The Council of the Indispensable

I have watched with disbelief the manner in which a class of people that they now constitute, assume that everything in our national life will be incomplete or invalid, except it has their imprint. Ever since the misadventures of the 1966 -1970 period, there has been a class of people who have pinned Nigeria down under their control in one way or the other. With changes upon changes in administrations, they have remained, co-opting one person or the other from time to time.

There seems to be a recent talk of whether, as part of the constitutional review process whether the senate could not be sacrificed. This drew vary harsh and angry reaction from the senators themselves, amongst some others. There has been no effort to look at the merits or demerits of any suggestion since all that is needed is to ascertain its impact on each individual. If it negatively affects the individual's personal fortune, it is immediately bad policy or suggestion.

There is no doubt that the senate is the place of refuge of choice for governors who have served out their mandatory maximum terms in office and of course would not leave the political environment. Not to talk about so many unnamed former government officials known and unknown to the Nigerian people. They are all recycled and would not allow a change in their worldview and how they would let Nigeria make progress from here on out. Look at the very head of the senate himself. As I had previously pointed out David Mark has been in the business of power play since his participation in the coup of 1975 at only twenty-seven. Today a twenty-seven year old is likely a young unemployed and hopeless Nigerian young man wasting away in his parent's home or in some dead-end job to eke out a living. With his next major participation in 1985, he was given the position of a governor of a whole state and later of a minister, all in his '30s. There is nothing in and of itself wrong with a young person holding a position of high responsibility in the country. But the problem is that now that they have spent a generation in various roles in government, they now say a 30something is now a "youth" that is too inexperienced to hold the same positions they used to hold; and the fact is that there are a lot more of those young people today who are out and out more knowledgeable than them today about what it takes to build a successful nation, not to talk of back then. What they did then is the reason why we are suffering today. He has even tucked himself so deeply in his number 3 position, complete with the GCON that he is now actually a threat to Nigeria's democracy because he is not going to leave that position without all the fight he can muster, regardless of consequences to the nation. That is what his type is used to anyway: the whole country can burn in order for them to have the smallest of advantage in one trivial matter or another.

There are several others also; the perennial presidential aspirant of any guaranteed ruling party Sarah Jubril always ends up as part of the privileged number with access to government funds and position without any Nigerian having the slightest idea who she is and what she does. There is Uche Chukwumerijie who became a known commodity working for a group that took up arms against the Federal Government, costing one million lives, and then went on to work for Sani Abacha again as a hatchet man. What about the great "Jerry Boy," never far from the corridors of power. It is Jerry Gana that established a new standard for the role of Minister of Information in this country which Maku and his predecessors have been following, one of being a cheap-sounding, undignified, mouthy drum major for the government. One forgets that in that capacity, he should be the head of all the agencies of government with respect to the media. We can not possibly call out such people one by one as there are so many of them.

How can a body of 360 people and another of 109 be so voracious in their greed that their expense becomes significant in the finances of a nation of almost 170 million people. It is this "squandermania"--a direct quote from Buhari in 1984-- that was the main excuse for the sacking of the Second Republic. So how can a legitimate question asked about their cost/benefit be so dismissed with disdain. Why on earth do we think we must copy what another country arrived at while trying to formulate a way to govern their own nation, taking all their own peculiarities into consideration. Of course when you're looking for personal gain, simple problems do not lend themselves anymore to simple solutions. It becomes more complex because some of the variables at play are subterranean. In the context of the Nigerian corruption factor I will even go further and say that their job should be done pro bono and only actuals be covered by the Nigerian people. If you think no one will do the job, you just made the biggest mistake. There will be no faster way to rid the governance of the country of corrupt and inept people than to remove the financial incentive for going for it. There are many people who will be so glad to step forward to do this nation proud who can not at the moment because of the lucre attached to those positions at the moment.

Real democracy, and not the present oligarchy, will dawn in this country when ordinary people with no ties to the lords in the corridors of power are able to make their case to the Nigerian people and be voted into office. This can only occur with the necessary reforms both in our institutions of governance and democracy and in the mindset of the ordinary Nigerian...and that is what those who are responsible for the ruin that is Nigeria will fight against until their dying breath.



Oseiwe Ibhagui
@OIbhagui

My Vision of Nigeria Essay, 1999

MY VISION OF NIGERIA BY THE YEAR 2040

It is only in Nigeria that I have seen, in this modern age that some consider diversity as a weakness. This is the very reason why we are still where we are today. Nigeria is a diverse country, both in topography and human resources. Whatever the history of the evolution of other countries vis-à-vis Nigeria, we have come to stay as a nation. Within the country, there are very many distinct language groupings; some say two hundred and fifty, while others claim even more. Colonized as most other countries of the world by Britain, we acquired education by means of their language – the English Language. With this language, especially with a version of it called pidgin, we have been able to bridge communication barriers between ourselves so that we might continue together.

Nigeria is abundantly blessed with varied natural resources, a good climate, absence of almost all natural disasters, and a particularly energetic people. In the Plateau area, there are many solid minerals, some yet untapped.In the Niger Delta there is little need for introduction: the name itself is synonymous with crude oil which is the lifeblood of this nation. The North is blessed with land on which almost any type of crop can grow. In the East, there is a large deposit of coal which is an alternative source of energy to petroleum. Indeed, no one has ever questioned the natural endowments of Nigeria. The energetic populace should also be a source of joy to a country, all things being equal; but all things have not been equal in this country.

