The Nation Newspaper

Tag: year’

  • What a year!

    I do not remember how the year 2016 started but I sure remember how it is ending certainly not with a whimper but with a bang! A Russian military plane carrying a band made up mainly of innocent ladies and gentlemen took off from the Russian winter resort of Sochi and crashed afterwards into the Black Sea on its way to Syria where the singing troupe was going to perform and entertain Russian troops particularly the Air Force that had been involved in genocidal bombing of Arab children, women and men without any discrimination. They were doing this at the behest of the Syrian President Bashar -al Azar who will rather rule over a destroyed country and millions of his dead compatriots than abdicate peacefully after more than 40 years of his family’s rule over the unfortunate country. Vladimir Putin was given the opportunity and freedom to test new weapons largely barrel bombs on a defenceless people who are justly struggling to be free.   What is most galling is that the whole world stood aside and unconcerned while one of the oldest civilizations is destroyed through indiscriminate bombing. Syria is the only country where a small group of people still speak Aramaic the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ more than 2000 years ago.

    I remember eight or nine years ago when the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations made a passionate plea to the western powers that were goading Syrian opponents of Bashar -al-Azar not to support them because of the complex and delicate nature of Syria. He argued about the racial and religious mix up of the country of Shia, Alawites, Sunnis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Arab Christians and Muslims as well as remnants of Jews. The western powers were obsessed with so-called Arab spring and opposition to the dictatorship and one family rule in Syria. With apparent people’s revolt in Egypt, Tunisia and overthrow of colonel Muamar -al-Ghadafi  by the NATO alliance, the western powers wanted to get rid of the troublesome presence of Bashar in Syria. But they did not know how to do it because those opposed to the Syrian regime were hopelessly divided among themselves between Al -Nustra Front allied with Al Qaida, Syrian Kurds fighting for autonomy and the so-called moderate Arab front as well as the forces of Abubakar Al -Baghdadi who had carved  out some part of Northern Syria particularly Raccah which he had declared as the capital of a new caliphate which had no respect for western division of Arabs into states in post-First World War political arrangement. Some of the rebels expected American support but Obama had committed his presidency to bringing American soldiers home from unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and he did not want to be bogged down in Syria. At a point he declared that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a red line which he would not permit the Syrian regime to cross. Although eventually the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against its opponent, but it later decided under American pressure to destroy its chemical weapons under international observation. Obama missed the opportunity of robust intervention afterwards but engaged in fruitless, futile and interminable diplomacy with the Russians while Iran, Hezbollah and even Shiite militia from Iraq poured into the Shia army of Bashar. The whole world stands aghast as Syria and Iraq are destroyed both by Russia in Syria and the USA in Iraq  respectively  each using Arab people as targets in bombing campaigns and indiscriminate use of drones . While this is going on, suffering humanity in Yemen, Palestine and Afghanistan are daily slaughtered by either co-religionists aided by external forces or weapons. The whole Arab civilization is under siege of the terrorist Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant (ISAL).Libya on the other hand has been reduced to war lordism by several factions including those pledging themselves to the caliphate of Baghdadi. The most advanced Islamic state Turkey is facing implosion and destruction and collapse because of the wars on its frontiers.

    Here at home at a time of recession and economic down turn we are spending money that could have been used for development in fighting a dangerous war against Boko Haram insurgents that have refused to give up after five years of incendiary campaign that has virtually destroyed  Borno State in particular and the North-east in general . The recent capture of their strong hold of Sambisa may yet be the beginning of the ending of this bitter sectarian internecine war. Many parts of Nigeria are also witnessing various ethnic or economic wars centring around herdsmen killing farmers who refuse to allow their cattle to forage on their farms.  There are all over the north cattle rustlers stealing cows and reprisal campaign against them by the herdsmen. In the Delta Nigeria is held by the jugular by militants challenging the right of government to the oil in their areas. This has led to a low intensity warfare there for the past decades .The security forces appear stretched to their limit.

