are virtually non-existent.

    From being the persecuted in the aftermath of Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension, the “Little Christs” became the persecutors once they gained political power. They went after pagans like lions after their prey. Whereas Christ preached with compassion, the political Christians, with the backing of the state, preached hate. In concert with the entrepreneurial class of the time, they endorsed the Atlantic slave trade, which killed millions of Africans and took many more to the New World as chattel slaves in the plantations of “Christian” capitalists where they were treated as expendable properties. Slavery was abolished only when it was no longer useful for capitalism.

    Meanwhile, from the same New World that treated Africans only as tools of labour, came missionaries that preached the gospel of Christ in the African homeland. But the land that sent them to Africa continued to treat the sons and daughters of Africa they had enslaved as expendables, unworthy of the rights and protections that were extended constitutionally to their fellow human beings. It was fellow (White) ministers of the Church that attacked Martin Luther King Jr. for being too aggressive about civil rights. His response to them was the Letter from Birmingham City Jail which exposed their hypocrisy.

    They have not changed. Obamacare provides health insurance for the poor, with tens of millions benefitting. Evangelicals overwhelmingly supported a presidential candidate and congressional candidates who promised to repeal the law. One presidential candidate with evangelical credentials even rated Obamacare as worse than slavery.

    Perhaps foreign Christians are a different species that falsely identify as Christians. What about native Christians from the heart of Africa? What has been the state of Christ’s message of peace and compassion?

    Recall that Christ himself predicted all that is being experienced today. Didn’t he tell his disciples to be aware of foxes in sheep’s clothing? Did he not tell us that many will falsely come in his name? What has been common to most if not all Christian evangelicals today is the shameless love of money, fame and power at the expense of the peace of God and compassion for fellow humans.

    The Internet is saturated with fake news and one must not indulge in lending many of them credence. But reading about a pastor who made a deal with a man to have the man fake death and be placed in a coffin so that at a rally, the pastor will “resurrect” him from his death, I wonder what Christianity is becoming. Is this how to disseminate the message of Christ? How about the exploitation going on in a number of African mega churches. The poor are in need of help with food, shelter and education, but many churches are milking them dry.

    There are notable exceptions, of course, where members are taught the principles of success and economic breakthrough, without the emphasis on the miraculous. But even in providing opportunities for higher education which is the modern avenue to success, many poor families are left out in the lurch with costs way beyond their reach.

    We have wondered aloud why, despite the phenomenal growth of Christianity, with churches littering every city corner across the land, there is more violence and less peace in the land. The epidemic of violence appears congruent with the expansion of churches.

    The reason is not far-fetched. While Christ’s message is delivered in all sanctuaries 24/7, the practice of that message has not been commensurate with the words. So the world of war persists even as it celebrates the prince of peace. So long as word and deed are poles apart, the paradox endures. Fortunately, so do the words of Christ. In the fullness of time, the hypocrites using his name in vain as tools for their personal worldly gains will receive their judgment and be damned in hell.

  • World AIDS Day: Hands up for HIV prevention

    SIR: The first world AIDS day was held in 1988 after health ministers from around the world met in London and agreed to such a day as a way of highlighting the enormity of the AIDS pandemic and nation’s responsibility to ensure universal treatment, care and support for people living with HIV and AIDS.

    The idea was conceived in 1987 by two public information officers, James W. Bunn and Thomas Netter, who were workers of the WHO’s global programme on AIDS but the final approval was given by Dr Jonathan Mann ,former head of the Global programme on AIDS but now known as UNAIDS . It is observed annually on December 1. It is recognized by United Nations and all her affiliate international organisations and member countries.

    The theme for this year is ‘Hands Up For HIV Prevention’.

    In Nigeria, UNAIDS reports that about 60,000 babies are born with HIV annually .The figure has remained unchanged since 2009 and Nigeria remains the highest contributor of children acquiring HIV. The USA Consul-General reports that about 600,000 Nigerians on Anti-Retroviral medications.

    As of 2013, AIDS has killed more than 36 million people worldwide (1981-2012), and an estimated 35.3 million people are living with HIV, making it one of the most important global public health issues in recorded history. Despite recent improved access to antiretroviral treatments in many regions of the world, the AIDS epidemic claims an estimated 2 million lives each year, of which about 270,000 are children.

    The National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA) should map out strategies to go to our rural settings to enlighten the masses because many people in those settings are still naive of this deadly virus. NACA can as well go to secondary schools in order to enlighten the fledgling students there and sex education can also be included in our academic curricula.