It is so unfortunate that the human resources we have have not been channeled in the right direction. Ignorance has seen to it that we regress. It is this ignorance that breeds the ethnicism which is the cause of our national stagnation. Human beings are higher animals but they are different from animals in capacity, or rather in potentials than in fact. The human mind can be developed; it can learn. The mind of animals, by and large, is very limited in the capacity for learning. Therein lies the difference. If the human mind is not developed, it is amenable to instinctiveness and emotion and reasoning is deficient and this would not augur well for him. It is easier for them to believe that someone who speaks their language should enjoy more loyalty from them and should be more entrusted with secret because he would mean well to them. In short, they just look for a similarity with others on the basis of the geographical area they come from. The most painful thing about ethnicity in this country is that every other thing including progress is subordinated to it. The ignoramuses do not care whether it is their so-called brother that would lead them astray. They prefer – should they have a choice – to choose their tribesmen in any calling over others. It is a case of ethnic survival and inter-ethnic competition. Indeed, this unhealthy inter-ethnic competition is so bad that people prefer that the common boat which all ethnic nationalities find themselves in rock or even sink than for a person of another tribe to successfully steer the boat. They seem to reason that it would be a slap on their tribe if someone outside succeeded in moving everyone forward. It is, in essence, a case of destroying the whole in a futile bid to save a part. Their limited minds prevent them from realizing that ethnicity, indeed everything on earth, was devised by man and influenced by his environment; nothing is absolute. Religions say that we all come from Adam and Eve. In that case, we should all claim Israeli citizenship if that does not sound preposterous. Even some two thousand years ago, some of these tribes which seem to have been created from Heaven were not in existence; this very English we speak is a synthesis of various languages. Our present condition is predicated on human and environmental factors, many so gradual as to be unnoticed. If Nigeria was born abruptly, that does not mean it has not been born. It is now incumbent on us to integrate and form a Nigerian culture, Nigerian outlook, indeed, a Nigerian Citizenship.

One of the ways these tribes have foisted themselves on our society is by inculcating in children that they were not worth their existence if they did not learn, accept in totality without question, and promote the tenets of their culture. They are introduced into it and impressed on that good children upheld them. The individual items constituting their ethos are never questioned and are accepted on faith from generation to generation. Some of these items are so barbaric that they have come to be totally indefensible in today’s society and are consequently dying. One can imagine a belief that a dead king needed servants in the after world and so a servant is buried alive with a dead king. Or consider a custom where a queen must be burned on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. The latter occurred in India in times gone by. Enlightenment was born when courageous people began questioning established practices often to the prejudice of their safety. These philosophers applied reason to human affairs; they questioned anything which could not stand to reason; they painstakingly took time to find true answers to their questions. It is on this basis that their societies developed. No society can develop which does not conduct its affairs on the basis of reasonableness and justness. In Nigeria here we ought to be grateful that other peoples have treaded uncharted territories and have now laid the map for us to just follow. Yet, it is just this task of following that is proving difficult for us. Our society is still largely unenlightened and so far as the light of education is not allowed to spread more widely, the majority in darkness would always reflect the ethos of that society and retard those who have found the light. President John F. Kennedy’s statement is instructive here; he had said that no country can rise above its level of education. One wonders why education is regarded as just one of the areas of expenditure of an underdeveloped country like Nigeria. If some other people did not educate themselves, the roads, electricity, health and other areas of expenditure would not exist. It is out of an educated, trained mind that the capacity for development of technology for roads, machinery and health came about. We should be expending all requisite resources on a grand plan of mass and total education and if anything is left out of it, it could then be channeled to other areas. With an adequately educated citizenry, the ethnicity and animalistic tendencies which move us backward would be reasoned away by rational minds.

Nigeria has to move now. We have that energy to move; it is only that is has been wrongly applied all this while. In one generation, by 2040, I look forward to a great country in Africa, very relevant in the scheme of things in world affairs. The United Nations Security Council is being pressured to increase its permanent membership. This will be achieved and Nigeria would be a permanent member representing African interests. We have served on that Council during the first tenure of the present president Olusegun Obasanjo. There is no doubt that even South Africa, the most developed country in Africa at the moment would concede the fact that Nigeria evinces greater interest in international issues and leadership of Africa in particular and the Third World in general than any other African country. It is characteristic of our national energy but the world had to put us in check because to be thrust with responsibility in world affairs, a responsible and mature leadership at home is a sine qua non. Let us consolidate that status which we have been accorded.

By 2040, I see a Nigeria that the President of the United States of America would travel directly to for talks with its president on bilateral and world issues; where the American President would come to solicit for some help on certain international issues. It does not take much effort to observe that US presidents whenever they come to Africa, come on tours which take them to many countries. US presidents go to Gerrmany, Belgium, France; they do not say they go to Europe. When they go to Japan or South Korea, they go there without blanketing the tour as an Asian tour. But whenever they can get around to coming to Africa, it is always Africa they go to with stops in different countries as if Africa were a country. When they do come, it is always goodwill tour across countries where they announce aid packages on each stop. Nigeria will change that by 2040. The US President will fly directly to Abuja for talks with the Nigerian President on political and economic issues on equal footing as strategic partners as is already the case with China and India.

Economically, Nigeria will rise by 2040. In terms of land mass, Nigeria ranks only fourteen in Africa. This could come as a surprise to many people. But despite this, the percentage of arable land in Nigeria is among the highest anywhere in the world: there are no wastelands in Nigeria. Even in the Niger Delta where crude oil abounds, the land is still arable. In terms of population, well, the nearest country to Nigeria in that is half as populous. Let us consider that Lagos State, even though ranking as thirty-sixth in geographical size in Nigeria, accounts for the highest population and more than two-thirds of all infrastructures and economic activities outside crude oil going on in Nigeria. The ongoing resuscitation of infrastructures in this country coupled with the manpower training derivable from qualitative education would open up a floodgate of Nigerian energy channeled in the right direction. The rate of growth of our economy would then be unsurpassable by any country and this rate, given time up till 2040 would see to it that we bypass other countries both in Africa and elsewhere which we were at par with in 1960. Some of those countries are so far ahead of us today in economic development that it seems impossible to catch up. Economic prowess is a major factor in international diplomacy.