    This year has also witnessed the rise of nationalism in the world destroying what policy makers thought was an irreversible world of globalization with its touchstones of free trade, democracy, fundamental human rights, regional integration and general peace. States that trade with each other do not generally go to war against one another. Free trade with emphasis on comparative advantage was thought to be the antidote and panacea for global conflict. Not anymore. The most successful regional economic integration – the European Union is unravelling before our very eyes. Britain voted to leave the EU. Others like France and Italy may follow leaving Germany with the carcass of a formerly successful attempt at regional integration and world order. Thus the political order that has ensured that fractious European nations live in harmony is about to give up in the face of rancorous nationalism

    The unthinkable happened in the United States where an inexperienced wheeler dealer of a man like Donald. J. Trump is about to take over the most powerful and prosperous country in the world armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. This is a man who had not paid income tax for the past 20 years and who set up a bogus university of how to become rich and collected millions from people and awarded bogus degrees. This is a man who confessed groping women, trying to force a married woman to have sex with him and then boasted about it, but who campaigned raining abuses on immigrants, Muslims and all visible minorities. In short, he made racism respectable in America where he used coded words to “give white Americans back their country” which was about to be stolen by their enemies, the non-white Mexicans, Chinese and others. Suddenly White Russia as far as Trump is concerned should join America to bomb out the brains of those Muslims in the Middle East troubling the peace of Europe and America. Trump talks glibly about how he may use nuclear weapons against American enemies. He asked naively “ why make weapons you cannot use?” He wants to build more nuclear weapons and modernize those in American silos. He wants to outdo any country or group of countries in nuclear race . He wants to take on China in a trade war and he has assembled a cabinet of billionaires and millionaires to run his country next month when he will be inaugurated as president of the United States taking over from a cerebral president like Barack Obama. Nobody knows what to expect and the frightening thing is that Trump does not have a coherent well-articulated policy. We can only hold our breath and pray for the best

    This year has  also witnessed so many disasters all over the world ranging from plane crashes ,  tsunamis , earthquakes , killer wild fires, hurricanes , typhoons ,tornados to  mention a few . It has also witnessed the death of several global artists, and distinguished persons locally and internationally.

    The most painful loss to me is Fidel Castro one of the greatest men of the 20th century. He was largely responsible for removing the stain of helplessness and hopelessness of the black man even on his own continent. If he had not sent 8000 thousand troops to Angola, the South African racist regime would not have met its Waterloo in Quito Quanavalle in Angola and it would have installed a puppet regime in that would have put paid to the struggle in Namibia and South Africa itself. Fidel also routinely sent doctors to many African countries whenever they suffered from their innumerable outbreaks of epidemic diseases. We have to tell future Africans what Fidel Castro did for our continent. A military barrack, Defence College or academy or the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos or even the University of Abuja can be named after him. Nigeria and Africa owes him our debt of gratitude.

    One only hopes and prays that the worst is over and that 2017 Will usher in a period of joy, happiness prosperity, and above all peace in our country in our time and in the world at large. Happy new year to my readers.

  • The year of, em, whatchalicallit

    The year of, em, whatchalicallit

    This has been the year when so many things happened, from the heroic to the pusillanimous, that it is almost impossible to frame it judiciously; hence, the year of whatchamacallit.

    In Nigeria, you can with justice call it the year of padding – as in padding the National Budget.

    Didn’t they inflate the planned expenditure on so many items in the Bill, and insinuate into it so many items that were not contemplated at the point of origin, and graft so much fiscal scaffolding on its overall architecture that, by the time they were done, it bore almost no resemblance to the plan that had come from on high, or to the nation’s pressing needs?

    You can also call it the year it was finally established, beyond whispers and denials, but so far not beyond reasonable doubt,  that some high officers of the judiciary, high priests at the Temple of Justice, may after all be on the take.

    Midnight raids on their homes reportedly yielded enough local currency to rescue some of the failing banks, and enough foreign exchange to jolt the long-idled wheels of industry roaring back into production.

    I say “so far not beyond reasonable doubt” because the accounts of how the judges said they came by all that wealth are not entirely implausible.

    One judge sold rice, the hottest item on the Nigerian market, on the side.  Another had wisely saved up and stored in various receptacles in his home all his earnings from the day he collected his first salary.  Yet another had taken in, at his son’s request, the young man’s savings over several decades for safe keeping.  And there was another who simply didn’t know how the booty found its way into his house.

    An undiplomatic kerfuffle between the Executive and the Legislature must also be accounted a major feature of the year.  The list of non-career ambassadors President Muhammadu Buhari took almost an eternity to compile seemed headed for trouble the moment it was released.

    It contained the names of many who had not been consulted at all, some who had been consulted and had declined, and many who would not have survived the most perfunctory vetting.

    For a while the Senate kept up the pretence of actively deliberating on it, then returned it to sender, saying it was incurably flawed.  But those who really need pity are the career diplomats confirmed as ambassadors by the Senate.   Congratulating them on their appointments the other day, the President said there was no relief in sight for the underfunded missions they were heading to, and that they would just have to make the best of the situation.

