http://washosy.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454203

I submit for discussion the speech delivered by His Excellency Gen. Ibrahim B. Babangida, GCFR, Mni, to the Justice Muhammed Uwais (Rtd), former CJN of Nigeria led Electoral Reform Committee when they visited Minna, Niger State for Public discussions, on July 22, 2008.

It is on record that Babangida’s regime orchestrated to completion and annulled a successful election held on June 12, 1993. He has since accepted responsibility for the annulment without equivocation, however, as a citizen of Nigeria and a former President; he has a constitutional right to express his opinion on such an important discourse. Kindly read on. “It is about issues and not individuals.”

This also affords Babangida’s friends the opportunity to read his position on the issue of electoral reforms as well as give his traducers additional opportunity to vent their anger; it is therapeutic indeed….so let’s rumble.

####
The Chairman,
Electoral Reform Committee.

MEMORANDUM

Electoral Reform and the Party System, Notes for Interactive Discourse Felicitation and Introduction

I wish to express our pleasure and sense of privilege and honour for your coming over here for this interactive discourse. Both the subject matter and purpose of our meeting represent one area of our experience in the rare privilege of governance in our country.

Nigeria is a highly blessed nation by the Almighty, but people and the leaders at any point in history have had to cope and will continue to cope, with daunting challenges. Governance is not easy, neither is it extraordinary difficult. It is the amount and quality of knowledge, focus, sensibility and grasp of the challenges that can make a difference. We believe that there may be no dispute about our knowledge of our country and of our experience in its governance. However, it must be emphasized that the regime, which it was our privilege to lead, was one of dictatorship. Nonetheless, that regime was driven by vision of history of our people and of political challenges. Accordingly, the regime had a mission to create the necessary institutions, structures, processes and environment for a much better system of government to exist. The regime had a “controlled environment” by the fact of military dictatorship, yet if possessed a clear purpose with observance of basic freedoms and human rights as well as the consciousness to maintain the country’s federal society and federal system of government. It also established the policy basis and structures for a new and better national economy from day one that was inherited. The same thing can be said about country’s foreign policy and international relations.

We are engaged in this discuss in, and for a different governance regime from the one we utilized for the country. There may be defects in the present constitution but the country is being governed under a constitutional regime, democracy and federation. The present ruling class cannot tamper with the system arbitrarily even if with noble causes as it is possible under the military. There is a lot to inform us about our past, but we cannot lose consciousness about the limitations of democracy and constitutional government.

REFLECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS:
Against the preceding introductions, we wish to draw attention to some lessons and make suggestions, which may be of use in your deliberations.

Imperative of the Environment of Elections: Aside from the cancellation of the result of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election which is not the subject matter of this discourse, you are likely to agree with us that the elections conducted under my watch between 1989 and 1992 were generally free, fair, acceptable and credible. One of the many success factors of those elections is the environment. The environment, which we utilized for the elections under our regime, may be described as one of “guided democracy.” There is another element in that environment, namely the absence of undue partisanship. It is common knowledge that power incumbency or the power system is always interested in succession elections. But this element is more apparent and brazen under governments of elected rulers. It is therefore easy to understand why elections conducted by the military when they are exiting from power have been much freer and more credible than elections conducted by Nigerians when the rulers are members of one political party. The problem, which this factor poses in how, the credibility of the national framework and of the role of elections in sustaining proper democracy can be guaranteed through succession elections by politician rulers.

We have raised this important issue of environment of elections so that you may wish, after this deliberation; bring into your recommendations the need to sanitize the environment of elections (I will return to this element again below).

We hear these days about the need to return to what, under our watch, we called ‘Modified Open Ballot System’ in elections. This is simply a big phrase for Secret Ballot. We still believe that Nigeria should continue with the Secret Ballot (or Modified Open Ballot System). But this can succeed only if the environment of elections is properly sanitized. This observation and suggestion applies to what we called ‘Option A4’, particularly for party primaries. We believe ‘Option A4’ is good again only if the environment is sanitized. Today in large sections of the country, the use of dangerous weapons including sophisticated arms and ammunitions have become commonplace spectacles. If the environment is not sanitized, any criminally minded fanatic or thug or even those who see every election as the ‘last election’ (what some people call “do or die election”), the venue of conducting party primaries or actual elections can easily be disrupted by the use of guns or any other weapons of threat to life.

The issue of how to fully harness and use the people’s ballot or vote came up for discussion during our regime. This is whether we should continue the ‘first-pass-the-post’; or to adopt proportional representation in which the contesting political parties can be allocated seats in the legislature or in the executive, which are proportional to the votes obtained by them at elections. The fear, to which we subscribe, is that proportional representation may even provide tensed and fractious environment of quarrel and hostility in the calculations of fractions of the vote involved. We therefore subscribe to what has been with us ‘first-pass-the-post’ in winning elections.

We think the emerging factor of staggered election is good for the system. The logistics, security and other items of elections, which create tensions in the one general election, may be reduced. We are therefore persuaded that elections should be staggered whether according to the present geopolitical zones or any permutations and arrangement which makes it easier for elections to be conducted with adequate and concentrated attention of local, national and even international interests. Incidentally, the valuable decisions of the Supreme Court in recent times will now make if possible for elections in many states to be conducted only in those states that have duly completed their stipulated tenures after the re-run elections.

On Election Management Body
Two issues strike me about the body or institution, which manages elections. We recall clearly the work of the Political Bureau (1987) and its recommendations. We deliberately called the body then National Electoral Commission (NEC) as different from Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) to emphasize the national nature and character of its responsibilities and mandate.

Here, we may recall the historic contention and tension between the structures and values of unity on the one hand, and those of our federal society or diversity or the other. These structures and values were basic to the reforms of the political process and governance during the regime under our watch.

Incidentally, the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha also retained the same focus and called the body NECON. The same has been carried forward to the fourth Republic. While the present body is also described ‘Independent’ we operated even within the limits of our military regime the “independence” of NEC.

The issue of interest is whether this body should be the only one under the system of federalism to conduct elections for the national executive and legislative branches, state executive and legislative branches and local government executive and legislative branches; or whether in compliance with the principles of federalism there should be two bodies as we have in the 1999 Constitution or indeed we should have three bodies each to be national, state and local government elections.

Whichever framework is adopted, we need to bear in mind that there are advantages and disadvantages. The Nigerian Nation and the Democracy Project are still being forged. We need therefore to cultivate a sense of balance between institutions that have national focus and those that have state and local government bearings in obedience to the Nigerian federal society.

Our reflection since 1993 is to allow federalism much more space in the politics and governance of our country without the tendency for undue nationalization of the political process. There is nothing wrong if the Election Management Body can be organized for national elections, state elections and local government elections independent of one another, provided however that the implications for fairness, mutual interest rather than destructive partisanship are borne in mind.

The second issue is the composition of the Election Management Body. We adopted during our time – and this has been followed up today – the minimum number of national commissioners under a Chairman. We are aware, as we were then, that the commissioners could be selected to reflect the states (and this was what FEDECO was) or to reflect membership of the political parties. In the case of the last suggestion, it can be most difficult to deal with fifty political parties.

We suggest that the composition of the Election Management Body should continue to be by a carefully selected number of Nigerian men and women who appear not to be too partisan and possessing credible antecedents of either public or private services to Nigeria. Such composition can be undertaken at the national, state and local government levels as we have just suggested.

On the Political Party System:
The issues here are many. One is that of the number of political parties. In obedience to the constitutional provisions and of course, the expectations of democracy, we can allow the free flow of the formation of political parties without any limitation on the number. This is quite attractive particularly in the possibility that a small political party with credible ideologies and commitment can grow over time if it is continuously funded to become formidable political party.

But like many other aspects of our society, the free flow of party formation can easily create chaos. We know that some political parties as registered today have no existence beyond the registration certificates in the pockets of their owners. They are like the ownership of petrol stations, which have business when there is fuel and no business when there is no fuel. In the case of the political parties, they are even aided by the constitutional requirements, which compel INEC to regularly provide them “free fund.”

Can we not continue even in the face of democracy to regulate the formation of political parties? Our feelings are that, perhaps unlike what we did under military rule in 1989, there should be a process of each election (national, state nor local elections) with stipulations which political parties should meet failure of which they can be weeded out from the system or be ‘de-registered.’

There is the issue of internal democracy of the political parties. This is a huge problem. But how can we have internal democracy within the parties when the national political process is not really democratized. It is well known that just as party primaries are captured by individuals in power and money, so also the national political process with reference to elections are captured by individuals with money and other non democratic resources.

We have in my mind what everybody calls political godfathers and godmothers or garrison commanders within the political process. It is a matter, which your Panel will have to deal with. We have only raised the issue because there is logical relationship between lack of democracy in the political process and lack of democracy in the political parties.

The last issues are those of transparency and funding of the political parties. Like internal democracy, these issues are products of the political process. We enjoin you, therefore, to deliberate on the intricacies and dialectics of how the reform of the political process and elections can be made to positively impact on the reform of the internal operations of the political parties.

CONCLUSION
I thank all of you for coming. I wish you success in the discharge of the responsibilities of your assignment.
]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:09:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454203 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454199

I submit for discussion the speech delivered by His Excellency Gen. Ibrahim B. Babangida, GCFR, Mni, to the Justice Muhammed Uwais (Rtd), former CJN of Nigeria led Electoral Reform Committee when they visited Minna, Niger State for Public discussions, on July 22, 2008.

It is on record that Babangida’s regime orchestrated to completion and annulled a successful election held on June 12, 1993. He has since accepted responsibility for the annulment without equivocation, however, as a citizen of Nigeria and a former President; he has a constitutional right to express his opinion on such an important discourse. Kindly read on. “It is about issues and not individuals.”

This also affords Babangida’s friends the opportunity to read his position on the issue of electoral reforms as well as give his traducers additional opportunity to vent their anger; it is therapeutic indeed….so let’s rumble.

####
The Chairman,
Electoral Reform Committee.

MEMORANDUM

Electoral Reform and the Party System, Notes for Interactive Discourse Felicitation and Introduction

I wish to express our pleasure and sense of privilege and honour for your coming over here for this interactive discourse. Both the subject matter and purpose of our meeting represent one area of our experience in the rare privilege of governance in our country.

Nigeria is a highly blessed nation by the Almighty, but people and the leaders at any point in history have had to cope and will continue to cope, with daunting challenges. Governance is not easy, neither is it extraordinary difficult. It is the amount and quality of knowledge, focus, sensibility and grasp of the challenges that can make a difference. We believe that there may be no dispute about our knowledge of our country and of our experience in its governance. However, it must be emphasized that the regime, which it was our privilege to lead, was one of dictatorship. Nonetheless, that regime was driven by vision of history of our people and of political challenges. Accordingly, the regime had a mission to create the necessary institutions, structures, processes and environment for a much better system of government to exist. The regime had a “controlled environment” by the fact of military dictatorship, yet if possessed a clear purpose with observance of basic freedoms and human rights as well as the consciousness to maintain the country’s federal society and federal system of government. It also established the policy basis and structures for a new and better national economy from day one that was inherited. The same thing can be said about country’s foreign policy and international relations.

We are engaged in this discuss in, and for a different governance regime from the one we utilized for the country. There may be defects in the present constitution but the country is being governed under a constitutional regime, democracy and federation. The present ruling class cannot tamper with the system arbitrarily even if with noble causes as it is possible under the military. There is a lot to inform us about our past, but we cannot lose consciousness about the limitations of democracy and constitutional government.

REFLECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS:
Against the preceding introductions, we wish to draw attention to some lessons and make suggestions, which may be of use in your deliberations.

Imperative of the Environment of Elections: Aside from the cancellation of the result of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election which is not the subject matter of this discourse, you are likely to agree with us that the elections conducted under my watch between 1989 and 1992 were generally free, fair, acceptable and credible. One of the many success factors of those elections is the environment. The environment, which we utilized for the elections under our regime, may be described as one of “guided democracy.” There is another element in that environment, namely the absence of undue partisanship. It is common knowledge that power incumbency or the power system is always interested in succession elections. But this element is more apparent and brazen under governments of elected rulers. It is therefore easy to understand why elections conducted by the military when they are exiting from power have been much freer and more credible than elections conducted by Nigerians when the rulers are members of one political party. The problem, which this factor poses in how, the credibility of the national framework and of the role of elections in sustaining proper democracy can be guaranteed through succession elections by politician rulers.

We have raised this important issue of environment of elections so that you may wish, after this deliberation; bring into your recommendations the need to sanitize the environment of elections (I will return to this element again below).

We hear these days about the need to return to what, under our watch, we called ‘Modified Open Ballot System’ in elections. This is simply a big phrase for Secret Ballot. We still believe that Nigeria should continue with the Secret Ballot (or Modified Open Ballot System). But this can succeed only if the environment of elections is properly sanitized. This observation and suggestion applies to what we called ‘Option A4’, particularly for party primaries. We believe ‘Option A4’ is good again only if the environment is sanitized. Today in large sections of the country, the use of dangerous weapons including sophisticated arms and ammunitions have become commonplace spectacles. If the environment is not sanitized, any criminally minded fanatic or thug or even those who see every election as the ‘last election’ (what some people call “do or die election”), the venue of conducting party primaries or actual elections can easily be disrupted by the use of guns or any other weapons of threat to life.

The issue of how to fully harness and use the people’s ballot or vote came up for discussion during our regime. This is whether we should continue the ‘first-pass-the-post’; or to adopt proportional representation in which the contesting political parties can be allocated seats in the legislature or in the executive, which are proportional to the votes obtained by them at elections. The fear, to which we subscribe, is that proportional representation may even provide tensed and fractious environment of quarrel and hostility in the calculations of fractions of the vote involved. We therefore subscribe to what has been with us ‘first-pass-the-post’ in winning elections.

We think the emerging factor of staggered election is good for the system. The logistics, security and other items of elections, which create tensions in the one general election, may be reduced. We are therefore persuaded that elections should be staggered whether according to the present geopolitical zones or any permutations and arrangement which makes it easier for elections to be conducted with adequate and concentrated attention of local, national and even international interests. Incidentally, the valuable decisions of the Supreme Court in recent times will now make if possible for elections in many states to be conducted only in those states that have duly completed their stipulated tenures after the re-run elections.

On Election Management Body
Two issues strike me about the body or institution, which manages elections. We recall clearly the work of the Political Bureau (1987) and its recommendations. We deliberately called the body then National Electoral Commission (NEC) as different from Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) to emphasize the national nature and character of its responsibilities and mandate.

Here, we may recall the historic contention and tension between the structures and values of unity on the one hand, and those of our federal society or diversity or the other. These structures and values were basic to the reforms of the political process and governance during the regime under our watch.

Incidentally, the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha also retained the same focus and called the body NECON. The same has been carried forward to the fourth Republic. While the present body is also described ‘Independent’ we operated even within the limits of our military regime the “independence” of NEC.

The issue of interest is whether this body should be the only one under the system of federalism to conduct elections for the national executive and legislative branches, state executive and legislative branches and local government executive and legislative branches; or whether in compliance with the principles of federalism there should be two bodies as we have in the 1999 Constitution or indeed we should have three bodies each to be national, state and local government elections.

Whichever framework is adopted, we need to bear in mind that there are advantages and disadvantages. The Nigerian Nation and the Democracy Project are still being forged. We need therefore to cultivate a sense of balance between institutions that have national focus and those that have state and local government bearings in obedience to the Nigerian federal society.

Our reflection since 1993 is to allow federalism much more space in the politics and governance of our country without the tendency for undue nationalization of the political process. There is nothing wrong if the Election Management Body can be organized for national elections, state elections and local government elections independent of one another, provided however that the implications for fairness, mutual interest rather than destructive partisanship are borne in mind.

The second issue is the composition of the Election Management Body. We adopted during our time – and this has been followed up today – the minimum number of national commissioners under a Chairman. We are aware, as we were then, that the commissioners could be selected to reflect the states (and this was what FEDECO was) or to reflect membership of the political parties. In the case of the last suggestion, it can be most difficult to deal with fifty political parties.

We suggest that the composition of the Election Management Body should continue to be by a carefully selected number of Nigerian men and women who appear not to be too partisan and possessing credible antecedents of either public or private services to Nigeria. Such composition can be undertaken at the national, state and local government levels as we have just suggested.

On the Political Party System:
The issues here are many. One is that of the number of political parties. In obedience to the constitutional provisions and of course, the expectations of democracy, we can allow the free flow of the formation of political parties without any limitation on the number. This is quite attractive particularly in the possibility that a small political party with credible ideologies and commitment can grow over time if it is continuously funded to become formidable political party.

But like many other aspects of our society, the free flow of party formation can easily create chaos. We know that some political parties as registered today have no existence beyond the registration certificates in the pockets of their owners. They are like the ownership of petrol stations, which have business when there is fuel and no business when there is no fuel. In the case of the political parties, they are even aided by the constitutional requirements, which compel INEC to regularly provide them “free fund.”

Can we not continue even in the face of democracy to regulate the formation of political parties? Our feelings are that, perhaps unlike what we did under military rule in 1989, there should be a process of each election (national, state nor local elections) with stipulations which political parties should meet failure of which they can be weeded out from the system or be ‘de-registered.’

There is the issue of internal democracy of the political parties. This is a huge problem. But how can we have internal democracy within the parties when the national political process is not really democratized. It is well known that just as party primaries are captured by individuals in power and money, so also the national political process with reference to elections are captured by individuals with money and other non democratic resources.

We have in my mind what everybody calls political godfathers and godmothers or garrison commanders within the political process. It is a matter, which your Panel will have to deal with. We have only raised the issue because there is logical relationship between lack of democracy in the political process and lack of democracy in the political parties.

The last issues are those of transparency and funding of the political parties. Like internal democracy, these issues are products of the political process. We enjoin you, therefore, to deliberate on the intricacies and dialectics of how the reform of the political process and elections can be made to positively impact on the reform of the internal operations of the political parties.

CONCLUSION
I thank all of you for coming. I wish you success in the discharge of the responsibilities of your assignment.


]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454199 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454187

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked.
We must give him credit.

Going by the snide remarks being made by some foreign observers, one would think that President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa instigated the present crisis in Zimbabwe. A welter of critical voices, mostly Western and some Africans too, continue to bash Mbeki's facilitator role, and his so-called “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; however, he has been nonplussed, if not totally indifferent to such criticisms. Mbeki has continued with his facilitators’ effort, which on 21 July yielded its first dividend, with the signing of an MOU by ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions.

Well before the breakthrough, many believed, as was pointedly expressed by a representative of the United States, that Mbeki was on the wrong side of history. How imperceptive? Perhaps, it is either that when it comes to Africa many Westerners no longer read history or that they just do not care. If they did, they would recall that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the two key players in the Zimbabwe saga, despite living in the same city, had not met face-to-face since 1999. President Mbeki made the long elusive meeting a reality.

It is a matter of deep irony that Westerners continue to query the efficacy of Mbeki’s efforts. First, they overlook the fact that his involvement in Zimbabwe was a moral imperative. Second, they neglect the fact that Mr. Mbeki has been acting on behalf of the SADC, which asked him to undertake the task in 2007, and clearly, without any established timeframe. Third, those jeering nabobs who have become latter-day champions of good governance in Zimbabwe act as if it is only they that appreciate Zimbabwe’s dyspeptic mood. Finally, it is evident that many of those who chastise President Mbeki do not exactly know the man.

It should be understood, that for Mbeki, diplomacy like politics, will always be a counterintuitive act, due to personal insights and deep-seated convictions. Whereas public opinion matters, in the end, the political actor is responsible for his decisions and their eventual outcome. Mbeki’s critics also seem to forget, proximity aside, that South Africa and Zimbabwe are two nations bound by a common destiny in that they share the historical legacy of apartheid. But there is more about Mbeki, which might shed some light on his approach in Zimbabwe. Here, a backgrounder is perhaps inevitable.

Thabo Mbeki is not Nelson Mandela. He would also not aspire to that role. Though fate conspired to force him into Mandela’s shoes, he knows too well that he could never fill it or match the size and giant footprints of iconic Mandela. But certainly, Thabo Mbeki is his own man; a fact many seem to grudgingly refuse to accept. Behind his quiet mane and near docile facade, is a well-honed and politically savvy mind and a strong but deceptive mettle.

Thabo Mbeki prizes the value of persuasion, listening and acting with cautious haste. Those who misinterpret such deliberateness, do so at their own peril. He is also a very dogged negotiator and a patient one at that. Many find this trait very frustrating, especially in a former freedom fighter. But it also goes to show that they do not know the man they are dealing with.

For most of his professional diplomatic career, and well before active politics, Mbeki was a petitioner for the African National Congress (ANC). Often treated as a supplicant than as a genuine interlocutor and representative of his oppressed and disenfranchised people, he had no choice but to learn the value of tenacity and patience. Frequently hiding behind his ubiquitous pipe and the smoke it vented, he became over the years, an adroit listener as his interlocutors pontificated, lectured, commiserated and sometimes patronized him and his ANC colleagues and their cause. But in the main, Mbeki remains a consummate diplomat and consensus-builder – a fact that is lost to some who believe that he is a vacillator, but only shy from publicly calling him such, least they offend the sensibilities of his much valued nation.

One thing Thabo Mbeki is not is a pretender. He is also not a panderer. He will not do things to please the major powers, his compatriots, admirers and adversaries. Rather, he will do the things that he believes in. Often, he would shut up, plugging his mouth and voice with his pipe. At other times, he would drum his fingers on the table top or side, while giving his audience his rapt attention. To misread such a demeanor as ambivalence or not being engaged is fatally dangerous, politically speaking.

Mbeki knows that peace, like victory is priceless. Hence, the cost or the time it takes to achieve a negotiated and sustainable settlement is therefore immaterial. He also knows, that to achieve ones ultimate end, you have to fully allow the opponents to show their hands, reveal their thoughts and unveils their strategy. More importantly, he understands the imperative of collaborative negotiations and the role of a facilitator, which inevitably, includes allowing the parties to have a sense of ownership of the process as well as the end results. If there is one other critical variable that Mbeki is good at, it is dealing with his Western interlocutors. He understood fully, that for them, critical engagement on any issue is driven primarily by national interest, and hardly any altruism.

I first met Mr. Mbeki many years ago - 1981 to be exact, when he was an assistant to Oliver Tambo. We met again in 1984, by then he had become the Director of the Department of Information and Publicity. He was the counterpart to my late friend Comrade Johnstone “Johnny” Mfanafuthi Makatini, Director of ANC's Department of International Affairs and its de facto Foreign Minister. Johnny Makatini was vivacious, bohemian and a gifted orator, who held his audience spellbound with his anti-apartheid rhetoric and persuasive skills. Makatini and Mbeki were the twin arrowheads of ANC’s international engagement. While Makatini was the postulator and spin master, Mbeki was the follow-up fellow whom you asked to parse and decipher the anti-apartheid strategy and plot. It was therefore hardly surprising, that he would step into Makatini’s position in 1989, after the latter died on 3 December 1988 from diabetic complications. It was a role cut out for him.