    People should be enlightened on the ways of transmission of the virus and how to avoid them through safe sexual and good hospital practices, Safe antenatal and postnatal care, proper use of uncontaminated sharp objects/instruments and safe disposal of contaminated objects etc. The governments, at the federal, state and local government levels, need to do more in ensuring that not only the ART drugs but also other tests and services are rendered free to the HIV patients. In some settings, some of them are mandated to pay for laboratory services hence those that don’t have the money for the tests may not be able access full medical treatment.

    If Nigeria is truly the Africa’s largest economy, we don’t need to overemphasise on the need for all services and treatments to be rendered free to the victims of HIV infections. Legislation can be enacted to ensure that multinational companies contribute a particular percentage of their income to the HIV campaign. All forms of discrimination against people living with the virus must be stopped.

     

    • Dr Paul John,

    Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

  • World Toilet Day: Lagos promotes sanitation

    The Lagos State government has marked the World Toilet Day.

    The yearly event promotes safe toilet habits to prevent diseases and epidemics.

    At the event, held in Apapa, the Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, who was represented by his Special Adviser on the Environment, Mr. Babatunde Hunpe, said: “We remain resolute in taking sanitation issue to the front burner as we are determined to ensure that the twin evil of open urination and defecation can no longer rear their ugly heads.”

    He noted that the day was an opportunity to raise awareness about the value of best sanitation practices and propagate the right to water and sanitation among Lagosians.

    The governor pointed out that Lagos, as the fifth largest economy in Africa, was being exposed to movement of people from other parts of the West Africa sub-region, adding that this situation had compounded the challenges of water and sanitation of the state, even with 570 public toilets spread across the state.

    “One in every three people on this planet still does not have access to a clean and safe toilet; at least 1.8 billion people globally use a source of drinking water that is contaminated; 2.5 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services, such as toilets or latrines and 1,000 children die daily due to poor sanitation; whereas better sanitation supports better nutrition and improved health, especially for women and children,” Ambode said.

    The governor decried the practice of open defecation and urination, saying that not only does such act pollute underground waters, but also contaminate agricultural produce, aid the spread of diseases and incapacitates the workforce.

    Consequently, the state, he said, would provide modern public conveniences and upgrading of already facilities across the state, stressing that plans were afoot to step-up on-going massive enlightenment drive by putting waste management on auto drive, whereby Lagosians would be encouraged to sustain a clean, aesthetic and safe megacity that would always set the pace for the enation.

    “We are also accelerating the provision and monitoring of public toilets within the state, in addition to massive awareness campaign to re-orientate the people towards positive sanitation attitude,” Ambode said.

    He stressed that his government established the public sanitation utilities to draw up the roadmap for combating open urination and defecation in public areas within the state which would reduce health care costs.

    Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare, represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Adeyemi Saliu, enjoined Lagosians to join the state crusade to attain a cleaner, healthier, functional and sustainable environment, capable of promoting economic growth and well-being of the citizenry.

  • A new world order

    In April, two months after the Republican Party primaries started in the United States of America (USA), I got a call from a friend – a Nigerian – who has been there for over fifteen years. When the results of the election became clear by ushering in Donald Trump as the President-Elect last week, the discussion we had reechoed in my mind.

    Knowing my interest in international affairs, he advised I pay specific attention to the Republican primaries because if Trump clinches the party nomination I would be “seeing the next President.” Since the race was just gathering steam with the likes of Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and others, I gave his prediction passive thoughts because of Trump’s lack of political experience prior to entering the primaries. He was an outsider and interloper.

    I asked why he was so sure. His answer: America is sometimes a “land of the absurd” where the unthinkable often happens. “I have lived here for over 15 years and I can confidently tell you that nothing can be too certain. It’s not something I can put a finger on or explain, but I can assure you that what sometimes happen here does not happen elsewhere; mark my word.”

    Two day after Trump won I called him declaring him a “prophet” because even some “prophets” in Nigeria got their predictions wrong. He had a long good laugh and said he wish something like this can happen in Nigeria because “Nigeria is still my home. Sometimes, I miss speaking my language, I long for home but the stories I hear make me stay back, after all I’m an American citizen.”

    As the dust generated by the campaign – adjudged as one of the most acrimonious in recent times – finally settles, the new reality and what Trump stands for is being critically analysed afresh. In essence, we are entering a new world order which started with Brexit in the United Kingdom and now the emergence of Trump. Analysts believe that France, Germany and other European countries who have elections from next year might follow this route following the resurgence of nationalism and ultra-right movements in the west.

    For starters, Nigel Farage, who helped midwifed Brexit as the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, campaigned with Trump. Other illiberal populists were among the first – and the most enthusiastic – to celebrate his victory. Marine Le Pen, of France’s National Front party, congratulated Americans on “choosing their president of their own accord instead of rubber-stamping the one chosen for them by the establishment.” Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right leader who recently out-Trumped Trump by calling for on an outright ban on the Quran, rejoiced in the fact that “politics will never be the same…. What America can do, we can do as well.