This picture of a great Nigeria being painted here is completely realizable. We are already on the right path but some fundamental changes to our mindset which must be made are being vehemently resisted. The incipient reawakening of ethnic agenda and the so-called ethnic ‘platform’ leaves much to be desired. One can safely predict that it would further regress this country if not checked. This informs the National Rebirth philosophy as enunciated by President Olusegun Obasanjo. We need to change our thinking; we need to see ourselves as Nigerians first; I see myself as Nigerian only. We need what I call Nigerian Citizenship. This Nigerian Citizenship can be achieved by starting from now the implementation of the Nigeria Project. We should hurry up to defeat the formidable forces of obscurantism and ethnicism which only serves selfish interests and jeopardizes Nigeria. We should attack them with all-out qualitative education for our children. We should spiritedly encourage inter-tribal marriages. Government should only just stop short of making it a law. The notion of state of origin is tantamount to enthronement of ethnicism in our national life. Some people are born and bred in areas different from those of their parents. They can speak fluently only the local language; but when it comes to identifying their state of origin, they have no choice but to mouth their parents’ state. There should be State of Citizenship, not of Origin. State of Origin can be considered as a stopgap measure when reviewed in history, but we cannot continue with it. National Character, Quota System and all the likes are measures used to regress the country. If someone is slow, everything possible should be done to make him catch up with others, not for others to wait for him. If others are forced to wait for him, he gets the needed incentive to remain slow but if he is encouraged to see himself as equal to, if not better than the others, he would make effort and catch up and it would be better for us. There is inequality in the land. America is great because it was founded on the premise that everyone should rise to where their abilities can take them, not on the basis of what geographical area his father was born into. Suffice to say here that right now in the US, the President, the Vice-President and the Senate Majority Leader all come from states in the same region and very close to one another. It took nearly one hundred years after the American Civil War for a president to come out of that region.

Let us make Nigeria great. 2040 is a long time away; it is a whole generation away. Doing the right thing starting from now, we will achieve the greatness articulated here. Afterall, no African country can boast of as many professionals making waves in highly developed countries as Nigeria. The one African Nobel Laureate outside of politics is a Nigerian. Nigeria has got the potentials. Channeled in the right direction, the potentials would bring for us distinct greatness in Africa and the world by 2040.

OSEIWE IBHAGUI
1999

Important Political Commentary, 1998

NIGERIA, THINK

Many Nigerians at home and abroad had been waiting for the much anticipated speech by the new Head-of-State on the way forward for Nigeria which, as expected, would be decreed into being by executive fiat as is the case with a military government. Finally it came, July 20.

He addressed the burning issues in the political landscape of the country and – to my surprise – delved into economic, social and other issues. This speech to me is his first real speech as Head-of-State in control. I wondered why he had to address all these other issues since, at the end of it, he set May ’99 as his exit date. One wonders how he intends to accomplish all those on his agenda in ten months when in the first place, he never dreamt of occupying the chair he now occupies in his most adventurous of dreams in a country where others have prepared for almost twenty years to one day, somehow, become a military “President”, and failed in their agenda after years in the saddle. The military has proved to be incompetent economists in Nigeria and we expect them to focus more on handing-over politicking. The days are over when the man at the helm of affairs in Nigeria had the enviable task of trying hard to decide what in the world we should do with all the oil money dripping out of every well of (Southern) Nigeria. You see, in that case the man there never makes a mistake as far as the average Nigerian was concerned. Indeed, few people even knew any other one in the government apart from the “ruler” – it is instructive to know that no one has ever “served” Nigeria; they have only “ruled”. For so long as the average man could eat as much as and whatever in the world – literally – he liked, whether it was cooked and canned all the way from Australia or West Germany; as long as he could marry as many wives and bring forth as many children as he liked (or more appropriately – as God gives him!); as long as his main preoccupation after workday is to compete with his friends on number of bottles of beer he could guzzle before going under, he never cared whether it was Gowon or Murtala or Obasanjo. It is like a woman on whom different men are taking turns as long as each retains the candy in her mouth while he is on. A generation on and those crowd of children, now we the youth, are the true victims of social and political indiscretion.

Now the candy has been removed from their mouths and we have now looked up wondering who are up there and what they are doing. We looked around and behold, we saw the beautiful country, America, and saw them practicing democracy and now we start to shout “Democracy!” “Democracy!” when many of us know little more than the word itself. When the first republic men in long-flowing robes were there, Nigeria had just started primary one in democracy. It was still a fully British legacy until 1963. They were still biding time in primary one democracy when some people felt we had to go from there to university-level national development. These people felt we could go from first day in primary one to university-level of national development which they felt, could not be achieved by primary one democracy with its relish for head smashing with chairs in houses of assembly. They felt that rapid development could be decreed, after which the democracy frontiersmen would then be able to conduct their affairs as expected. How I wish I were there to tell them that democracy also has university level and that it only takes time to get there.

Indeed, in fairness to all, it may be faster to get up the ladder by decreeing past the first few rungs which constitute illiteracy, ignorance, and lack of self-control on the part of the populace and politicians respectively. We have the example of Augusto Pinochet who bombed his way into power and remained there for seventeen years during which time his country Chile marched on the corpses of his over three thousand victims to economic prosperity and social development after which he gave way to the democratization process which is all but totally complete today with himself being an inconsequential and insignificant unelected senator-for-life.

There is also the case of South Korea which some people should know is the home of Daewoo cars and electronics and which has had the opportunity of hosting the Olympics “Seoul ‘88”. These are indices of economic and social prosperity. We also know that the country is a democracy which has just had a democratic change in leadership. But how many people know that they had twenty-six years straight of military dictatorship under Generals Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan, and Roh Tae Woo during which the country sprinted up the economic ladder and returned to democracy albeit with the military candidate winning the first post-military elections. What did it matter when just a mere ten years after the return to democracy, Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo still came to the dock to defend their dictatorship. Any current affairs follower knows they got death and life imprisonment respectively before they were pardoned – two leaders responsible for the economic advancement and democracy in their country. It is a testimony to the enigma of time that the president today is a man of whom the former military strongmen cannot understand how he managed to escape their assassination orders and judicial murder attempts while he was a dissident canvassing for democracy. He is Kim Dae Jung. There are many other examples where the military has prepared the environment for disciplined conduct of democracy and economic development.