In the succeeding years, we met at different conferences and rallies. Mbeki was cool, quite and inwardly hard as steel. He was a man on a mission. If he had any singular value for the ANC, it was his renown as mediator, policy shaper and his conversance with the global field of play. Yet, he was not as charismatic as Chris Hani; not as seemingly dogmatic as Joe Modise was, and certainly not as fiery and feared as Patrick “Terror” Lekota -- all these men, his ANC comrades who were deemed successors to the aging gang of Albert Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, and the goaled Nelson Mandela.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Mbeki became president of South Africa. He knew Africa well. Likewise, Africans knew and trusted him. Ditto his compatriots and more importantly, Nelson Mandela, his mentor and predecessor.

Many years ago, during negotiations on the international roadmap to end apartheid, I watched Mbeki finesse and run rings around Western diplomats who were unreceptive of Africa’s proposals, contained in the Harare Declaration. A frustratingly deliberate but collaborative negotiator, he believes in navigating around hurdles, while whittling down barriers including the stoic defenses and considered logic of his interlocutors. In the end, he almost always got his way, yet hardly ever showing anger, frustration or raising his voice. It should not surprise anyone, therefore, that he has adopted the same modus operandi in dealing with the Zimbabwe crisis.

This is not the first time that Mbeki has come under severe criticism for his policy options or style. Some international observers have criticized his HIV policy. Indeed, such critics believe that his HIV policy and stance on Zimbabwe will negatively define his legacy. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong.

On the HIV issue, Mbeki knew the score, far better than he would publicly admit or wanted his critics to know. He knew also, that while Western politicians frothed about solving the HIV/AIDS pandemic, their private sector counterparts consistently made HIV drugs unaffordable to peoples in Third World countries, South Africa included. Confronted with that paradox, Mbeki played the West like a fiddle. If they believed in what they preached, he surmised, they should make HIV drugs and treatment not just available, but affordable to South Africans. There were no takers. Hence, he had unmasked Western hypocrisy and double standards on the matter. All talk but no walk!

On Zimbabwe, some Western observers see Mbeki’s ongoing effort as lackluster. Even some within South Africa’s media have decried what The Citizen recently referred to as “Thabo Mbeki’s hand-holding persuasive skill”. Those who do not appreciate or fathom Mbeki’s working methods miss the point, totally, I might add. In addition, they reveal that they hardly know the man.

Mbeki’s role in Zimbabwe should be viewed in the context and with the analogy of someone dealing with a bull in a China shop. Those who seek and therefore push for a quick fix solution, happen also to be the ones that unapologetically push for a regime change by any means. The UK and the US, no longer mask their desire to oust President Mugabe with the usual diplomatic niceties. However, some still do. However, for Mbeki, the question is how to rid the China shop of the bull with minimal collateral damage. The alternative is the total ruin of the shop.

Zimbabwe, admittedly, is in a crisis, but not at war. This really, is what informs Mbeki’s perceptibly gingerly and patient negotiations. Moreover, very few are as cognizant as Mbeki, that the core issue in this crisis –which seems almost forgotten—is land reform. If a crisis of legitimacy exists in Zimbabwe, it did not come from the so-called flawed elections of 27 June. Also, the interlocking crisis has its roots - not in the absence of democracy and good governance, which Zimbabwe always had - but from the domestic land reform dispute, into which the UK had self-servingly insinuated itself. As Mbeki noted recently on BBC’s Hardtalk Show, “There is a land problem in Zimbabwe, there is a need for land redistribution, but it must be handled differently, without violence, without conflict, within the context of the law - bearing in mind the interests of all Zimbabweans, both black and white."

If there is one thing Mbeki learned from Nelson Mandela, it is not to enter any debate or negotiations too early. This was the sure way of building consensus, but also one that allows others to claim ownership of the process and the successful outcome. Apropos Zimbabwe, after what critical jeering nabobs had characterized as Mbeki’s dithering and pussyfooting over an eighteen-month period, he delivered on 21 July, when the parties did the unthinkable and signed an MOU. Mbeki had against all odds, fulfilled the first major role of any facilitator; but the agreement belonged rightly, as it should, to the Zimbabweans.

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked. We must give him credit. If the West will not salute him, we in Africa will. Mbeki has our gratitude for navigating with safe hands, the maze and minefield of Zimbabwe’s politics, when already some Westerners were proposing peacekeeping troops. Moreover, he brought the Zimbabweans together to talk about their common destiny. More importantly, thanks to Mbeki, the bull is on its way out of the China shop, and the shop is still intact, even if economically messy. What he has done is save Zimbabwe from implosion, which more sanctions and Western highhandedness would not have readily done. That is reality and reality bites.




]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:53:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454187 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454185
We have set a lesson for Africa and the world.

We have shown that it is possible to resolve a difficult border problem without war

and unnecessary loss of lives and property….

History we remember us all for opting for peace rather than war..

~ President Obasanjo, On Bakassi

Bakassi is an emotive word fraught with controversy. It may be so for a long time, but this coming week, - Thursday 14 August 2008 to be exact - Nigeria will have the unique opportunity to seize the moment and end the Bakassi controversy by taking the moral highroad and upholding the primacy of the rule of law. By handing over the territory of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon, in keeping the 2002 ruling of the International Court of Justice and the 12 June, 2006 Greentree Agreement, Nigeria would have opted to walk a different path; the peace path, which is not frequently chosen by even civilized nations when issues of territorial integrity crops up.

Like many, I have observed the controversy and partisan politics that surrounds the Bakassi question. I know that many Nigerians oppose the transfer and that there is a muddle of motives not to implement the transfer. Also, in these days of febrile partisan politics and bogus nationalistic fervor, the clamor not to cede the territory perceptibly rings loud and proper. Nevertheless, there are equally enormous compelling reasons to implement the transfer and to do so schedule. Whatever be the case, for and against the handover, I feel personally assured that the time is right for us, as a nation to cut our losses and move on.

On 21 August 2006 during ceremonies marking the formal withdrawal of Nigerian troops from Bakassi, President Obasanjo eloquently articulated why we should not trod the path of conflict akin to what transpired between Argentina and Britain over the Falklands; and why we must opt for peace. His words: “History we remember us all for opting for peace rather than war, embracing harmony rather than discord; celebrating unity and love rather than destruction and chaos, appreciating peace and dialogue rather than promoting uncertainty and insecurity.” Our keeping our end of the bargain would guarantee that Bakassi would henceforth, be a critical benchmark and gauge in international peace and security considerations and resolution of boundary disputes. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, noted recently, Bakassi will also “serve as a model for the negotiated settlement of border disputes elsewhere”. Still, there are more dividends to be gained.

First, as a nation, our claim to nationhood has not cracked up to be what we have always hoped. Neither have we been great exemplars in the realm of compliance with the rule of law. Hence, this is a unique opportunity we need not scupper and one, which we can effectively exploit its dividends for long.

Second, for what it may be worth, when the obituary of the Obasanjo Administration is written in its totality, the Greentree Agreement that led to the transfer of Bakassi will be on the positive column of his accomplishments, notwithstanding the emotional drag the matter elicits now.

Third, as Nigerians must honestly contemplate the context, in which Cameroon came to lay claim to Bakassi. Granted that the handling of the matter has been bedeviled by a comedy of errors, what Gen. Babangida said to the Electoral Reform Committee on July 22, 2008 about the awkward nature of military regimes and how they arrive at decisions is noteworthy, and I believe we can also place Bakassi in that context. As Babangida noted: “(I)t must be emphasized that the regime, which it was our privilege to lead, was one of dictatorship... that regime was driven by vision of history of our people and of political challenges … the regime had a mission to create the necessary institutions, structures, processes and environment for a much better system of government to exist. The regime had a “controlled environment” by the fact of military dictatorship”. This reality, unsavory as it may seem, also applies mutatis muntandis, to Bakassi.

As the great French philosopher, Voltaire, once averred with great foresight, “Success is the child of audacity”. As a nation, we should succeed in Bakassi, even if only we see it as the price to pay, in keeping Nigeria as one nation. Nevertheless, we should not stop there. We must contemplate the alternatives – conflict, war, international peacekeeping and even the unthinkable, the disintegration of Nigeria due to a conflict arising from Bakassi. There are many other consequential outcomes.

The historical, legal and cartographic claims aside, we must accept that Bakassi is not about casual or premeditated irredentism on the part of Nigeria or Cameroon. The genesis of the dispute is itself indisputable. Essentially, the dispute is a resultant fait accompli of improper delineation of boundaries by colonial powers following the Berlin Conference of 1884/1885. Also not in contention, is the fact that the setting down of such artificial boundaries were done without due consideration of ethnic and demographic realities on the ground. The reality is that contentions and claims over Bakassi dates back to 1884 and that successive Anglo-German treaties of 1885, 1886, 1913 and the Nigeria-Cameroon Agreements of 1971 and 1975 did not solve the problem.

Hence, Bakassi is a colonial accident, unaddressed by the granting of independence to Nigeria and Cameroon and further compounded by expediency during Nigeria’s civil war, when General Yakubu Gowon, as the head of States and Supreme Commander in a “military dictatorship” signed treaty formally ceding Bakassi to Cameroon. Consequently, since 1981, Nigeria and Cameroon have lost hosts of civilians and soldiers in the spate of intermittent violent encounters arising from claims of ownership of the now oil-rich peninsular.

Whether right or wrong, the fact remains that Gen. Gowon did formally cede Bakassi. Paradoxically, since 1970, all our endeavors seem geared at repudiating and reneging on that singular act, which was legitimate, considering that absolute powers – both executive and legislative – rested with the Supreme Military Council. In fact, our fervor to turn the tables was so conveniently entrenched and blinkered, that when in 1972, Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice Dr. Taslim Elias affirmed that in law, reality and according to official government documents within his purview, that Bakassi was not ours, some Nigerians left the core issue and sought to discredit him.

Two notable things have happened since that should spare us any further anguish on this matter. In October 2002, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the Bakassi Peninsula belonged to Cameroon. In June 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Paul Biya signed the Greentree (New York) Agreement. After two years, the full implementation of that Agreement will happen with the final transfer of authority in the Bakassi Peninsula from Nigeria to Cameroon, on 14 August.

As we move closer to the full implementation of the Greentree Agreement on 14 August, a cacophony of voices has emerged within Nigeria for and against the transfer of Bakassi. Indeed, an added controversy - a monkey wrench of sorts- emerged with the recent injunction by Justice Mohammed Umar, the presiding judge of an Abuja Federal High Court, directing the Federal Government to suspend forthwith, implementation plans for the handover and to “maintain the status quo …pending the hearing of all applications." It is noteworthy, that this domestic court order, seeks to address unresolved implementation plans and related concerns of some Bakassi indigenes, but does not seek to challenge or repudiate the 2002 International Court of Justice decision on the substantive matter, which is ownership of Bakassi. Clearly, Justice Mohammed Umar knows he has no jurisdiction to entertain the latter.

Vexing as the groundswell of the opposition to the handover may be, we must accept that such is normal in a vibrant democracy. However, there is more at play on how we got to this unenviable juncture. The dilemma we now face was in the first instance created by the erstwhile military regimes’ ask-no-questions mindset – be the Gowon, Obasanjo or Abacha regimes. The same mindset guided President Obasanjo in 2006 to sign the Greentree Agreement without fulfilling the due diligence required by the Constitution.

Several observable fumbles are noteworthy. First, Gen. Gowon’s regime did not gazette the formal ceding of Bakassi to Cameroon; even though Nigeria’s cadastral and cartographic representations including the surveyor-general’s maps had ceased to present Bakassi as being within Nigeria. Second, whereas the ICJ did not bother to direct the conduct of a plebiscite in Bakassi, President Obasanjo did not also include a plebiscite for the Bakassi people in the Greentree Agreement, which would have offered the denizens of the peninsula the choice of belonging to Nigeria or to Cameroon, without prejudice to Cameroon getting the peninsula. Third, although President Obasanjo ex-post facto advised the National Assembly of the Greentree Agreement, he did not press or push for its formal ratification as an international treaty as required by the Constitution. Fourth, the National Assembly, for its part, has not deemed it a priority to ratify the Greentree Agreement or pass a motion signaling its intention to withhold its consent. Finally, President Yar’Adua is yet to make a broadcast to Nigerians lining out his position on the matter and underlining why Nigeria must uphold the ICJ ruling and the Greentree Agreement.

Cumulatively, these governance and administrative lapses give merit to the arguments advanced by those who oppose the transfer of Bakassi. They are not necessarily against a negotiated settlement or amity, but seek due diligence and due process, as well as the respect of their rights as the Nigerian government seeks to exercise its right of eminent domain in the national interests. Furthermore, these claims underpin the fact that a procedural and substantive lacuna exists in the full and formal implementation of the Greentree Agreement, since as required by law it has not been ratified. After all, as John Newton observed, “an act against the Constitution is void; and act against natural equity is void”. What is utterly inexplicable is why we have fumbled so badly on Bakassi, despite our so-called knowledgeable technocrats and pseudo-intellectuals?

Nonetheless, apropos Bakassi, the absence of due diligence just as ignorance in law cannot be an excuse. Practical considerations in the national interests, which are quite distinct from expediency and precepts, dictate that we honor our obligations. We must not fail to seize the moment. As a nation, we do not routinely enjoy the highest international respect; and we will not enhance the international standing we seek by being a scofflaw nation. President Obasanjo was right in noting, that “This peaceful preemption is imperative and is less expensive, at least when compared with outright war, in assuring the lives and property of our citizenry and allowing our society to continue to move on the path of sustainable development.”

As a nation, we have spent many years and countless human, material and financial resources, in attempts to repudiate what seems to be the reality in Bakassi. In the process we have disagreed with our erstwhile colonial master, the United Kingdom; we have repudiated the statutory decision of a Head of States vested with sovereign powers, and now we are being pushed to disown a ruling by the International Court of Justice. That will not do. We may not like it; and our leaders may have bungled the entire process, but we must respect the ICJ ruling and the Greentree Agreement we entered into. Our national honor demands that we do no less at this point.

Moreover, we cannot afford to give our detractors the armor with which to destabilize our country. Hence, we must ignore the groundswell of reactionary forces, mindful that heeding their calls might lead to our playing into the hands of Western and even African interests that would love to see Nigeria humiliated and cut to size. If we are required to stoop to conquer, we must do so in Nigeria’s long-tern national interest.

As a nation in good standing, we must seek the path of peace if we indeed seek to lead and have others trust our judgment and mediation in global matters. As far as international law codification goes, Nigeria must see the ceding of Bakassi as a gift to the world and our posterity. It is not a matter of who won and who lost, as it is a matter of affirming our bona fides. In future conflict resolution considerations, the Bakassi Syndrome, will eternally be to Nigeria’s credit, but only so, if we do the right thing now.

Alexander Pope was right when he observed, “For forms of government, let fools contest. Whatever is best administered is best.” Bakassi will be best served and administered under the present arrangement that offers sustainable peace and development to Nigeria and Cameroon. Notwithstanding the attending traditional emotionalism that surrounds the subject, we must find the political will to bring closure to Bakassi. Now is the time for Nigeria to get out for good. We must seize the moment by making the handover of Bakassi a reality.

]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:49:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454185 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454179

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked.
We must give him credit.

Going by the snide remarks being made by some foreign observers, one would think that President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa instigated the present crisis in Zimbabwe. A welter of critical voices, mostly Western and some Africans too, continue to bash Mbeki's facilitator role, and his so-called “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; however, he has been nonplussed, if not totally indifferent to such criticisms. Mbeki has continued with his facilitators’ effort, which on 21 July yielded its first dividend, with the signing of an MOU by ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions.

Well before the breakthrough, many believed, as was pointedly expressed by a representative of the United States, that Mbeki was on the wrong side of history. How imperceptive? Perhaps, it is either that when it comes to Africa many Westerners no longer read history or that they just do not care. If they did, they would recall that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the two key players in the Zimbabwe saga, despite living in the same city, had not met face-to-face since 1999. President Mbeki made the long elusive meeting a reality.

It is a matter of deep irony that Westerners continue to query the efficacy of Mbeki’s efforts. First, they overlook the fact that his involvement in Zimbabwe was a moral imperative. Second, they neglect the fact that Mr. Mbeki has been acting on behalf of the SADC, which asked him to undertake the task in 2007, and clearly, without any established timeframe. Third, those jeering nabobs who have become latter-day champions of good governance in Zimbabwe act as if it is only they that appreciate Zimbabwe’s dyspeptic mood. Finally, it is evident that many of those who chastise President Mbeki do not exactly know the man.

It should be understood, that for Mbeki, diplomacy like politics, will always be a counterintuitive act, due to personal insights and deep-seated convictions. Whereas public opinion matters, in the end, the political actor is responsible for his decisions and their eventual outcome. Mbeki’s critics also seem to forget, proximity aside, that South Africa and Zimbabwe are two nations bound by a common destiny in that they share the historical legacy of apartheid. But there is more about Mbeki, which might shed some light on his approach in Zimbabwe. Here, a backgrounder is perhaps inevitable.

Thabo Mbeki is not Nelson Mandela. He would also not aspire to that role. Though fate conspired to force him into Mandela’s shoes, he knows too well that he could never fill it or match the size and giant footprints of iconic Mandela. But certainly, Thabo Mbeki is his own man; a fact many seem to grudgingly refuse to accept. Behind his quiet mane and near docile facade, is a well-honed and politically savvy mind and a strong but deceptive mettle.

Thabo Mbeki prizes the value of persuasion, listening and acting with cautious haste. Those who misinterpret such deliberateness, do so at their own peril. He is also a very dogged negotiator and a patient one at that. Many find this trait very frustrating, especially in a former freedom fighter. But it also goes to show that they do not know the man they are dealing with.

For most of his professional diplomatic career, and well before active politics, Mbeki was a petitioner for the African National Congress (ANC). Often treated as a supplicant than as a genuine interlocutor and representative of his oppressed and disenfranchised people, he had no choice but to learn the value of tenacity and patience. Frequently hiding behind his ubiquitous pipe and the smoke it vented, he became over the years, an adroit listener as his interlocutors pontificated, lectured, commiserated and sometimes patronized him and his ANC colleagues and their cause. But in the main, Mbeki remains a consummate diplomat and consensus-builder – a fact that is lost to some who believe that he is a vacillator, but only shy from publicly calling him such, least they offend the sensibilities of his much valued nation.

One thing Thabo Mbeki is not is a pretender. He is also not a panderer. He will not do things to please the major powers, his compatriots, admirers and adversaries. Rather, he will do the things that he believes in. Often, he would shut up, plugging his mouth and voice with his pipe. At other times, he would drum his fingers on the table top or side, while giving his audience his rapt attention. To misread such a demeanor as ambivalence or not being engaged is fatally dangerous, politically speaking.

Mbeki knows that peace, like victory is priceless. Hence, the cost or the time it takes to achieve a negotiated and sustainable settlement is therefore immaterial. He also knows, that to achieve ones ultimate end, you have to fully allow the opponents to show their hands, reveal their thoughts and unveils their strategy. More importantly, he understands the imperative of collaborative negotiations and the role of a facilitator, which inevitably, includes allowing the parties to have a sense of ownership of the process as well as the end results. If there is one other critical variable that Mbeki is good at, it is dealing with his Western interlocutors. He understood fully, that for them, critical engagement on any issue is driven primarily by national interest, and hardly any altruism.

I first met Mr. Mbeki many years ago - 1981 to be exact, when he was an assistant to Oliver Tambo. We met again in 1984, by then he had become the Director of the Department of Information and Publicity. He was the counterpart to my late friend Comrade Johnstone “Johnny” Mfanafuthi Makatini, Director of ANC's Department of International Affairs and its de facto Foreign Minister. Johnny Makatini was vivacious, bohemian and a gifted orator, who held his audience spellbound with his anti-apartheid rhetoric and persuasive skills. Makatini and Mbeki were the twin arrowheads of ANC’s international engagement. While Makatini was the postulator and spin master, Mbeki was the follow-up fellow whom you asked to parse and decipher the anti-apartheid strategy and plot. It was therefore hardly surprising, that he would step into Makatini’s position in 1989, after the latter died on 3 December 1988 from diabetic complications. It was a role cut out for him.

In the succeeding years, we met at different conferences and rallies. Mbeki was cool, quite and inwardly hard as steel. He was a man on a mission. If he had any singular value for the ANC, it was his renown as mediator, policy shaper and his conversance with the global field of play. Yet, he was not as charismatic as Chris Hani; not as seemingly dogmatic as Joe Modise was, and certainly not as fiery and feared as Patrick “Terror” Lekota -- all these men, his ANC comrades who were deemed successors to the aging gang of Albert Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, and the goaled Nelson Mandela.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Mbeki became president of South Africa. He knew Africa well. Likewise, Africans knew and trusted him. Ditto his compatriots and more importantly, Nelson Mandela, his mentor and predecessor.

Many years ago, during negotiations on the international roadmap to end apartheid, I watched Mbeki finesse and run rings around Western diplomats who were unreceptive of Africa’s proposals, contained in the Harare Declaration. A frustratingly deliberate but collaborative negotiator, he believes in navigating around hurdles, while whittling down barriers including the stoic defenses and considered logic of his interlocutors. In the end, he almost always got his way, yet hardly ever showing anger, frustration or raising his voice. It should not surprise anyone, therefore, that he has adopted the same modus operandi in dealing with the Zimbabwe crisis.

This is not the first time that Mbeki has come under severe criticism for his policy options or style. Some international observers have criticized his HIV policy. Indeed, such critics believe that his HIV policy and stance on Zimbabwe will negatively define his legacy. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong.

On the HIV issue, Mbeki knew the score, far better than he would publicly admit or wanted his critics to know. He knew also, that while Western politicians frothed about solving the HIV/AIDS pandemic, their private sector counterparts consistently made HIV drugs unaffordable to peoples in Third World countries, South Africa included. Confronted with that paradox, Mbeki played the West like a fiddle. If they believed in what they preached, he surmised, they should make HIV drugs and treatment not just available, but affordable to South Africans. There were no takers. Hence, he had unmasked Western hypocrisy and double standards on the matter. All talk but no walk!

On Zimbabwe, some Western observers see Mbeki’s ongoing effort as lackluster. Even some within South Africa’s media have decried what The Citizen recently referred to as “Thabo Mbeki’s hand-holding persuasive skill”. Those who do not appreciate or fathom Mbeki’s working methods miss the point, totally, I might add. In addition, they reveal that they hardly know the man.

Mbeki’s role in Zimbabwe should be viewed in the context and with the analogy of someone dealing with a bull in a China shop. Those who seek and therefore push for a quick fix solution, happen also to be the ones that unapologetically push for a regime change by any means. The UK and the US, no longer mask their desire to oust President Mugabe with the usual diplomatic niceties. However, some still do. However, for Mbeki, the question is how to rid the China shop of the bull with minimal collateral damage. The alternative is the total ruin of the shop.

Zimbabwe, admittedly, is in a crisis, but not at war. This really, is what informs Mbeki’s perceptibly gingerly and patient negotiations. Moreover, very few are as cognizant as Mbeki, that the core issue in this crisis –which seems almost forgotten—is land reform. If a crisis of legitimacy exists in Zimbabwe, it did not come from the so-called flawed elections of 27 June. Also, the interlocking crisis has its roots - not in the absence of democracy and good governance, which Zimbabwe always had - but from the domestic land reform dispute, into which the UK had self-servingly insinuated itself. As Mbeki noted recently on BBC’s Hardtalk Show, “There is a land problem in Zimbabwe, there is a need for land redistribution, but it must be handled differently, without violence, without conflict, within the context of the law - bearing in mind the interests of all Zimbabweans, both black and white."