    Think of unpaid utility bills, with constant threats of disconnection; of peeling paint and shabby waiting rooms; of dependents sent down because of outstanding school fees; of living under Nigerian conditions while serving Nigeria abroad.

    You have to be practically unconscious not to apprehend that this has been, above everything else, a year of recession. In the economic turbulence, you have to cut and shave and pare and scrape and even scrounge just to keep afloat.

    Nigerians are doing that admirably, with their accustomed resilience. But don’t raise false hopes by declaring again and again that the recession will end next year or even the year after that.  A recession is a stubborn thing; rather than go away at your command, it develops a life of its own.

    Sadly, this has also been a year of carnage.

    Deaths from infernos that consumed hapless passengers on our cratered highways, house fires, collapsing houses and places of worship, communal strife, sectarian violence, parcel bombs deployed by Boko Haram’s agents, election violence and from the unchecked depredations of so-called “Fulani cattle herders,” paint a frightful picture of a country at full-blown war.

    Nobody knows the number of such casualties.  Nobody knows their names.  The authorities and the media treat them as an undifferentiated mass and move on to the next carnage.  Here, we keep no records.

    This is also the year in which Change has come under serious questioning, especially from those who assume what used to be assumed about Progress, namely, that it is linear.

    Change, like Progress, follows a zig-zag trajectory; an advance here and a reversal there, the latter especially, when yesterday’s people in today’s clothing and their confederates fight back with all the vast resources at their command, and as the forces of globalisation constrain policy options.

    Change may be subtle and take a while to apprehend, especially if it is not of the dramatic kind.  But if over time the advances do not add up to much more than the reversals, if people see a deterioration rather than an improvement in their conditions, they may well begin to yearn for    a return to the preceding era.

    The news from the dreaded Sambisa Forest is indisputable news of Change, and it is good to end a dismal year on such a strong note.  Expectations run high that more of the Chibok Girls will be recovered.

    Shifting gears to the foreign front, the surprise election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States has got to be the most stunning event of the year.  Even Trump himself did not expect it.

    I was prepared to swear that he lost the race the moment he declared that if he won he would shut the door against Moslems seeking to enter the United States until the world had figured out what to do with them.

    When he called the U.S. military “a disaster,” I was convinced beyond doubt that he had committed political suicide.  In America you do not denigrate the military when you are a candidate for political office.   Nothing is more self-destructive.

    But that was then.

    In tweet after outrageous tweet and rally after incendiary rally, Trump broke every rule of political engagement.  Not only did he get away with it, he was amply rewarded for it.

    That is the new reality in America.  Trump framed it best when he declared that he could shoot someone in broad daylight on (New York’s) Fifth Avenue and nothing would happen.  If his campaign rhetoric and his dystopian cabinet are any guide, Americans and the world had better brace itself for a rough ride.

    Brexit, championed by the same kind of people who cheered Trump on to victory had signalled that a Trump presidency was not inconceivable.  It had also reinforced the growing doubts on the solidity of opinion polls.  They had predicted a close outcome, with the Tories and the coalition that wanted Britain to stay in Europe maintaining a slight lead.

    In the event, the Brexiteers won, just as the Tories had won the previous General Election that Labour was widely expected to win, based on the polls. In Israel, the polls said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was toast.  He survived and waxed stronger, to continue frustrating a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    Even with the FBI resurrecting the e-mail controversy that had dogged Hillary Clinton’s campaign all along, she remained the favourite on practically all the reputable polls. But they turned out to be disastrously wrong.

    Will polling ever recover?  Will it ever regain the authority it once commanded – authority  that should, if anything, grow stronger in the age of powerful mathematical tools that can help structure, analyse and manipulate Big Data and make them intelligible?

    This was also the year of refugees. From Afghanistan to Sudan, and from Algeria to Ethiopia and points between, they poured out in their hundreds of thousand, fleeing war and persecution and poverty, enduring hunger and suffering and rapine and extortion en route.

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel defied local and regional opposition to grant entry to tens of thousands of refugees.   For this courageous and humane gesture, she now runs a clear risk of defeat in next year’s general elections.

    We are entering, it seems, an era of meanness, in which it is politically unwise to show kindness, to enter into solidarity with the other.

  • Explorer wins Luxury Car of the Year

    The Ford Explorer has been named Luxury Car of the year at the World Marketing Awards, reinforcing its status as a segment-defining model in the SUV vehicle sector.

    The award was accepted by the marketing team of Coscharis Motors, the sole authorised Ford dealer in Nigeria, at the prestigious Marketing World awards, held at the Lagos Oriental Hotel in Lekki, Lagos.