It is in this light that President Bill Clinton gave a condition for Abacha’s participation in his now-dismantled transition programme. He did not know that our own military, just like their civilian counterparts, have no interest of the common man at heart and is content so long as the oil money coming in lines their pockets. There is even a school of thought which contends that a military dictatorship is the only means by which a section of the country can foist itself on us and remain relevant in the scheme of things in the country. Our greatest problem in this country is ethnicism which has eaten deep into our individual souls and which every single Nigerian is ready to deny. Most painfully, it being passed to the next generation by means of “obey your parents”, and “don’t prove too know” syndromes. All British-subject-born Nigerians i.e. those born before independence, have this sore of tribalism somewhere in them; don’t mind whatever they say. Even the very few who, by sheer willpower, have gotten rid of the sore, the scars will never leave them. While those few ones are less likely to pass the disease on to the next generation, those in the majority with the fresh sore are passing this cankerworm to the next generation by means of “obey your elders”, “obey your parents”. On national issues, what comes first is ethnic survival manifest in the form of nepotism and favouritism in the award of contracts and others. Socially, it is no different; you could never be more than a very good fellow from the other tribe. When the chips are down, you are from another tribe and can only go so far in their trust. Look, all the problems we have been having in this country have not so much had to do with the politicians or the soldiers as without social malaise of tribalism and ethnicism, this even goes a long way to explain why soldiers have been there all this while.

But nonetheless, much as I hate the present state of affairs in the country, it must be noted that some people are taking advantage of it and hence, subconsciously, hope it continues. I am talking about those who seem to be opponents of the present dispensation. In 1990, on a personal level, I knew only Amnesty International. There might have been one or two in this country but if there were, they were not known to many a Nigerian. By that 1990 we had already seen twenty years of military totalitarianism. All of a sudden, from left to right, groups started to spring up. The collapse of the Berlin Wall a year earlier and of communism a year after, set the stage for worldwide democratization such that western countries started to fund groups in many countries clamouring for democratic governance in their countries. Trust Nigerians, they will not allow the dollar rain pass by them. They looked for reason to cause scenes against the government to justify the funds allocated to them. When the military machinery decides to do what it knows best, almost everyone of note scampers into safety outside the country. There is no stretch of imagination in Nigerian life which recognizes victory in death even when Christians keep shouting that Christ achieved victory in death. The martyrs for Nigerian democracy will never be forgotten and will have a place in the history of the democratic struggle in Nigeria. Now that the Head-of-State has leveled the political playing field and dropped all charges against all political exiles, what will be expected of them is to come back, give the man the benefit of the doubt; at least, prove him to be no different from his predecessors and then run back to exile when he starts to bear his pangs. We wait to see whether that view will be shared by them to the consequence that some of them would then have to leave their comparatively better off abode where I understand they are given allowance and special privileges as political exiles. If I had some money and bore the same surname as some of the people on the receiving end of government, I might have applied for asylum in one of these affluent Western countries, painting our leaders as black can go just to advance my wish to be allowed in their countries. I remember a cartoon in 1990 after Mandela was released. The cartoon depicted musicians who had practically built their fame on the back of Mandela’s long imprisonment and the injustices of apartheid. The question then came that what were they going to make of their music now that Mandela was out of prison. Much as they must have agreed within themselves that they were happy Mandela was out of it, they were faced with the embarrassing reality that the main ingredient of their sweet music would be gone and they would be ambivalent about their future. It is a matter of winning the war and not being equipped to face up to the peace.

Let us now talk about the greatest democracy on earth. The United States is a beautiful country where everything works, isn’t it? Good. How many people know that the US fought a brutal civil war for four years along the same line as Nigeria’s civil war? That war afforded President Abraham Lincoln to make one of the best speeches by any man and effectively defined the meaning democracy will thereafter take and the perils it faced at the time. He said, on a major battleground at Gettysburg:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a great nation; conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure...”

He finally said:

“...It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

The last few lines are generally regarded as the definition of democracy today, one hundred and thirty-five years after they were spoken by Lincoln. America’s whites were biased against the blacks whose parents and grandparents were brought as slaves and felt they were inferior and should be used as slaves. That, in a sense, is analogous to our ethnicism here. Their Federal Government forbade it. That was one of the major reasons for the war which was won by the north (trust the north).

For a hundred years slavery remained dead but its nephew, racism was born. In short the US was more or less an apartheid state. It took a man like the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr to question why it should be that blacks could not expect the same treatment as whites wherever they went. The status quo was so deeply etched in American life that he was more or less seen as a troublemaker. Let this be known: he started his movement in 1955 at the peak of American prosperity when American was the undisputed King of the World. He was from a comfortable home; he was bright, having graduated at nineteen years of age. He did not look the other way, keep a harem of wives or “drink to quench”. He stood up for democracy and challenged the US government to “live out the true meaning of its creed…” He gave speeches everywhere, thought out non-violent methods of civil protest. He was hated by white administrators, beaten and thrown into jail by the authorities. He came out each time continuing from where he left off. He organized the greatest civilian rally since the creation of man: 250,000 people of all walks of life and all colours converged on and practically took over Washington, DC and that set the stage for the greatest speech by any black man where he declared, “I have a dream…” Though that number of people has been surpassed by people for less noble causes, it still was the most important rally there. It is the first man to look under of a cow and declares, “whatever is in there, I will drink”, that is greater than subsequent people who milk the cow!

So many civil rights activists were assassinated or were mutilated by police and their dogs! In defiance of Federal Government order, at least one State governor went personally!!! – to a school to physically block a black student from enrolling there as a student. This happened in the 1960s when America was much more technologically superior and socially more advanced than all other countries than they are today. Martin Luther King, Jr. never had the luxury of having another country to run to for refuge in spite of numberless death threats he and his family received. His family house was burnt down as an example but where could he go? There was nowhere else to go; he had to push forward as fast he could since he was sure it was only a matter of time before he would pay the price he was ready to pay for preaching brotherly love and equality.