If there is one thing Mbeki learned from Nelson Mandela, it is not to enter any debate or negotiations too early. This was the sure way of building consensus, but also one that allows others to claim ownership of the process and the successful outcome. Apropos Zimbabwe, after what critical jeering nabobs had characterized as Mbeki’s dithering and pussyfooting over an eighteen-month period, he delivered on 21 July, when the parties did the unthinkable and signed an MOU. Mbeki had against all odds, fulfilled the first major role of any facilitator; but the agreement belonged rightly, as it should, to the Zimbabweans.

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked. We must give him credit. If the West will not salute him, we in Africa will. Mbeki has our gratitude for navigating with safe hands, the maze and minefield of Zimbabwe’s politics, when already some Westerners were proposing peacekeeping troops. Moreover, he brought the Zimbabweans together to talk about their common destiny. More importantly, thanks to Mbeki, the bull is on its way out of the China shop, and the shop is still intact, even if economically messy. What he has done is save Zimbabwe from implosion, which more sanctions and Western highhandedness would not have readily done. That is reality and reality bites.

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.
]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:21:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454179 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443389 Cocaine Plane Saga: Transport Minister Speaks Out

Sierra Leone’s Transport and Aviation minister, Kemoh Sesay, Foreign minister Zainab Bangura and Information minister Ibrahim Kargbo have all been commenting on an incident that has overshadowed all government business in Freetown in the last couple of days with some members of the local press putting senior government officials on trial, while acting as prosecution, jury and judge at the same time. Some have even condemned whole communities like the inhabitants of Port Loko town (located a few miles from Lungi international airport) to which some of the people involved had fled.

In her comments, foreign minister Zainab Bangura told journalists at a press briefing organized by the Ministry of Information and Communication on Thursday July 17 that she felt like “the most important foreign minister in the world” four days after the Sierra Leone Police impoundment of an alleged cocaine-loaded plane and arrested alleged drug traffickers.

According to government and airport authorities, the plane dubbed “cocaine plane” by many people here, forcefully landed at the Lungi International airport in Sierra Leone on Sunday 13 July 2008 at 3:05 am Sierra Leone time.

“The FBI, Scotland Yard, and you name it, are here in Sierra Leone because our police have intercepted a plane load of cocaine that could lead to a major international drug cartel bust operation for the war on drugs,” Bangura stated.

She explained that the Sierra Leone Police is about to solve a major international drug trafficking problem that has confused the United States, Britain and many other powerful nations’ drug fighting agencies.

“I am host to all of them because some of their nationals are the consumers of the cocaine that was most likely intended for transshipment,” she boasted.

The minister further explained that people should view the cocaine bust positively and that “the Sierra Leone Police have done a good job.”

She said, as foreign minister, she can hold her head up high when she travels around the world knowing her bags would not be subjected to humiliating searches by customs officers on suspicion of drug trafficking.

This, she added, is possible because President Ernest Bai Koroma and his entourage took swift action when they, on returning to the country on Sunday July 13, were greeted with news of an unauthorized landing at Lungi airport of a Beech aircraft 200 believed to be loaded with cocaine; which authorities in Sierra Leone also believe was intended for “transshipment” for hard currency-earner-consumers in the West.

Amid the relentless public relations efforts by Minister for Information and Communication, Hon. IB Kargbo, to “rebrand” this small West African nation’s image from the infamous war-torn and corruption riddled one of the recent past to an open democratic society and a friendly environment for investors, the cocaine plane saga in Sierra Leone has caused a whole new round of unease here among the people that minister Kargbo has to deal with.

According to a Lungi Airport Authority press release on Wednesday 16th July, the "Controller ... contacted the General Manager and comprehensively briefed him on the circumstances surrounding the ... aircraft. On his part, the General Manager took immediate steps to brief the Minister of Transport and Aviation while the controller was still holding on the line on instructions. While this conversation was going on between the Minister and the General Manager, the flight was descending over the airport for the first time and continued to descend lower and lower.” Simply put, the plane forcefully landed even before any clearance from the Minister for Transport and Aviation, Hon. Kemoh Sesay.

There is a lot of hue and cry here about the cocaine plane incident that has been further exacerbated by blistering headlines from the local press, all conjectures, that Transport and Aviation minister Kemoh Sesay has knowledge of the cocaine transshipment. Even more difficult for the Minister is the fact that his brother, Ahmed Sesay, also the national soccer team manager, is one of those already in police custody for alleged connection with the cocaine plane.

At a Thursday press conference at the ministry of Information and Communication, a confident Kemoh Sesay however categorically stated, “I’m not my brother’s keeper,” when journalists questioned him about Ahmed Sesay’s involvement with the cocaine plane.

Kemoh Sesay however stated in the press briefing that he personally instructed the police and the airport fire fighters to impound the plane - to “move all their fire trucks around the cocaine plane in a way that it will not fly away.”

Amidst all of this tension, minister IB Kargbo is hard at work - defending against speculations of government involvement with the cocaine plane and calming down the nerves of the already jittery population over radio, TV and print media that government will not protect anyone who is found involved in the trafficking of narcotics in Sierra Leone.

On July 13th, IB Kargbo stated over radio Unamsil that Sierra Leone would not be a transit point for narcotic traffickers, asking the people to calm down - that the incident was a criminal issue that has no immediate threat of violence - reassuring that the police are in control and arrests have been made.

Last Thursday, both IB Kargbo and Alpha Kanu, the Presidential and Public Affairs minister, in the press briefing insisted, “there will be no sacred cows.” IB Kargbo joked, “We have gotten an aircraft, even if we use it to ensure our vegetables from Port Loko arrive in Freetown fresh.”

The unease among a population just coming out of an 11-year brutal rebel war was evident in Alpha Kanu’s revelation at the press briefing that “I told the President in Banjul that a plane load of ammunition has been impounded at Lungi and I don’t think we should go just yet,” thinking that it was a coup attempt on the leadership based on the first information he had gotten from Sierra Leone. But he said that the President insisted that they come back home regardless of what was happening. Indeed, there was about three hours’ difference between the cocaine plane’s forceful landing and the President’s landing at Lungi Airport.

This somehow lends credence to the theory circulating in the streets of Freetown that the cocaine plane operation went wrong because of the presence of the presidential security personnel who were awaiting the President’s arrival at the airport. The President had cut short his stay in Banjul by a day.
Many people here are saying that there was a panicky situation at the airport amongst the handlers of the cocaine because of the security presence and that some police officers who were a part of the cocaine handling logistics there abandoned their weapons and fled.

Some people maintain that the light weapons that were seized by the police may not have been all brought in by the cocaine plane but rather some were the weapons left behind by those who fled north to Port Loko.

The cocaine plane intrigue and drama was at it best at Youyi Ministerial building that houses the Ministry of Information and Communication when members of the Fourth Estate expressed total unhappiness over police secrecy in withholding the names of the eleven alleged conspirators already in police custody as stated by IB Kargbo. One reporter snapped, “Where is the much talked about open government?” alluding to the UN-sponsored Open Government Initiative (OGI) programme that had been launched by the President.

But the Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of police at the head of the cocaine investigation said issues pertaining to national security were the reasons for withholding the names. Whether the AIG’s reason plausibly overweighs the need for access to information, the explanation he espoused is somewhat convincing according to Alpha Kanu.

However, there are strong indications that the President is hell bent on bringing the culprits to book. In the Gambia, according to Alpha Kanu, the President, upon hearing the news of the cocaine plane vowed: “Even if my mother is involved in this, she will not be protected.”

]]> Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:02:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443389 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443371
Every bureaucracy creates its own weakness. Nowhere is this statement truer, than in the way the Nigerian government has handled the Nigeria Delta crisis. Indeed, the government suffers from a deficit of ideas and policies on this dossier, even as President Umaru Yar’Adua continue to insist that a "blood oil cartel is behind much of the violence in the Niger Delta". If so, what is the government doing?

Many have come to believe that Nigerian Government policy or lack thereof, is fraught with hypocrisy and layered with double standards. Well that may be the goods news. Here is the bad news. The Nigerian Government, it seems, have been working against it own goals by financing the militants. The latest twist is that the Nigerian Government is embarrassed and immersed in the controversy of its oil agency, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), paying off militants in the Niger Delta. Whether the payments happened or not, is now immaterial. What is clear is that there has been a systematic bungling and botching of the Niger Delta policy.

Recently under oath and on record, Abubakar Lawal Yar'Adua, NNPC's Group Managing Director disclosed to the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, that his organization had engaged in talks with the Niger Delta militants. Fair enough. Then the bombshell! He added that NNPC had also paid the militants some N1.4 billion ($12 million) over two months before being allowed undertake repairs of a damaged oil facility in Delta State. Shocks! Government it seems, cannot make up its mind if it wants to negotiate with the brigands who now engage in economic sabotage and terrorism or flush them out.

Moreover, what was Yar'Adua’s rationalization, for actions that ran counter to government stated policies and duplicated the statutory role of the NDDC? His revealing, yet troubling words were: "The price we pay is very high. It is difficult to get expatriates to work in the Niger Delta. We paid militants $12 million because we were losing $81 million to the problem of the Chanomi pipeline in Delta State." Amazing!

Here now is the ex-post facto explanation and attending controversy. On the heels of Yar'Adua’s testimony, the NNPC management speedily recanted its GMD’s claim. For their part, a convenient afterthought I suppose, the money was paid, not to the militants, but to a community-based company to protect its oil facilities. Well, well. The gist is that NNPC paid huge "protection fees", when government continues to deploy a huge military contingent, assets and financial resources towards the same goal. Nevertheless, there are disquieting and damning questions that demand answers.

First, did Abuja approve the payments, or was NNPC unilaterally engaging in expenses from the Federation Account and the disbursement of public funds without statutory authority to incur such expenses?
Second, what capacity and leverage did the nameless community-based organization have over the Niger Delta militants?
Third, where, how and in what context was this payment situated to the Niger Delta Summit, which is in the purview of the Vice President of the Federation and involves presumptive stakeholder in the Niger Delta?

Fourth, how could such large funds, which have security implication, since it could be used to procure more arms for the militants, be disbursed without the national security agencies and the military being involved in its negotiation and transfer.

Finally, what is the morality of such payoffs that only fuels extremism?

We need answers and not whitewash answers! As things stand, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) representatives have refuted being paid off and went further to allege that the said money was “shared among top NNPC, Joint Task Force and Delta State officials while a pittance was paid as "protection fees" to unscrupulous persons masquerading as militants.” MEND also asserted that NNPC had underreported what it actually paid out, which by its own account, was close to N2.9 billion ($25 million).
Although this is merely academic, another question worth asking of NNPC, is what the return in investment has been, vis a vis, security of its facilities and possible reduction in hostage taking and kidnapping. More fundamentally, what was the Nigerian government policy on dealing with and negotiating with kidnappers and those involved in terrorism, be it motivated by political, economic or religious considerations, and did NNPC consider such policies?
It is most ironic that NNPC would disburse funds to a so-called community based organization, when NNDC has an annual budget of almost N80 billion, for similar community support and reinvestment programs. Moreover, oil pipeline technology, including erupted pipeline repairs, is not a job that is outsourced routinely to non-professionals. This point puts to lie the explanation of Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, NNPC’s Group General Manager for Public Affairs, when he claimed recently, that no company could access the vandalized Chanomi Creek pipeline to carry out repairs since the community did not give access to the contractors.

Essentially and on its face value, Dr. Ajuonuma implied that the Chanomi Creek community extorted money from NNPC. If they would not grant access to NNPC vendors to repair the vandalized pipeline, but would take money from NNPC to do the job themselves, clearly there is something untoward about the entire setup.

Additionally, Ajuonuma's explanation calls into question, Government policy of setting up a military, police and security agencies Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta region, at enormous expenses. NNPC engaging locals and communities to police its pipelines amounts to a vote of non-confidence in the JTF and indeed, in the extant government policies. It is also more than ironic, that Ajuonuma never for once indicated if NNPC had requested the assistance of the Joint Task Force (JTF) when access to the area was denied to its contractors. The question of complicity between the community and the militants also arise. If the community could stop militants from attacking the pipelines, then, they must be in direct contact and know who the perpetrators of the vandalism are.

The Nigerian Government should come clean on this matter. It must investigate and make public its findings of the NNPC pay off scheme or is it scam? This much is certain. Despite NNPC’s pay off, the crisis in the Niger Delta has continued unabated. There has been a rash of violence, hostage taking, kidnapping and vandalizing of pipelines, pump stations and even the overrun of offshore bases.

BEYOND THE NIGER DELTA SUMMIT BROUHAHA
Clearly, there is a lot of profiteering off the Niger Delta crisis, by the militants, the local communities and their leaders, criminals, the foreign oil companies and now, government bureaucrats. While the crisis festers and creeps toward the intractable, those engaged in bunkering in the violence-prone region are smiling to the bank. Nigeria is the all round loser. Loss of revenue apart, the Niger Delta crisis has immensely contributed to the perception that Nigeria is a nation perpetually in crisis. The essential tragedy of the Niger Delta crisis, is not just its negative impact on the local communities and Nigeria at large, or its contribution to spiraling global oil prices; rather it is that the government, meanwhile, continue to engage in convenient inconsistencies on the Nigeria Delta.
A troubling trend is the mixed signals from Abuja. Does the Nigerian government want to resolve the crisis through dialogue and a Summit, or through the use force or through pay-offs? There is a seemingly random notion that both the Niger Delta stakeholders and the government want to negotiate. However, this may yet prove fallacious since the militants, have not accepted that the stakeholders speak for them, nor have the stakeholders offered any tangible prove that they can reign in the militants or even bring them to the negotiation table. Moreover, just as the U.S. government is pressing Nigeria to take a peaceful approach to the Niger Delta dilemma, the UK is seeking in insinuate British Special Services military advisers into the region , presumably to advise and assist Nigeria with “river and maritime security”.

Just as the Government is recovering from its misbegotten decision to appoint Prof. Ibrahim Gambari as chairman of the Steering Committee of the Niger Delta Summit, it is clear that seemingly unbridgeable gaps exist procedurally and substantively, on how the Government and the so-called stakeholders believe the summit should be convoked. The swell of opposition to Mr. Gambari justified or not, was a smokescreen. However, the government clearly blundered by not doing its homework. As a diplomat and person, Gambari posses the bona fides to mediate a crisis such as the Niger Delta, but since all politics is local, local objection to his involvement ought to have been anticipated. This is now a moot point since the opposition has nullified Gambari’s relevance in the peace process.

Unquestionably, a lot of posturing and egos continue to bedevil the expeditious resolution of the Niger Delta crisis. If a dichotomy in approach exists, it is less concrete in relation to the alleged grievances. Niger Delta crisis is no longer a dissent of the governed or the disenfranchised. Usurpers, complicit enablers and political opportunists are fully engaged in the process and seek to hold the government hostage, but only so, because the government has allowed itself to be manipulated. These opportunists have succeeded in creating false premises, false agendas and false frontiers they seek to compel the government to address. Such tendencies are not critical elements of purposeful partnership or the route to an open, constructive and productive dialogue on the Niger Delta.

Criminality, vandalism and terrorism have never been and will never be essential ancillaries to Peacebuilding. Decidedly, so long as oil prices keep spiraling upwards and there are foreign oil companies willing to pay hard currency for Nigeria’s sweet crude, either legitimately to Nigerian authorities or illegally to rogue militants and rogue local politicians and rogue community leaders, the Niger Delta crisis will persist. As the cliché goes, the genie is already out of the bottle. What we now have in the Niger Delta is pervasive trade in blood oil.

So what is next? What happens now? For the umpteenth time, I must underline that there is a surfeit of policy prescriptions on the Niger Delta crisis (See,” Curbing the angst in the Niger Delta” and “The Niger Delta Conundrum”). However, there is also an attending dearth of the political will to articulate and implement hardheaded robust and unapologetic policies and programs. Thus, the Niger Delta crisis, which is the direct outcrop of the twisted legacy of Nigeria’s over reliance on oil, and dysfunctional developmental, resource control and revenue sharing public policy persists. Acceptably, there is no justifiable explanation that the region of the country that produces the “golden egg” should remain so underdeveloped. If the environmental degradation caused by oil exploration is factored in, then, the people of Niger Delta has a legitimate grouse. Nonetheless, the solution to the Niger Delta crisis remains essentially purposeful governance, a Marshall Plan and treating the crisis as national security issue that it is, rather than as a vexatious partisan distraction, which it is certainly not, assuming it ever was.

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.




]]> Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:54:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443371 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443357 Obama: For the Sake of our Children

Have you ever wanted to say something but could not find a profound way to articulate it?

Well, that had been my dilemma about my thrill for the Obama candidacy for the president of the United States of America. It turned out that I wasn’t alone. Chris Matthews, host of NBC’s Chris Matthews Show and MSNBC’s Hardball, recently appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and gave an answer to the same question that had eluded me.

Chris Mathews has been on a receiving end of criticism for saying that Obama’s speeches bring “thrill up my legs.” Here is Mathews’ defense:

"I'd rather be honest and say what I feel than sit there like some kind of statue and say, 'Oh that was noteworthy.' I'm a frickin' American. I do have a reaction to things. And I do react emotionally to my country. I care about this country, I wanna look out for it. It's my job. I'm not just some umpire. I take a side: us. That's who I'm rootin' for."
It wasn’t Obama’s speeches that thrill me, though they are excellent. It was rather his significance.
In presenting his defense, Mathews stated that he would wish that people look at Obama through the eyes of their kids. Here is how he put it:
"I hope for one thing when people go to vote: that they look at Barack’s background, that they look at the age of the two candidates, that they look at their abilities and really open up their hearts and say “what’s really good for my kids,” who don’t have any color awareness…. Kids don’t think about race. Think like your kids for once. Think the way they think… It would be great if the older people in the country, the 70 year olds, the 80 year olds who are suspicious of change to say, “you know, why don’t I think the way my kids are thinking and think about the future… Whatever they decide, just open up your heart to this prospect of something different.”
In Why Obama is My Man and other musings of mine about this election, I have essentially been concerned about my kids. My time here on earth is as good as gone. All I now ask for is, What are the things that will be good for my kids, Ijeamaka and Ogonna?
And Obama will be good for my kids.

Though we often forget, the world that our kids will inhabit will be a lot different from the one that we know. It is important to remember that. Always.

To understand how different that world will be, we need to look back at the generation before. The generation that struggled with the Civil Rights issues got credit for deciding that their children must live in a new world where the search for a fair and just society must be made plausible.

How did they achieve it? Supremacists, former supremacists, children of supremacists, teamed up with the victims, former victims and children of victims to demand a paradigm shift. It wasn’t an easy task. It was resisted by many in several quarters for varying reasons, many of which sounded credible at the time and some of which sounded scary even at this time. But it did not stop the march of those who believed in change.

In this our time, and for our own generation, the challenge is not any different. We have to magnify the possibilities, pull down the remaining ceilings, widen the horizon and draw the rainbow closer to our rooftop. In our quest, we will face the same challenges like those faced by the generation before. Many will march out in stern opposition. They will say that it cannot be done. They will say that we are too ambitious, too arbitrary, too obscure, too aloof and too abrasive. They will inverse their fear and spread the scent of that fear in the air. The fear in them of change will be marketed and advertised as fear of undue risk we are taking with our collective essence.

We shall persevere because we know that it is the only way to triumph. When beaten down and outfoxed, we shall remember Franz Fanon’s charge that, “Every generation, out of relative obscurity must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it.”

We have the power to decide what we bequeath our children. But we have no power to choose what they inherit. May we fulfill and not betray the noble mission of our generation.


]]> Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:45:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443357 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/387741

POLITICS: BETWEEN IDEAS AND POWER
“Politics, Leadership and Development in Nigeria” by Dr. Ihechukwu Madubuike, Nigeria’s former Minister of Education (1979) and Health (1995), is a major contribution to public discourse and politics in Nigeria. It is a long while we have the opportunity of such beautiful intellectual offering from one of Nigeria’s finest public intellectuals who straddles both the world of ideas and the world of power.

The binary between ‘power’ and ‘idea’ constitutes a veritable conceptual rubric to anchor this review. There is a long standing dissonance between ‘power’ and ‘idea’ in popular mentality, at least in Nigeria. This dissonance expresses itself in the denigration of people of power- the politicians. It is often taken for granted, and with good evidence that those who jostle to control state power are people whose disinclination to ideas and the life of serious reflection is so intuitive and endemic that it reinforces their murderous irrationality in power. But, once in a while a denizen strolls through this chasm and integrates the quest for power and the passion for truth and beauty. Such a philosopher-king holds the promise of transformation.

Dr. Madubuike is such a philosopher-king. He is a reflective politician, an intellectual who does not scorn the utility of political power. Like Plato, Madubuike seeks to make rulers wise and virtuous. But, unlike Plato, his journey to Syracuse does not end in despair and abandonment. Ever since he joined the political class in 1979, Dr. Madubuike has remained closely engaged with politics. The pathologies of power and inanities of Nigerian political culture have not sapped his idealism that the world of political power could also become the world of ideas. This book is an unequivocal testament of this idealism. It brittles with hope that we can transform our political landscape; that politics can still become the art of the possible; and that we can with greater sense of mission overcome the ‘dictatorship of no-alternative’.

There are two broad ways to review a book. We can review the aesthetical and literary qualities of the book and the philosophical cum ideological merits of the book. To dwell briefly on the literary and aesthetic, I will confidently describe Madubike’s book as a literary and aesthetic delight. It is quite an easy book to read. Its reader-friendliness does not detract from its lofty ideas. In fact, its loftiness and grandeur is exemplified and enhanced by the rhetorical felicity and structural simplicity in which it is written. Of course, we don’t expect any less form a man who made just fame scandalizing those who take delight in turgid and tangled prose. In Nigeria it is almost commonplace to confront books that betray lack of editorial attention. It seems as if the authors of these books have the greatest disrespect for their readers that they decide to punish them with an unedited book. But, this book does not belong to that burgeoning class. The book received thorough editorial attention. You encounter little errors and omissions as you navigate through the pages. The size of the book, the arrangement of the chapters and the paragraphs and the quality of the printing make the book a pleasure to hold and read.

Although the essays in the book are written in a time frame that spans about two decade, they have symmetries of language, expressiveness and structural finesse that one would think they were written in a continuous exercise. For example, the second essay in the book (not counting the preface and the introduction), Wealth, Power and Recruitment into Nigeria’s Ruling Class, was written in 1979 as a news commentary by the Imo Broadcasting Service, Owerri. The last essay in the collection (not the concluding remarks) titled “Life Long Education in Nigeria”, was written for the State University of New York, Buffalo, in 2001. These essays are separated by over two decades yet you see astonishing similarities of free flowing and crisp English; lucidity and clarity of thought and almost equivalent degree of analytical dexterity and ideological orientation. These go to show many positive attributes of the author. He is consistent both in the technique of his craft and his ideological disposition to issues and event. In 1979 the author argued that “we must make sure that the power to influence political, social, economic, religious, educational and other events that affect the livelihood and future of the Nigerian population is not concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, simply because they are wealthy. We must insist that transparent honesty, hard work, tolerance, talent and accomplishments be the guide post for recruitment into the ruling class. This is the hope we have for a peaceful, prosperous and stable government in Nigeria”. In 2001, in the Buffalo essay he opined that “Equity and justice are important in education just as they are in other sectors of human endeavor. It is criminal to allow some 80% of our youths between the ages of 16-25 to idle away their time and talent by denying them access to higher education. This is one example of under utilization of resources and capacities whose consequences can only be disastrous for the corporate existence and stability of our country”.