    “All of us at Coscharis Motors are pleased that the Ford Explorer won this coveted Luxury Car of the Year title. The Explorer is a dream car, packed with features that offer distinguished style and design, luxury and comfort and innovative technologies,” Abiona Babarinde, General Manager Marketing, Coscharis Motors said.

    “The Explorer is an exquisite vehicle that will drive Ford’s SUV growth in Nigeria alongside other Ford models such as the Escape, EcoSport and newly launched Edge. The award shows strength in Ford’s SUV offering,” Babarinde added.

    The new Explorer is currently available in Nigeria and was launched in March 2016.

  • The year of identity

    The year of identity

    Throughout the year, we have been riveted on the bias that draped the United States presidential election. We bewailed Trump and his incendiary rhetoric. We bemoaned the sartorial evil of France of liberte, egalite and fraternite that would not let women free to wear hijab on the beaches just as we moaned when young zealots razed down lives in pubs and stadium.

    We looked with horror the tents in Calais that tenanted the tears of a rootless people, what Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul designated as a people without a place, in his novel, In a Free state.

    Brexit led an island nation in rebellion against one of its own Poet John Dunne, and denied it is “a piece of the continent.” Italy that traffics fancy shoes and dainty suits to other nations booted out its international leader, Renzi, and voted like Britain. Russia with its Putin is not wary of an uprooted world order and stretches world equilibrium by staking bullet after bullet, air raid after sorties to dare a quiescent Obama. Austria narrowly escaped the harmer of disharmony, but just narrowly. It looms in next-door Germany where Hitler is getting a revival in the great mall of its great city Berlin.

    In all these, we as Nigerians show horror at the prejudice in a world that should canonise harmony. Yet throughout the year, we committed the same sins. We did not, could not, look in the mirror. But just like Macbeth who saw the vision and prophecy of his own bloodletting but willed himself to more malevolence, we did it week after week, month after month.

    It was a year when the militants were angry, whether driven by ethnic rage or religious bile. They fought in the Niger Delta, but like invisible forces. They told President Buhari that they belonged to the place that once produced the president. They did not want peace except on their own terms. So, until that peace comes, bombs would go off. And they did go off, and they went straight to the jugular of lazy largesse: oil. They blew pipeline after pipeline.  So, even when the price of oil rose modestly, we had no reason to laugh. Starvation stoked by scarcity makes the states pine for a little draught of financial air.

    Yet, the president, who was weaned on the profession of guns and bullets, thought it weakness to bow. So, the militants blew, but he did not bow. What bowed? Our prosperity, if we ever had it. Shall they sit on the floor or at table? Would the president not even do humility the courtesy of visiting the Niger Delta to appear to understand? We never had it. Same applies to MASSOB and how they made streets boil in the East. No Nigerian project is good enough. No one has approached them with the language of conciliation.

    Everyone, the militant, the MASSOB and the president, sat in their little covens. It was the same President that belongs to everybody and nobody. That is the very definition of soullessness. I am everywhere but I am nowhere. Translation: now you see me, now you don’t. Perhaps that’s why he has flown more to other countries than he has to states under his watch.

    So, we suffer, while each party sinks in self-righteous despair. Up North we see the same thing. The religious bigots under El- Zakzaky understand themselves and no other. The Sunni majority understands Allah the way the Shiites don’t. But all inhabit the same pious space, worship the same God and invoke that same God against the other. This is against the logic of Boko Haram that sees a theocratic vengeance in every bomb, in the willowy menace of the girl bomber and the muscular stealth of the boy bomber. All of them talk to a people not happy to live together.

    We also see in southern Kaduna where a people are subject to the routine savagery of a band of bandits. They burn houses and slaughter in droves. At the last count, 102 persons have been consigned either to heaven or hell, or purgatory, or whatever. Houses and hectares of land gone. They see no government presence to help, and the governor claims a group that has never been publicly paraded or evidentially convicted as culprit. He invokes similar rapine in Zamfara State. By claiming the victims there are Muslims, he exonerates the herdsmen. No evidence, so no excuse. But the larger blame lands where the Army is. They probably have not enough men. So, we ask, why not provide self-defence in the absence of official defence. Just as we have vigilante where police is absent.

    The herdsmen were a story of our lack of mutual understanding. Herdsmen say they have the right of way, and it has translated into the right to maul, kill, rape and steal. They want life and more abundantly at the expense of the land owners. The federal government even flirted with the idea of giving them the land that belongs to others. In the Middle Belt, the herdsmen would revenge those who rustled their cattle. That I move illegally should not make you a thief of my cow. Right. So, no understanding except bloodshed.