That day finally came but not before he seized the opportunity a night before his appointed hour to tell his people:

“… but it doesn’t matter with me because I’ve been to the mountain top. Like everyone else I would like to live a long life; but I’m not concerned with that right now. I just want to do the will of God and he has allowed me to go up the mountain; and I’ve looked over; and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to that promised land…”

It is instructive to note that his “will of God,” was not to siphon the congregation’s contribution to buy flashy cars and build mansions while preaching in church every Sunday that he is praying “fervently” about the situation in his country. Anyway, he was shot to death hours after that speech – the lamb of true democracy and equality of all men. His death sparked off riots in one hundred US cities; count it: one hundred. April 4, 1968 will always remain the blackest day in the history of blacks in the United States.

I wonder whether anybody is going to reason that the US is not as violent as Nigeria. In the 1960s the US was more violent than Nigeria will ever be in peacetime. King fought against a social status quo, not just against a government. It is much easier to change a government than to change a social system. In countries where communists held sway, communism was as much the social system as the government. In cases like that it is a virtual impossibility to unseat such a government. The USSR government collapsed because communism was collapsing out there with the masses due to social and economic discontent and not because anybody staged a coup against the government and by that tried to change the social status quo. The US government desperately tried to change the social status quo and have now almost wholly succeeded due to the King revolution which addressed it. For in Nigeria, our greatest undoing – our social status quo – is tribalism and ethnicism. That is the very tool the military has been using against us. It was in the US in the ‘60s that its finest president was brutally murdered. He had been in sympathy with Rev. King and was initiating legislation in support of the black cause never minding accusations by congressmen of “forcing the nigger down our throats.” He was particularly hated in the south where he was to go on a visit. Despite pleas by spiritualists who had precisely foretold he would be killed, he embarked on the journey, riding in a car with no roof! Just as easily, he was indeed shot by an ordinary vagabond. A fine young man in his forties; an award-winning author and literary star on whom a myth has been built as regards his reading speed; the son of one of America’s foremost millionaires; he was shot – just like that. He felt: what’s the fuss; if it was his death that would advance the cause of a better America, why not? His brother, Robert F. Kennedy, who was the Attorney-General during his time and was responsible for passing laws to end racial segregation was himself murdered in 1968 when he was campaigning to be president. There was also Malcolm X who canvassed black power in America. He was assassinated right where he was giving the speech, “… by any means necessary!” These were successful murder acts and there are many more. Only God can know how many were planned but not hatched or were not successful. The blood of these great men have watered the tree of democracy in America so that it can grow even bigger. Many people here do not know this. They see the country as a beautiful country where nobody will hurt a fly; where an insignificant street fighter like Mike Tyson can make it to the top of wealth and stardom and wonder why Nigeria cannot wake up the next day and be like that.

Our problem, as I have said, is ignorance caused by lack of societal enlightenment. I have been careful not to say “education” because many a PhD holder will not take lightly to this. Societal advancement and enlightenment has more to do than a few individuals having doctorates especially when such people build high gates around themselves. It comes to being when within a microcosm, lets say there is one person, a psychologist; another, an economist; another, an engineer; and yet another, not having been to any school. When all four discuss issues, the view of the engineer becomes authority when matters concerning technological happenstance are discussed. The three others learn from him because he should know better than them. When the topic shifts to a person’s behavior, the psychologist’s view becomes more important and all others learn from it. When the matter come to the economy of the country, the three hang on every word of the economist. In this example, even the one who has not been anywhere, for so long as he has the privilege of bantering with the professionals, improves his sense of judgement of issues even if probably, he can’t even read or write! I can assure you that that has not taken root in the country. Our leaders in the first republic felt they had gone to the white man’s school and beat them there in academic work and felt they could not come here to play second fiddle to them. They forgot that they could not hold brief for millions of ignorant bushmen in our villages and towns who knew nothing yet. What is a democracy when the electorate does not know what is right from wrong? Lost in their emotional quest for heroism they attacked the British with the pen and finally grabbed their estate, gloating over their inheritance. It cannot be denied that voting in the first republic was based strictly on what the deity says: If your emir, your oba, your chief, or your obi, tells you to vote for this man, him and only him will you vote for without recourse to rumination. It smacks of being a zombie. Enlightenment is different from mere education. At independence we were nowhere in both. Today, many of us are getting an education, or more appropriately – certification, but we are still lacking enlightenment. The one leader who must have seen the dangers in attaining independence without a commensurate level of mass enlightenment was fully ready to make up for it when he got the opportunity. Government policy on education has never been more practical and focused as during the time of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He fully understood the dangers of leading ignorant human beings. They could be tools by anybody to destructive ends. Education he saw as a hedge against the gamble of independence which he was inextricably a part of. For this singular reason, whatever his shortcomings, he is still the most nationally respected, if not feared, statesman.

Ignorance is such a dangerous disease because it paralyses all aspects of man without him knowing it. A man may agree he has not been to school but he can never be convinced he does not have a good sense of judgement on a given topic. His views will always seem right to him and he would yield to a view at variance only after regarding the holder as a better man. Matters get worse if he is rich and can adorn himself better than others in which case he will never hear of anybody contrasting what he thinks is right. That man will have a child and would enforce on the child his code of conduct: be friendly with my friends; hate my enemies (of which some do have many); do not marry from this tribe or that tribe because they are this or that. What happens to such a child if this is told to him from childhood and compliance is enforced with the child not having the opportunity of seeing life from another side of the prism. If the child continues on that track till early adulthood, you can never completely change him again. Meanwhile, parents are prepared to fight the devil to instill whatever values they wish in their children.