Can anyone miss the common passion, commitment and dialectics that radiate from these two essays written 20year in between? Can anyone doubt the egalitarian and humanitarian impulses that underwrite these essays? Can any one doubt the intellectual sincerity and pedagogical urgency of these essays? We can multiple examples of such positive symmetries in the essays that constitute this collection. They tell the story of a man who has remained consistent to the verities of his profession as a literary critic and the progressivism and radicalism of a left of the centre intellectual politician.

Another delight of the book, indeed a marvel, is the thematic coherence of the book. With the eye for beauty of a poet and the precision of a clinician, Dr. Madubuike has assembled together essays on diverse subjects firmly and finely held together by the thread of transformation. The author is a transformative thinker and politician. This overriding trait is easily seen in the tone and message of the essays. In his dialectics, the author exposes the pathologies and inanities of our present practices and summons us to a new practice for a new future. As a progressive, the author believes in the possibilities of transformation. As a realist, he does not make light the anarchical, conservative and something tragic social and economic contexts that make changes difficult, if not impossible.

In the introduction, the author ably summarizes the theme of the book. It is about nation-building through creative and intelligent harnessing of human and material resources and the construction of alternative narratives and praxis to counter the globalizing hegemony of the TINA –There is No Alternative. In other words, it is about national leadership in the context of globalization. The author starts with this panoramic statement: “Nigeria is one of the unfinished national projects of the twentieth century. To consummate the enterprise, much needs to be done and resolved. The leadership question is in my mind, one of the key issues. That, in essence, is the raison d’etre of this book. Politics, the art of winning and exercising power provides the platform for the leadership and development challenges in Nigeria” (page 3). I doubt if there could be a more succinct summary of the book. This is a book about the national question, not posed in the jejune formula of how we can share the oil revenue or how we should share federal posts along religious, ethnic or religious configurations. This is about the national question in terms of making true the dreams of the founders of the Nigerian nation; a dream for a society of prosperity, solidarity and freedom.

This is a book written by a nationalist summoning his compatriots to higher degree of nationalism through seeking common grounds of civility and the ethics of the common good. As far back as 1979, at the advent of the so-called Second Republic, the author has realized the damages to the dream of Nigerian unity and prosperous which a politics of ethnicity can cause. He argued for the emergency of ideological parties that provide alternative idea-platforms for the value orientation of politics and the socialization of the Nigerian peoples. He wrote at page 25 as follows:

“The traditional political socialization in Nigeria do not make fully for easy cultivation of those political virtues enumerated above which will help the national political life more meaningfully and help us put the right kind of persons in office next year. These processes have emphasized the cultivation of narrow and ethnic political outlooks rather than liberal ones. The result is that Nigeria has several political cultures and not one political culture, as is the case in many of stable democracies in the world. And instead of cultivating values and attitudes relevant to the entire country perceived as one political unit, values and attitudes are cultivated to respond to the specific ethnic, sectional and parochial interests. And because of the deep rooted nature of these attitudes, nurtured and sustained by political biases and indoctrinations of the past, not even the legislations against the formation of ethnically based political parties may provide the long overdue panacea to national political ills or effect radical changes in our national political behavior” (page 25).

Dr. Madubuike was prophetic. The Second Republic emerged with ethnically based political parties. The NPN had its base in the north; the UPN and NPP could be said to be Yoruba and Igbo parties respectively. When Dr. Nnana Ukegbu and Alhaji Waziri, left NPP to form the GNPP, with Alhaji Waziri, a northern as President in resentment at the takeover of the party by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo, Dr. Madubuike, inexplicably remained with the Igbo party. There is some wistful pessimism in the statement. He argued that the deep-rooted nature of the negative attitudes in Nigerian politics, sustained by existing processes of socialization and mobilization ensures that Nigeria remains trapped in a heinous path-dependency and a self-fulfilling prophesy. He locates this crisis of values in the conservatism of Nigerian cultural and social institutions and calls for a radical deconstruction that will enable Nigerian electorate go beyond the rhetoric of ‘old’ ‘new’, ‘young’, ‘old’, ‘progressive’, ‘conservative’ politicians and ask penetrating questions about the value orientation of the political platforms and the politicians themselves. His compatriots did not heed the counsel, hence we ended with a disastrous leadership that betrayed the promise of greatness and encouraged the military step in to cremate the carcass of the nation.

Dr. Madubuike devotes a significant portion of the book to essays he wrote on party and political culture. This confirms his claim in the introduction that the objective of the book is to look at leadership and development from the point of view of politics. Politics is the handmaiden of leadership and development. If we fix politics we fix the leadership crisis at the heart of the failure of development. The problem with politics in Nigeria is that it is has refused to escape the path-dependency of the past. In many chapters, especially chapter 5 (The New Breed and Party Politics) and chapter 6 (A Novel Idea in Party Formation), he argues for discontinuation of the politics of the past based on atavistic political culture and hierarchical and conservative norms, and inauguration of a new politics of value and integrity. He deplores ethnicity in politics and affirms the national agenda at every turn of his political career as shown in these essays. But, we must say that the author escapes the tragedy of some Igbo ‘nationalists’ who do not know how to articulated commitment to the Nigerian agenda without disguising or mutilating their Igbo identity. You do not become good by being something else. You become good by being the best of you. The best an Igbo can be is to be a true Nigerian who fights for the common good, including the good of his own people. As Chinua Achebe said it in one of his essays, an African writer becomes a universal writer by just writing to the world as an African writer. It is in celebration of the author’s robust Igbo identity that he includes in the book a polemical essay mercilessly demolishing the myths of [the] Igbo as greedy and valueless. That is Chapter 20 titled Ndiigbo 2007: Propaganda and Politics of Distrust.

Nigeria is conservative in its politics hence it always fails to take advantage of moments of transformation. Politics in Nigeria continues to be assailed by two evils; the evil of ethnicity and parochialism and the evil of predatory gangsterism. Each time we have opportunity for a new beginning the ethnic champions and war lords rush out of the woodworks and manipulate the processes away from national consensus and universal idealism. Then when ethnically and parochially organized parties emerge, the war breaks out between contending bands of predators. Because the typical Nigerian politician is engaged in a primitive battle for economic survival through politics, politics become a vicious and all-out battle for control of resources and privileges. The message of this book is a summon to another vista of politics; a sunny view of politics were compatriots deliberate on how best to achieve the common good. The mantra of the politicians becomes, in Baldwin immortal words, how to achieve my country.

This book is very rich in ideas that can constitute an endless national discourse. The author served in government as political head of two important ministries, education and health. He has graciously offered his reflections on the management of education and healthcare in Nigeria. In some of the chapter, he outlines the policy mixes which enabled him achieve remarkable success as a minister of education and health (for example, Health Reforms in Nigeria: the National Health Summit). It should be noted that the author was the first, as much as I know, non medical or para-medical person to become a minister of health in Nigeria. His success as a minister of health challenges the orthodoxy that it is only medical or allied professionals who can successfully manage the health ministry. It is the same clarity of thinking and incisive social diagnosis evident in this book that enabled the author to succeed as a minister of health.

I will like to end this review on those chapters that express the author’s views on the challenges and opportunities globalization presents to national leadership and development. In the introduction, the author argues that Nigeria’s exposure to the dynamics of globalization could compound its crises of development if it does not understand the nature of the forces driving economic globalization and strategize on it can survive the storm like Japan and South Korea that succeeded by “balancing social harmony with the principles of market forces and by being in charge of her political agenda”. Although the author is not an economist, he handled the economic globalization ably by relying on the insights of economists who have taken critical perspective on globalization and human development. It is in these chapters that the author’s reformist and social democracy credentials come to the fore. For example, he challenges the market fundamentalism of those who insist on rapid privatization not withstanding its social costs by arguing that “There is, without doubt, a justification for the current pro-market reform sentiment. But we must remember that Nigeria is still an emerging market, not yet fully backed by factors that prevail in developed economies. Government must therefore be wary of entering into unholy alliances with businesses, local or international, because these are conducted for private gains and are part of an imperial arsenal for our sustainable poverty and a continuation of the white peril” (page 7).

If the author needs an authoritative support for this view, then he readily finds one in Ha-Joon Chang, a Korean economist at Cambridge whose latest book, ‘Bad Samaritans: the Myth of Free Trade and Secret History of Capitalism, lampoons the myth that nations become prosperous in the global economy by yoking themselves to the ship of free trade and the prescriptions of dominant orthodoxy championed by the World Bank and the IMF. He disagrees with the New York Times Columnist, Thomas Friedman who in his classic, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, argues that there is no alternative to the neo-liberal formula which he calls the ‘Golden Straitjacket’. According to Friedman, “unfortunately, this Golden Straitjacket is pretty much ‘one size fits all’. It is not always pretty or gentle or comfortable. But it’s here and it’s the only model on the rack this historical season”. Ha-joon Chang retorts that “However, the fact is that, had the Japanese government followed the free trade economists back in the early 1960s, there would have been no Lexus. Toyota today would, at best, be a junior partner to some western car manufacturers, or worse, have been wiped out. The same would have been true for the entire Japanese economy. Had the country donned Friedman’s Straitjacket early on, Japan would have remained the third-rate industrial power that it was in the 1960s, with its income level on a par with Chile, Argentina and South Africa…. In other words, had they followed Friedman’s advice, the Japanese would now not be exporting the Lexus but still be fighting over who owns which mulberry tree”.

This should serve as a lesson to Nigerian leaders today. We must recover political leadership to choose our destiny in the world. Although the present globalization is very constraining, there is still enough space to chart a different course like China, Japan, Korea and other successful economy in the Asian continent. This is the message of this book. And to do this, the author urges us to break loose from the dictatorship of the so called economic experts, the technopoles of the World Bank and IMF fame. Drawing from Professor Joseph Stiglitz, the author argues that “economic policies are usually not technocratic in this sense. They involve trade-offs; some may lead to higher inflation but lower unemployment; some help investors; other workers”, therefore economic policymaking is not only for the doctrinaire economists. The ultimate responsibility for making choices about economic policies rests with the politician-leader. Therefore, he or she should develop an expansive policy framework, not the narrow framework of the economic hit-man.

One can go on and on in reviewing the book. But, I will resist that temptation. The book is better than howsoever I describe it. Dr. Madubuike has offered us a great book. He has enriched our repertoire of ideas for change, change from poverty to prosperity; change from politics of eternal returns of regurgitated ethnicity and parochialism to a new politics of changing values for a changing world. Dr. Madubuike summons us to a new horizon of public discourse that enriches politics. As an inhabitant of the barricaded worlds of idea and power, Dr. Madubuike argues that we should break down the walls separating politics and wisdom and re-inaugurate a seamless world of the politician-intellectual. The question is: can we avert the failure of Plato who discovered to his disappointment that the politician can never be a philosopher; and hung his last hope for redemption on the rarest possibility that the true philosopher becomes the King.

Howsoever the riddle unravels this is a great book and needs no further advertisement.


]]> Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:46:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/387741 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/378883 Matters of the moment

Damning Xenophobic Incivility in South Africa


The present xenophobic scourge does South Africa no good…
apartheid violence and black-on-black violence
ought to have made South Africans violence averse.

The harried ghost of South Africa’s past resurrected this week, like a hibernating monster that was inebriated on a life-changing xenophobic portion. Peace was thrown to the wind, and the forgotten violence of the past dredged up in one blinking moment. In the end, there was death – senseless and gruesome death, initially, of 22 innocent people, mostly immigrants from other parts of Africa and mostly Southern Africa. Since I wrote this piece on 22 May the death toll has risen to 52, with some 25,000 immigrants displaced, even with the unprecedented use the South African military to assist the police contain the mob and quell the raging violent chauvinistic attacks.



The present xenophobic scourge does South Africa no good; and so for several reasons, beyond undermining its decency and normalcy. South Africa is supposedly a member of the alliance of civilization in good standing. However, its reputation in its totality, and along with it democratic credentials, are at risk of being irreparably tarnished by the rising xenophobia and violent backlash against immigrants within its ranks.

Far from its bona fides as the conciliatory and forgiveness exemplar – and Nelson Mandela’s homeland – South Africa is flushed with a spate of exceedingly ugly hate and madness directed at immigrants, which has resulted so far, in reported 52 gruesome deaths. On record, some 400 persons have been arrested for the xenophobic attacks and related acts. Incidentally, the death toll could have been higher with indeterminate outcome, had the targeted immigrants been less law-abiding, rallied and fought back in self defense, as some have vowed to do henceforth, if attacked. In fact, in the outlying areas of Johannesburg, such as Berea, Braamfontein and Yeoville, other non-African immigrants joined ranks to fight back the marauding mob. However, the attacks are spreading away from the Gauteng province and when it reaches the contiguous KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, the death toll will certainly rise.

Backlash against immigrants is nothing new. Indeed, sometimes it is a product of politicization and polarizing domestic rhetoric. Realistically, what is going on in South Africa is no worse than the levels of xenophobia we have witnessed in France or Germany when skinheads and radical extremists routinely pursue African immigrants and maul them. However, I do not recall a singular incident in Europe with such a high toll. Also, in fairness to France and Germany the law enforcement agencies react swiftly to nip such ugly incidents in the bud.

What is appallingly ugly in this case, is that South African are attacking their fellow Africans, many of whom are legitimate refugees or asylum seekers, who have sought succor in South Africa as a haven from their economically and politically troubled countries. Also, some immigrants are in South Africa, as a natural response to the shrinking national borders and dictates of our globalized system. While xenophobic attacks in any form is utterly unacceptable, the attacks on the Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Nigerians is doubly so, considering that those countries carried the burden of the global anti-apartheid campaign, when the present marauders were under the yoke of an oppressive apartheid regime.

However, the attacks on the immigrants or the Amakwerekwere - as they are derogatorily called - have been incremental since the end of apartheid almost 15 years ago. The South African government failed grossly in reading the handwriting on the wall. Ironically, while it may not have seen the need to protect foreigners, it has also failed to protect the South Africans belonging to the Shangaani tribe. The Shangaani are found Mozambique and to a lesser degree in South Africa. South Africans of Shangaani descent have also been victims in this mayhem. What an incongruity?

This unfolding saga is a painful, given that two summers from now South Africa is supposed to throw its borders, doors and homes open to global visitors arriving for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Tournament. Most of its visitors are bound to be from Africa. Unfortunately, tourists and even rabid football fans are loath to go anywhere that is prone to violence or somewhere, they are aware that that their kith and kin were not welcome.

Furthermore, what makes present the South African crisis exceedingly ugly is, that it stokes the memory, conjuring a not-too-distant-past, when the current oppressors, were themselves the victims and the oppressed. Moreover, South Africa has had its share of violence against innocent victims; apartheid violence perpetrated by the state and its third forces and later on, retribution-induced black-on-black violence, against turncoats and real or perceived collaborators of the apartheid regime were set ablaze during “necklacing”, with petrol-filled tires. These realities and experiences ought to have made South Africans violence averse.

Sad and shameful as these developments are, South Africans cannot morally shirk their responsibilities of being their brothers’ keepers and still expect to lead Africa. On a more strategic and political vein, South Africa cannot allow immigrants to be hounded out in an extra-judicial fashion and indeed killed, and still lay claim to its rightful place as the dominant regional power, bulwark and hegemon. Incidentally, there are clear indications that a third force may be inducing these attacks. The South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency boss, Manala Manzini, obliquely acknowledged this point by hinting that some people linked to former apartheid security forces were stoking the violence. Even if it were so, it is still a failure of policy as well as intelligence not to have nipped this crisis in the bud.

With the raging globalization, no country with a large and buoyant economy like South Africa’s can escape attracting immigrants, asylum seekers and odd jobbers; not the United states where reportedly, there are 20 million illegal immigrants from Mexico alone, not the United Kingdom and her European Union partners, not Nigeria, not Saudi Arabia and certainly, not South Africa. That is the reality; and reality bites.

Two decades ago there was as similar backlash in Nigeria against West African immigrants. There were no known killings, but the ruling military government, reacting to public clamor, expelled thousands of immigrants without due process. That action, considered popular then, still haunts Nigerians across the rest of West Africa, especially in Ghana. It was un-African and in the end, counter-productive since it violated extant ECOWAS protocol on free movement of its people.

South Africa has long been a haven for immigrants. The worsening regional and continental economy made migration to South Africa very attractive, well before the crisis in Somali and Zimbabwe threw up more refugees seeking homes away from home. The growing global food crisis has however, added to the level of pressure and irritation for South Africans, who see immigrants as now threatening their livelihoods. Crime rates have risen, as has homicide with the influx of immigrants. These trends, understandably, are worrisome for the locals.

There is some merit in such concerns, but the situation is compounded by the government’s tardy response and even lackluster attitude in publicly countering such polarizing sentiments. As far back as 1998, the Human Rights Watch issued a report, in which it flagged the possibility of the present crisis. It also called for the review of South Africa’s Aliens Control Act, which governs all aspects of migrants control in South Africa, calling it, “an archaic piece of apartheid legislation, at odds with internationally accepted human rights norms and the South African Constitution.”

It needs saying once more, that this crisis is a result of policy failure and inattentiveness. Such failings, give the tacit impression that the authorities are not concerned about violence against foreigners and the evident rise in xenophobia within it boundaries. Unfortunately, there is a deafening silence on the part of South African authorities either in reiterating that vigilante justice and the attendant violence is illegal, or highlighting the utility and upside of immigration as a positive economic force. The belated remarks by President Thabo Mbeki, in admitting that, “Today we are faced with a disgrace, a humiliation as a nation in that we have allowed a handful of people to commit crimes against other Africans living in our country," comes far too late and long after the horses have bolted from the barn.

President Thabo Mbeki also glossed over a critical issue; that the backlash visited on the immigrants may also be a displaced aggression of a domestic population long frustrated about their unmet expectations. Freedom and democracy, clearly has not yielded the dividends many black South Africans expected in the post-apartheid era. Simply, the patience of the poor in South Africa may have just run out, and the immigrants are withstanding the worst of it.

Perhaps, it is worth ending where I started. This crisis sullies the perception of South Africa in everyway possible. The present xenophobic scourge does South Africa no good. Beyond undermining its decency and normalcy, the genie is already out of the bottle. It will require a concerted and extremely assertive hands-on approach to curb this scourge before it makes South African cities ungovernable and unattractive to foreign visitors and investors. There will also be some economic price to pay were that to happen.

South African authorities should also be aware, that there is already anger brewing is several African countries, Nigeria included, against what is perceived as the hostile and malign attitude towards their nationals in South Africa, regardless of whether they are refugees or not. Such feelings can easily turn insidious and lead to retributive acts against South African nationals and interests elsewhere, which really, no one in Africa needs.

There must be a way to cap the present damning xenophobic incivility in South Africa; we need to find and institute it quickly to avoid further mayhem. A stitch in time saves nine!

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.


]]> Wed, 28 May 2008 08:34:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/378883 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/378879
Our leaders are pretension in assuming that they know what is best for us
or that what is good for them is good for the nation.
This is an endemic fallacy.

If there is one problem bedeviling Nigeria’s nascent democracy, it is the belief that power is more important than governance. Frequently, one encounters outlandishly crude policy debate, which the underlying impetus is not the substance, but marginal and partisan interests. It is all about politicking and no governance.

I was already reviewing the second draft of this piece, when I read Rueben Abati’s article titled, “Five Things To Remember On May 29” (The Guardian, 18 May 2008). Embedded in the body of that article, was a subtitle, “How Politics Underdevelops Nigeria”, which coincidentally, was the sub theme of my piece. As gratifying, as it was to know that there were other people, who like me, felt that political positioning and rhetoric were undermining democracy in Nigeria, I cannot claim that this is a case of great minds thinking alike. Rather, I sense that the coincidence reflects the topicality of the issue and the enormity of concern that we should all feel about how politics is used to undermine governance. Before I move on, I wish to state that I concur fully with two points made by Mr. Abati: ”Politics is thriving in Nigeria, not democracy” and ”Every useful initiative eventually ends up as politics.” Such dispositions are hugely dangerous given the drift as well as the illusion they represent.

In Nigeria and at all levels, the best game in town, the best hedge on an investment and the underpinning ethos of everyday living and wellbeing or lack thereof, of 160 million Nigerians, boils down to one word: politics. Indeed, many Nigerian elected officials seem to mistake politicking and partisanship for leadership, just as the National Assembly seems to believe that probing every act of a fly that perches on their nose, will make up for their legislative obligations and providing regulatory guidance for public and private enterprise.

One does not necessarily have to agree with or accept the oftentimes self-serving foreign assessment of the state of Nigeria. However, the reality, which our leaders seem to shirk and abhor, demands that we do so occasionally, especially, when such views are in tandem with those of members of the Nigerian attentive public. The Financial Times observed recently that Nigeria is drifting. Nothing new I would say. But of our nascent democracy, Yar’Adua’s presidency and style, it also opined, “If Nigeria is to consolidate fragile steps towards more accountable rule and harness optimism abroad about its economic future, it will require firmer direction from the top.”

It was US Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O'Neill, who once proclaimed, "All politics is local." He did so in attempting to explain how personal and local political dynamics around the country could positively or adversely affect the effectiveness of lawmakers and hence, their legislative obligations. The Nigerian parallel is the employment or exploitation of the personal disposition of President Yar’Adua – his nicety, commitment to the rule of law and due process, respect of institutions of state and the separation of powers, etc. – for personal or partisan ends, that doe not serve collective interest or advance a true democracy.

It is perhaps worth exploring herein, how politics is being used to undermine national development and progress. Evidently there is justification for every drawback and a word; or as a friend who recently relocated to Nigeria had put it, a “current catch phrase in public policy speaks” for every thing – for every excuse. My friend felt compelled to write a reflective piece three months after his return to Lagos from a twenty-something years sojourn abroad. The first part of his observations was acutely dead on the mark of the pitfalls of politics versus democracy. His words:

It is some of the smaller and much more easily identifiable challenges that seem to elude the vision, and it is one of these that I want to underscore here: discipline and respect for the rule of law. The best economic prescriptions will amount to precious little if we do not create the right enabling environment in which they can take root. A country where there is little or no regard for the rule of law can only expect limited progress.

Our leaders have betrayed one of the core principles of federalism by playing politics with the commonweal. What we have, is ruling party and government with incompatible objectives. Presently though on paper and in principle we remain a democracy, Nigerians feel severely the absence of a strong leadership footprint on our nascent democracy. Nevertheless, broad expectations of elected leaders to perform their statutory duties can hardly be unrealistic. While as a nation, we are not bereft of talented people experienced in governance matters, it is deeply regrettable that President Yar’Adua recently expressed concern about the paucity of strategic thinkers and problem solvers within his cabinet. This is indeed regrettable. It is perhaps worth utilizing several topical issues with significant impact on the national interest, to show how we play the roulette with vital national issues, which if rightly handled, could become the underpinning basis for codification of practices and norms.

