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Election monitors won’t wait for Jega

A shocking Wikileaks report has revealed that the
European Union election monitors, headed by Alojz Peterle, had not
actually stepped foot in Nigeria as at the time of last week’s botched
elections. Their arrival photos were photoshopped. The observers were
actually about to join a yacht cruise when they were told the news of
the election delays.

“Not being here wouldn’t have prevented us from
writing about the elections,” Mr. Peterle said. As a matter of fact,
the team had already written their full reports, stating that the
recently-concluded elections were better than the last, but still
flawed.

“That standard analysis usually covers it for most Third World countries,” Mr. Peterle explained.

Bauchi electorate cast their stones

The governor of Bauchi State has fired 87 of his
special assistants for advising him to visit certain neglected local
governments in his state. The visits, which resulted in Mr. Yaguda
being stoned by the people of Tafawa Balewa and Bogoro LGAs, have left
Mr. Yaguda angry and within the realms of an existential crisis.

“I should have listened to Gbagbo,” Mr. Yaguda
mumbled. “He told me to stay locked up in the State House and allow the
state to run as it would.”

“As you can all see,” the governor added, “Mr.
Gbagbo has been left alone to continue pretending he is the president
of the country while the country tries to revive itself under the
leadership of Alassane Ouattara.”

Yes, you can. Or not

The American president has finally released the
sensational campaign strategy set to have us all on the edges of our
seats once again. In true celebrity president style, Mr. Obama has
decided to open up a selection of his campaign slogans to the public.

He will be operating an ‘American idol’ style competition.

The contest invites anyone from any of the several
countries where Mr. Obama has roots in, to come in front of a group of
judges to give long inspirational speeches from which the president can
then draw catchy slogans and phrases from. The judges for the
competition include: Mr. Obama’s two daughters, Paula Abdul and the
ever-political Kim Kardashian.

The strategy has proven very popular, with
millions already setting Twitter abuzz with what they hope might
eventually be the American president’s choices. So far, the favourite
slogans include: ‘Well, we didn’t… but let’s try again’, ‘Once you go
black, you never go back’, ‘Hey, that’s racism’, and ‘I’m Barack Obama,
b!tc#!!!’

Watch that inbox, says PDP

Last week on ‘Battle of the Texts’, viewers and
mobile phone users were bombarded with an unprecedented high number of
texts messages from several political parties arguing their cases.

Yet, according to the media relations officers of the PDP, the public is yet to see the most intriguing of it.

“Where the ACN and Labour Party dominated the bulk
text messaging last week, this week, we have promised to join in the
competition in order to make it a truly spectacular two-week season
finale,” he said.

Watch out for more intimate details of juju
dealings amongst politicians and their godfathers, Jerry Springer-style
text message fights and, possibly, full details of every man and woman
each presidential candidate has had carnal knowledge of.

Do you fancy yourself a satirist? Send your Breaking News spoofs to opinion@234next.com

Election monitors won’t wait for Jega

A shocking Wikileaks report has revealed that the
European Union election monitors, headed by Alojz Peterle, had not
actually stepped foot in Nigeria as at the time of last week’s botched
elections. Their arrival photos were photoshopped. The observers were
actually about to join a yacht cruise when they were told the news of
the election delays.

“Not being here wouldn’t have prevented us from
writing about the elections,” Mr. Peterle said. As a matter of fact,
the team had already written their full reports, stating that the
recently-concluded elections were better than the last, but still
flawed.

“That standard analysis usually covers it for most Third World countries,” Mr. Peterle explained.

Bauchi electorate cast their stones

The governor of Bauchi State has fired 87 of his
special assistants for advising him to visit certain neglected local
governments in his state. The visits, which resulted in Mr. Yaguda
being stoned by the people of Tafawa Balewa and Bogoro LGAs, have left
Mr. Yaguda angry and within the realms of an existential crisis.

“I should have listened to Gbagbo,” Mr. Yaguda
mumbled. “He told me to stay locked up in the State House and allow the
state to run as it would.”

“As you can all see,” the governor added, “Mr.
Gbagbo has been left alone to continue pretending he is the president
of the country while the country tries to revive itself under the
leadership of Alassane Ouattara.”

Yes, you can. Or not

The American president has finally released the
sensational campaign strategy set to have us all on the edges of our
seats once again. In true celebrity president style, Mr. Obama has
decided to open up a selection of his campaign slogans to the public.

He will be operating an ‘American idol’ style competition.