    Even in our electoral politics, the story is the same. In the Edo as in the Ondo and the Rivers State near-war electoral contests, it is a people who bear the same nation, sometimes the same name, fighting to the death against the other. Each group is either pelting the other with the charge of lack of good faith or good taste. But what is not good is our fate because of the flawed process and we have accepted it as an emblem of our flawed existence or coexistence.

    We are not better than Trump, or the Brexiteer or even the Manila villain Duterte. Or the French who disavow hijab. We just saw them as excuse to levitate ourselves as moral superiors. But what does this tell us, that this is a year of identity. Everyone wants to assert who they are without pretence. It is the boldness of the bigot, the murderer, xenophobic. But they also claim they are not. They claim to be fair. They may genuinely feel so, and that is the conundrum. Some who voted for Trump say they loath his divisive rhetoric but love his trade bill or just loath Clinton’s hypocrisy. It is therefore the year of Shakespeare’s best play by critics, or at least the most contemporary: King Lear. When many saw Trump as a devil, his followers said, like one of the best lines in the play, “the prince of darkness is a gentleman.”

    No one who voted for Trump or voted for Brexit, or calls for immigrants to go, would call themselves racists. Nor will a herdsman call himself a murderer. They are just doing right. Hence the 21st century person defies definition, just like when Lear, in a clarity of madness, asks: “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” The clarity eludes Harvard theorist Samuel Huntington who calls it “the clash of civilisation.” Yet the irony, they speak the language of the bigot. Trump calls Hispanics rapists. The British foreign minister used the word piccaninny when Obama visited the United Kingdom to lobby against Brexit. They “speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.” Another shot from King Lear.

    So, we like our little cubicles. We talk to ourselves, smell the same, sound the same, and would not accept the other just the same way it happens in King Lear. Hear this: “Come, let’s away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds in a cage.”

    Irony, large numbers don’t think like this. But the frightening thing is that they have the important numbers and they are the most mobilised. They have dredged up the wrong identities. As we go into the new year, need not push away the other tribe or faith or face, but we need John Dunne’s cry to prevail: “I am involved in mankind.”

  • This year…as all others 

    •Portrait of the Nigerian journalist in 2016

    This year as all others, we pretended to have answers to everything. Did we? This year, we continued to spit words and eat them, like the dog that waddles back to gobble its vomit.

    This year, we quoted Nietzsche, Plato, Disreali among others to garnish our columns while we did all we can to silence true-born dissent on our news pages and news networks, lest we incur the ire of irate benefactors.

    This is the year we ennobled the thieving statesman and denied the patriot the plaudits we save for noble compatriots. This is the year we celebrated underachievers as the best of overachievers. This year, we celebrated the vanities of dim-witted celebrities on front-pages of our national newspapers.

    Here goes the year we exhausted newsprint and priceless airtime to glamorize the shenanigans of “society bigwigs and small wigs” although we cannot tell and still cannot tell, the simplest manifestations of our news practice, on say, the vendor who markets the newspaper or the child-labourer to whom Universal Basic Education (UBE) remains an everlasting fantasy.

    This is the year we feted the northern mafia, eastern cabal, western gerontocracy, and south-south uprising, as usual, even as they undermined our collective dreams and everything that nationhood and ambition had ever bestowed us.

    Beyond our elegant words and brazen manifestations of high character, our practice is modeled after some greedy few’s cartography of citizenship than by any internal dynamic of allegiances. Hence our misinterpretation of the social contract between the Fourth Estate and every other estate charged with the administration and supervision of our nation-state.

    Thus this year as all others, we hid behind interviews, ‘big interviews,’ to abdicate our responsibilities to the Nigerian public. This is the year we taught the public to feast and digest perversion because we believe it’s what they love to do best; because we know if we treat them to more depravity, they will become more willing participants, and we would get more adverts and keep smiling to the banks.

    This year as all others, we turned a blind eye and conveniently lost our voice as creatures running the three arms of government squandered public fund to feed their gluttony. This year, as all others, we watched unperturbed as most of our colleagues ennobled and defended with their lives, the rights of the ruling class to pilfer our chests and rob us silly because leaders of men like them deserve to eat and dwell like no ordinary man.

    This year, the ruling class afflicted our lives with ineptitude and savagery. In response, we cried ourselves hoarse, twisting logic and lip service for and against our favourite public officer; eventually, we lost our voices to racism and confusion.