President Yar’Adua is a decent man. But decency in Nigerian politics is often interpreted as weakness. This may explain why nicety and decency of the top man has become an indirect fodder for those who engage in extralegal machinations within government. Today, public officials who employ bureaucratese or misleading language, such as the “the president has graciously consented to..”, ”it was done within the extant regulation…” and ” we were able to obtain the president’s anticipatory approval…” understand fully that they are merely exploiting loopholes. Moreover, such elected officials and technocrats understand that “presidential words can also define momentous policy”. Whereas, well-meaning and honest public officials use such dispositions to promote public policies and interest, their less honest and less sanguine counterparts, use such opportunities to further personal gains and political ambitions.

Anyone who understands a thing or two about big bureaucracies knows that government business is hardly ever, conducted orally. To keep the nefarious in check, ensure continuity and institutional memory, there has to be a paper trail, even in this electronic age. Bureaucrats call it CYA – “cover your ass.” Hence, only those with dubious intent engage in the doublespeak dodge, often seeing it as “smart politics”. If not, how does one explain for instance, the utter disregard of the extant statute, in the appointment of Mrs. Farida Waziri as Chair of the EFCC, without even the courtesy of an advisory note from the Executive Branch to the National Assembly. The ensuing controversy over alleged procedural irregularities in her nomination is quite understandable considering that the reassignment of the former EFCC Chair, Nuhu Ribadu’s had elicited a similar controversy.

Likewise, when recently House Speaker Dimeji Bankole said that there was no consolidated record of Nigeria’s oil sales for the past forty years, he never said that the records never existed. If public records existed and are subsequently destroyed, cannot be found or intentional suppressed (ala the Okigbo Report), then, someone is playing dirty politics with the issue. Prof Tam David-West (one of the few high placed Nigerian officials ever convicted for accepting bribe) excoriated Hon. Bankole. The question is this: between Hon. Bankole and Prof. David-West, who is playing politics with the facts. As late Senator Patrick Moynihan once observed, “Although everyone is entitled to their own opinion, they are not entitled to their own facts”.

Abati was right in noting that in Nigeria, “Every useful initiative eventually ends up as politics.” We must think of all the probes and public inquiry reports Nigeria has commissioned since independence that never saw the light of day. Initiating a probe or commissioning a report conveys the notion of transparency and assuage ill fillings. Presumably, that is all it is supposed to do. However, a suppressed or unimplemented report hardly brings the desired closure to an issue. When the ruling party treats acts warranting criminal investigations or legislative censure or indictments as “family affairs”, it amounts to playing politics in the name of democracy.

The administration of Nigeria is replete with historical nuggets of incoming administrations being fixated on the policies of their predecessor regime; not necessarily to build on them, but to dismantle them and then recast the same policy under new names, new contracts and new expenditure. Of late, we have been witnesses to a spate of policy reversals. Much of these policies and programs were much vaunted by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration. The paradox, however, is that those behind the current policy reversals, were also instrumental to their being enacted by the previous government. What do they stand to gain or lose? Go figure!

NIGER DELTA CRISIS POLITICS
Let us take for instance, the Niger Delta Crisis, an issue critical to national wellbeing and therefore one that resonates widely. Political leaders use various words to highlight its importance, but all to no avail when it comes to addressing the development in the oil producing communities, hence the present crisis. Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro brought the needs of the Niger Delta communities to our national consciousness in the late 1960s. , From thereon, through the creation of the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) in 1989 and the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in 2000, we have sunken millions of Naira into the region, created many multi-millionaires in the process, yet, we have not managed the core issues -- resource sharing and environmental degradation well. Simply put, we have consistently played politics of convenience with the Niger Delta. Is it a Federal or State issue? Well, it is both, but more importantly, it is a national security issue with demanding imperatives. As Dan Amor recently noted in a Nigerian newspaper:

The criminality going on in the Niger Delta is the outcome of the hypocrisy of the Federal authorities and the multi-national oil companies who think that spending N200 billion daily on maintaining military presence in the region is better than investing such money in social infrastructure, education, training and employment of youths in order to address the social and economic grievances which lie at the heart of the current hostage taking and slow motion slide into guerrilla warfare in the region. Rather than use the huge gas reserves in the Niger Delta as feed-stock to drive power plants, petrochemical industries and allied investments which will turn the region into Nigeria's, nay West Africa's industrial powerhouse. This was the experience of Johannesburg (gold city) in South Africa following the discovery of gold there. Instead, our rulers prefer the obviously unimaginative, lazy and shortsighted way of stashing the huge oil revenue in foreign reserves to power the economy of the "G8" countries. What an unpardonable idiocy and shame!

Its politicization notwithstanding, Niger Delta is about those who legitimately feel disenfranchised. Mishandling of the Niger Delta grievances has certainly left more deep-seated animosities in its wake.

OIL REVENUE AND EXCESS CRUDE POLITICS
Basics Arithmetic is rather straight and operates on four cardinal pillars: addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. However, these principles seem to progressively change and assume different shades when it come to Nigeria’s oil revenue and accounting for it. Simply put, those in charge, play politics with the oil figures - both the allotment and the accruing revenue.

At different times, I have in this space touched on the less than transparent ways we handle our oil proceeds. I also touched on the critical question of domestic excess oil crude allocation. The matter is still far from being resolved. I also do not see that the powers-that-be are in anyway inclined to stop playing politics with our oil policies. If not, how one does explain certain policy excuses offered by Nigerian public officials, except to characterize them as the “usual politics.” Even the blind knows from hearing and the deaf from reading, that it has been ages since the domestic refineries in Nigeria produced refined products at their full capacities. Yet, each month, the full quota of crude oil are allocated to refineries based their on their full refining capacities. What nobody says is how and where the excess unrefined crude is disposed; and if not used, where it is stored.

Recently, when this issue reared its ugly head again, Minister of State for Finance, Remi Babalola's as per media reports (The Guardian, 24 Apr08) explained the matter a way that left one’s head reeling. The Honorable Ministers words: "... the arrears (petrol subsidies) for January to March 2008 have been submitted by the PPPRA for processing and will be funded from the same excess crude account as has been the extant practice and to which Mr. President has graciously consented as it affects all tiers of government...." This explanation is a dodge or a forge or both. The world be dammed, if this does not amount to “Robbing Peter to pay Paul”, with the obvious intent to obfuscate existing policies. If we were not talking about crude oil, but cash or the revenue from it, what the minister referred to, is in accounting terms, called “vitiation” and could not possibly happen without authorization from the overseeing authority. So, where are the federal auditors in all this?

Interestingly, for anyone who has paid the scantiest attention to this matter, the official charged with the broader issue of overseeing national revenue, Mr. Hamman Tukur, Chairman of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Committee (RMAFC), has long decried the practice that Minister Babalola tries to validate. On more than one occasion, perhaps with the benefit of hindsight regarding the gross misuse of “dedicated accounts” during the Babangida and Abacha era, Mr. Tukur had publicly condemned the existence of an excess crude account and on each occasion, characterized them as unconstitutional and a cover for siphoning funds from official coffers, aka presumptive fraud. Statutorily, both Tukur and Babalola are advisers to President Yar’Adua. One wonders who has the upper hand on such policy matters. Well, it is all about politics.

SELECTIVE DUE PROCESS POLITICS
When in 2007 the Siemens bribe scandal broke, embarrassed Nigeria promptly cancelled all existing contracts with Siemens and suspended further dealings with the company. In reality, however, whereas Siemens’ chairman and chief executive both quit over the alleged scandal of Siemens paying bribes to Nigerian officials, and the company was fined €201 million and made to pay €179 million in back taxes, nothing happened at Nigerian end. Besides media reports about EFCC investigation of some highly placed Nigerians, including four former ministers of communications, namely, Cornelius Adebayo, Haruna Elewi, Tajudeen Olanrewaju and Bello Muhammad as well as Senator Jubril Aminu, who were all reportedly mentioned as recipients of Siemens bribe, in the trial proceedings in a court in Munich, Gernamy, zilch has happened. In a country that practices real democracy that would not be the case and it would also not be the case in Nigeria, if politics did not subjugate democracy.

However, the greatest scandal of all is this: in the wake of the scandal, the ever-loquacious Attorney-General Michael Aondoakaa, proclaimed, “We are going to look at the case. As the Attorney-General of the Federation, I can tell you that it is not a matter that government will treat with levity.” He had even threatened to summon Mr. Joachim Schmillen, Germany’s ambassador to Nigeria to explain the scandal. Yet nothing further has been heard of the scandal despite the Attorney-General’s bluster. But then what is new? Look at the length of time it took EFCC to to take Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello into custody, on allegation of being in possession of N10 million from the N300 million Ministry of Health’s unspent fund scam. While she was in hiding, certainly, people assisted her, which in any real democracy, amounts to obstruction of justice - an act that is equally a punishable offence.

AVOIDING JUDICIAL AND LEGISLATIVE SUBPOENA POLITICS
When the Oputa Panel convened several years back, it invited Nigerians in their public and private capacities to come forth and testify. Because it was convenient for President Obasanjo or better still, since he was still aspiring to be like Nelson Mandela, he showed up. But his fellow and subordinate ex-general, notably Ibrahim Babangida did not. Nothing happened. Only this week, Minister of Finance, Shamsudeen Usman and Dr. Bright Okongwu, the Director of Budget Office failed to appear before the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts to explain what happened to the allotted N25 billion in the 2006 budget meant for payment to local contractors. Instead, they sent their minions who were dismissed b the committee. Instances such as these are neither new nor infrequent. After all, former President Obasanjo conveniently found every excuse including anger and ennui, not to appear before a National Assembly panel probing the energy sector contracts during his regime. If former heads of state sworn to uphold the law can be so contemptuous of the law and its makers, why do we expect the common person – the so-called children of a lesser God – not to toe their line and example? All said these episodes speak to our weak institutions and our utter disregard for the rule of law.

OVERLOOKING CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLITICS
In the wake of the Ministry of Health unspent budgetary allocation scam, the Federal Government recently issued a circular through Mr. Babagana Kingibe, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, reaffirming the illegality of ministries and agencies purchasing vehicles for National Assembly members or granting loans to them for whatever purposes. Simply put such gratification amounts to a conflict of interest. Besides the impropriety of those in the legislative branch collecting money from the executive branch institutions, for which they have fiscal oversight, the legislature, as an independent arm of the government has its own budget. Furthermore, as comforting as it may seem for the Federal Government to announce as it did recently, that it had recovered some N300 billion in unspent 2007 capital budget for ministries, departments and agencies, the announcement still begs the question. First, it means that the accounting officers had ignored spending rules and financial codes and regulations. Second, beyond the current accounting officers being disdainful about the rule of law, what happened to the unspent capital budget expenditures between 1999 and 2007?

PRIVATIZATION POLITICS
New reports of controversies surrounding the privatization of publicly owned companies and enterprises suggest that all is not well with their handling. We know this much is; most were transferred into private domestic and foreign hands for pittances; read NICON Hilton Hotel, NICON Insurance and Nigeria Re-Insurance, NITEL, Ajaokuta Steel Mills, and the Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries (later rescinded). Only recently, the Federal Government agreed to an out of court settlement with Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, over his acquisition of NICON Insurance and Nigeria Re-Insurance, when it was evident that Mr. Ibrahim had not meet his due diligence with regards to the new “recapitalization threshold” and settling all NICON’s legitimate claims and outstanding liabilities to its creditors. Finally, today, no one seems to care about the security implications of ours being a nation without a solid land-based telephony system. We all rely on the GSM, even though we do not control the transmitting and relay satellites. Yet, are leaders are comfortable and believe that a multiplicity of GSM network and carriers, some foreign, is critical national advancement. In their political etymology, it is progress. Our national development and self-improvement ethos has never been so ironic.

AS I SEE IT
There will always be a disjunction between playing politics and practicing real democracy. However, our leaders consistently outwit themselves with pretension, in assuming that they know what is best for us or that what is good for them is good for the nation. This is an endemic fallacy. Such politics of self-gratification is not the bedrock of any true democracy. Additionally, leading by precepts has never engendered optimism – not even the-glass-is-half-full type. Our nation, unfortunately, has been subjected such form of governance.

Perhaps, in accepting that our bane has been bad leadership, which willy-nilly translates to bad governance, we should look anew at how we train our leaders, their orientation and how they are selected. Finally, we must try to assess if our leaders truly understand their responsibility to us in a democracy; the system of government we have chosen. As Max de Pree observed, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor.” Only when we find leaders who are indebted to us as the electing constituency, will we begin to make headway in our democracy. Until then, it will be the same rut of politics as usual or the usual politics, all in the name of democracy. For now, Nigeria’s governance is all about posturing and speaking the right political language.

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.
-------

]]> Wed, 28 May 2008 08:22:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/378879 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/374463
Well, I just want to give my own interpretation or should I say opinion of what love is. Love in actuality is really interpreted as giving. The right way in which love is expressed is by giving. When I say giving, that is giving of yourself to another. This giving could be in the form of:
· Your time
· Your resources
· Your advice
· Your friendship
· Your loyalty
There are a whole lot of aspects of yourself that could be given to express love. As I said before, love is giving. When you love you do so without an agenda. You love freely without expecting any repayment of any sort.

When you love, the things that are important or that matter to the person in question should be uppermost in your mind. When you love someone, you try your possible best to help that person achieve his/her desires or dreams. When you truly love someone, that person's happiness should be your happiness. That is why you should try in all ways possible to help that person attain that happiness.
If there is to be any reward for your efforts, it should be seeing that person happy; the person's happiness should be yours too.
This can be achieved only when you have a giving nature towards that person. When I say giving, I am not saying that you should be giving the person money to handle issues or problems (which is what most guys would be thinking I'm talking about) but rather I mean that you should be ready to give of yourself in different ways to make that other person feel loved and appreciated.
Also, when I say giving it does not transpire to the giving of one's body (sex) to the other. Sex has been a whole lot of times been interpreted as a sure sign of love between couples, but this isn't so. Sex is a means created by God to bond a husband and wife together very well, also for their enjoyment (pleasure), and also to produce children. It wasn't created to act as a sign of commitment or sign of love between unmarried couples.
When you love someone, you should always be on the look out to make sure that all is well with that person. You cannot be in love with some one and do nothing when you see that the person has a problem of some sort. You definitely will get involved in trying to find a way out of that problem.
When you love someone, you would make sure that everything you do would make that person happy in every way. You can't say you love someone and do something which you know would definitely hurt the person.
When you love someone, the person's feelings should be uppermost in your mind whenever you take a decision.
When you love someone , you respect the person and the person's feelings.
When you love someone, you anticipate the person's needs.
When you love someone, you put that person before yourself in every situation. That is you make sure that the other person's needs are met before you even begin to consider yours.
When you love someone, there are times you might have to deny yourself or your needs to help the other person get his/hers fulfilled.
When you love someone, you put that person above any other person. That person is second to none in your endeavors, in your plans, in your activities, in your everything.
When you love someone you give, you give , you give. Give of yourself to the person's benefit which ultimately would be to your own benefit too.
After all, God expressed his wonderful love to humanity by a selfless act of giving; John 3:16 in the bible- for God so loved the world that he GAVE his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Therefore, we who are creations of God should also express our love to others by giving of ourselves and not always taking or receiving alone.
Where love is expressed back and forth this way between couples; that is, between both individuals in a relationship there is bound to be a perfect balance and sure hope for success.

With Valentine's day already here, it is a time for us all to reflect on the value and basis of our love. Let us love the right way, let us make a decision to love our partners the right way by giving of ourselves to the benefit of our partners and ultimately to our benefit in general.
As I said before, the best reward we can ever get for our effort of giving of ourselves to our partners is to see that they are happy, fulfilled and satisfied because that would also make us happy, fulfilled and satisfied.
Happy Valentine's day to everyone out there. Remember,…. love by giving. It (love) is a wonderful decision to make.

]]> Tue, 20 May 2008 13:26:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/374463 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/370709
Mama’s love still the same

She endured anxious times

Unaware loving tears flow.



Her priceless sacrifice of love

Tender love as warm comfort

Mama, I’m so proud of you

Enjoy long life in good health

Enjoy each shower of blessings.



Peace as happiness be yours

You’re the heroine in my life

God bless you dearest mama

I cherish my African heritage

Everyday is “Mother’s Day.”

]]> Tue, 13 May 2008 11:07:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/370709 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/370705
for national sustenance and development… yet, we have never

had a transparent and cutting-edge managerial approach or continuity in our oil policies.



Last August, barely three months into his presidency, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua confronted what was perhaps the best-kept secret in Nigeria; that those charged with managing Nigeria’s oil wealth were operating a bottomless cesspool. As several Nigerian papers reported then, Mr. Hamman Tukur, the chair of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), unequivocally told the president, that Nigeria was losing monstrous amounts of money from oil revenue because of lack of “transparency and accountability in computation and procedure of payment.”



More specifically, Tukur reportedly told the president that “Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) between December 2004 and April this year, fleeced the nation of some N555 billion” and may have “defrauded the country of N502 billion through production of crude oil far in excess of the quota assigned by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).” (The Sun, 22Aug.’07)



Almost one year after the Obasanjo regime left office, there are increasing revelations that much more unsavory acts took place during the eight years he was in charge of the petroleum portfolio. At issue: what happened to the excess unrefined crude, routinely allocated to the four nationally owned refineries, which everyone knew, were operating well below their respective and collective capacities?



Some of the recent revelations are mind-boggling. For instance, it has been determined by a recent report that, “The value of this unrefined excess ‘domestic’ crude (even at the then low spot market price of $60 per barrel) approximated to about N51 billion per month at the then prevailing exchange rate of N135 to the dollar.” It is perhaps best to allow the reader to do the arithmetic of the cumulative sum of N51 billion per month over 96 months. Astonishing!



When in the mid-1970s, Gen. Yakubu Gowon remarked that Nigeria’s problem was how to “manage our prosperity” many ridiculed his take. In hindsight, he was quite prescient. Indeed, the recent revelation by House Speaker Hon. Dimeji Bankole that, “there is no record anywhere in Nigeria of how much a barrel of oil has been sold. There is no clear record of the prices of oil in the last 40 years” is troubling as it is tragic. Yet, Point 3 of President Umaru Yar’Adua much touted seven-point governance agenda titled “Wealth Creation”, states, “70% of all revenue comes from oil; need to keep this focused and extended to other areas.” On paper and as a policy option, this focus along with the other six points looks good and purposeful. The devil, however, is in the details of its implementation, more so, since our oil policy has always been opaque and its implementation always conducted in the dark.



Nigeria is a richly blessed nation in many regards. As a nation, we have earned respectable sums from oil, sufficient to turn our country into an equally respectable, Medium Power. But we have squandered our riches. In the 1970s, we had the oil boom; in the early 1990s the first windfall, and now, we are reaping unprecedented high revenue from oil. The question is how is the revenue being managed and accounted for, and whether there will be any tangible evidence in the end, that we did something substantial and meaningful with the windfall that is presently accruing to us under Yar’Adua’s leadership?



Hitherto and as is the case now, Nigeria rely heavily on oil and gas revenues, and will do so for the near future, despite agriculture and manufacturing being prospective high revenue earners. Oil remains our national lifeline and the predominant basis for national sustenance and development. Yet we manage it callously with utmost levity since we have never had a transparent and cutting-edge managerial approach or continuity in our oil policies.



Such a paradoxical disposition with our oil calls into question, our leadership’s grasp of the fundamentals of nation building, their responsibility towards the national population, and their basic understanding of the essence of short, medium and long-term national planning. Furthermore, there seems to be a careless indifference, if not delusional assumption on the part of our leaders and technocrats, that our oil resources are infinite.



The year 2008 marks the beginning of a new season and a season of new beginnings for the global oil industry of which Nigeria remains a key player. But there has been an added twist to it all. Unheralded, a new drawn has arrived in the global oil industry that might rewrite the rules of the game. The Middle East geopolitics, notably the crisis in Iraq, and the strains between Iran and the West, coupled with many years of wars and sanctions have combined with the crisis in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria to push global oil prices to a new all-time high.



New oil Barons, namely, Mexico, Norway and Russia, who share a common bound of being outside the OPEC Cartel, are leveraging their clout and capitalizing on OPEC’s espirit de corps, without the name-calling that goes with it. Such an unholy alliance has guaranteed that current oil delivery for April, May 2008 and beyond will average around $120 plus per barrel. Still, when the world recovers from its present state of shock, only the shrewd policymakers and oil producing nations with strategic foresight would have adjusted well to the evolving realities. It should be discernible that the situation at hand foreshadows a global energy crisis, with dire consequences. If not, why would U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat-NY), propose withholding U.S. arms sales to under producing OPEC members until they sufficiently raise oil production to offset current record high prices. He was unusually hard on a key U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia, in observing, “They have to understand this is a two-way street. We provide them weapons, our troops provide them protection, and they rake us over the coals when it comes to oil.”



Ironically, while many oil producers including Nigeria are reaping huge windfalls, the corollary is that Nigeria’s overall production has dropped from about two million barrels per day to 1.3 million barrels, thanks to the Nigeria Delta crisis. Yet, in tangible revenue terms, Nigeria is earning now, trice what she earned in 2000; and seven times her earnings under the Babangida regime, when it earned some $12 billion in windfall during the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis.



One certainty about global petroleum policy is the definite uncertainty. Before now, it would have been unthinkable to contend that oil prices would reach $100 per barrel. Indeed, it would have been heretical to say so or forecast as much. Now, we know better. There are still vast imponderables and almost a glut of uncertainties about which direction and the extent things might go henceforth. Nevertheless, as we know, conventional wisdom has already been trashed and the econometrics of oil supply severely skewed. If not, how does one explain the fact that higher prices of oil have not attracted the attending suppression in global demand, nor attracted new and increased production?



If I were President Umaru Yar’Adua, who is Nigeria’s current oil czar or Mr. Odein Ajumogobia, Nigeria’s Minister of State for (Petroleum) Energy, I would promptly cut Nigeria’s current oil production levels, if possible, by half, notwithstanding Senator Schumer’s threat. Why, one would ask? Well, let us call it a strategic national interest consideration. As current market forecast contends, “Oil prices might exceed $200 a barrel by 2012,” which alternatively, will reflect “$7-a-gallon gasoline in the United States”. Indeed, this projection is rather conservative. $200 per barrel is indeed foreseeable by March 2009, were one to use the current prices and the "futures-spot spread" model. At that rate and a much-reduced output, Nigeria would still make more money than it did in December 2005, when oil prices hovered around $62 per barrel and far more than in 2000, when the prices averaged $30 or in 1998, when it was $10 per barrel.



Some may wonder what sense it would make for Nigeria, a developing nation, to pursue such a unilateral policy option. First, the policy proposal is introspective since domestic policies drive foreign policy. Second, every nation must leverage it clout to its own benefit. Simply put, an untapped barrel of oil in the ground is easily worth $500, which would be about 500% mark up from the present rate. Moreover, the notion of cheaper alternative sources of energy is already proving to be bogus. Surely, the technology exist for developed nations, but is the world ready to make a choice between an increasingly starving global population and the sustainable opportunity to fuel the appetite of those nations that produce less energy but consume more than others? Not quite likely. Several other factors also complicate the global oil situation. Whereas, the search for alternative sources of energy such as biofuel has increased, the reality is that several dominant established sources of oil, such as Britain, Norway, and Alaska are pumping less oil and indeed, their once huge reserves are depleted.