The contest invites anyone from any of the several
countries where Mr. Obama has roots in, to come in front of a group of
judges to give long inspirational speeches from which the president can
then draw catchy slogans and phrases from. The judges for the
competition include: Mr. Obama’s two daughters, Paula Abdul and the
ever-political Kim Kardashian.

The strategy has proven very popular, with
millions already setting Twitter abuzz with what they hope might
eventually be the American president’s choices. So far, the favourite
slogans include: ‘Well, we didn’t… but let’s try again’, ‘Once you go
black, you never go back’, ‘Hey, that’s racism’, and ‘I’m Barack Obama,
b!tc#!!!’

Watch that inbox, says PDP

Last week on ‘Battle of the Texts’, viewers and
mobile phone users were bombarded with an unprecedented high number of
texts messages from several political parties arguing their cases.

Yet, according to the media relations officers of the PDP, the public is yet to see the most intriguing of it.

“Where the ACN and Labour Party dominated the bulk
text messaging last week, this week, we have promised to join in the
competition in order to make it a truly spectacular two-week season
finale,” he said.

Watch out for more intimate details of juju
dealings amongst politicians and their godfathers, Jerry Springer-style
text message fights and, possibly, full details of every man and woman
each presidential candidate has had carnal knowledge of.

Do you fancy yourself a satirist? Send your Breaking News spoofs to opinion@234next.com

The 2011 race to be Nigeria’s president for the
next four years is more interesting than any in recent years. Despite
shortcomings in the electoral process, preparations for these elections
promise a process that will be a significant improvement on the 2007
elections. Credit for this improvement goes to Goodluck Jonathan for
replacing Maurice Iwu with Attahiru Jega and giving him the latitude to
improve the electoral process. However, Mr. Jega will not make all the
improvements he may have wished to implement in the brief period he has
had at the helm of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Nigeria’s next president must give Mr. Jega the mandate and resources
to continue the process and thereby herald the 2015 elections as truly
a hallmark of a democratic nation.

The 2011 election is critical to Nigeria’s future.
The next four years will either consolidate the advances Nigeria has
made on the journey to democracy or allow cronyism and corruption to
flourish. Advances have been made over the last 12 years but there have
been some retrograde steps, particularly in the latter part of the late
Yar’Adua’s term of office when, without decisive leadership Nigeria
drifted and the war against corruption was suspended.

The reputation of the EFCC has withered under
Farida Waziri to the extent that foreign anti-corruption agencies will
no longer engage with her. If Nigeria’s president is serious about
fighting corruption and rebuilding Nigeria’s platform to fight
corruption, then say goodbye to Mrs. Waziri and hit her political
godfathers where it hurts… in the courts.

Corruption in Nigeria’s police force and judiciary
has allowed people who have committed shocking crimes to not only go
unpunished but to stand for election. Indeed, some of the candidates
running for governorship in the current elections should be spending
their time and money preparing for their court appearances rather than
their election campaign speeches.

There are many accusations about supposed criminal
acts committed by various candidates and there is much speculation. In
October 2010, Mrs. Waziri famously released her “Advisory List” of over
100 people with high profile cases of corruption being pursued by the
EFCC. In doing so, Waziri advised political parties against standing
candidates whose names appeared on her list. In so doing, Waziri acted
as prosecutor, judge and jury. Apart from this blatant misuse of her
position, Waziri failed to include the really big fish and managed to
include some persons whose cases had already been dismissed by the
courts and thus were innocent (having been proven not guilty).

But the failure of the EFCC under Waziri is only
part of the story when it comes to candidates for election. In
Nigeria’s current gubernatorial elections, there are candidates who
clearly should have been vigorously investigated for their parts in
very serious criminal acts. It is not a situation where there were
allegations and subsequent investigations found no basis for laying
charges. No, it is simply a case of these persons being untouchable.
Are they too well connected; have they paid huge bribes… why have
they been able to escape the attention of the law?

This column has previously touched on this
subject. In October 2009, I described the emergence of MEND and
detailed how cult groups and gangs were armed and paid by candidates
for political office in an effort to secure their election. In the
discussions that led to the 2004 Peace Accord, the commanders made
clear the support of their godfathers. They named a former federal
minister of transportation, since vacated from the PDP and a native of
Rivers State, as being directly linked to the assassination of Marshall
Harry. I heard the evidence firsthand. Today, this man stands for
election. In my book, he should be standing trial. But maybe I have
just played the Waziri card and made myself prosecutor, judge and jury.
There is however one difference…I do not have any political
godfathers.