It might be important to even look into this marriage affair and how parents try to bring ethnic considerations to bear on it. Before this present generation of about-to-be-married youths, our parents mostly married people of their own tribe being mainly because they were mostly born and bred in their individual villages and came to major cities like Lagos because it was “abroad” to them. Every other person of another tribe was a stranger and your parents back in the village will not be able to understand how come you are bringing somebody who cannot even speak your native tongue as your future partner should you decide to be so daring. You might as well have gone to the moon to pick bride or groom! They never understood the realities that 1914 had come to bring on their lives. These people get married and raise children in the city where some speak only english language or pidgin english to their children. These children go to school, meet other children from all the tribes in our national spectrum. They grow up together, seeing one another as the same thing, being different in any other way but in the tribe of their parents. Some build enduring friendships, stronger even than family ties. When a friend comes to see the other at home, the parents inquire from their child what tribe his friend is from. The child answers, not knowing the less noble reasons for which their parents are asking. It is wedding time and a child picks his or her partner. Ambivalence or sometimes, downright rejection on the basis of tribe. This is the case when sometimes none of the lovers have ever visited the village and cannot even speak their language! All forms of “parental wisdom” are applied to discourage intimacy with a different tribe except for exploitative reasons.

When all this is going on, how do we hope to achieve national integration? Why do we postpone the day when the president’s father would be from Uyo, his mother from Suleja; his maternal grandfather from Ekpoma, his maternal grandmother from Katsina; his paternal grandfather from Onitsha and his paternal grandmother from Ogbomoso, his getting to the top job only on the strength of his ideas and abilities?! Such a person can only but be described as a Nigerian – full stop. That might not be possible in the next five generations; it may not even be desirable; but what is possible now is just to look at that fellow as of a given tribe by accident of birth and read no other meaning to it. The British have helped us solve a major hindrance to this by giving us a neutral language which all can learn. So what are we waiting for?

Even the not-so-ignorant also have a challenge to face up to. They have that emotional animal within them to tame in order to see issues and make judgements as objectively as the situation demands. They like to shout that they are objective just because they have looked up the word in some dictionary and know its meaning. Yet their actions betray their essence. I have now come to notice that in many arguments I have witnessed, it is the most vocal and aggressive person that is seen to be correct on his views by the people around. Okay now, in a democratic campaign, he wins the race and cannot deliver in office. Who is worse off? The world should never never forget that Adolf Hitler got to the top of German affairs in a democratic manner. He was incompetent at shooting his way to power and was promptly apprehended on trying. It was while in prison that he was wise enough to write a book in such a prose that it permeated the soul of Germany and before you could say “Jack Robinson”, he won elections to the second most important position in the land and only had to wait for venerable Paul Von Hindenburg to peacefully go the way of all mortals before he finally seized the moment. It was a feat of superlative proportions when it is realized that this man spent almost his whole life as a social burden on the state, living in hostels, having little or no formal education, having no good clothes, no friends; he was a classical vagabond with nothing else but his rabid interest in reading about ancient German glory, black magic, and the arts with a particular interest in the Spear of Longinus which is believed to be the spear used to pierce the side of Christ on crucifixion.

How did he achieve this? Good: In his book “Mien Kampfe”, he described the great emperors of the past, the superiority of their race and the disgraceful “betrayal” by their commanders in surrendering to allied troops which ended the first world war; and the terrible sufferings of the German people as a result of that. He seemed to capture the emotion of his countrymen with his dream for a great German nation, militarily and culturally able to affirm its superiority over all other races. Their sense of national and Aryan pride was in such a battered state that they could not see the man as preaching racial hatred with all its attendant dangers. They went along with him and, as they say, the rest is now history.

Look at what is happening in the country; people appeal to emotion easily. You are quickly seen as a hero or villain – nothing between. When you are a hero, nothing you do could possibly be wrong and many an intellectual is ready to stake his head to hold a brief for any of your actions. Same thing when you are a villain; none of your actions ever seem to be right. Many science-oriented students are trained in an environment where you are not supposed to know the answer to a mathematical problem or to an investigation until such a time that you have completed the procedure which is used to find it out. This is the method which has enabled science over the millennia to discover new possibilities in this inscrutable existence of which we are but a temporary part. Science never works from conclusion to premise but only from premise to conclusion. What happens in our case here: we work from answer to question! An illustration is this: Nigeria national team plays friendlies with some countries prior to the world cup and loses woefully. Verdict: the coach is not good, he is not competent; he should have fielded this player here and that player there; he should stop deceiving us with that “blackboard” he holds about. It goes on and on. The World Cup; first match. Nigeria beats highly-rated Spain. Verdict: this coach is something else; he is such a great coach, he knows his onions; did you see his tactical wizardry in fielding this player here and that player there? Did you see how he described positions for that player on that his magic “blackboard” so that he was able to score that goal? You see, it is wonderful how he deceived the whole world all this while by allowing Nigeria to be beaten in all its friendly matches!!! By the second match, his legend was already secured in most Nigerian hearts. We predicted a defeat against Brazil in the quarter-finals en route to “Coca Cola: believe”. Alas! Second round: a scandalous defeat to Nigeria and not even the coach could return. Analysts readjust facts to be on all fours with the latest answers and then we get to know the NFA never gets a step correct; disharmony in the team… These are self-proclaimed football experts who analyse in all available media. How so unfortunately this inclination has ravaged our national psyche.

It is so distressing seeing how people are unable to air their views objectively for fear of being branded. There might be a few who could be wrong but are sincere in how they see things in our national life. If they ever come out, they are quickly branded. If you are not a government agent or an apologist for the military, then you must be a NADECO agent. There couldn’t possibly be a middle road. We should look at the government of the day now. I hope nobody is now clouding himself with the thought that Abacha was overthrown. The government in power is his – sans himself. But look on the ground; what has he built that still remains? What did he stand for that now remains? For the avoidance of doubt we should know that 1995 constitution was not addressed since we will all agree it will create opportunity of putting forward the Sovereign National Conference agenda causing tension in the land and could keep this government in power till the next century. Abacha had been followed by these same people there now for almost five years during which time he clamped Chief M. K. O. Abiola into detention, ordered the barbaric judicial murder of Ken Saro Wiwa (so Saro Wiwa has indeed died) and had Diya and others sentenced to death. I wonder how many people even know that the present Head-of-State has been in Nigeria’s highest ruling body since in the eighties, starting from Babangida’s AFRC to the present day, through the criminal annulment of June 1993. How many people can stand up and vouch that they all supported all these moves? It was recently said that Abacha put the fate of Diya and others to a vote during a PRC meeting and many members voted for upholding judgement with many things on their minds, not least of which was the apprehension of being seen as disloyal in singing a different tune. Donaldson Oladipo Diya would have done the same.

