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February is now the month of love, because a
celebration based vicariously on the life of fairly minor saint that I
remember in my youth as being of almost minimal significance, has over
the decades gained such popularity and commercial value that it has
become a major urban event. Chocolate, red roses and giant declarations
of love are now de rigueur every February 14 and if you don’t deliver,
the consequences can be dire.

Love, romance and kissing, especially
mouth-to-mouth kisses, who on earth invented that act? I recall being
told by a graduate scholar at the university I was about to enter eons
ago, that kissing was not “African”.

I did not ask the provenance of his research, but
I cannot say I was totally surprised. If he had added that the concept
of romance itself was not African I would have believed him. There is
still something so enduringly prosaic about courting Naija style, so
cut and dried, practical and so unerringly objective that it cannot but
be rooted in culture and history.

So bless me if Google did not come to the rescue
with the answers I was seeking by furnishing my search with a paper by
Ezinna E Enwereji titled, Indigenous Marriage Institutions and Divorce
in Nigeria: The case of Abia State.

There was no “ro” not to talk of “mance” in the
revelations provided by Enwereji’s study that he did at the Abia State
University, College of Medicine in Uturu. The material for the research
was obtained from interviews with 12 ‘key informants’ from 8 randomly
selected small towns and villages.

This was Mr. Mr.Enwereji’s introduction to his paper:

“In Igbo tradition, men who have large acres of
farmland are encouraged to engage in multiple marriages so as to have
women who would work in the farms. Women who are lazy to do farm work
or not so fertile as to have large number of children who would also
work in the farm were divorced. This means that hard work and high
fertility were the basis for successful marriages.”

Enwereji also listed what he found to be the
common causes of divorce and these included: infidelity,
infertility/barrenness, impotence, probing a husband’s sexual life,
inability to reproduce male children and/or large number of children,
laziness in taking on assigned gender roles including farming, cooking
late and/or inability to cook delicious food, disrespect to husband and
his kinsmen.

In his findings Enwereji stated that these were
still “the common causes of divorce today” and asserts: “In this study,
the level of socio-cultural norms spouses observe and respect measures
the stability of their marriage relationships. That is the philosophy
of successful marriage in Abia State is a reflection of the efficient
performance of the woman’s subservient roles in her marriage.”

This is not to say that the traditions of Western
marriage were any less prosaic. The creation of wealth here, the
transfer and accumulation of property there, with the female being the
vehicle in both cases – distinctions with few differences. The concept
of Western Romance was a kind of invention of literary and cultural
traditions that made it sweeter, lacing the hard dry reality with some
honey and accounting for the human emotions that feed into the mix.

And that is what it must be here, the human needs
and emotions and the intervening influences from other cultures that
are now the major feature of the world we live in. After all, if I am
nothing but a tool for you, what else can you possibly be for me?

Not that one is knocking the importance of roles
and the adherence to fulfilling these obligations and living up to
society’s expectations that are based on these values. Marriage is one
of the fulcrums on which society organises itself, it is the wool that
knits the family, and the binding ties it creates live on even when the
original marriage is dissolved. Roles and obligations are after all,
part of the glue that holds us together, which keeps us centered and
informs our identity.

But it is heartening that the same importance
attached to fulfilling roles is now apparently being transferred to the
observance of Valentine. Woe betide the man who “forgets” to spread the
love to all the requisite components.

But there is the dark side to all this male
tyranny that Enwereji cautions against. “There are other indigenous
beliefs and practices in Abia State designed to humiliate and exploit
women that require modification. For instance, the practice of
divorcing a woman for reason of infertility or inability to reproduce
male issues should be discouraged … Also the denial of the custody of
underage children in the guise of preventing them from being exposed to
their mother’s deviant behaviours could place them at risk … “

Frankly the practice of marriage and divorce laws in Nigeria is a
tightrope walk for women: little to gain and everything to lose if it
fails to work. So while we are happily practicing Valentine in the
city, we should spare some thought for spreading the love in the
direction of making the institution more equitable for the half of the
world that keeps it going.

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
Chairman Farida Waziri must be looking for somewhere to hide this week
following the release of confidential cables from the US Embassy in
London citing in detail UK Foreign Office assessments of the Nigerian
Government in 2008 and 2009. Michael Aondoakaa, former Federal Attorney
General and close associate of James Ibori, is cited as keeping “Waziri
on a very short leash.”