    The far-right is optimistic for one reason: they have enjoyed a meteoric rise in recent years, they now see themselves as part of a common enterprise: to separate liberalism from democracy. Note that in a liberal democracy, the rights of minorities are protected and independent institutions like the judiciary rein in the power of the government.

    In the illiberal democracies which the vanguard of the illiberal international has established in countries like Turkey or Poland, by contrast, minorities are scapegoated for political gain and independent power centers are systematically undermined. For Nigeria and Africa, this portends danger because it will embolden leaders to court dictatorial tendencies and remain in power indefinitely.

    This new world order means that America now has an untested non-politician president who made a list of campaign promises he can’t possibly keep; a foreign policy novice whose vows to scrap trade agreements and renegotiate alliances have alarmed the world; a crude braggart who derided minorities, women, the disabled and even prisoners of war. But it’s in the nation’s interest to pray for his success — because the failure of an American president, especially one with Trump’s style, would be chaotic and destructive.

    The U.S. allies in Europe are worried; will Trump reaffirm ties with them, which are vital to combating international terrorism, or allow them to deteriorate? It was because of this fear that most of them raised an alarm over the repercussions of a potential – which is now real – trump presidency. Also, China has warned that Trump’s promise to impose sanctions on its economy -for “currency manipulation” that experts say Trump is wrong about – will prompt swift reprisals. Will the president-elect tell Beijing he was only joking?

    The tenets that glue democracy together may begin to wear off because of Trump. In the modern era, democracy has always gone hand-in-hand with nationalism. And the popular perception of who truly belongs to these nations has, in turn, been deeply restrictive. In most times and places, you did not truly belong unless you descended from the same ethnic stock as the majority of your co-citizens – we understand that very well in Nigeria.

    But the U.S is a bit different in this regard. Despite its long and deep history of radical racial injustice, it was tempting to think that America had in some ways become a genuinely multiethnic democracy. Even as many whites jealously guarded their privileges, for example, most had come to accept that blacks or Latinos were fellow Americans.

    But Trump’s election now calls that optimism into doubt. It’s not only that Trump’s willingness to bully and slander members of just about every minority group was a core part of his electoral appeal. It’s also that his extreme rhetoric against minorities gave the longstanding racial divide a voice after a long silence. The Ku Klux Klan became vocal when Trump mirrored their ideology of hate.

    As a beacon of hope, what happens in America often have repercussions around the world. Politics in the U.S is now getting more tribal. This is bad news for Nigerians and Africans where politics is often synonymous with tribe and religion. The main political cleavage dividing Democrats from Republicans was once economic; now it is racial.

    The implications of this transformation are radical. You can have deep economic disagreements while recognising each other as compatriots. But once politics turns tribal, supporters of competing parties may increasingly refuse to think of each other as true fellow citizens. This is why after this election; multiethnic democracy looks a lot less stable in the U.S than it once did. And that is a blow to its prospects in many other parts of the world, as well.

    Another issue that may define the new order is deglobalization. Trump never hid his disdain for globalization because it “takes” jobs away from Americans. If he keeps his words, he might likely walk away from trade deals and agreements in order to “bring manufacturing back” to the U.S. How easy would this be?

    At the onset of the war on terror, the US neglected domestic affairs, especially the state of its industries and economy. This provided China a golden opportunity to perfect its manufacturing resurgence. It became the new hub of manufacturing activities with most countries – including American companies – trooping there to manufacture goods at cheaper rates because of the abundance of cheap labour. Today the Chinese economy is the second largest in the world, next only to that of the US.

    Present day globalization is driven by advances in technology; this has exposed U.S. workers to competition from hundreds of millions of people in other countries, especially Asians. Trump has made extravagant promises that he will bring jobs back to the United States. But how?

    In reality however, the U.S. manufacturing sector – according to economic analysts – has in fact expanded since the 2008 recession, but manufacturing employment has decreased. The problem is that the new jobs are being performed in highly automated factories. Also, coal is being squeezed out by the natural gas revolution brought about by fracking which has created a shale gas boom in the United States.

    We may also be entering a new order where the power of the media may become “inconsequential.” The New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist, Financial Times, The Cable News Network (CNN) and indeed the entire gamut of influential media did not give Trump a chance, but he won. So what next for the media?

  • ‘Africa is world’s most attractive equity market’

    Africa  is still one of the world’s most attractive markets for private equity, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has said.

    The Financial Group, in a statement signed by Associate Director and a co-author of the report, Marc Becker,  said Africa remains one of the world’s growth opportunities for private equity investors, though with some facing serious challenges of recent.