I am sure that some of the sycophants of the big men who are enraged
by such frank and public comments will undoubtedly respond to this
column with online comments denigrating me. That comes with the
territory and the privilege of writing an opinion column. We can only
hope and pray that the efforts of INEC under the current chairman have
so eroded the opportunity for electoral malpractice that the true
intentions of the Nigerian people will be accurately reflected in the
outcome of the current elections. 2011 could be a point of
consolidation and confirmation to stand against electoral malpractice,
against corruption and against violence. It will be the task of
Nigeria’s president, every member of the National Assembly and every
governor to endorse that position. It will be the task of every
Nigerian to ask their newly elected representatives what progress they
have made on these key issues in the first 100 days of office. I hope
that Nigerians can one day look back and remember 2011 as a turning
point in the building of a nation.

Last week, I wrote about the day after the
parliamentary elections, expecting that the elections would have been
concluded and expressing the necessity for the people to benefit from
the new elections procedure to defend their mandate. Immediately after
the cancelled elections, I travelled to India for an international
conference on the future of the urban poor. It was a conference that
was catching up with reality.

The majority of people in the contemporary world,
including in Africa, have moved from the rural to the urban areas.
These people live precarious lives trying to make a living from the
informal economy. The proletariat Karl Marx assured us would make the
revolution are nowhere to be found. What we have in the rapidly
expanding mega cities are the precariat whose livelihood and indeed
lives are at risk from irregular and insufficient income. Their lives
are traumatic as they suffer from the toxicity of the water, air and
soil around them.

Of course, for a conference in Mumbai on the urban
poor, the centre of activity and analysis could only be Dharavi, the
biggest slum in Asia made famous by the film “Slumdog Millionaire.”
Yes, indeed, the people of Dharavi live under terrible conditions, in
tiny shacks, defecating in and wading through the toxic mud around
them. The 600,000 inhabitants of the area are yet to act in their own
glamorous film. They toil and sweat as they pursue their precarious
profession of processing and living on the income they make from
recycling the enormous waste produced by the 25 million people that
live in central Mumbai.

In a sense, they are a five-star ghetto because
they are able to participate in the economy of the city as subalterns
but nonetheless as active economic agents. As Jockin Arputham, the
leader of the Dharavi Slum Dweller’s Federation told us, they
contribute $1 billion to the national economy each year. Their future
is however uncertain today.

Their 525 hectares of land is the only undeveloped
land left in central Mumbai. The value of their land is today $1,200 a
square foot and the state and developers are determined to throw them
out and take over the land. The precariat is defined by its precariat.

What is impressive about India however is the
power of its civil society. The Slum Dwellers Federation and the NGOs
that support them have stopped the government from chasing out the
people and taking over the place. They have used the power of popular
mobilisation to stop the takeover bid.

Indians are very critical of their democracy and
do not hesitate to point out its numerous limitations and the
persistence of the culture of corruption among its political elite. At
the same time, their democracy has endured and works at certain levels.
The integrity of their elections is high and civil society is an
effective counter weight to government.

This week, Anna Hazare, a veteran 72-year-old
Gandhian civil society activist, engaged on a fast-to-the-death to
force government to enact an effective ombudsman to lead the fight
against corruption. On day three of the fast, 400 other activists
joined and Prime Minister Mammaham Singh was appealing to him to stop
the fast so that they could negotiate. As I left India on day four of
the fast, people were congregating in squares in many major cities
denouncing corruption in government. It is the type of mass movement
against corruption that we have been unable to generate in Nigeria.

To be able to have a political class that will be
worried about and respond to civil society demands in Nigeria, we must
improve the integrity of our elections. The electoral procedure
developed by INEC in which accreditation takes place in the morning and
voting in the afternoon is designed to protect the electoral mandate of
the people. That is why voters are allowed to stay at the polling
centres to observe the counting and posting of results. Civil society
has encouraged voters to stay, observe the counting, photograph the
results with their cell phones and share the results with their
neighbours, to create widespread awareness of polling centre results.

The section of the political class that has planned to rig the
elections is frightened about the implications of the new procedure.
This is why they have launched a campaign of calumny against Attahiru
Jega, the chairman of INEC. Nigerians must not get distracted. As I
argued last week, it has been clear since 2003 that the integrity of
Nigeria’s elections will only improve if more and more citizens express
their determination to protect their mandate. When the political class
knows that they owe their positions to the people and not godfathers,
they will be forced to show more respect to the people.