    This is the year in which our brothers in the north-east tirelessly blew to death, our mothers and daughters, sons and fathers, in the market place, schools, on the playground, in our bedrooms and houses of worship in the name of politics and religion. This is the year in which our brothers in the south-east determinedly kidnapped our wives and daughters, mothers and fathers, sons and heirs apparent, for a ransom, in pursuit of unearned affluence. This is the year in which our brothers in the southwest habitually mortgaged our future on the altar of politics, personal and sectarian greed. This year as all others, we refused to dissect these maladies, in the interest of our nation and thus helped the world to understand why we are regarded as the inheritors in whose hands the heritage dies and everything fails.

    This year, we affirmed those dreadful points our internal and external publics love to make; that we have become inept, mediocre, irredeemably shorn of truth and uprightness in our work. This year, we affirmed that we are amoral and somewhat intellectually challenged by our ethnic and intellectual bigotry.

    This year, we failed to actualize press freedom because it was socio-politically incorrect to do so. This year as all others, we failed to acknowledge that our survival or death as a nation is undeniably entwined with the tenor of practice and citizenship of the Nigerian press.

    This year as all others, I make a case for re-sensitization of the Nigerian media. It is time we dismembered our clan of the shameless breed. I speak of the almighty charlatan who believes that the status quo should be sustained ad infinitum because characters like him deserve the right to unquestionable practice.

    I do not wish that the press be gagged; I suggest no such arbitrariness – even if I do, it would hardly matter because we go through the practice, gagged.

    We are our worst enemies. In spite of everything, we choose to play god. That is why “dogs don’t eat dogs” in our Fourth Estate although it’s okay if we choose to eat the entrails of a few ordinary Nigerians and almighty benefactors, like the unfortunate adulterer caught pants down even as we underreport thieving bankers stealing from wretched folk to enrich their privileged peers.

    I hope we find the courage to report; “The Rot in the Media.” I hope we find the courage to report that for every kobo looted by government, in our public and private sectors, the press gets to have its share however meager it is. Dateline: media parleys, press conferences and governors’ roundtables.

    If we could passionately and conscientiously monitor our affairs daily that we may not digress and put to shame our practice, wouldn’t journalism be much better? Were we humane enough to improve our welfare and conditions of service, wouldn’t our journalists be dignified and our practice nobler?

    It’s time we asked: “Who is a journalist?” and aspire to an untainted definition of it. It’s time we redefined what level of knowledge, qualification and professionalism is expected of a journalist. It’s time we ascertained what manner of passion channels the direction of our news practice.

    It’s time we refused to humour such society that continually disrespects us and treats us as disposable pawns in its grand scheme of themes. Come 2017, shall we continue to service the depravity of folk for whom our pens write maladies at the expense of melodies impoverished folk would die to have us write about – that they might fare better?

    Will 2017 mutate like today and our immediate past? Shall we remain intellectual hit men of every hoodlum with deep pocket? Shall we become cliff-hangers to take the portrait of every looter and celebrity nincompoop with a promising smile? Shall we remain the media managers that pay poorly even as we label expatriate firms, slave-drivers?

    Next year, will the masses stare at our cover pages resignedly, knowing they would never hear or feel the infinitesimal clangor of freed hope because we are, as usual, an aberration of their desperate circumstances? Shall we continue to speak from both sides of the mouth? Shall we continue to eat like idiots at the feast of the one who calls us “idiot?”

  • WIZKID SLUGS IT OUT WITH LINDA IKEJI FOR MAMA ‘PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR’

    WIZKID SLUGS IT OUT WITH LINDA IKEJI FOR MAMA ‘PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR’

    NIGERIAN superstar, Ayo Balogun, aka Wizkid, will be going against sensational blogger, Linda Ikeji in the lifestyle category, Personality of the Year, at the forthcoming MTV Africa Music Awards. Other contenders in the category are Pearl Thusi, Pierre Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon), and middle distance runner and Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya.

    Wizkid, Cassper Nyovest, AKA and Sauti Sol lead the pack in the first round of nominations with an impressive nine nominations between them.

    Fifty MAMA nominees including artists and achievers from 18 countries were revealed in nine key music and lifestyle award categories by Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) Africa and MTV Base (DStv channel 322) at a star-studded reception at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa.

    At the front of the field is Nigerian star Wizkid with three nominations including nods in Best Male, Best Collaboration and Personality of the Year. Next in line with two nominations each are AKA (South Africa),Cassper Nyovest (South Africa) and Sauti Sol (Kenya).