So far, Nigeria has not done much for itself with its oil by way of industrialization and development. Hence, it risks being in the long term, a poorer country when its oil runs out, simply because it has not planned judiciously, conserved its oil and invested its oil wealth, but rather, has adopted the “Lottery Winner’s” mentality in the use of its oil revenue. A critical point that still confounds many is why the nation has not industrialized. The seemingly intractable crisis in the oil-producing Niger Delta and the environmental degradation and underdevelopment of the region are emblematic of how badly Nigeria has handled its oil wealth. Across the board, Nigerians wonder how it is, that despite the surfeit of revenue from oil, the nation’s energy-generating sector is in such a sorry and dismal shape, that power supply was far more reliable in post civil-war period than now. Certainly, no nation can seriously claim being developed, when its power supply is unreliable and so epileptic.



The present situation could easily prove a Catch-22 for Nigeria. To make up for the high oil demand and the attendant global shortfall, the world is diverting its attention to grain, and sugar-based biofuel, which has concomitantly resulted in the current global food crisis. Nigeria is at risk of being trapped in the global food crisis, and would be required to spend more money on food than it does presently. Nigeria will certainly need all the financial resources at its disposal to import food to supplement its domestic production, were we to arrive at that critical juncture.



What Nigerian energy policymakers must begin to ponder and focus on, is that the present gasoline crunch will not go away anytime soon. That fact alone, should instruct the formulation of its oil policy henceforth. Pumping more oil to help assuage the global crunch will therefore be defeatist in the long term. Simply, it makes no sense. Why sell huge amounts of oil when pump prices currently stand at $3 per gallon, but are forecasted to rise steeply to a range of $7-$10 per gallon in the next 3-5 years.



If the shortfall in global oil production does not guarantee such a spiraling growth, then, the humongous demands from burgeoning and mega economies of India, China and cash-flushed Middle East, will definitely ensure that such demands will not abate. Indeed, Nigeria stands to gain more, if it can maintain a steady rate of production over a span of five years. Eventually, it can boost its production at the critical juncture when the OPEC cartel will be required to increase supply in order to meet the consumption demands that are projected at some 60 million barrels per day, which would amount to a 180% upward spike from the current ratio.



It is unlikely however, that those who lead Nigeria and who are in charge of its oil will do so out of conviction or out of altruism for Nigeria’s posterity. Even with the best intention, an entrenched system of corruption, murky transactions and greed will dictate otherwise. Political and other self-serving consideration also remain critical considerations. In a sense, the current leaders can rationalize that there is no assurance whatsoever; that the succeeding governments will retain and not squander whatever savings they have made for Nigeria’s posterity. Such logic would stand on firm ground. Indeed, one discomforting truth is that every successive Nigeria government, except for the Muhammad-Obasanjo and the Buhari-Idiagbon military regimes, has been far more reckless in their handling of Nigerian oil resources than the government they succeeded.



It is therefore only reasonable to expect every Nigerian government to seek to justify the use the resources at its disposal for governance purposes and current needs. But the life of the nation is not so ephemeral as to warrant not thinking of posterity and the succeeding generation. In fact, the awareness that the life of a nation is a continuum from one generation to another, is singularly compelling and a key variable in considering and planning social welfare policies, housing, employment, and national reserves.



It may seem quite a feat of achievement that Nigeria’s foreign reserve rose to $60 billion in March 2008 -- as compared to $16 billion in 2004 and $7 billion in 2003 -- and ranks second in Africa only Algeria's $100 billion. Nevertheless, there are several African countries with far smaller foreign reserves, economies and population, which have far better infrastructure, employment rates and reliable supply electricity than Nigeria. Such a paradox ought to give us pause. It must also inform our oil policy mindset and outlook.



A Warm Happy Mother’s Day to yours and mine and all the Mothers of the world!



With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.

]]> Tue, 13 May 2008 10:56:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/370705 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/363969
The most annoying time is when he looks into my eyes and says: "Give me time and I will show you how much I love you."

I gave Bill so much time to prove he loved me, but he never proposed me. Few times I have asked Bill about our future, he always says: "The future will take care of itself."

You see I never knew my future with Bill. He needed time, I gave him enough; in fact, Bill was my teenage lover. I met Bill during my senior secondary II, when I was sixteen years. Then he sweet-talked me and took away my virginity. Since then I have not been able to leave Bill, and he seems to love me too.

There have been moments of trial in our relationship; like when Bill asked me to sleep over in his house, that I could not do. He got angry with me, slapped me, and later apologized.

My friends told me: "Nneka, open your eyes; Bill is using you. Just because you didn’t sleep in his house, he slapped you. Come on, baby, don’t be a fool; he is using you just for one thing – sex, of course."

I never believed them.

Bill is all I need in my life; he owns me. I don’t mind giving him my soul, if it had come to the extent laying my life down. When I was twenty three – almost through with my university studies, I still had Bill beside me, giving me sweet words and keeping our future blank.

Bill asked me to see him today at Bar Beach by 4:00 pm. Although Bill has a tight schedule, he never disappointed when it comes to date; he will always be the first to arrive. I glanced at my watch: It was almost 4:00 pm. I loved to see Bill with my best cloths on. I picked my beautiful red shirt and put it on. I also put on my tight jeans that would show my beautiful curves; my friends always say that my shape was like that of a Greek goddess. I have not seen a Greek goddess before, but all I know is that I have a wonderful curve that make eyes turn round. I powdered my face with a Mary Kay designer’s powder, put mascara on my eyelids, and rubbed a golden color lipstick on my thin lips, all blended with my fair complexion. My hair was already braided; all I did was to divide the Bob Marley braid and tied each with a hair band. I walked over to my standing mirror. Truly I look gorgeous. My friends always say that I look striking with this simple dress. I picked up the designer shoes my uncle in London sent to me and put them on.

I walked into the street. I know Bill will be waiting for me now at the beach. In order to get there quickly, I picked a commercial bike to Bar Beach.

I arrived at the beach around quarter past four in the evening. Azure hung like a large bowl in the heaven full of hue. It was very romantic. Everywhere seemed like paradise to me. The white-sand beach, the thatch houses, the sea splashing its shores, the foamy water that wets the white sand. Lovers were all over the place. It seemed like a kingdom of lovers: couples holding themselves, lovers walking quietly beside the beach, romantic men tossing theire woman into the water or sitting in the thatch houses. Also in this paradise, there were some strange sites as white-garment prayer houses, madmen dancing naked to a silent music, strange scruffy-looking men picking up debris of nothing from the beach and scratching their private part at the same time.

Bill told me to meet him in a bar the called Sweet Dreams. Just down the road, I found the bar without asking lovers, couples, madmen, or strange-looking men. Sweet Dreams was a little bit romantic, but I would have loved to sit beside the water; where seabreeze will touch me and foamy water wash my feet while I look into the azure sky. To my surprise, Bill wasn’t there. My thoughts started to race: Bill has never been late to date before. What went wrong? I quietly sat down on a table meant for two. The waiter brought the carte du jour.

“Can I have chilled bottled water,” I ordered. I just wanted something that will keep me waiting.

I was beginning to feel sleepy when Bill arrive. I could see him walk into the bar. He wore a black suit, unlike him. Whenever we fixed a date, Bill always dressed casual. Today everything seemed odd, especially his looks. Bill wore a sad expression, as if he has been to hell. He sat in front of me trying to force a smile. I neither spoke nor greeted him. He ordered red wine – that is never my choice, and he knew I like to drink juice.

The waiter brought a filled glass of red wine. As he sipped his wine, I noticed a rough scratch beside his ear; it made him look unattractive.

Finally he broke the silence, “Won’t you take the wine?” He smiled.

The question seemed stupid to me. I ignored him; rather I asked him “What took you so long?” My voice shuddered as if a lump of cold ice was in my throat.

“Can’t you see I am just coming back from work?” he replied harshly.

Today is indeed different; he has never talked to me like this before. I could see his strong point, but I know he felt my weak spot; my shuddering voice said it all. “Please Bill for Christ cake... sake answer-e-r me.” My voice shuddered the more.

He looked more poise and even kept a smiling face. He put his hand into his pocket and brought out a card. He handed it over to me. I took the paper from him and read it in my heart: A WEDDING INVITATION: Bill weds Jane…

I didn’t know what to say nor do. My heart was broken. I knew what this meant, Bill was getting married? “Bill what is...”

“Everything, my girl. You see, I never meant it to be like this…”

“Bill after all these years…so you where fooling me…I feel like….” I sobbed. Tears rolled down my cheeks, trickling into my mouth. I tasted salty tears of mine. I didn’t want to hear any of his nonsense, staying there broke my heart the more. Swiftly I walked out.

I could hear him smiling and calling me, “Baby, it is not like that! Please come back! Let’s part in peace...”

Truly, Bill was heartless. I walked aimlessly into the street broken-hearted. A thousand words filled my head: my friends warned me. I gave him my six years of my life. This is how you repay me. I feel like dying... death come! Bill, don’t leave me now. Where am I going to? How do I live without Bill? I hate you, Bill. Bill, you must get your reward on earth. Bill, you used me …

I banged my door hard and threw myself on the floor. I needed someone to help me out. Also, I wanted to be alone. Something like sweet word was floating in the air. It was my neighbor’s radio playing a soft song. I didn’t know who sang it, but the lyrics hit me the more:

Some broken hearts never mend♫
Some memories never ruin♫
Some tears will never dry ♫
My love for you will never die…♪

I knew that my broken heart would never mend again. I knew that the memory of that day will always remain in my head like a welded metal. Truly, I don’t want to see Bill again in my life. I fumbled into sleep. I was just like an unsold vegetable, like a spoilt boat being dragged with a winch.

It was almost dark when someone knocked on my door. I didn’t want to open the door at first, but the knock grew louder. The electricity was out. I didn’t know how to reach my candle and match box. I staggered to my door and opened it.

It was my friend Funmi. She was the one that always warned me about Bill. Since my day one in the university, she had been like a friend and a sister to me. But I hate it whenever she talked about Bill like "I saw Bill with a girl today." I thought she was only trying to take Bill away from me and reap were she did not sow, but I was wrong. As I wanted to greet her, I broke down in tears.

Funmi ran and held me, wrapped me round her body, put my head on her shoulder, and whispered into my ear, “He doesn’t deserve you one bit; don’t cry, baby. That fool is a cheat; I knew it.”

Her words hit me; I soaked her shoulder with my tears. I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t. I felt like explaining, but I didn’t utter a mouth. “Come on, look at you: You are beautiful, tall, and elegant; the right man is out there. Don’t cry, baby.”

She stayed with me all night. While she slept, I gazed into the dark ceiling as if the image of Bill hung there. This night, I had a dreamless sleep.

Day after day, I stayed indoors mourning Bill's exit from my life. Every kind of thought filled my head. I even thought about killing myself, but I couldn’t. Learning to live without Bill is like a baby learning how to walk. I was traumatized by the image of Bill.

Funmi now visited me daily, but today she didn’t look bright at all. “Funmi tell me what happened?” I asked her.

“Bill is dead,” she said.

First of all, I felt sad; then, all of sudden, I felt happy. At least, I wouldn’t be seeing the bastard again for the rest of my life. “How did he die?” I asked.

“A madman hit and stabbed him as he was about to leave Bar Beach,” Funmi continued. “Some of the prophets at the beach said that the goddess of love struck him down, that she hated Bill, while some prophets said that he annoyed God.”

That is how Bill died. He never left the scene. I never saw him again. I am sure he will never see my face again. Was it God or the goddess of love that killed Bill, I don’t know. All I know is that he is lost. I can move on with my life. He can never see my shame. Bill left an image in my heart though: I will never love again; my broken heart will never mend.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Washington Dick is an associate editor of Kwenu.com and also a student of online to HALL University in UK.

]]> Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:24:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/363969 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/363963


It is an immutable fact, that humans do get bitter and indeed a bitter thought,
that some would feel bitter that some one said something bitter about their bitterness.

One benefit of a well-rounded secondary education in Africa’s colonial era was the mandatory study the dying language of Latin for those attending parochial schools. Even in post-independent Africa, most schools taught Latin since most English words derived from it or its Greek counterpart.

Today, the use of language is an art by itself. Politically speaking, language is used to promote, exculpate, rebuff or demonize. Words, well crafted, could also be a distilled gesture- for good or bad. Similarly, words could be used to attribute to the speaker, an insidious and malicious intent, where none was intended. Language or words –especially derogatory or fighting words -- tend to stick like mud. As my Latin teacher would say; “Fortiter calumnaire aliquid adhaere bit” or “Fling plenty of mud and some will stick”.

Hard and acerbic words are infrequently part of any national conversation. This is especially so, during partisan politicking or electioneering, except of course, for sleek, self-editing politicians, who must parse their every word to mean not what they say, but what others would like to hear. However, there is no gainsaying, that it is now fashionable to be politically correct, even if we have to twist, dock or bury the truth. Likewise, in the political realm, it seems okay to parse whatever an opponent says and attribute an alternative motive to it, when we know exactly what they meant.

Now that the Pennsylvania primary is over –as well as won and lost- it is perhaps worth revisiting a key event that preceded it. When ahead of the primary, Barack Obama used the word “bitter”, in the same sentence with rural small towns, Pennsylvania, USA; he instantly had a problem from hell, even though he was referring to a confluence of events. Obama’s key words were,
“And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Remove the words “bitter”, “guns” and “religion” –all of which are individually explosive, what is left are a subset of explosive words: “anti-immigrant” and “anti-trade” and xenophobia, which incidentally, are also prevalent emotive and volatile political issues.
In retrospect, let us ask some hardheaded questions. Was Obama’s choice of word intemperate and entirely wrong and out of context, or was his intent twisted for political gain? For our general edification, the synonyms for “bitter” include, sour, acid, tart, astringent, vinegary, pungent, virulent and harsh. In a strict sense, it means “opposite of sweet” or “something unpalatable to the mind”.

Evidently, Obama used the word “bitter” in the context of an expression or show of human emotions. However, as an emotion, bitterness does not necessarily malign, since it may be a natural reaction; a vexed cry, that is a tad beyond being angry. In addition, quite often, bitterness is predicated on genuine reasons of extreme hurt and anger, regardless of our status and domicile. It is safe then, to say that bitterness is the aftermath of grief or extreme betrayal. As such, by itself, bitterness is not necessarily malignant, but caused by the malignity of a traumatic experience. It would, therefore not be farfetched to say that Obama lost in Pennsylvania, in part, because the voters were “bitter” about what he said hitherto about them.

Granted that politics is a game of double take, doublespeak, sound bites and taking advantage of the weaknesses of the opponent, regardless of whether they are right or wrong; nonetheless, what rankles is when people shy away from reality or twist words for political gains. It is also bothersome that those who seek to lead would rally forces against those who speak the truth to power just to score points in the polls or just garner a cheep point with the media.

During his just concluded visit, Pope Benedict XVI, came, saw, and left Americans and the world elated. Of all the things he had said – and he said plenty- one sentence stayed with me. “Truth is not an imposition”, he said. Indeed, truth is a constant. Those who gloss over it, can find it shockingly discomforting when told the truth, just in the same way the truth can convict or set just about anyone free. Conventional wisdom claims that while sticks and stones may break bones, not so words. However, in these dog days of politics and electioneering, bellicosity is the norm and therefore, some feel inclined to behave as if truth is an alien concept. That makes me angry – but certainly, not bitter.

But am I allowed the freedom to be bitter? And is it politically correct to admit being bitter? It all depends on the context. Let me answer the question first. Yes, in some ways, I can see myself being bitter. And let’s face it; most people are bitter, even if they will not publicly admit it. An angry person may vent, even using malice-filled words. But it takes a bitter person to splash an ex-lover’s prurient bedside manners on YouTube. Surely also, if one lost their home or job through no fault of theirs, but through the mistake or treachery of their representative, they can be bitter. If we accept that people can feel betrayed, then we must accept that people can also be bitter.

Being bitter is a personal thing: when we divorce, lose a home, or a child to drug overdose, to a drunken driver or to a gun-wielding random shooter. Yes, we can be bitter, individually or collectively. And being bitter is human and universal, even if Hillary Clinton does not think so. But bitter is not politically correct these days, if many individuals are lumped into that cadre. However, I consider those who admit to being bitter as being far more honest than those who duck the issue.

The Watergate scandal that President Gerald Ford had called a “national nightmare” had made many Americans bitter, as did the Vietnam War. If memory serves me right, it was a visibly “bitter” Hillary Rodham Clinton who proclaimed to Matt Lauer of the NBC Today Show on 27 January 1998, that “… this is a battle… it is a vast right wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president”. I do not recall anyone chiding Mrs. Clinton for being bitter. Indeed, she garnered sympathy and we all accepted that she was rightfully bitter for what Bill Clinton’s republican detractors did to him. Undoubtedly, many Americans were also bitter on behalf of the Clintons.

It is a paradox and quite counterfactual too, that we can allow a person to be bitter about an issue, but cannot agree that a college or comity of people could also be collectively bitter about a singular or binding issue. In fact, we are pressed to believe that being bitter is not a groupthink trait. Where does that leave the people disenfranchised by the executives of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom? Are we to suggest that they are not collectively bitter because it is politically incorrect to be so disposed? I think not. Outsourcing and off shoring of American jobs have left many bitter. One just needs to admit it. Who is to say that Americans who do not have healthcare insurance but watch CEOs rake in millions in salaries, bonuses and benefits are not bitter? Forgiving as we are, can we definitely say without prevarication, that those who lost loved ones in 9-11 attacks are not bitter? I think not.

Without going into the pesky details, recently a fellow black man – well dressed, articulate and seemingly in need of a one-off assistance – swindled some money off me in broad day light and right in front of my home. I believed then, that I was helping a stranger in need. I was damn wrong. He played me for a fool. And should you want to know, I am bitter about it, and angry with myself. Certainly, I’m not bitter for losing the cash he promised to refund the next day, but for his making it almost impossible for me to trust the next sleek guy, black, white or brown, who comes along and is really in need of assistance. However, my bitterness is more profound for the wrong lessons the man imparted on to my kids who witnessed the encounter, and who should have benefited from the lessons of my true altruism and kindness to a stranger. I’m also bitter that the fellow has made me unnecessarily suspicious of any otherwise honest person. I am bitter that, just as Obama gives hope to every black kid, that con man and his ilk gives every black child a complex about their race by stereotyping his race.

I have followed with the utmost interest how Obama’s words about “bitter” Americans has come to haunt him because they were exploited out of context, as being “condescending” and “elitist”. Well, we react as individuals and depending on the circumstances, and may find ourselves being angry, bitter, resigned, resentful or indignant about a given situation. Those who say that these normal human responses, even if extreme, cannot be collectively applied to some people or parts of a nation are deceptive and duplicitous. Those who want to play Ostrich may go ahead and do so.

Sadness, bitterness, anger, rage, resignation, indignation, vindictiveness, vengeance, joy and happiness, are human emotions, and people exhibit them reflexively. Bitterness may be extreme, relative and therefore, used less acceptably. Perhaps the synonym, which is angry, is more appropriate. However, the fact is that the world, including America, is full of “bitter” people, but hardly anyone wants to admit it, lest they admit their culpability in contributing to those bitter feelings. Also, it is clear that even those who were once justifiably bitter, are loath to be cast as such and will not claim bitterness as their forte, even if justified.

Unquestionably, there are many bitter people inside and outside Zimbabwe, considering what has happened to that nation. Likewise, we can find bitter people in Iraq, Israel, Gaza, Kosovo, Tibet and Burma. One may need to also checkout Srebrenica, Rwanda and Darfur.

Many parents are bitter when the society fails them and a trusted priest or cop molests a child or when a known pedophile kills a child. Likewise, communities are bitter when without their knowledge; a registered offender is insinuated into their neighborhoods. Ditto when toxic materials are dumped in the vicinity of their community. Similarly, and without their patriotism being at risk, there are families who are bitter for having lost sons or daughters in a war they do not believe in. Let’s be real and face the facts. Let’s also speak power to the truth. It is that height of remorseless cynicism to be bitter about something and yet deny it, simply because it is politically incorrect to admit as much. It is almost analogous to someone being ashamed of having cancer.

As an avid reader of William Safire’s weekly column “On Language”, I know that words evolve and that their true meanings get mangled and defused. For goodness sake, let us not call a spade a spoon or change the word “bitter” into something sinister and deadly. That will be a bitter loss for the traditionalist lexicographers and a bittersweet victory for revisionists. How would we contemplate and indeed engage in forgiveness, or rise above the fray of incivility, if we do not accept that we can sin, err or be bitter and accept that as humans, we are predisposed to doing immoral things.

Arguably, in the realm of partisan politics all human manifestations are possible, including hypocrisy and callous cynicism. Lack of consensus on Americans or Iraqi’s being bitter is definitional and more of a disagreement on values. Perhaps, it was too harsh of Obama to proclaim a Christian nation as having some malcontent citizens, pedestrian enough to exhibit bitterness. But that predisposition itself --a dispiriting bookend -- smacks of coldhearted cynicism. It was as if being bitter had become synonymous to being unpatriotic instead of being resentful, aggrieved, woeful, petulant, splenetic, sullen or sorrowful.

For any public figure to become so self-righteous and sufficiently impaired by denial to begin to contemplate that their nation does not harbor bitter persons, is hardly a divination. Rather, it is being dangerously susceptible to wishful thinking. When people conveniently dodge the truth or real issues, and use sound bites as a shibboleth, then it is they, rather than they persons they attempt to judge that engages in a behavior that could be characterized as duplicitous. That ought to make some right thinking, honest and straight-talking people bitter. To deny for the sake of political expediency that there are no “bitter” people in the world, America included, is so unreal, if not delusional.

Before leaving this matter alone, think of this: It is an immutable fact, that humans do get bitter and indeed a bitter thought, that some would feel bitter that some one said something bitter about their bitterness.

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.


]]> Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:53:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/363963 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/358537
WASHINGTON DICK
washosy@yahoo.com




Red Apple is not just another grocery store – it’s a way of life for Africans in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. It’s situated at Langley Crossing shopping center in Maryland, an area that is heavily populated by immigrants. Red Apple is owned by Asians – Chinese immigrants with a mostly minority workforce from developing nations of North, Central, and South America, and Africa. This is a place where Africans, especially Sierra Leoneans, come to shop, hang out, and gossip. Here, one can give and take updates on past, present, and future events. One can hardly see inside the store from outside because its dirty windows are papered with posters and flyers of announcements of past and future events. Many, in fact, are several years old. Inside, shoppers, mostly Africans, crisscross its busy aisles to buy oggirii and kaendaii, to buy Maggiiii and peppeiv….

The checkout clerks at the cash registers are all Chinese. Immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, and South America make up the rest of the store’s workforce – mostly stock clerks and meat cutters. Tall poles are welded onto the store carts to prevent shoppers from taking, riding, and abandoning them in the parking lot of a huge apartment complex, a block down the road, nicknamed Little Freetown but known officially as New Hampshire Towers. Its rear balconies are lined with rusted railings caused by years of residents hanging their laundry out to dry. In response, the complex’s management sent a strongly worded letter to its mostly Sierra Leonean residents banning this practice, and continues to send reminders, especially to the “jos camv” residents. In and around the lobbies and parking lots of Little Freetown, the tones and inflections of Kriovi abound.