It seems only a
matter of days before Laurent Gbagbo, usurper of the office of
President of Cote d’Ivoire, ceases to be president of the bunker which
he inhabits below the grounds of the Presidential Palace in Abidjan.
His has been a tragic decline: a history professor who struck a blow
for competitive and peaceful alternatives to presidential office
running against Cote d’Ivoire’s first president himself, the late
Houphouet-Boigny in 1990; then, ruler of Cote d’Ivoire throughout the
2000s; today, a presidential usurper in control of a solitary
underground bunker. The arc of his transformation from socialist
democrat to a tyrannical African ‘strong man’, sowing dissension, death
and disease in the thousands among poor Ivoriens, is an extreme example
of the cancerous lust for perpetual power to which too many rulers have
succumbed in history. We can begin to ponder the significance of his
impending departure, with the timely assistance of the former colonial
power, France, and the United Nations.

There are three
striking features about the path to Gbagbo’s defeat. The first is that
bravery of urban masses gets results, albeit at a terrible human cost.
Cote d’Ivoire has wallowed in misery and humanitarian crisis since
2000. So has Zimbabwe. Ivoriens are about to see the back of the leader
who reigned throughout that crisis. No one knows if Robert Mugabe,
another person notorious for disseminating the virus of economic
collapse and civil dissension, will ever leave office. Why the
difference in fates? One reason has to be that the Ivorien masses have
been willing to face martyrdom in challenging Mr. Gbagbo. More people
seem to have been killed in Abidjan by the army since the November 2010
elections than in Harare in a decade.

Think of the march
of mothers shot in cold blood in Abidjan a few weeks ago, for example.
I realise that many Zimbabweans have been tortured, beaten and maimed
since the emergence of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe.
Yet, somehow, my impression is that President Mugabe has been far more
successful in cowing urban protests than any Ivorian leader, military
or civilian. He has had a far more congenial regional setting in which
to handle his opponents than Mr. Gbagbo.

Burkina Faso has
been a strong supporter of Ivoriens opposed to Mr. Gbagbo. It may be
that the presence of so many Ivorien relatives of the Burkinabe people
forced the Burkinabe government to support steadfastly Mr. Gbagbo’s
opponents. By contrast, Zimbabwe does not seem to have harboured as
many descendants of immigrants from its neighbours. Whatever the
reason, there can be no denying that, other than Botswana, no southern
African country has provided strong support for Morgan Tsvangirai and
his supporters. In turn, that absence of powerful regional support
might have cooled the willingness of urban Zimbabweans to defy openly,
at huge personal cost, Mr. Mugabe and his ruling party.

It is no easy feat
for unarmed civilians to face armed men. Thus, I cannot condemn any
person for refusing to take the risk of losing his or her life in
Zimbabwe. But, it does seem that the shedding of the blood of unarmed
people by a government or its armed supporters is much more likely to
precipitate intervention on the side of the protestors than furtive
resistance. I salute the bravery of the Ivorien people.

The second
noteworthy feature is the unanimous support for a democratic electorate
process and outcome exhibited by ECOWAS and the West African peoples.
They did not waver for one moment in rejecting the so-called African
solution of “unity governments” so beloved of Eastern and Southern
Africans, enabling losers to cohabit with victors. West Africans have
set a powerful example for other parts of Africa about the appropriate
reaction to electoral theft. Nigeria’s position, in particular, calls
for praise. If Goodluck Jonathan had waffled in his condemnation of Mr.
Gbagbo’s behaviour, it would have been much more difficult to present a
unified West African response.

The third feature is the limited power an African ruler unable to
print his own currency has in tough times. Mr. Gbagbo was denied the
weapon of a hyperinflationary tax of printing new currency because Cote
d’Ivoire uses a regional currency. Mr. Mugabe used that weapon to
deadly effect against his people. Regional currencies and regional
central banks curb the powers of national rulers. Time will tell
whether Alassane Ouattara is the statesman for which Cote d’Ivoire is
crying. Mr. Gbagbo was no statesman. Good riddance!

There’s been no
shortage of text messages in a bid to sway us one way or another; many
forward these messages as if their lives depended on them. Maybe! So,
should one cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face? In wanting
something, should one deprive oneself of even more benefits for the
sake of what one seeks to achieve? And this is so crucial to the
overall success of the elections, including its overall aim, which is
to bring development to the people via the combined effort of all arms
of government.