    The keenly contested Best Hip Hop category sees MAMA nominations for Emtee and Riky Rick of South Africa, who’ll be going head to head against Nigeria’s Olamide and Ycee, and Kiff No Beat (Ivory Coast).

    An epic battle of the bands is in store in the Best Group category where Ghana’s R2bees face off against Kenya’sSauti Sol, South Africa’s Mi Casa, Navy Kenzo from Tanzania and Togolese duo, Toofan.

    Alex Okosi, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) Africa stated; “MAMA celebrates Africa’s incredible young musicians and trailblazers by breaking down barriers, driving engagement, and highlighting the continent’s rich and abundant talent.”

    The MTV Africa Music Awards Johannesburg 2016 is sponsored to by Joburg Tourism in partnership with Absolut Vodka and Google and in association with MTN and DStv.

  • Remembering Chief Morohundiya, 25 years after

    Remembering Chief Morohundiya, 25 years after

    Last September 13, on the 10th anniversary of the death of my younger brother, Michael Ekpeme Ahonaruogho, I decided once again to pay tribute to my  late principal, Chief Samuel Olasupo Morohundiya, whose 25th remembrance came up last Saturday.

    Records show that Chief Bola Ige (SAN) and later his amiable wife, the late Justice Atinuke Ige worked with the late Chief Morohundiya at Ibadan in the Law Offices of Durosaro and Morohundiya.

    Some other lawyers who passed through the late Chief Morohundiya’s Chambers in Lagos included Justice Olulade Oladapo Obadina,  Justice Oye Iyanda, Justice Niyi Adebajo (rtd.); Mr. J. O. Omole (former Chief Registrar of the High Court of Lagos State), Chief Adewale Gbeleyi, Chief Olu Akintunde, Chief Abimbola Awosika, Mr. Sola  Olatunbosun, Chief Akinlabi Kuponiyi (former Speaker of Osun State House of Assembly), Chief Michael Olunwa, Mr. S. A. Afolabi, Mrs. Joke Opeyokun, Mr. Andrew Bamidele Chukwuemeka (ABC) Ogbogbo, Mrs. Bisi Awonuga, Ms. Eniola Olatunji Makanjuola, Mr. Akin Olatunji, Mrs. Christine Awoloto, Yemisi Wilton-Waddel, Mrs. Ayodele Ayobolu, Mr. Olakunle Morohundiya, Mr. Akin Edward Falade, Chief Richard Oma Ahonaruogho and Mr. Victor Aigbogun.

    To live in the hearts of those who love you, is to live forever. Even though some of the lawyers who passed through the law chambers of the late Chief Morohundiya have passed on, those of us alive will continue to cherish his fond memory.

    In the circumstances, one can  imagine those whose biographies would be incomplete without the name of the late Chief Morohundiya as having touched their lives.

    Recently, while on holidays in the United Kingdom, Victor Aigbogun  visited me and narrated how, upon getting married in Nigeria, his wife wanted him to move over to the United Kingdom. Having a successful law practice in Nigeria, he was reluctant to take the plunge. He was not willing to subject himself to doing menial jobs in the United Kingdom.

    He sat and passed the qualifying examination which enabled him to practice in the United Kingdom and then it was time to go job hunting. He applied to a law firm and submitted his curriculum vitae wherein he made reference to having worked with thew late Chief Morohundiya while in Nigeria. He was invited by Mr. Roderick Palling Bouldi who happened to have known the late Chief Morohundiya several years ago in London. That was all Victor Aigbogun needed to be employed in the United Kingdom–the name of Chief Samuel Olasupo Morohundiya.

    So, as we remember the late Chief Samuel Morohundiya of Gray’s Inn on the 25th anniversary of his death, let us be assured that good people do not die. They rest from the earthly labours in the Lord.

    I join your wife and pillar of support, Chief Christiana Ayodele Morohundiya; your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, the Morohundiya dynasty at home and in the Diaspora, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the First Baptist Church, Ikeja, the First Baptist Church,, Idikan, Ibadan, the Nigerian Baptist Convention, The Boys Scout Movement of Nigeria, the Nigerian Red Cross, the Morohundiya Foundation for Legal Development of the Faculty of Law of the University of Ibadan in remembering a good man –the late Chief Samuel Olasupo Morohundiya.

    Sleep  on my beloved boss and mentor, the late Chief Morohundiya – Member Distinguished Body of Benchers, Maiyegun of Ikeja, Bamofin of Ibadan land, Bada Olubadan of Ibadan land, first Chairman and Patron of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Ikeja branch and many others.

    *Chief Ahonaruogho, a legal practitioner, writes from Lagos.