    To generate the high returns that investors expect, however, funds should consider more flexible investment strategies and new types of corporate targets, the report stated.

    The report, titled: Why Africa Remains Ripe for Private Equity, notes that since the early 1990s, the number of private equity funds active in Africa has swelled from about a dozen to more than 200, while funds under management have risen from some $1 billion to upwards of $30 billion. This rapid growth, combined with the recent downturn in Africa’s largest economies, has raised concerns among some analysts that a bubble is emerging, the statement said.

    The report said most private equity funds and principal investors tend to invest only in minority stakes, with the goal of better managing their risks by leveraging robust local partners. While they overwhelmingly focus on a limited pool of investment targets: profitable companies with annual revenue of more than $100 million and proven track records.

    The report advised that alternative investment approaches are particularly important if funds are to meet the rising expectations of their investors. It said: “Increasingly, development finance institutions are being joined by global institutional investors that are far more focused on high returns. As prices for stakes in large African companies rise, it will become more difficult for private equity funds to deliver high returns. To fully capture the opportunities in Africa and earn high returns, private equity funds must adapt to the rapidly evolving market and consider more flexible investment strategies.”

    The report recommended that private equity investors consider other investment approaches, such as majority stakes, strategic partnerships, and evergreen funds, rather than only funds with timing constraints for divestiture. It also suggested that funds look at a wider range of targets, such as Africa’s growing pool of dynamic smaller companies with significant growth potential.

    “Too many private equity investors are pursuing the same kind of target with the same kind of deal structure,” said Patrick Dupoux, a BCG Senior Partner and a co-author of the report who leads the firm’s activities in North Africa.

    He added: “But look beyond the narrow cohort of Africa’s corporate elite and you’ll see that the continent offers real opportunities. Some of the most promising targets in Africa are companies that are still off the radar of most funds.”

    On their optimism, he stated that despite the rapid growth in funds and a crash in global commodity prices that has hit a number of African economies, the following factors support a positive outlook for private equity.The factors he itemised is that the amount of private equity and principal investment capital under management in sub-Saharan Africa remains very low relative to world standards with a mere 0.1 per cent of GDP. That compares with approximately 1 per cent of GDP in western countries.

    Others are that despite recent setbacks, most economists expect that GDP growth in Africa will rebound over the medium term, driven by a swelling middle class, rising foreign investment in infrastructure, and a growing skilled labor force. The statement also hinted that the pool of investment targets is growing with nearly 11,000 African companies having revenue of $10million to $100million and assets of $20 million to $200million yearly.

  • Changing world of consumers

    Changing world of consumers

    The world of consumers is becoming more complicated for marketers to understand. At a recent roundtable in Lagos, organised by a marketing research firm, KantarMilwardbrown, participants said advertisers and brand handlers needed to retool to understand consumers’ ever-changing lifestyle, writes ADEDEJI ADEMIGBUJI.

    The world is becoming mobile-centric, and the remaining personal computer markets are slowly migrating to mobile. For marketers and brand strategists, this is an ominous sign in a sector still driven by traditional creative thinking.

    In an attempt to build brands, most players still resort to old ways of pushing their brands in an era where consumers have become more sophisticated as their exposure to technology now defines how they relate with brands.

    At a roundtable in Lagos, by KantarMilward Brown, a global marketing and advertising research firm, experts came up with ideas for Nigerian brand and marketing managers, both from the agencies and client’s side, on how to relate with the changing world of consumers. This  is in order to connect with them to enhance returns on investment (RoI).

    On the occasion, the Chief Client Officer, Consumer Insights at KantarMilward Brown, Karin Du Chenne, said the market realities demanded stakeholders to understand the fact that today’s connectivity is reshaping consumers, commerce and content. Noting that marketing to consumers is now tougher, she said there was increased pressure on pricing and more competition.

    With low hurdles for new entrants into the market, consumers are now more empowered because of access to technology.

    Chenne said these have given rise to a range of new business models such as e-commerce and other technological-driven platforms that compete with traditional market.

    She said the models had elicited new experience among consumers who yearn for convenience. Rather than sending emails to make enquiry at far-reaching locations, consumers through their mobile devices just need a click and data on their phones to make purchases and sell.

    “Mobile connectivity has helped emerging markets to catch up rapidly. As expected, younger people remain the most connected. In an era of micro-moments it is important for brands to be a part of the conversation and be consistent across touchpoints,” she said.

    Chenne said further that brands and marketing professionals should expect such changing consumer behavioural pattern in a market that has reached maturity such as Nigeria’s, in which digital/social media is a daily habit with Lagos leading the way in digital/social.

    “As markets mature, consumers become more diverse in their digital behaviour,” she said.

    Experts also said there was a need for brand builders to understand media content consumption pattern among consumers. This is necessary to ensure designing a message that not only connects, but delivers RoI.