Are we forgetting
that this is participatory democracy? How effective will the governor
of any state be, if he is the only one elected from his party without
other party members getting any elective office? What type of
government would that governor form? Would he always be able to call
the bluff of hostile non-party members of his administration? Or can we
hope as we have recently seen, that once elections are done and won,
all other elected members of government who are not of the same party
as the governor, will defect to the party of the ruling governor, to
make everyone’s life easier in the state and truly develop the state?
This logic is warped.

Don’t forget that
there are three arms of government; none can be efficient without the
other. Will a governor get co-operation from a hostile State House of
Assembly for instance? Have we not witnessed how a state’s legislature
can hold any governor to ransom, just to fulfill some inordinate
desires? Have we not seen a State House of Assembly closed for so many
months in a state where both the executive and legislators were/are of
the same party? What manner of relationship could we then hope for
where legislators and executors are from opposing camps?

Nevertheless, one
totally understands why these people are jittery: they rationalise that
since a party’s leadership decided to ‘impose’ candidates and
admittedly so, then the people also have a right to NOT vote for those
seemingly selected and imposed. The illogical argument conveniently
forgets that Babatunde Fashola himself was imposed ab initio by this
same party; so why are they now insisting on backing this old “imposed”
and not the new? If it is because they feel Governor Fashola has
‘performed’ so well to justify a second term, how do they know that the
new set of people imposed by the same party, won’t do as well or
better? After all, if the party got it right with Mr.Fashola, why can’t
the party also get it right for the leader’s wife, son or in-law? Is
one less efficient because one is related to the boss?

I suppose that is
why Mr. Fashola’s fans are behaving as if he is an independent
candidate. They even recommend what party to vote for in place of ACN.
But think about how this democracy works for a minute: ours is not
built on the collective will of the elected to do good things or
deliver dividends, as we say locally. How will Mr. Fashola push his
manifesto without his party’s elected? Ours is not an environment where
politicking stops and governance begins; the difference is blurred. Our
politicians NEVER allow the politics to end, never mind beginning the
process of governing. In fact, if a party’s candidate is elected as
governor, after displacing an incumbent whose party has majority seats
in the State Assembly, the new governor will know no peace.

Assemblymen often
see it as their duty to rile the chief executive of a state, especially
if he is not from their party. And the truth is, if they have a good
relationship with the governor, people will say they’ve been bought
over; If they don’t, the governor’s camp will say members of the
Assembly don’t want progress for the state, and are ‘only’ being
selfishly hostile to the executive because they want some goodies.

We’ve even seen states where the governor’s opponents from within
his party, don’t want him to achieve anything even if it affects their
party’s fortunes in providing deliverables. If a governor and president
for that matter can be so opposed from within their own camps, is it
another party that will embrace them more? If one votes Mr. Fashola
alone from the ACN, then members of other political parties to the
National and State Assemblies, will the governor enjoy support
unhindered by party differences? Will they all look beyond party
affiliation and agree to Mr. Fashola’s ideas especially if the ideas
are good? Or will they choose, after winning, to play politics with
people’s lives?

It’s possible that
the Independent National Electoral Commission Chair, Attahiru Jega,
thinks that with a ‘seasoned media professional’ as his spokesperson,
he needn’t bother too much about dealing with the media or getting his
message across to the public. At least, apart from the big ticket items
like postponing elections and saying, ‘Sorry’.

That would be a mistake.

That, at least,
was my conclusion as I watched his spokesperson evading a reporter’s
question about whether rumours that Jega had resigned were true.
Instead of giving a straight answer, Kayode Idowu just kept smirkingly
repeating: “We don’t respond to rumours.” That assertion was of course
(and necessarily) at variance with the actuality: INEC had to come out
and reaffirm that National Assembly elections would indeed be held in
Lagos on April 9 in direct response to rumours that they would not. And
with the announcement that elections will now not be held in three
Federal Constituencies in Lagos State, among some 63 National Assembly
elections nationwide, it is fair to conclude that there was some truth
in those rumours.

Perhaps the gap on
INEC’s media front explains why the postponement and apology press
statements have been so badly handled. Surely, media experts ought to
have advised Jega that a press statement of the nature he made at high
noon on Saturday April 2, would either have to be supported by a
detailed technical briefing by other INEC National Commissioners, or be
followed by a question and answer session?

That, in turn, might have encouraged someone at the commission to anticipate the kind of questions that might arise.