Claudia Johnson, a long-time resident of Little Freetown, stood by the door of the south tower looking for Rugi, her friend who lives in the north tower. Rugi is slender in shape but, when dressed in a burgundy mini skirt she is fond of, her waist and belly look like half a portion of red apple. It was a hot summer day, and Claudia watched her walk on the sunlit sidewalk across the towers.

Claudia was dressed in a docket-and-lapa, an African outfit that is made of a garavii cotton blouse and a wrap-around. She is slightly heavy with over-sized buttocks that attract her to African apparel because they fit her better. Claudia and Rugi used to be dark in complexion, but are much lighter now having bleached their skin. Traces of their former complexion could only be seen on their knuckles, which are resistant to bleaching. Rugi pushed open the door and beckoned Claudia outside.

“Mi sister Kusheh ohviii!” Claudia greeted Rugi in crystal Krio. A Latino woman stared as she walked by the two women. Swoop! Swoop! The red apple-like and over-sized buttocks swapped left-and-right and up-and-down, up the street to Red Apple to do their weekend grocery shopping.

The most striking thing at Red Apple is the meat counter. A glimpse over the counter reveals cuts of steak and tenderloin perishing, drying out, and turning black. That’s because Red Apple patrons – Sierra Leoneans and others from West Africa – buy enormous amounts of oxtails, portions of cow-gut, cow skin, and pig feet. Claudia and Rugi walked straight to the meat counter and stood in line.

“Na you de take da kine nonsense. If na me, ah de go right na di nursing home en cherr eeix…,” Rugi encouraged Claudia to deal with her husband, Safia Johnson, a registered nurse and also the nurse-in-charge at Jerusalem Home, a senior assisted-living facility a few miles down the road from Little Freetown. Rugi revealed that Safia Johnson had slept with many of the women who work for Jerusalem Home, but she did not tell her friend that her vehemence stemmed from being dumped by Safia Johnson for a younger, more buxom worker who had just arrived from Sierra Leone.

“Nex! Nex! Nexx !” the Jamaican meat cutter yelled, repeatedly in deep Jamaican accent, at Rugi who was busy giving a rundown of a previous episode at Jerusalem Home.

“Na complete dog yu de sleep with soxi ,” she pounded on Claudia.

“How for do – ah no say na player, but if ah bin don pass mi board so now, ah no go suffer lekeh so boxii ” Claudia consoled herself.

Unlike the many female coworkers Safia Johnson fools around with, he had managed to acquire an associate degree in nursing at one of the community colleges around the beltway. Most of his victims are certified nursing assistants (CNAs)because all these nursing facilities need to function are two or three registered nurses, to meet state-certification demands; a large pool of CNAs complete the nursing staff. In these circles of nursing-home work staff, someone like Safia Johnson is considered ‘a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.’ He had been kicked out of several nursing homes for causing fights amongst his CNA lovers.

Rugi was not quite satisfied with Claudia's response. She wanted to see her give Safia Johnson the boot, “Mi sister, mek ah tell you wetin you nor no: three days ago, somebody see Safia Johnson de kiss da rusty pickin way jus start the wokexiii ”

These women are vulnerable to Safia Johnson’s abuse of power at Jerusalem Home because they have two jobs and are always running late in between the jobs. Ironically, Safia Johnson prepares the schedules. They also like to call off whenever there is a party to attend on weekends. Safia Johnson had also stopped seeing the CNA who had seen him with the new girlfriend. But such an incident doesn’t go by without the gossiping and mocking now being manifested. She was speaking very loudly, slapping the sides of her buttocks in vogue, throwing her hands in the air, rolling her eyes, occasionally furrowing her brow in disgust that Claudia has been too patient taking “dis nonsensexiv !” But the noise didn’t matter to anyone in Red Apple because everyone here is loud, and the meat cutter only cared about keeping the line moving.

Besides the gossip at Red Apple, it brings to life many memories: The butcher was busy weighing chicken necks for the next customer, but the sights of actual chicken heads on the far side of the counter ready to be sold made Claudia ignore Rugi and giggled. It reminded her of a story Safia Johnson had told her many years ago. Claudia had worked hard between two jobs to sponsor his coming to the United States. When he arrived, he had a hard time finding a job, and Claudia tirelessly took care of all the bills.

“Ah! Dis Safia, if ah bin noxv ,” she sighed. The chicken heads had ignited old memories and she smiled as she reminisced: “He went to Kentucky Fried Chicken, the fastfood chain, to find a job just when he had been in the country for only two months. He told the manager on the job interview, ‘I am an experienced cook.’ The manager asked him to share his cooking experience with him. Very shy then but, encouraged by the manager’s curiosity (‘Tell me more, how do you cook a chicken?') he cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and started, ‘First, you chase the chicken.'

"‘What! Did you just say ‘chase the chicken?’ Hmmm, carry on… tell me more,’ the manager further encouraged him.

"‘Yes, and you cut its neck with a knife, usually following some ritual for expiation for the life you are about to take,’ he said, now developing confidence from the manager’s show of curiosity.

"The manager pulled his chair closer, held his chin in his hand, looking enthralled. ‘What else?’ He asked.

"Now that his confidence had been further bolstered by the thought that the manager was impressed with his experience, he continued; ‘You then boil the chicken in a large pot to soften its feathers before plucking them off—it is easy to pluck chicken feathers after you boil it. Now is the time to cut it up into small pieces to be cooked into a delectable soup in palm-oil or groundnut-oil.’ He concluded.
"‘I tell you what, Mr. Johnson: you have too much experience for this job. I’ll call you,’ the manager had said and dismissed him.”

Approaching the cash registers were Marie, Kumba, and Yei-Yei. Their topic was a weekend party occurrence three weeks ago at 25th Place. Like many Sierra Leoneans in the Washington, DC metropolitan area who come to Red Apple, Claudia, Rugi, Marie, Kumba, and Yei-Yei came to the US from Sierra Leone straight to Sierra Leonean households or apartments. From the time they arrived to the time they meet at Red Apple as independent members of the community, they know no place other than Little Freetown, Red Apple, and their work places -- mostly senior living facilities. Their lives rotate in a triangle as follows: five days of work at nursing homes, mostly run by Sierra Leoneans, off days at Red Apple, and nights at 25th Place party hall. Very seldom they find themselves outside this triangle for picnics or parties at different locations; if they do, for business reasons, their body language shows panic and paranoia.

Many came direct to Little Freetown through sponsorship by family members, husbands or wives, and friends, including Claudia and Rugi, thereby making it the largest Sierra Leonean community in the area. In fact, before Claudia came, Little Freetown was part of Silver Spring. Several years ago, the counties did redistricting and Little Freetown became Tacoma Park. When Claudia was in Sierra Leone, she thought that Silver Spring was the capital city of the United States. Before she arrived, many addresses she saw or addressed letters were Silver Spring, Maryland addresses. It wasn’t surprising to her, one evening, when the CNN Headline News read, “Sierra Leoneans make the largest population of Africans living in Maryland.” Red Apple isn’t just popular among Sierra Leoneans in Maryland, it’s a popular destination for almost all Sierra Leoneans in the Metro area of Maryland, Washington, and Virginia.

Marie, Kumba, and Yei-Yei were busy discussing a fight that broke out that night between rivals over Safia Johnson. The sight of Claudia in the store had prompted the discussion. Safia Johnson had told Claudia that he was going to New York on a nurses’ conference only to go on a date at the popular 25th Place with a new girlfriend he had met at work that week. The party was on a Saturday, but Safia had left home on a Friday. He had booked a room at Days Inn, not too far from 25th Place. He had also put on his best party clothes and slapped on some cologne that teased Claudia.

“A no say nor to no meeting yu de goxvi ,” Claudia said, but Safia Johnson didn’t pay any attention to her. Instead, he was busy preparing himself to leave as quickly as he could before the argument turned into a fistfight.

“Safia na to yu ah de talk nor make lek yu nor yeri mexvii ,” she insisted.

“Yu beteh sidom safful. Yu di talk lek say way de rent time cam na yu de pay amxviii ,” he warned her.

“If na da party yu de go, dis tem wi go mittop dexix ,” Claudia promised.

Safia Johnson still did not pay any attention to her. He knew that Claudia would not dare to go to a party without him. It didn’t really matter whether she was aware or not of his plan. The important thing was for him to leave, and whatever happened after, he would deal with later.

“I’m not going to tolerate this any more,” she sucked her teeth and slapped the side of her buttocks.

“I am tired with you treating me like I am your child. You want to know everything that I do... and even when I tell you, you don’t believe me,” Safia Johnson snapped.

“Why should I, when I am being confronted by many other women on a daily basis?” Claudia rebutted.

“Well, you will find out soon who will pay the rent when I don’t return to you. If you cannot give me the chance to do what I do to pay the bills, someone else would without the drama you create everyday.” Safia Johnson threatened.

At this point, Claudia gave in to Safia Johnson’s intimidation. He is the breadwinner of the house and that gave him the upper hand. Claudia’s situation is even worse than the other females in the triangle. She had completed the six-month CNA training, and she had taken the board exam many times but failed. She works ‘living-inxx ’ for old folks as a domestic servant throughout the weekdays only to return home on weekends, and that gives Safia Johnson time to do his fooling around with the women in the triangle. Lo and behold, Rugi had told Claudia that Safia Johnson was seeing a new girl he was intending to take to the party. Marie explained the story, compounded by uncontainable giggles, thereby creating catcalls and laughter in the store:

“She found help among her friends and cousins, Binta, Sarah, and Mabinti to catch him in the act. She was provoked into action when Mabinti confirmed what Rugi had also told her about Safia Johnson’s plan for the party.

"Once at the party hall, Binta and Sarah went inside to locate Safia Johnson and the girlfriend’s position. The two were dancing to a very popular Jamaican dancehall track. The girlfriend was in a crouching position, rocking her behind on Safia Johnson’s crotch as he held her shoulder blades as if he was massaging her when Claudia, Binta, Sarah, and Mabinti bustled in on them. Before they could fully understand what was going on, pieces of the girlfriend’s underwear were having a dance of their own in the sound-filled hall clearly visible under neon and florescent lights. She was severely flogged by Claudia and her helpers to the extent that she urinated on herself. By then, Safia Johnson was long gone."

The three of them broke into raucous laughter so distracting that Rugi noticed and used it to further provoke Claudia, “Na yu den pikin den de laf so fulumunkuxxi .”

Rugi’s persistent mocking unnerved Claudia. Both women walked straight to Marie and her friends in an exchange of cursing so severe both parties were asked to leave the store by the county police.

This is a day in the Red Apple, the meeting tangent in a triangle of shopping, hanging-out and gossiping... a place to buy …shakitombway and n’jolabaitaexxii , to buy crane-crane and okraxxiii , to buy Vimto and Fanta, to buy Bournvita and Ovaltine and to buy… What about Guinness Stout and Heinekens xxiv – two blocks down the road is Tick-Tuck liquorxxv store, a place where the clock never ticks.


NOTES

i Oggiri -- an African condiment made of fermented sesame seeds
ii Kaenda --an African condiment made of fermented seeds of a tropical plant
iii Maggi -- a condiment made of ground meat, salt and onion
iv Peppe -- hot chili peppers used for spice
v Jos cam ("just came")-- new arrivals from Sierra Leone to the United States
vi Krio -- broken English spoken by most Sierra Leoneans
vii Gara -- locally inked cotton cloth for dressmaking
viii Mi sister Kusheh oh -- greeting in Krio (Hello, my sister)
ix Na yu de take da kine nonsense. If na me, ah de go right na di nursing home en cherr ee -- You are the only one I know who tolerates such nonsense. I would have gone to the nursing home and tear…"

x Nex! Nex! Nex! -- Next! Next! Next!.
xi Na complete dog yu de sleep with so -- Your husband is a dog.
xii How for do – ah no say na player, but if ah bin don pass mi board so now, ah no go suffer lekeh so bo; you know I don’t have a choice for now -- I know he is fooling around, but imagine if I had passed my board exam, I wouldn’t have suffered this much.
xiii Mi sister mek ah tell you wetin you nor no: Three days ago somebody see Safia Johnson de kiss da rusty pickin way jus start the woke -- My sister, let me tell want you don’t know: Three days ago, someone saw Safia Johnson kissing that rustic, newly hired girl.
xiv Dis nonsense -- this nonsense.
xv Ah! dis Safia, if ah bin no; Ah! -- This Safia, had I known.
xvi A no say nor to no meeting yu de go -- I know that you are not going to any meeting.
xvii Safia na to yu ah de talk nor make lek yu nor yeri mi; Safia -- I am talking to you and don’t pretend like you didn’t hear me.
xviii Yu beteh sidom safful. Yu di talk lek say way de rent time cam na yu de payam; you are better off not saying anything. -- You talk like you are the one who pays the rent when the time comes for payment.
xix If na da party yu de go, dis tem wi go mittop de -- If you plan to go to the party, this time around we are going to meet there.
xx Living-in -- to live with the people one renders domestic service.
xxi Na yu den pikin den de laf so fulumunku -- It’s you those kids are laughing at, fool!
xxii Shakitombway and n’jolabaitae -- cassava and potato leaves, vegetables eaten by Sierra Leoneans.
xxiii Crane-crane and okra -- vegetables eaten by Sierra Leoneans.
xxiv Guinness Stout and Heinekens -- European beers, the choices for Sierra Leoneans.
xxv Tick-Tuck liquor -- a liquor store in Maryland owned by the Prince Georges County that sells beer and wine after midnight against county ordinance.

]]> Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:38:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/358537 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/358533
Washington Dick
Abia, Nigeria

washosy@yahoo.com




At exactly 3 am, he knocked mildly at her bedroom window, pam-pam-pam. One minute after, he knocked again. The sound vibrated through the walls of her posh apartment at the center of Bay Shore. One minute after, he knocked yet again. He followed it with three chilling call of her name, Isabella, Isabella, Isabella. Then, he disappeared.

When it started, some one and half years ago, she used to peep outside to see who it was. Despite several attempts, even when she was looking at the window just before the knock, she had not seen anybody.

He had knocked unfailingly on the 12th of every month at 3.00 am. She had since given up seeing the knocking hand. Of recent, she just woke up to listen to the knocks and the calling of her name. And then, she would stay up and think a little about the decision she made at 3 am on November 12, 2003.

But that was then.

Last week, Ebuka, her husband, returned to America. It was his first visit in more than two years. He has decided to reside permanently in America after years of traveling between Nigeria and America. To the joy of Isabella, he has given up trying to excel as a businessman in Nigeria. Instead, he will live in America and begin to raise a family with her, four years after their marriage. But as he lay beside her and the clock ticked towards 3 am, she wondered what she would tell him when the knocks occurred and her name was called.
***
That first night she heard the knock, Isabella stayed up all night. She tried to decipher the voice that called her name but couldn’t. She recalled all the men she knew but none seemed to her like someone who could come at 3 am and knock on her window. She called some of the men but none acknowledged knocking on her window. The man with mild eccentricity whom she suspected most was on vacation in Europe.

Every night afterward, her anxiety grew. One month after, just when she thought it was a strange aberration, when she began to suspect that it was just her imagination, it happened again.

It took the sixth time for her to nail down the pattern and register the voice of the caller firmly in her mind. It was a hybrid of a young adult with a childlike voice. She scrambled the voices of the men she knew but none convincingly seemed like one that could be transformed to what she heard.

Though Isabella had brothers and sisters all around America, she did not tell any one of them. Known in the family as ‘the one who visits the psychics,’ she did not want to add paranoia to her reputation. She did not tell her husband, either. Of what use will that be other than to raise his suspicion. It took the third occurrence for her to mention it to Norman.

Norman Kamau was Isabella’s Kenyan confidant. He knew many things about Isabella that nobody else knew. And as Isabella figured, he could as well know this too.

Norman tried to help her unravel the mysteries but couldn’t. Together, they meticulously ruled out all the men in Isabella’s ten year life in America. But each month, as the knocks and the calls came, the mystery deepened.
By the first year anniversary of these knocks and calls, it had become like a benign cyst. Isabella had given up on all permutations of who it could be. She and Norman had in the process of trying to figure out the incident relived the stories of her life. They exhausted all possibilities except for one secret they would take to their graves. It was one incident they did not revisit, not even to themselves.

***
At exactly three o’clock in the morning, the knock came as it had in the last year and half. Isabella, holding her heart and hoping to be calm when it happened, jumped out of bed. She walked into the bathroom right inside the master bedroom and turned on the faucet. With water splattering into the sink, she hoped that her husband would not hear her name called. But on this day, the call sounded louder. She splashed a hand full of water on her face in vivid anticipation. She grabbed a towel and wiped down her face. As she looked into the mirror, she saw her husband standing by the door. Isabella missed a heart beat.

“What’s going on?” he asked, half asleep and half awake.

“I don’t know. Did you hear that too? I don’t know who knocked on the window and was calling my name.”

Her husband staggered out and gravitated towards the bedroom window. He yanked the curtain up and looked out. He saw nobody. He grabbed a shirt off the closet door, threw it on his shoulders and rushed out of the apartment. He ran to the back of the house and looked around. He saw nobody. He walked round and round, but heard no sound. Suddenly, two cars at the other end of the parking lots cranked their engines on and pulled out. He rushed toward them but the cars hit the street before he could get close.

Isabella was sitting on the bed, resting her heavy face in her hands when he walked in.

“Did you see anybody?” she asked.

“Did I see anybody?” repeated her husband rhetorically. “You actually expect me to answer that question? Or do you have a prepared answer for me as to who that was?”

His voice was cracked. Isabella knew he was angry. She knew if she misspoke, a furious slap could follow, so she remained calm.

“So who was that? Another of your boyfriend who doesn’t know I am back?”

Isabella did not answer. She had no good answer to give and she knew silence was a better answer.

He dropped his shirt on the dresser and climbed back into the bed. He faced the other end of the wall and covered himself with comforter. Isabella quickly knew what that signified. It was a matter for another day. She stayed up a little more in her pensive position before she stretched her legs and covered her body with the other half of the comforter, facing the opposite end of the wall.
***
On the 12th of next month, as the clock ticked towards 3 am, he lay on the bed facing the window while she lay on the other side of the bed, her back turned on him, facing the door.

Since the first incident, they had not spoken. He had demanded an explanation but had not gotten any. Meanwhile, he had pulled out all her phone records and called each number just to announce, “Hi, this is Isabella’s husband.”

On getting home after work, he went to bed early every night and woke up in the middle of the night to await the knocks. He pulled the curtain away and stared straight at the window.

On her part, she had decided on this day to tell him the secret story before another knock comes.

“On the 12th of November 2003,” she started, with tears dropping down her face, “I had an abortion.”

She paused as a large gulp of hot air went down her throat. “It was the most painful thing I ever did in this life.”

She paused again and swallowed another gulp. “Two months before, my sisters and I went to a party in the Bronx. I was half drunk when they dropped me off. There was this white guy I met at the party. He called me on the phone and asked if he could come over…”

She broke down and began to sob endlessly. He did not turn around to look at her. He did not try to console her. He simply laid there listening.

“On the 12th of November 2003 at exactly 3 am, I decided to abort the baby. Since then, he has been visiting me on the 12th of each month and at that same time,” she said in between tears. “I swear, it was the only time I strayed since we got married.”

It was ten minutes after three in the morning when her tale telling was drowned completely by tears and heart wrenching sobs. There were neither a knock nor a call, just a couple in bed with their backs turned on each other.

****
This story was first published in the January edition of Xclusive – a Dublin based magazine.
Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo is the author of Children of a Retired God. To order the book, visit Amazon.com, or irokoproductions.com. You can also order Children of A Retired God at any bookstore near you.
The burden of my being
]]> Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:26:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/358533 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/358531
The burden of my being

Washington Dick
Abia,Nigeria

washosy@yahoo.com



I have just learnt that for one with a Nigerian passport, getting a visa into Kenya is like drawing teeth. It is excruciating. It is long.

"We will have to refer your visa request to Nairobi, Madam. It will take around six weeks before we get a response. And even then we can't assure you that you'll get a visa." The receptionist's voice at the Kenyan embassy on Winston Churchillstraat in Brussels is polite. Calm. Almost bored. She might have been filing her nails. I do not have six weeks to wait for a visa application that may or may not be granted. I have to be in Kenya at the beginning of March for the Caine Writing Workshop. It will be my first time in East Africa and I do not intend to miss it.

"And if I had an EU passport? A Belgian passport?" I try. I really want to make this workshop. It will be a chance to see Kenya. To visit with my sister-in-law and her family in Kisumu. To meet up with old friends. To make some new ones. And to work on my writing.

The almost-bored voice rises. It is like a volume switch has been turned up several notches .

"Do you have a Belgian passport?" I imagine her discarding the nail file and holding the ear piece closer to her ear, all the better to hear me with. I have her full attention. "You have a Belgian passport?" She asks again. I wonder if she thinks I am slightly deaf.

"Yes." My voice is flat. My heart is weighed down by guilt. Guilt because I am already wondering if I am selling out by resorting to my EU passport. I already feel like a sellout when I am in between braids. And as far as I am concerned, this is worse than having your hair chemically stretched and in a pony tail. I mean, I have seen blue-eyed, blonde-haired women in braids.

"Then madam, your visa application will only take twenty-four hours to process. When do you intend to travel?"

" February," I reply. My voice is low. Subdued by the guilt that is ravaging my insides like acid on paper.

"You have got loads of time, then. It would have been a different matter with your Nigerian passport." She manages a laugh. Amused, I think, by the fact I would think of traveling with a Nigerian passport when I had a Belgian one. I imagine that she expects me to join in the laughter. I remain silent. Her laughter tapers out and I ask myself if I have embarrassed her by my silence. She tells me what to bring along to the embassy. A passport picture. Forty Euro. A return ticket or a letter of invitation from the Caine Organization. "Your visa should be ready for you to pick up the day after you apply, Madam."

I am relieved that I will make the workshop after all. But there is a bitter aftertaste in the wake of my relief. It is as if I have chewed on ugolo, bitter-kola. I remember the first time I ate ugolo. I blocked out the taste while I chewed, as I had been advised to by veteran eaters. But once I swallowed it, its bitterness rose from deep down my throat and clouded my mouth. It was like nothing I had ever eaten. It was more acrid than I had thought possible for anything to be. I could no longer ignore it. Or pretend like it was not there. That is the same way I feel now. I do not want to enter Africa as a naturalized European. I am almost angry. Why should I be forced to enter Kenya with a Belgian passport? I resent it and I am almost tempted to go ahead and apply for a visa with my Nigerian passport. But I know I do not have the luxury of that choice. Six weeks is too long to wait. And what if it gets turned down? I know I will have to swallow my pride. This time. I try to feel grateful that I have an alternative nationality. The way I feel when I vote to keep the extreme right out of power. The way I felt when I ran for council elections in 2000. However, that gratitude is reluctant to surface this time. It is stubborn. It refuses to be dredged up.

All day, the same question keeps turning in my head. It multiplies and takes on varying forms, but in essence, it remains the same: "How are the mighty fallen?" I have always known that Nigeria has lost its place on the ladder. We all know that. Yet, I have to admit that I never realized how far down we were.