    The Global Brand Director, Link, KantarMillward Brown, Daren Poole, said agencies and advertisers should do research to find the missing link between their brands and the target market. While emphasising the role of creativity, he said the truth was that advertising and media content must deliver RoI. “Brands and ads need instant meaning,” he said.

    The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Kantar Africa & Middle East, Charles Foster, said there was a need for market operators to embark on consumer research to understand the changing lifestyle of consumers.

    He,  however, said advertisers and their agencies should not be afraid of cost of data collection.

    He said: “Data source agnostic will drive down data collection costs and change the skill sets in the industry.”

    KantarMillward Brown Nigeria Managing Director, Mrs. Ugo Geri-Robert, said research was key in building brand, adding that technology plays a big role, and that consumers have become more powerful with the use of technology.

  • The world is waiting…

    It is generally believed that people no longer read in this generation, which is a bad news for writers. How do you write when you already have the impression that no one would read it? The other bad news for writers is that even when there are people out there who would read their articles, there are few available platforms to present them to the audience. Several times, the passion of young writers is killed by lack of opportunities to be read. Imagine the difficulty to get your articles published in newspapers or magazines! While the internet appears to be a great opportunity for every writer to be visible, it is not as easy as it seems. There are several blogs without enough traffic to justify the efforts invested in creating contents for them. There are too many sites and pages contending for the attention and limited time of online visitors that you cannot guarantee that your article would be an option.

    However, it is not true that people no longer read because you are reading this article right now. What is true is that people have changed their reading habits. You should learn the specific needs of your audience and how to satisfy these needs.

    Let me share my experience with you. I always wanted to share my ideas through writing but I never had the opportunity to do so. In 2009, I met the Editor of one of the leading newspapers in Nigeria and he promised to give me a column in his paper. I followed up this promise for two years but he never fulfilled the promise. Finally in 2011, I had the opportunity to write for a regional newspaper and this lasted till 2012. Though the paper was not distributed in the State I was in, I kept writing in faith that someone somewhere was reading. In 2013, I was blessed with the opportunity to start this column “Communicate Your Ideas” in The Nation Newspaper and the column is still published every Friday till date. For this, I am ultimately grateful to God, the Editor of The Nation Newspaper and his team.

    Since I started writing this column, I have received several comments from almost every State in the country. Here are a few of the heartwarming messages I have received:

    “I so much thank God that I changed my mind yesterday to go for The Nation Newspaper instead of my regular. Your article has kept my legs fixed and my mind focused. Not only me! Is your piece daily?”- Elder Samuel

    “I read your write up on communicate your ideas in The Nation Newspaper of Friday, June 10, 2016 and I want to tell you that the write up has really touched my heart. I abandoned my ICAN exams after 4 attempts, but after going through your write up, I have made up my mind to go back and complete it starting from this November Diet. Thanks for the priceless information”- Samuel.

    “Thanks for your encouraging piece “What’s Your Excuse?” in The Nation newspaper. I just read it. I have an unfulfilled dream (furthering my education) and I am believing God to help me through. I am encouraged. Thanks” – Fred, Abuja

    These and several other humbling comments led to the establishment of my website. The website is one of the fastest growing platforms on effective communication. Launched in September 2015, the site has enjoyed over 23,000 visits in just 13 months. It has also been visited from over 89 countries of the world with United States, Germany, France, Norway and United Kingdom among the top 10.

    From my experience, I learnt that you must never give up on your dreams because there are people out there waiting for what you have to offer. Writing in itself is a major task without being burdened with the worries of how to share it. I believe there are several world class writers waiting to be discovered. I have also received several requests from people who would love to develop their writing career. Therefore, as I appreciate The Nation Newspaper for the platform given to me, I am also creating a platform for others to develop. I have introduced a new feature, “Talented”, on my website where authors can write for free and have readers appreciate their articles.

    There is so much in you that you have not yet explored. According to Myles Munroe, “The wealthiest place in the world is not the gold mines of South America or the oil fields of Iraq or Iran. They are not the diamond mines of South Africa or the banks of the world. The wealthiest place on the planet is just down the road. It is the cemetery. There lie buried companies that were never started, inventions that were never made, bestselling books that were never written, and masterpieces that were never painted. In the cemetery is buried the greatest treasure of untapped potential.” Never underestimate your gift because the world is waiting for you.

  • Cold world

    It is a cold world in here. I have been here for about two weeks and I am not finding it funny. It is still strange to me. Very strange. Me, Barrister Ken Atsuwete, the conscience of the masses, lying useless in this cold place called morgue.