As it is, one is
left with the distinct impression that at each stage, INEC is not quite
thinking it through, and that this, at least as much as the vital
business of clearing up the mess, is why its Chairman hurries away from
press conferences, only to try to deal with some questions that ought
to have been answered at the previous briefing when he comes to the
next. For example, why ballot papers full of mistakes were again
produced. Having consistently argued that the key to INEC’s success
will be transparency, transparency, transparency, including showing
parties what ballot papers will contain before printing them, this
writer naturally rejects the suggestion that such unnecessary secrecy
is conducive to security.

Simple questions
INEC might have anticipated at the first postponement conference and
which remain valid include: whether the commission has a means of
directly communicating with its officials in the field, and if so, why
it didn’t appear to be working and whether it will be working for
future elections in the cycle.

With the second
statement further postponing the National Assembly elections to
Saturday, April 9, this time (thankfully) coming before we got all
dressed up again with no place to go, the obvious question, which
remains valid, would have been why the whole timetable was being pushed
forward. Why couldn’t the April 9 Presidential election go ahead as
scheduled? Certainly, with the further postponement of some National
Assembly elections to April 26, suggestions that INEC would not be able
to cope with conducting three elections (President, Senate and House of
Representatives) at the same time sound particularly hollow, since some
areas will now have to hold four elections (Governor, State House of
Assembly, Senate and House of Representatives) on the same Easter
Tuesday! Again, while holding the National Assembly elections first
might have been justifiable when time was not so tight, we must now
bear in mind that it is the newly-elected and sworn-in President who
inaugurates the National Assembly, but that he must be in place by May
29. What happens if there has to be a run-off election? Or two? With
governors also subject to possible run-off elections but bound by the
same May 29 deadline, what is the thinking behind pushing their own
election forward to April 26, particularly when the courts have struck
down the National Assembly’s attempt to fix the order of elections?

At times like
this, Nigerians tend to resort to the French language, what with voters
being urged to come out en masse hoping that voting materials that were
en route will have arrived in time.

But the French
expression that I’m hoping will tell the story is réculer pour mieux
sauter. It’s what jumpers do: they go right up to the take-off board,
but instead of jumping immediately, draw back for a long run-in so that
they can make a much better jump. As Salomé probably said the next
morning: I have no use for this man’s head! But by the time of reading,
with so much chicanery already exposed, we’ll know whether Jega has
indeed been able to make a better jump.

This is one endgame that is nowhere near the end.
Laurent Gbagbo continues to stubbornly hold on to power, despite no
longer being in control of the country — the area he currently ‘rules’
over is reportedly restricted to the grounds of the presidential
palace. Meanwhile, the dead bodies are piling up — late last week,
humanitarian agencies found tens of bodies of victims of mass killings
— and looters and bandits roam the streets of Abidjan unchallenged.

The French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, has
described Mr. Gbagbo’s continued hold on power as “absurd”. There are
many, including us, who share this view. But equally absurd is the
relative silence from the African regional bodies, AU and ECOWAS,
regarding this crisis.

Two weeks ago, ECOWAS, during the 39th Ordinary
Summit of its Heads of States and Government, issued Resolution
A/RES.1/03/11, which stated that “in the event that Mr. Gbagbo fails to
heed (the) immutable demand of ECOWAS (to hand over power), the
Community would be left with no alternative but to take other measures,
including the use of legitimate force, to achieve the goals of the
Ivorien people.”

Any keen observer of ECOWAS would have since
realised that it is no more than a serial issuer of ‘Decisions’,
‘Resolutions’ and press releases, none of which should be taken
seriously. Indeed, only last week, it issued a press statement
“[urging] Mr. Gbagbo once again to consider the greater interest of the
Ivorian Nation…”

This, coming two weeks after “recognizing that the
crisis in Cote d’Ivoire has now become a regional humanitarian
emergency”, and after vowing that it “would be left with no alternative
but to take other measures, including the use of legitimate force”, is
absurd.

Even the Resolution A/RES.1/03/11 that contains
the threat of military intervention, quickly lapses into an evasive
tone, characterised by a series of “requests”, “directs”, “urges” and
“invites” aimed at the United Nations Security Council, the African
Union Commission, and the president of the ECOWAS Commission. ECOWAS,
it seems, has now gone back to sleep, leaving the UN and French troops
to provide a semblance of security, and to prevent the country from
totally falling apart.

Waiting for the situation to resolve itself is no longer an option, but ECOWAS doesn’t seem to have realised this.