Maybe I have been an ostrich, I think, hiding my head in the sand. Refusing to see what is obvious: the way my Nigerian passport is thumbed and closely examined by immigration officials. The snickers when I say I am Nigerian. The jokes about 419 scams. Recent fiction coming out of the rest of Africa where characters are warned to steer clear of Nigerians. Strange, middle-aged, white women coming up to me at readings to tell me they have got Nigerian daughters-in-law, schoondochters, who want to go on vacation to Nigeria with their children and is it safe? What with the problems in the Delta region. And from what they hear, the lack of drinking water. And lack of proper healthcare. And lack of gas. And oh, let us not forget the robberies.

I have got sand in my eyes. The more I rid my eyes of the sand, the clearer my vision is. And the clearer my vision is, the more unbearable the burden of my being becomes.





]]> Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:21:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/358531 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/358529
WASHINGTON DICK
Abia,Nigeria.

washosy@yahoo.com




An azure sky romanced the soothing Atlantic sea breeze whispering through respite palm and baobab trees. Granny Henrietta stood on solid antique stool knitting several names of her deceased relatives on a model quilt she was skillfully crafting. Almost intuitively, it crossed her mind that her time clock was ticking to tow the line with her ancestors in Beulah terrain. But not until the extended family had assembled for a concluding communal Awojoh ceremony that she had planned to host. Her handicraft resembled ‘Joseph’s coat of many colors.’ Granny had observed a pattern of disrespect for the elderly, and stunned with bewilderment she said, “Age is a symbol of respect that is carefully knitted as thread to hold the family tree together.”

She peeled carefully her window curtain in order to catch a glimpse of movements outside while people moved to and fro amid the alluring sunshine. Mentally, she recalled the numerous sunrise and sunset she had weathered. “Honor like respect is a deep rooted tree that adds wit to our beloved culture,” she echoed. Her house stood on a precipice, where one could catch a panoramic portrait of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Granny has a wonderful personality: and her compatriots had painstakingly erected her magnificent cottage.

She is the oldest survivor on the paternal side, who did not look her age despite having turned four score, a milestone in the family’s genealogy. 8.30 am on Saturday, Effuah, her daughter dropped off Abiola her son at Granny’s house; while she went on a weekend trip. “I love to go to Granny’s house,” Abiola said. Excitement sparkled from his bright lit eyes like a flame. Granny makes cookies for kids: including toffees, gingerbread bun, and pepper-mint and coconut cake. These are homemade snacks that kids love because of the aroma and juicy taste. Henrietta loves telling spellbinding stories to kids.

Usually the squeaky hinged front door is flung open so that people can easily walk in: this allows fresh air to trickle in since Granny had no fan or air conditioner unit. Her front and back doors are flung wide open whenever she is home. Abiola’s eyes peeled with wide-eyed probing as he walked inside the house. Culture as glowing charm seemed to dance and breathe in unison. Several antique family portraits animated Granny’s parlor that displayed the artistry of the late Nigerian photographers Adenuga and Jonathan.

“Good morning Granny,” he greeted. “Good morning Abiola, how are you today?” she said. “I’m fine ma,” he answered. Like a weird trance, he inhaled a pungent familiar smell while wrinkles invaded his smooth youthful face. “Oooh!! Again? It is nasty and bitter I hate it,” he screamed. He’s in trouble again, since he has to gulp this bitter concoction whenever he visited Granny. At dawn, she ritually gulps down a cupful of Agbo—a bitter blend made from roots and herbs, before breakfast. With the cup in her grip, she religiously sipped the fuming potent brew to boost her health and longevity. She had never visited a doctor in her lifetime.

“This is for you Abiola, drink it ready steady go before it gets cold. Drink it in one gulp before I make breakfast,” she coaxed him. “I don’t like it, it’s nasty and makes my mouth bitter,” he protested. Trusting her invested love in him, Abiola shut his eyes and nervously swallowed this strong brew. Instant grim expression ruined his face as he drank the mixture. Granny said, “Yeaaah good boy,” as she monitored his emotion with lighted supportive eyes. Soon, the boy gave her an empty cup. She clapped heartily praising his child-like obedience.

“You’re my best grandchild, patting his head. Now we can eat and tell stories,” she said. He needed water to kill the bitterness that had ruined his taste bud. She bent under the table dipping a cup into an old country-pot that stored well water. The refreshing drink then slowly restored his taste bud. Subsequently, Abiola feasted on a bowl of Quaker Oats and baby bread –small sweet bread molded and baked in the shape of a doll, that he washed down with a cup of sweetened lemon grass tea creamed with ‘Cow and Gate’ powdered milk. Since he was extremely hungry, he ate ravenously as a starving cub.

Henrietta’s calm, persuasive words had more voltage than electricity, warmly smoothened with her passionate authority. She became the rallying factor and spiritual guru the whole family cherished. She had arranged other Awojoh feasts or reunions before. Neighbors wanted her to grease the wheels of time to accelerate more lavish feasts. She’s a brown-skinned beauty that’s endowed with wisdom –“Tree of Life.” She loves to sing her favorite tune, “I know ee go well with the righteous ee go well with the righteous….when I reach home.” Briskly, she chose the ideal movements and the intonation to match.

The inviting rendition sent Bandale peeping through his window to watch her singing. “I love Mammy Henrietta’s sweet, lovely voice,” he said. Her songs really touched him. “She helps me to forget about my worries too,” his wife supported. Granny had earned the accolade singing “Nightingale,” because of her legacy of infectious choruses and angelic voice. The couple had been enduring financial hardship, resulting from the gruesome civil war in Sierra Leone that left them devastated and depressed. The songs practically lifted up their spirits that were plagued with anxiety or destitution. Family and friends enjoyed her solos too as the “Songbird” wrestled with humanity’s shortcomings. For Granny, each challenge had a peaceful salvage that is crafted in a therapeutic song.

She was inflexible to embrace modern convenience or technology, and did not consume imported cultures. Abiola reached for his toothbrush and paste, while Granny starred at him speaking with penetrating eyes. She had never used a toothbrush before, singing she picked up her chopstick, adding charcoal and salt to brush her teeth. “You are a toothbrush and paste generation,” she said. With a passion for natural produce, she resisted the enticement of processed goods loaded with chemicals. She lubricated her skin with animal fat - orie or nut oil. Granny made her own bathing soap –black soap made from nut oil and herbs. As she smiled, Abiola admired her sparkling white, healthy teeth, which she took pride to maintain, including her carefully groomed appearance.

Her favorite color was white: she hand washed her clothes that left her hands rough and hard: and she soaked her white clothes overnight in soap powder. Next day, she would bleach them under the sun: washing the clothes with the aid of a laundry board before rinsing them. Her dresses appeared spotless, sparkling clean. Henrietta wore no perfume or makeup, to nurse a virtually natural appearance. It was an ordeal to seduce her to try modern amenities. She often traced the footsteps of her parents or beloved ancestors. Her favorite slogan was, “When two elephants fight it’s the tall grass that suffers.”

“With my golden gray hair, I have one foot in the grave as my days draw closer to its twilight, she said. Being the oldest family member alive my duty involves nursing unity, peace, love and understanding among us all. We must endeavor to uphold the rich tenets and beauty of our tradition or culture. The gift of life is neither a paragraph nor is death a parenthesis. Our children and grandchildren must get to know each other, and should avoid dating or marrying each other blindly. It is a taboo and a serious unhealthy practice,” she stressed. She spoke with a seductive voice that depicted her warm persona to seduce the entire family. While she spoke, sobbing tears slowly trickled down her sagging cheeks.

But, in other families, close relatives are blindly dating or marrying each other like stray chickens. Granny strived to arrest this growing cancer in the bud. Since she was no demagogue, she strived hard to coax the family to inculcate her ideals. Awojoh ritual equates the feeding of the five thousand in the Bible, or Thanksgiving celebrated in the US, a family reunion. This gathering brought the extended family together to socialize, and get to know each other better on a more personal and relaxed atmosphere. The event also united people from diverse backgrounds. Folks usually eat from the same bowl at the same place: the gathering blossomed into a communion between the living and the dead.

“Our ancestors are intermediaries between the celestial and terrestrial domain. It is necessary to maintain a healthy marriage between these two worlds,” she said. The feast required no formal invitation whatsoever. Heads of families would contribute towards funding the event. Large-scale variety of dishes would lavish the charity event that drew mammoth crowd. She had a passion for charities amid an endearing fellowship among people. Granny founded the Daniel’s Band cottage group to cater for the needs of the poor, or neglected people. As part of its agenda, the group visited needy homes including the city’s King George’s Home that housed the homeless and destitute.
She had a passion for organizing rituals for needy folks. Some of the neglected people had no relatives or friends, amid dire needs. Society had practically given up on them. She served tasty home cooked meals and distributed toiletries and clothes to the residents. It is so heart warming and transforming, simply gratifying to ignite blazing smiles on their neglected or worried faces. But she avoided serving those with mental problems. The feast catered for all irrespective of one’s needs.

It was pouring when she tied up the benevolent event. The entourage was dripping wet: consoling them Granny said, “The pouring rain was showers of blessings. In due course each one will reap the reward, but not in monetary terms.” A chartered mini-bus driver who transported the group turned down his balance of payment for the trip. He was touched by the compassion and dedication expressed towards the afflicted. He wanted to be a party to the humanitarian venture. The group sang choruses of love and praise as they headed homeward.

New Year’s Day was the date for the big Awojoh feast. Granny sent Abiola and Mariatu to uncles, aunts and cousins to remind them about the upcoming event. Cash contributions flowed in mainly from families living abroad. A handsome contribution of $300 came from her grandson Joko, while Auntie Phoebe also received money from her daughter in the US. Granny coordinated the details for the shopping list that included an assortment of food and drinks. Several experienced cooks volunteered their time to prepare various sumptuous meals. Helpers transported the extravagant provision of drinks, food and livestock including rented chairs.

Neighbors, including Mr. Cole took a peep at the excitement. He said, “Ar get for take purge so are go eat lek wolf: befor good eat wase nar me belleh go bos.” – He purged himself with laxative to prepare for glutinous eating. The tethered livestock - cow, fowls, goat and sheep were at the backyard waiting to calm the uneasy salivation of numerous guests. The sonorous booing of the cow, crowing of the fowl and bleating of the sheep and goat, attracted mammoth crowd including strangers to the event.

A vivacious and infectious musical blasted off that motivated several more people to attend the feast only three days away. Cooking took place at the backyard in a makeshift kitchen, suitable for huge spherical tripod firestones to hold the gigantic cooking pots. She reminded neighbors to bring large containers for take home food service. The Coles said, “There is no cooking here today we will kill the food at the Awojoh to substitute dinner.”

Before the ceremony, Granny visited three cemeteries to invite all her ancestors, requesting their presence and blessing. Vultures, dogs and cats got a tip too: and she poured libation to commune with the dead spinning lobes of cola nuts. According to the tradition, she tossed up an equal number of cola nut lobes in the air to land with an equal number of head or tail. Men dug two holes in front of the house to hold the blood of the slain cattle. During the ceremony, the animals’ blood sprouted into the air, while the vultures stood patiently observing loudly rattling on the rooftop. The smell and sight of blood attracted a drove of vultures to land with stampede on the rooftop, and they interceded in the butchery. Emboldened, they descended to snatch portions of meat away. “It is a good sign to be graced with their presence, our ancestors are pleased. It is a bad omen to organize an Awojoh and vultures not show up,” an old woman said. They feasted on the entrails, like the legitimate ancestors. “That old vulture resembles late auntie Katie,” she said.

Later, they feasted on the food provided for the dead cooked without salt. The meat was prepped and seasoned. Granny bought more cola nuts and a variety of fruits including bananas. On the eve, many volunteers helped with the preliminary preparation of the dishes. A bowl of black-eyed beans was prepped and ready to blend – later fried into akara –a tasty beans cake. A large pot of beans cooked with palm oil, pepper and onions goes with a favorite dish –aborbor. A vegetable dish orbiata - cooked with crain crain, goes with the foo foo –a product of cassava cooked and molded into dough. There was white rice, fish and beef stew, with a choice of either palm oil or groundnut oil stew. Early morning, helpers made a trip to the mill to blend the bowl of beans. Women who recently slept with their men could not handle the mix; they feared the mixture would turn flat as unleavened bread: even without adding baking soda.

The first of January was a public holiday, the date of the Awojoh. A diverse family, friends from afar, visited the cemetery early that morning to commune with the dead. It is a rite to visit the dead at least once a year, usually on New Year’s or Easter tide. Uncle Bob and his family wore their colorful Ashorbie - African attire as they arrived in a chartered new poda-poda van, local minibus. Men wore embroidered cotton lapel shirts, and women wore expensively crafted long flowing dresses. Alhaji Cole and his family the Muslim wing of Granny’s family appeared in white unblemished, long flowing robes.

As they came off the latest model Mercedes Benz, they greeted with handshakes and said, “Salamalaeku, Malaeku Ma Salaam,” to family and guests. Women wore silk veils and men wore hats, caftans, long gowns, mukays or slippers. Mr. Cole a Christian tried to shake Safiatu’s hand, but she bowed respectfully greeting him from a distance. He was boiling with emotion as he greeted relatives from abroad. In tears, he said, “If nar so die bin tan are go gladdie, usai una bin hide, tenk God for Mammy Henrietta.” I would be happy if death reunited us all with our deceased, where were you all living? I thank Henrietta for organizing this wonderful gathering.”

Spectators flooded to admire the fusion of beautiful bright colors. Folks had requests, complaints concerning loved ones, as Granny’s house was stormed by a flood of well-wishers. She sat on a regal armchair dressed in purple dress with head-tie to match. “Mammy Henrietta, I love your beautiful dress. Where did you buy it?” Salamatu Cole asked. “Oh I got it over fifteen years ago. Doris Davies made it. This is the third time I’m wearing it,” she said. A jubilant atmosphere beaming with anticipation reflected the true spirit of the celebration.

Cooking had progressed and some food was already wrapped on the table: the preparation of other dishes went according to plan. A variety of food for the dead was set on a table in Granny’s room, with a glass of water for the deceased. At noon, she said, “My dear ancestors this modest feast is for you to dine with us, please bless those who made it possible, and spread your wings of love, protection and provision over us. I have attained a milestone in being leader. I’m ready to join my ancestors on the brighter shore. May unity and love bind our family, as I wait for my time.”

The mystic rhetoric transformed her into a trance depicting reverence and dignity towards the ancestors. Subsequently, amid the merriment and celebration, Granny had prematurely retired to her room. Guests had reached the peak of a high-spirited entertainment, and no one noticed her absence. The Nyorleh ceremony, charity for the dead was about to begin, as the crowd took positions for a ‘Capu Capu’ free for all stampede. But Granny was absent from the designated site.
Suddenly, like a transfiguration, a fleet of vultures descended parading like an angelic train: rehearsing a solemn, melodious overture that nailed the consternation of everyone present. Simultaneously, the chime wall-clock had stopped working. And the family portrait suddenly fell from the wall and shattered. It was evident that something out of the ordinary was in the making. The thought of Granny’s memorable words finally resonated among the family. Instantly, everything stopped including time. A mad house began to ponder on the mysterious events. But no one noticed she had earlier on retired to bed, and quietly taking off her footwear.

Shortly, Henrietta closed her eyes as if she had taken a drug and began her sojourn to the citadel of the ancestors. A sensational flashlight and awe had possessed her. She reached out to hug the ancestors with a smile while beaming with excitement. There’s no night or day once she landed in the realm of the ancestors: where the lifestyle is organized with precision. She had anticipated this moment, whose advent epitomized a dream she could neither comprehend nor apprehend.

As she reclined on her bed her brittle spirit had divorced from its entrapped body. Granny had taken a mystic form that overshadowed the relatives’ understanding: who were thrown into disarray that stalled the feasting or socializing. It was getting dark and time for the guests to depart. The emotionally charged family invaded Henrietta’s room only to witness a transformed soul smiling on her bed. They peered, shook her with frenzy jaw-breaking screams, but she was as cold as she was unresponsive. She could hear and empathize with them, but a mysterious mighty river had certainly separated them. And she was peacefully reunited with her loving ancestors: deserting this enduring Awojoh fusion amid a shocking confusion.


Washington Dick© 2008
]]> Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:15:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/358529 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/342239 A look at the plight of women in the world over shows that undoutdetly women have suffered centuries of maginalisation in societies they own with their male counterparts and are still suffereing.
In the medieva days,ladies whose men went off to war were locked up in a tower to assure their chastity. Until 150 years ago, there was no widowhood for Hindu women because wives were burned with their husband!
In ancient Africa,the men never realised that women had other potentials apart from playing the roles of wives,mother and carrying other domestic chores. Apparently,they realised but were hypocritical enough not to admit it and had suppressed women in diverse ways. And so women were forced to accept this starck misconception about themselves and even prefrred to be matyres to rejecting this callous notion.No wonder that efforet in training young girls then were geared towards how to cook delicious food for their husbands,how to sit properly.]]> Sat, 08 Mar 2008 04:12:00 EST http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/342239 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/341893 YOUTHS AND YOUTHISM FOR 2008

I draw my inspiration from other progressives like Martin Luther king Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Patrick Lumumba, etc. who employed their vast wealth of erudition, experience and resources to extirpate their various societies from the abyss of social, economic and political quagmire.

I am greatly motivated by the immortal words of Empero Hail Sellessie of Ethiopia who says, and I quote It is the ignorance of those who suppose to know and the unwillingness of those who suppose to serve that make it possible for evil to triumph”.

Today, the state of things in Nigeria is as disheartening as just as it is ingenious. If I am asked to comment on the condition of things in Nigeria and if I am to put it bluntly, I will say that Nigeria is probably the geo-polity some European scholars had in mind when they postulated, though wrongly, that African by the chemistry of his composition, his psychology and attitude of the (sic) mind can never come up in this world, he has been sentenced to a life- long servitude to the yellow and pink people of this earth”.

After a painful period of self truth, retrospection, I have come to realize that we the youths prevaricated so much that our passivity has come to be taken for docility, we have become so indifferent to power that today, we have been overtaken by power-seekers, we have mistaken the loudest complainers for our good to be the most anxious for our good and betterment, we have mistaken serenity for saintliness and today, we are at the verge of mortgaging our destiny to a terrible perdition and sell the future of our children with such a heavy discount!

The message is for us to wake up from the cocoon of political servitude and pessimism. It is time to take our destiny in our hands for experience has taught us that no self-professed messiah can love us the way as or more than we love ourselves. It’s high time as 2008 is approaching, we ask ourselves the type of leaders we need. Do we need leaders who are vainglorious, selfish, myopic, toutish and unreliable? Do we need leaders who use us and dump us? Do we need leaders who use us and sacrifice our prestige, sense of pride, interest and comfort in other gain political relevance? Do we need leaders who vainly pride themselves as being richer that our States and Local Govt.when in essence they are economic parasites on us?

We need leaders who can muster courage, erudition and steer the ship of the continent. We need leaders whose achievements and antecedents, though not orchestrated, are conspicuous even for the blind to see. We need leaders who will always embrace the ethics of dialogue, diplomacy and constructive engagement and not militant confrontation in bettering the lot of the governed. We need leaders who will not polarize the good people of Nigeria along other Nations dichotomy for their own selfish ends. We need leaders who will not hesitate, if circumstance so demands, to pay the supreme price to better the lot of the people.

Finally, we need leaders who will not arrogate power to themselves but will regard themselves as the servants of the people and will not hesitate to relinquish the scared mandate which they hold in trust for the people when we so demand.

This is a task, God willing, all of us should jointly do because in the words of Martin Luther King Jr.

“When evil men plot, good men must plan,
When evil men bomb and blast, good men must build and bind

When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love;

Where evil men would seek to perpetuate unjust status-quo; good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice” “I hold this truth to be self- evident that all Nigerians are equal!”

Let your leadership provide comic relief in the market place. We pray that our own child, Abia should not be the market button.

Alas, falsehood. Corruption and abuse of power have been allowed to feaster for too long. Abia State has been mired in the purgatory of misgovernance and want. Our economy has been distorted and disfigured by lame, unproductively and incapable hands. The hitherto united people of Abia state have been polarized along old Bend/ Ukwa-Ngwa axis for the resonance. We the masses have become negotiating tools-, which must; like the filthy tissue paper is discarded once they assume power.

Comrades, having been misled and misdirected into the wilderness of political blunder, squandamania and deceit, let us spew out the chloroform of pseudo-contentment that could anaesthetize us into further malaise. Let us do our best to support our individual communities and the youths in them, they remain the only detribalized friend of ours who can clear our path off such clusters that waste our people, sap our energy, paralyze our polity, strangulate our economy and dampen our collective spirit, and lead us to our rightful position in the comity of state. If Abia must be lead out of the woods, we must embrace a disciplined, and experienced leadership. Such leadership is such a rare occurrence in generations that ones lost. It takes decades and even centuries to be regained. Examples abound. Ghana prevented Nkuruma and Nkurumaism and Nigeria should Awo and Awoism from been realities but today, the people are searching for Nkuruma and Awo they did not value when they were with them. In the same vain, I wish to predict with all modesty that if by any act of omission, Nigerians should prevent the youths and youthism of real leaders from becoming realities of 2008. Nigeria will enter into generation of decadence, devoid of orientation and duration and the ship of the state will be drift. We would then, embark on along and fruitful search for real youths and youthism- God forbid!

Comrades, I must remind you that the struggle which we have consciously embark is one in which we be absolutely discipline. Be put on early notice that the leadership of youths will never condone indiscipline. Since we preach against certain vices in Abia Society, we should not contradict our teaching. If we embark on the habit of practicing the opposite of what we preach, our admonitions will not only know it’s force and potency but also, we our selves are bound to forfeit claim to credibility.

Again, it will be self- defeatist if we should think that the struggle is for self-enrichment. I must also remind us that the struggle is not going to be won a platter of gold. We are certainly going to meet both setbacks and triumphs but I pray that we meet them with equal mind. After all, it was Peter – not the Apostle peter – bur Peter the hero of Walpole’s novel entitled fortitude who after life has dealt terrible blows on him. Said “ it isn’t life that matters but the courage you bring into it ” Blessed are all trials that demand courage for out of these cometh the making of a man”. Again, V.I.Lamin ones said; “Man’s greatest possession is life and since it is given him to live but ones, he must so lives that while dying he might say, all my life and strength were given so the finest cause in the world – the liberation of mankind”.

It is upon this note that we embark on this sojourn from the known to the unknown. It is therefore, with brave heart, with confidence and hope that we move from this twilight into darkness unabashed in our resolute resolve to support and encourage our idol youths and unshaken in our faith in God that this sojourn will be heralded by a glorious and victorious dawn in 2008.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY.

Washington Dick
]]> Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:14:00 EST http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/341893 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/312617 The Oversear of the Church uses the oppourtunity to tell them to put their trust in God that it is through him that every thing will be made possible.
Their children also recived small other gifts while smiles were put on their faces.In appreciation,the leader of the group in that church expresses her profound gratitude to God and the entire members of the church expecially the organising committee for honouring them in this way that God will also honour them.
The occassion came to an end with a group photograph by the widows and the personality that matters in that forum.]]> Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:43:00 EST http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/312617 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333