    Those who killed me think they have eliminated a major cancer in their life. They think this is the end of their eternal suffering and sorrow. It makes little or no sense to them that they might die miserable death. All that matters to them is that the ‘stupid man is gone’. And they are drinking to this erroneous belief. It is really a cold world in here.

    Just three weeks ago or so, I was at the NBA conference in Port Harcourt, the city where the enemies of progress killed me and sentenced me to silence.

    I was firing from all cylinders at the conference. I spoke against corruption. I spoke against man’s inhumanity to man. I spoke against the ills in our society. If you doubt me, ask Barrister Mike Igini. You can also ask the Attorney-General of the Federation. Not a few felt I demonstrated spark of intelligence and exhibited the courage of conviction and expression. Now, I am here, useless and silenced. It is a cold world in here.

    What really was my offence? I have asked myself again and again since I found myself in this cold world. I believe my being here is a huge loss to the Niger Delta. I believe my murder further dehumanises us and portray our region as violent and bestial. My hard work, openness and other virtues I lived for now mean nothing.

    Before they sent me here, I was very vocal against the killing field that Port Harcourt, that city where I eked my livelihood, had become. Politicians outsourced the punishment of their opponents through fatal deaths to cultists.

    In one fell swoop, they killed nine persons, including a father, his two sons and daughter. Those killed are: former Caretaker Committee Chairman of Ogba/Egbema/ Ndoni Local government, the late Hon. Christopher Adube, his two sons Lucky and John Adube , his daughter Joy,  a family friend, Mr. Iyk Ogarabe and the family driver, Mr.  Samuel Chukwunonye.

    All in the name of politics, many are now homeless. Many are now fatherless; many are widows; and many are on wheel chairs, with pellets of bullets lodged in their bones.  Dreams have died and aspirations doomed.

    A monthly average of 19 killings occurred in the state between November 2014 and April 2015. Some of these killings were barbaric. At least I still have my head and other parts in tact in this cold chamber; many  were not that lucky. The heartless men who killed them severed their heads and went away with them. It is a crazy world out there. Really crazy world. And it is a really cold world in here.

    My commitment to ensuring that all men should be equal and as such enjoy unfettered freedom and justice free of any form of abuse has been rubbished. I lived to see others happy and free. Now, I am here in this cold world all alone ruing my fate. It really is a cold world in here.

    My faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal Saviour emboldened me to fight for the people without fear. In Christ, I was content and not moved by filthy lucre. My stand on issues, even when controversial, was always crystal clear. Bad governance and rogue regimes got the rough edge of my tongue. Sadly, people who admired me have to be referring to me now in the past. It really is a cold world in here.

    I am at that point when one feels Heaven should arise on one’s behalf. I feel like my blood should speak. But, the way of God is not the way of man. Those who killed me may still be around for decades enjoying their ill-gotten wealth, their free women and wine and all the filths they see as the good things of life.

    I wonder what will become of my client, a former Chairman of Asari-Toru Local Government Council, Ojukaye Flag-Amachree, who I strongly believe is being unjustly held in detention.

    Since being in this cold world, I have felt may be I should have joined them when I could not beat them. I have felt may be I should not have threatened on a radio programme in Port Harcourt that I would expose how a politician obtained a forged court order restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission from releasing Tai Local Government Area rerun election results.

    On that programme, I promised to present proof that the court order did not exist. I vowed to show that the judge who purportedly gave the order was in the United States at the time the order was purportedly given.

    Thanks to those who killed me I am here in this cold world with my proof and clearly not in a position to expose those characters. They have stopped me in my track. Now only God can expose them.

    I had complained to close associates of threat text messages, phone calls and so on for speaking out on topical issues. But, we all did nothing to enhance my security and here I am in this cold world, thinking about what was. It is really a cold world in here.

    Since being sentenced to this cold world, I have pondered over a few questions: Will my killing serve any other purpose other than a debasement of humanity and eternal pain? How did we get to the point where life becomes so cheap and mean so little to people? How could fellow citizens choose to take the life of other citizens without fear? How can a human being with flesh and blood flowing through his vein riddle a fellow human being with bullets thus cheapening human life in the basest way imaginable?

    It is a pity I have now joined the long list of unresolved murder in our land, which I spoke vigorously against. Now, who will continue from where I stopped? I can only guess that some people will. It is really a cold world in here.

    Let me leave you all to ponder over 2 Samuel 12:10: ‘… Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house …’   So, shall it be unto those who sent me to this cold world. It is a really cold world in here.

    I need to also add this: Those who today glory in evil are merely holding the tiger by its tail. They will definitely end up in the tiger’s belly.