An Ouattara spokesperson has been quoted as
saying: “Mr. Gbagbo has nothing left. His arsenal is gone. His army has
evaporated. How much longer can he last?” What history, however,
teaches is that an African strongman who believes that power belongs to
him should never be underestimated. He will go to any length to ensure
his wishes. It matters little that he was once a professor of history
(with a doctorate from a French University) and one-time opposition
activist like Mr. Gbagbo, or the survivor of colonial oppression and
holder of several academic degrees like Robert Mugabe.

This, tragically, seems to be the defining story of Africa’s
leadership — revolutionaries who in the end become monsters requiring a
revolution to dethrone. Mr. Gbagbo’s actions reveal a man bent on
ensuring that his country does not outlast his reign as president. Up
north is Muammar Gaddafi, who has kept Libya in the news for all the
wrong reasons for well over a month. These men, having not only failed
the continent, but also been rejected by their people, take refuge in a
mindless, stubborn refusal to acknowledge and face reality. But when
the story of this moment in history is told, the list of those who
failed the continent will include all powerbrokers who sat and watched
with folded arms. ECOWAS, led by Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan, will be
at the top of this list. Unless it wakes up now, and moves to provide
urgent military and humanitarian intervention in Cote d’Ivoire.

“But they were ready before you!” Snapped my father angrily,
early on March, 6, 1957.

I had innocently asked: “But Dad, why did the Gold Coast get
independence before us?” There are two tiny sovereign nations, Benin and Togo,
hanging like strips of spaghetti on the map between Ghana and Nigeria. Yet,
Nigerians feel their real neighbours are Ghana. A bonding factor of colonial
experience in the way we relate to other nationals is pervasive. So, we compare
and measure ourselves with Ghana all the time – in politics and economics,
football and highlife music, education and fashion, cocoa and now oil. Luckily,
it has been healthy rivalry tinged with mutual respect, unlike the state of
affairs with our brothers to the east. Nigeria and Cameroon nearly went to war
over the Bakassi peninsula, even though ethnographically, we are closer to
Cameroon than to Ghana.

I sometimes ask what matrix or criteria are used in measuring
the Ghana-Nigeria competition, but all I hear is a savage rebuke: “Go to Ghana
and see!” Clearly, we live in a comparative world. Physics, biology, geography
and many more subjects have their comparative modules. Every life process is
compared with the other. Yet, in most cases, there is no linearity, no
parameter applied in arriving at judgmental conclusions. Our world subsists on
subjectivity, parochialism, unnecessary competition and naked prejudice.

Meeting the Queen

James Robertson replaced John Macpherson at the Marina as the
ruler of Nigeria, and had the honour of welcoming Queen Elizabeth II to Lagos.
I’ve never seen a human with a head as massive as the new governor-general’s.
He looked like an ox, and I almost ran away in horror the day he visited our
school.

Queen Elizabeth II stepped out to be confronted by the
regimental band of the Nigerian Army that could not have looked smarter and
more professional. They smashed out God Save the Queen, before advancing
through a series of Prussian martial tunes on to the lilting Blue Bells of
Scotland and the melodious Old Calabar. It was a sunny day. A broad Union Jack,
one of the most beautiful flags in the world, fluttered gracefully in the sea
breeze of Lagos. The impressive Royal Yacht Britannia bobbed and bubbled on
anchor in the murky waters of Lagos harbour.

Elizabeth’s visit in 1956 was not the first by a royal to
Nigeria. Her uncle, Edward, the Prince of Wales, was here for a week in April,
1925. I heard stories about him from my parents that he was handsome. They did
not tell me about the king’s huge appetite for married women. There was genuine
fear in England that he was going to turn Buckingham Palace into a brothel.
Eventually, Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 after just one year on the throne,
when the British government objected to his marrying Wallis Simpson, an American
divorcee. She had two living ex-husbands! My mother thought it was great and
gallant for a king to leave his throne in order to marry the woman he loved. My
father just shrugged and withheld his opinion. I asked to know what a
“divorcee” was, but got slapped down by my parents.

What didn’t we see in the way of automobiles during the Queen’s
visit – Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Armstrong-Siddeley, Austin Princess and Daimler!
A Roll-Royce epitomises everything that imperial splendour and authority
represents – silence, reverence, dignity, austerity and quality. But of all the
cars I saw in colonial Nigeria, none impressed me more than the Humber Super
Snipe.