So it is also on the other side of the political boxing ring. If you belong to a group which advocates malice against the military, you are damned should you look for any positive opening in them to exploit for the benefit of your motherland. It is this individualism of the struggle that has caused an embarrassing proliferation of such groups with one strongman and other dwarfs who should do his bidding. That does not immediately remind one of a democratic backdrop. It was quite amazing to note that JACON consisted of nothing less than fifty-two groups. So each one has all along been canvassing its own agenda, soliciting its own share of what favours had been accruing to its progenitor, and striking its feckless machinery on the formidable military feet in the hope of bringing it down. I remember the story of a broomstick and how impossible it is to break it when in a bunch. I am grateful for the collapse of communist USSR because, look at China. Dateline, June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square: terrible and unprecedented massive student riots in communist China. Their request: democracy. The tanks roll out, shooting everywhere; tanks run over human beings; bodies mutilated, skulls smashed. Nine years later – a short nine years – US President Bill Clinton arrives Beijing and is received on Tiananmen Square! When the chips are down, the US is more interested in your economic relations with her than in what you do to your people. It is amusing to remember that in the heat of the battle for revalidation of the mandate in 1993, some people thought America would send jet fighters to Aso Rock to dispatch the Babangida cabal and install Abiola. Afterall the latter was their friend and was fighting a cause which had their sympathy. How wrong; how so wrong. My people suffer for lack of knowledge. Were it not for the collapse of the USSR – the erstwhile only true communist superpower – and hence the worldwide democratization process, the US would be more interested in your opposition to communism than in whether your whole family runs the government. Case study: Mobutu, Jean Claude Duvallier. This is why we have to come together to look for ways to solve our problems.

These gun-totting politicians have tested the hard drug whatever their initial reasons for doing so and you cannot just ask them to walk off it. We have to try to rehabilitate them, and as anybody conversant with such task knows, it cannot happen overnight. Some people eventually break the habit of cigarette smoking by smoking one stick less every month! Imagine how long it would take the person to quit the habit if he were initially smoking a packet daily. National issues take much longer than human problems to solve. This analogy merely serves to explain why it has taken this long and is not an argument for further indiscretion. Let us look at one point nobody has yet pointed out. How many people have observed that all serving officers, Major General down joined the Army after it had gained political relevance in 1966? When this number is removed from the officer cadre, what remains? I will volunteer to count with the fingers of one of my hands. Their whole career – with the exception of four brief years – was spent with their C-in-C as the C-in-C of the whole country! At the NDA Graduation each year, people throng to watch their friends and family members pass out, musing somewhat indiscreetly that maybe one of them would be a governor tomorrow or even the Head of State. They say such things in oblivion of the gravity of it. Because of this, gifted people who would never have joined the Nigerian armed forces are there today hoping to gain access to the higher level of national life such that one should seriously wonder whether the armed forces doesn’t really have the best intellects in Nigeria. The only Nigerian to firmly draw Nigeria’s map in the world of medical innovation was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the army. If the nation’s democracy (if it starts at all) can survive one generation of military officers and men, then democracy is ours forever. The trick is to hang on for the person who is 2nd-Lieutenant on the first day of Civilian rule to become the last retiring General or whatever. Then we are completely and forever free. For now, if May 29, 1999 does bring forth what it was decreed to bear if we like, we should address, “a vexing national question”, or “perceived sectional domination”, on May 30, 1999. We might – as usual – have to return to our ever-reliable drawing board when some toes are stepped on and expend billions of Naira once more on yet another transition to the same thing. Since we tried and could not change by revolution, we just have to keep the peace and change by evolution. I hope we do not fail the “JAMB” of Nationhood forever.

Students also are not to be left out. They should outgrow their empty bravado and be more positively contributory to our national aspirations. Student leaders should be the most informed group of people besides journalists and our very own leaders themselves. They should know what has been obtaining in the world before them – not just what happened last week or last year. Some seemingly puzzling events of today are better understood when put in historical perspective. Nobody should ever take the person who speaks the most violent rhetoric as the best leader. I can vouch for the fact that our student union leaders are falling very short of this quality and it may not be too surprising why it is so when their method of rise to prominence is investigated.

In many institutions in the country, gaining the student union top jobs is a target which can only be achieved by people who have resources at their disposal. Many of them are not so far away from the power brokers in the school many of whom are or have links to the dreaded campus underworld. One might even have a hard time distinguishing between them. These people are not the ones who have been grooming themselves from time to lead other people wisely. Just as the leaders we have been having, they are not the people who seek power in order to use it to serve. It is more of a prestige thing than anything else. Hardly can anybody get there on the strength of his wisdom and knowledge only. Worse still if the person is disfavoured by nature although that may be made up for with sufficient aggressiveness. They get to that place and feel the best way to justify their election is to confront the university authorities and the government on matters which could be settled more amicably. If they do not do this when they don’t want to, they are immediately branded as weak or bought over. It is also common knowledge that many student union officials perpetrate such vices as they accuse their nation’s leaders of albeit on a smaller scale. This goes a long way into meaning that, had student union fees not been demanded as obligatory, hardly would anybody remit such fees. Never mind; looking at the larger picture, they are absolved because we are all the victims of October 1, 1960.