  • Why Trump presidency will be good for the world

    SIR: Donald Trump, brash billionaire businessman and presidential candidate of the Grand Old Party (GOP) or the U.S Republican Party is media favourite for visceral pillory. Ever since he made his brash entry to U.S primary nomination in the Republican Party, media heckles and tantrums have been his lot. His political insurgency, peppered all the way with outlandish innuendoes, including the most notorious jibes to ban Muslims from entering the U.S and building a great wall across the shared border with Mexico, rankled the established pattern of U.S political correctness, jarring the jaws and profaning the serenity of America’s traditional political hypocrisy where grandstanding holds sway.

    However amidst Trump’s so-called daily garbage of tantrums are some immutable and seriously intelligible diagnoses of what ails the United States of America. He consistently remarked that the worldwide misadventure of Washington is eating away at the vitality of the country to provide for its own people. He implied that there is no sense in American exceptionalism and the burden of a global policeman it has imposed on itself. Trump promise to make America a normal country that looks after itself and its people first, while contributing its own fair share to global governance.

    For saying that America would under his presidency mind its own business, the war industry and their political and media wing, across partisan divide went up in arms against candidate Donald Trump, but his unmistakable message that seemed to have resonated with the weary ordinary America that shot him to the GOP nominee is likely to see him through the presidency. If he fulfils his vision to restore America to a normal country that minds its own business, the world would leap to a new framework of multilateralism, mutual consultations and dialogue of civilizations devoid of the arrogance of exceptionalism and indispensability of any one nation or group of nations.

    Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate purports herself as the epitome of civilized political behaviour but who is actually the political package of the war industry. Her rhetoric of active Washington bohemia across the world is a recipe for global chaos to be orchestrated by a new Washington bully. She and her war industry patrons would escalate confrontations with Russia using the pretext of Ukraine and would most likely draw out China in a military conflict by exacerbating the tensions in the South China Sea.

    The chaos of the Middle East will be further expanded as more military violence are likely to be piled up on the existing military stalemate in the region, under the usual arrogance and delusion of the war industry that only military escalation can guarantee its victory and ensure its hegemony.

    There is no doubt that the system of U.S global domination has taken a huge toll on the quality of life of ordinary Americans, including the white working class, who are the main support base of Trump. The worsening state racial violence in which African Americans are the largest victims in the United States, represent the travels of the overstretched system.

    The finesse in the language of American politics has always disguised the undercurrent of systematic exclusion of the working and toiling people to the country’s political and socio-economic mainstream. The highly regimented discourse of the America electoral politics has been busted by the brash and freewheeling interjections of Trump. The Trump mystique and even his popularity among American nativist working class are the unusual candour and clinical expressions that mirrors their fears and even hopes. Straying from rudiments of American political hypocrisy and electoral correctness has earned Trump the ire of the guardians of the system, including the mainstream media.

    It may not really matter to the rest of the world, how Trump resolves many America’s intractable domestic problems but if he could refocus Washington to the real challenge of improving  the lives of America, with less penchant to global trouble-making, the world would be a better place.

     

    • Charles Onunaiju

    Abuja.

  • World is watching Nigeria’s near-implosion

    Under British rule, Nigeria did not begin to be one country until the British colonial rulers unified it with a   federal constitution in 1949-51. From that moment on, the makers of Nigeria began to make the mistakes that have now led Nigeria to unmanageable disharmony – disharmony that has now brought Nigeria close to breaking up.

    The makers of the 1949 federal constitution recognized that Nigeria was a country of hundreds of diverse nations. But in the making of the federal constitution, they chose to accord recognition and respect to only the three largest nations – the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo. There was no thought of respect for the smaller nations; all of them in each of the three regions were supposed to accept to exist happily under the large and dominant nation of their region. Naturally, the small nations in each region protested loudly and demanded a separate composite region of their own. The leaders and government of the Western Region stepped forth and supported the demands of the small nations of each region – including even the small nations of the Western Region. But, even after the British rulers were forced to set up a commission to investigate these demands and the commission had recommended that the British should grant them, the British chose to reject them.

    It was in the context of these historical happenings that Nigeria went astray in the management of its diversity. In the first place, it was gradually made to look as if seeking the interest of one’s particular nation in Nigeria was a backward looking stance, an attack on the unity of Nigeria. This got so bad that a Nigerian could not even say that Nigeria was made up of different peoples, without being called a “tribalist” – without being stigmatized a “Pakhistanist”.

    The foundation of it all was a woolly-headed superficiality – a refusal to look at facts, or a deliberate rejection of obvious and inescapable facts.  Our country is a country of very many peoples or nations, some large, some small. That is the fact. That fact does not presuppose that we cannot build our country into a harmonious and prosperous country. Sure, we can. Sure we could have done it if we had cool-headedly accepted the fact of our country as a country of many nations, and proceeded from that point to find ways to make our country a land of equitable opportunities for all its many nations, large and small, and all its millions of citizens.