I’ve not seen one again since 1953. A shame the British car
industry doesn’t exist anymore! In her farewell speech, the embryonic Nigerian
Army was re-christened the Queens’s Own Nigeria Regiment by Elizabeth herself.
They were terrific when it came to ceremonial occasions; the soldiers all the
same height – slim, very dark, with slightly bowed legs. Each soldier looked
like the twin of the subaltern next to him. The regiment, in heavily-starched
Bermuda shorts, marched in step like mechanised toys. Not a single Nigerian
soldier at ceremonial parades in those days had a pot belly balanced on K-legs.

“Regiment,” which insinuates command subsidiarity or a component
of a larger unit, attracted criticism in Nigeria. The army of an independent
Nigeria was not going to be something like the Scottish or Welsh Regiment
within the UK armed forces. So, a change was effected to the Royal Nigeria Army
(RNA) under the last British commander, Major-General Welby-Everard.

I hear it said now and again that the most efficient black
soldier is the one commanded by a white officer? True or false, this naïve
belief could have contributed to the downfall of Nkrumah and Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa. One cardinal error the two men made was to retain their British chiefs
of staff, well into independence.

Despite open warnings from Tawia Adamafio in Ghana and Azikiwe
in Nigeria,

Major-Generals Alexander and Welby-Everard remained in charge of
the Ghana and Nigeria armies until 1961 and 1965 respectively. The two Britons
could not have done a good job. Once they left, the armies rebelled!

Champion of the world

“They said that Bassey has knocked him down! The commentator
said the man has got up! I’m not sure what they’re saying now. Eh-hem, now they
said the man is bleeding from the nose. I think the referee is stopping the
fight!” We didn’t wait for a confirmation, screaming, hugging one another, jumping
about like kangaroos. It had been a live commentary of the live commentary on
the night of June 24, 1957 at Uyo.

Our small, robust radio set was never loud enough. Someone, a
second commentator, had to stick an ear close enough to it for better audio,
and then translate the actual commentary to the rest of us. Over 50 people
crowded around this unreliable radio set on that night at the hall of the TTC,
the Teacher’s Training College.

Nigeria’s Hogan Bassey was fighting Cherif Hamia, the French
Algerian for the Featherweight Championship of the World in Paris. Tears still
well into my eyes today when I recall the Daily Times front-page headline of
the next morning that simply read, “Hogan Bassey, Champion of the World!” The
1950s were the golden period for black people in international sports. To my
generation of Nigerians, sports remain the ethos around which our lives are
built. When, in 1958, I returned from the interview for admission into Umuahia
Government College, my father was waiting anxiously, pacing about like a caged
lion on the platform at Aba Railway Station.

“So, how did it go? What questions did they ask you?” I told him
there were three white men:

the principal, Mr. Wareham; Mr. Wilson and Mr. Garrod. After
they confirmed my name, place and date of birth, Mr. Wareham began seriously,
that he had heard I played cricket, and did I know cricket was played at
Umuahia College? Would I continue to play if admitted? It was like a crown
counsel cross-examining a criminal. I answered the questions timidly, but in
the affirmative. The three men looked at each other, and then asked me to call
the next candidate. It had been such a brief encounter I thought something had
gone wrong, and these white men didn’t want to waste their time with me. On the
short train ride from Umuahia to Aba, I sat somewhat dejected.

“Ahhh,” concluded my father, “then you’ve passed!” How? It was
in 1952, when my father was at University College, London and he sent two
cricket bats, a ball and some linseed oil to condition the bats, through the
district officer of Owerri, Mr. Mann to my brother and me. It resulted from a
letter my mother wrote to him that we used the branches of coconut trees for a
bat, and old tennis balls to play cricket. My brother got into Umuahia in 1954 and
was regular in the first team by 1958. The news about a younger brother, still
in primary school, who could use a cricket bat, had filtered into the school.

I kept a scrap book in which sports clippings from the Daily
Times, the West African Pilot, the overseas Daily Mirror and Illustrated London
News were stuck. There is no doubt in my mind over who qualifies to be the most
celebrated Nigerian footballer of all time – Teslim Balogun! He was, simply,
Thunder Balogun to everyone and for a striker to bear such a frightening name
speaks volumes of his exploits, and how goal-keepers must have suffered.

Three important landmark records made the 1950s memorable for me: that West
Indian side with Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott beat England
in a cricket test series, winning at Lords, the cricket citadel; Brazil won the
football Jules Rimet trophy ( the FIFA World Cup) in 1958. There were black
players in their team – Pele, Didi, Djalma Santos and Garrincha. In the same
year, the West Indian, Garry Sobers set a world batting record of 365 not out
against Pakistan. It was a wonderful decade!