The press has not been finding it easy in the country also especially since 1986 when the first shot was fired at it. Dele Giwa misunderstood the smile on the man’s face and took the parcel even when he knew he had put down the gauntlet. Till date he never knew what hit him. Since then it has gradually become a no-love-lost affair between the press and the powers that be. They have been trying to show that mightier is the pen than the sword. Since the early nineties when both completely spoiled for a fight, the number of outlets for the press has skyrocketed. Editors are sacked from one newspaper or the other for not apologizing to man on top when the man cannot even prove they stepped on his toes. The editors leave and float their own newspaper so that now, more than half of the magazines in stands today are children of circumstance, totally committed to continuing the vendetta against a formidable enemy. The press is armed with the belief that it is the watchdog of society and its members willingly submit themselves to all manner of privation along the same lines as pro-democracy activists. The security apparatus really cannot make a difference between a journalist and a pro-democracy activist. One particularly funny case was where some security personnel found the pictures of Soyinka in conference and of Soyinka with a journalist in the journalist’s car at a roadblock and the penalty for the “crime”: the journalist would not even get home first before he was whisked off to cool of his heels in detention – just like that. Trust Decree Two.

But besides all this witch-hunting by overzealous security agents, how can we appraise the role of the press as objectively as we should. The word “the Press” in Nigeria, immediately connotes the print media. However, that is a rather restrictive meaning for it. It should include the Television and the Radio. Since the early 90’s all sections of the media have seen new entrants. In the electronic press, this was made possible through a decree and there are now a number of such stations especially in the Lagos area. Over the years, it has been observed that the media indeed can be divided into two categories not just in their method of information dissemination but also in their temperament. The electronic media can at once be seen as right in the middle of the divide. They are seen to be reporting issues as they see it without sticking out their neck to say what they do not know or are not sure of. They are seen not to be at loggerheads with anybody. Sometimes it even seems it is the electronic media which reports the drama between government and the print media. The print media is regarded as the obstinate side of the coin, always in trouble with the government. They seem to be in such solidarity within themselves that one wonders whether objectivity is not being sacrificed.

Not one report by one newspaper or magazine is ever disputed by another. Does that mean they are always perfectly true, free from sometime misleading insinuations? One may not be quick to agree with that. Let us quickly talk about what happened only recently in America concerning the press: the CNN broadcast not long ago a programme in which it was alleged that the United States Defence Department had used nerve gas as part of its weaponry in 1970 during the Vietnam war. That story had come as a shock to the world but only recently, a newspaper – whether it was the Washington Post or so – proved the allegation as completely baseless. The CNN conducted an investigation and found the report could not hold water. What did they do: they retracted the story and publicly apologized to the US Government. They also sacked the editors responsible for the report. All these happened without the government being a part of it – just like remote control. The press regulates itself over there. I am still yet to get the facts clear as to whether it is possible to transmit poison into a human being by way of a radar beam in a pen-like object! This was exactly the report I read not long ago in one of our weekly news magazine about how an Israeli enemy was poisoned by Israel agents. The reporter was trying to give credence to his hypothesis that Bashorun Abiola might have been poisoned by government in this crude country in such a way that the best pathologists on earth could not detect. It only goes back to the earlier said emotional nature of our people. If the press checked its facts better and extended their watchdog roles to within their group, it should augur well for the country.

We all want the country to get back up again. The first step to achieving this is patriotism. This word is rare in our lexicography in this country. There are a couple of Nigerians who are so patriotic they cannot see anything wrong with the country. That is not so much what we need. We should criticize whatever is wrong in the country but do it constructively. Without a doubt the military has exhausted all the goodwill of Nigerians but we should not cut our nose to spite our face. At times, even in the US, freedom is subordinated to national security. In wartime, newspapers and other media submit themselves willingly to government for censorship so as to prevent compromising national security. How much more this little country which is still much less civilized than the US. In the 1940s, thousands of Japanese-Americans were rounded up and isolated within the US so that they might not compromise US Security. Some were full citizens of the US but what did it matter: blood could be thicker than water. What mattered was that they were ethnically Japanese and the US was at war with their motherland. They willingly accepted and understood the grave pressure on the government. It was patriotism which propelled Neil Amstrong to take “a giant leap…” from earth to a “…small step for man…” on the moon, disregarding the craziness of such an undertaking.

We should hate whoever wants to destroy our country but we should never hate our country while he is there. It is quite unwise for our Voice of Democracy, Radio Kudirat to sing our old national anthem on air. That is contempt for the poor helpless country which has been hijacked by a few individuals over the decades. The thought of ridiculing your country on the international scene, in sporting events and others will not change the man in Aso Rock. We could leave that job for the foreigners so that we may come back from abroad indignant to our leaders for being the cause of such shoddy treatment outside our shores. Those whose ideas have been paralyzed by frustration about the situation could serve the interest of the country best by just keeping mute instead of going on an ego trip. I do not know who could have been more frustrated with the fate of the country for almost three decades after its independence than the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. What could he do after being frustrated at the polls? He still wrote letters to successive leaders notably the prescient one to Shagari, and wrote books on issues affecting the country. Never once did he ridicule his country to his foreign friends.

We have to come together to look for ways to solve our problems. History and the worldwide trend is in our favour; that is our trump card. It would have cost the military little or nothing to stay put had it not been for this. We should eschew the policy of confrontation or cheap publicity and try to work together with the devil if need be to ensure a new dawn for the country. The litany of mistakes culminating in October 1, 1960 has been made, of which every true citizen-born Nigerian should be regretful and indignant – we are the real victims. The even more catastrophic adventurism and shallow mindedness of 1966 still live with us till today and we cannot deny its occurrence.

A generation ago, the West was aptly described as the “wild wild west”, due to political infighting which tore it apart even to this day. Hubert Ogunde composed a song in which he sang, “Yoruba, ronu” which means, “Yoruba, think”. As we look forward to the next few months in the nation, I urge all Nigerians, “Nigeria, ronu.”

Just Created my Account...

...and I'm so glad I did at last. I shall be posting my thoughts from long ago and commenting on recent developments. I have tried to contribute my insights to the debates over the years about very important issues in Nigeria but the known people in the country I tried to contact and share thoughts with would have none of it. Well, that was before the Internet journalism age.

So, I'm glad to be here and shall be posting subsequently.

Osi