    None of us needs to turn down his or her own nation, or to play down its interests, or to reject its unique heritage and ways, in order to be seen to be contributing to the unity of Nigeria or the building of Nigeria.  Building Nigeria does not demand that from any of us. But unfortunately, many Nigerians have quietly and timorously bought into the pernicious frame of mind which says that being “educated”, being “sophisticated”, being “broad-minded”, means that they must subdue any show of interest in the particular interests of their own nation. For such people, being “detribalized” (as it is called) is a virtue. And any Nigerian who shows concern about his own nation’s experiences in Nigeria becomes suspect – becomes “un-Nigerian”.

    By and by, those sections of Nigeria that desired to dominate the rest of Nigeria, and those who wanted Nigeria moulded according to the military command culture to which they are accustomed as soldiers, have succeeded in developing this rejection of Nigeria’s nations into an ideology for the building of a “united Nigeria”. The section of Nigeria that came to believe that it was its right to dominate Nigeria was the Arewa North – the Hausa-Fulani political elite of the Arewa North who happened to be the first controllers of the Federal Government at independence. Their quest for such domination generated serious conflicts in the political process, and these ultimately pushed Nigeria into an era of military regimes. And the military regimes, accustomed only to military command systems, proceeded to organize Nigeria as a country controlled only by the Federal Government. Since most of the military dictators since mid-1966 have been northerners, the excessive centralization wrought by the military regimes has enhanced northern success at domination, and therefore enjoys resolute northern support.

    Thus the Arewa North elite and the military have collaborated to foist an excessive centralism, and a mainstream ideology, on the making of the Nigerian federation, with the result that what we now have is not a federation but a unitary system. The coming of large revenues from petroleum in the years after 1970 put enormous economic power in the hands of the federal government, seemed to make full federal control of Nigeria achievable, and greatly increased the domination ambitions of those in control of the federal government. The final legal formulation of the system was effected in the making of the 1999 Constitution – a constitution which the Arewa North intellectual champions of the mainstream ideology wrote for the military regime of 1998, and which has since been touted as a constitution written by “the people of Nigeria” for the “people of Nigeria”.

    When a Yoruba citizen, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired military officer turned civilian politician, was elected civilian president in 1999, there was hope that he would bring into the governance of Nigeria the typical and well-known Yoruba ideology concerning Nigeria. The Yoruba ideology proposes that since Nigeria comprises many diverse nations, each nation deserves to be respected in the context of Nigeria, and deserves to be allowed some autonomy to manage its unique concerns and desires in the context of Nigeria. Yoruba leaders (in Egbe Omo Oduduwa) first wrote the basic outline of this in 1949 as a proposal for the British colonial rulers to use in organizing Nigeria. Thereafter, succeeding generations of Yoruba leaders have restated this ideology over and over for the proper and harmonious structure of Nigeria. By the time of the Obasanjo presidency, it had become essentially a unifying Yoruba position concerning the proper and stable governance of Nigeria.    Hope that Obasanjo would follow this Yoruba ideology was heightened by the fact that he had written a book in 1998 (The Animal Called Man) in which he had advocated that the Nigerian constitution should include clauses stating the rights of Nigerian’s nations to secede from Nigeria and spelling out the processes towards peaceful secession.

    But as president, Obasanjo veered completely away from his Yoruba political heritage and energetically pursued the centralizing and mainstream ideology of other people, with serious efforts to subdue Nigerian nations (including his own Yoruba nation) to federal control. Unhappily, President Jonathan too, another president from another region that has always resisted excessive federal power, simply followed Obasanjo’s centralizing example. Even when Jonathan finally yielded to pressures to call a National Conference to review the structure of the Nigerian federation, it was obvious that his heart was not in the exercise, and that his real expectation was that his calling of the National Conference would boost his re-election chances. Obasanjo and Jonathan have thus demonstrated that it is almost impossible for any Nigerian president to accept federal loss of the control over all the power, all the money, and all the resources now controlled by the federal government.

    With President Buhari, a retired general from Arewa North now serving as Nigeria’s president, we should not be shocked by what we are seeing. He has said that he has no business with restructuring; and that he has “not bothered to read” the 2014 National Conference Report, but that he has simply tossed it into the archives.

    The only pity is that Nigeria has now absolutely reached the point of decision – either to restructure its federation or buy harmony and stability, or to refuse to restructure and thereby face implosion and break up. Conquering and subduing Nigeria’s peoples in order to keep Nigeria as one country, though attractive to those who control power over Nigeria, is no longer a viable choice. President Buhari says that he is exercising restraint over the use of military force for ending revolt in a part of Nigeria, and that is a good thing – but that is far from being good enough. The world is watching.