  • Battle Of The Year to hold at UNILAG

    Preparations are in top gear for Nigerian break dancers to come and do battle against one another as this year’s edition of the Battle of the Year Nigeria Break Dance Championship which on the 17th and 18th of September at the Indoors Hall of the University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos.

    Activities on Saturday will begin with a One on One Battle session by 10am and the main event holds the next day by 1pm.

    According to organisers, the event will feature battles from the best B-boys, B-boy crews, Popping, Locking, and Krump style dancers in Nigeria. And the winner of the B-boy crew Battle will represent Nigeria at the International Battle of the Year in Germany. There are also cash prizes to be won.

    While the event will be hosted by Rapmania Tha X and PG Blao, on hand to provide the break beats will be DJ Ozee, DJ Mekzy and DJ Teckzilla, with special guest appearances by Illbliss, Mode 9, Terry Tha Rapman, Uzikwendo, AQ, Feco Th MC, Rezzi of Rap Culture on Rhythm 93.7fm and The Space Unlimited Bboy crew.

  • Agbaje is African Banker of the Year

    Agbaje is African Banker of the Year

    Guaranty Trust Bank Plc Managing Director/CEO Segun Agbaje has been named the African Banker of the Year during the 2016 African Banker’s Awards, which took place on the sidelines of the African Development Bank (AfDB) annual meeting in Lusaka, Zambia.

    Now in its 10th year, The African Banker Awards is internationally recognised as the landmark finance event to reward achievements, commend best practices and celebrate excellence in African banking. The award provides a platform to bring together industry leaders from across Africa and celebrate the achievements of those driving economic growth in Africa.

    Speaking at the exclusive Gala Dinner attended by over 400 financiers, business leaders, and influential personalities and policy makers, Omar Ben Yedder, Group Publisher of African Banker Magazine said: “Over the years, I have been privileged to honour some truly exceptional individuals, who have left an indelible mark on the industry.

    Today, we honour a man, Segun Agbaje, who has redefined the African Banking landscape and built an institution that is Proudly African and Truly International. Since assuming office in 2011, Agbaje has led the bank to become one of the most profitable banks in Africa with a well defined CSR strategy that continues to give back to its host communities through its many philanthropy initiatives.

    Agbaje said: “I am humbled and happy to be recognised as the African Banker of the Year.”

  • We’ve done well in one year, says Ikpeazu

    We’ve done well in one year, says Ikpeazu

    Abia State Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has said the state has experienced development and progress in the last one year of his administration.

    The fourth democratically elected governor of the state said his administration went to work immediately he took the oath of office.

    He said the government has been implementing a robust blueprint for the state’s development since last year.

    Ikpeazu said a modern state like Abia required a lot of knowledge to govern, adding that it required detailed planning and methodical execution.

    The governor said his administration had not deviated from its development plans for the state.

    His message was contained in yesterday’s broadcast to the residents on Democracy Day celebration.

    Ikpeazu recalled that when he assumed office, he laid out a Five-Point Agenda, which the government would use as its compass for development.

    He said: “We knew it would pave the way for the rapid development of our state.

    “This is in line with our vision of making Abia State the premier destination for investors, tourists and visitors in East of Nigeria. The five pillars we identified are: Agriculture, Oil and Gas, Commerce, Industry and Education.

    “In the area of agriculture, we are sanitising the

    fertiliser distribution programme of this government and we have directed the Agriculture Commissioner to ensure that the land acquired by previous governments for agriculture is utilised.

    “Efforts are being made to cultivate massively high-yield and disease-free resistant species of various crops, especially those in which we have comparative advantage.

    “I, therefore, call on farmers to form cooperative unions as no single farmer can get all the requisite equipment and funding required for comprehensive value chain development as the funds we are accessing can only be given to cooperative unions and not individual farmers.

    “In the area of education, the state has been doing very well as the last west African Examinations Council (WAEC) results recently released showed that we had the highest number distinctions, while Abia State University’s Law graduates have continued to achieve first-class results at the Law schools.

    “We have renovated five schools in the state and installed boreholes in six others for enhanced social conditions as well as ensure that students and pupils do not suffer to get portable water.

    “On employment, 7,000 youths have been gainfully employed through the Transport and Indiscipline Management Agency of Abia State (TIMASS), including Utility Maintenance Agency, while resuscitated moribund industries have been employing as well.

    On security, we have been able to procure over 30 vehicles for various security agencies in the state and also set up Security Trust Fund through which we intend to partner with the private sector to fund the purchase of security equipments.”