A leaked US Embassy cable dated 17 November 2008
notes, “Former UK Chargé in Abuja (and current FCO East and Central
Africa Group Head) James Tansley assesses that Waziri will not pursue
any corruption cases that are not in the government’s interests.” It
seems from the cables that “not in the government’s interests” means
contrary to the wishes of the cabal running the Yar’Adua Presidency.
This was alluded to in this column on 19 December 2010, On Watch: Soft
on Corruption, in which I stated: “The political playing is done by
Chairman Waziri deciding which reports to act on and pursue to
prosecution. And therein lies the potential for mischief.”

One of the high profile cases Waziri consistently
backed away from was the prosecution of former Delta State Governor
James Ibori who has been accused of embezzling vast amounts of Delta
State funds while he was governor and transferring it to the UK. UK
authorities have been keen to pursue legal action against Ibori through
the London courts but the EFCC and former Attorney General Aondoakaa
have been less than helpful. Aondoakaa, a close associate of Ibori, had
requested the British return evidence earlier provided for the case.

Nuhu Ribadu, while head of the EFCC had initiated
an investigation against Ibori. A successful prosecution against Ibori
had serious implications for those in the cabal around President
Yar’Adua. Pressure was brought on Ribadu to drop the investigation and
when he would not comply he was removed with a trail of manufactured
evidence sufficient to provide the necessary pretext for his dismissal.

Waziri replaced Ribudu as chairman of the EFCC and
quickly moved the case against Ibori into slow motion. In one of the
leaked US Embassy cables Tansey “noted that it is bizarre how
frequently Waziri asks for additional information on major cases,
details that she should already be familiar with if she is ‘really
digging into her portfolio”.

The leaked US Embassy cable also noted that
“Waziri would prosecute small cases” confirming the opinion that has
also been previously set out in this column on 05 December 2010, On
Watch: Criminal Protection, “Thus far the EFCC’s conviction rate of
“high profile cases” languishes in single digits.”

In a further cable labelled CONFIDENTIAL from the
US Embassy in London dated 22 May 2009 the UK’s Serious Organised Crime
Agency (SOCA) Africa programme officer Mike Davey noted “the EFCC’s
reticence to prosecute high-level political cases.” Waziri’s stifling
of the EFCC has become evident to foreign crime fighting agencies.

On 19 September 2010, On Watch: Corruption
Undermines the Peace Process, this column observed that EFCC Chairman
Waziri “is the insurance for the big men who have flaunted Nigeria’s
laws and enriched themselves from state coffers thus ensuring those in
poverty remain in poverty”.

Clearly the EFCC has been reigned in by Waziri who
holds total control on all key operations in the EFCC. In the Yar’Adua
Administration she played the role of protection for the tight cabal
that ran the Presidency. That cabal is falling apart rapidly under
President Jonathan. Waziri’s patrons are increasingly being exposed.
Ibori and Aondoakaa are both facing prosecution.

The fact that the EFCC has been become misdirected
by Waziri is clear to both the US and UK Embassy staff and in
particular the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency which interacts
frequently with the office of Nigeria’s Federal Attorney General and
Nigeria’s crime fighting agencies. In this respect the EFCC’s
reputation has taken a nose-dive under Waziri’s chairmanship and with
it has gone the view that Nigeria is serious about fighting corruption.
This is a significant set-back for the Jonathan administration which
must now work to repair the reputational damage of Nigeria’s
anti-corruption agency and demonstrate that President Jonathan is very
committed to fighting corruption at all levels of Nigerian society.

So one is drawn to ask why, after two and half
years of restraining the EFCC from carrying out its responsibilities to
the fullest extent possible and frittering away the EFCC’s hard won
reputation for fighting corruption without fear or favour, is Farida
Waziri still the chairman of the EFCC?

This week, the International Republican Institute
released an opinion poll carried out by a reputable polling company –
Opinion Research Business. They polled 3,030 Nigerians sampled from all
states in the country providing us a photograph of political opinions
and beliefs as of early December 2010 when the face to face interviews
took place.

The polls show serious concerns but also a lot of optimism about the political process and the future of Nigerian democracy.

Fifty three percent of Nigerians polled are
concerned that Nigeria is moving in the wrong direction. They list five
key problems that underpin their concerns and worries. In the order of
importance, they are corruption, unemployment, bad leadership, poverty
and the lack of electricity. This is not rocket science; we all know
that these problems have dogged our post independence life over the
past fifty years.

What is interesting about the poll results is that
77% of Nigerians expect their economic situation to improve after the
April elections and only 5% believe things will worsen after the
elections. This huge confidence and belief that the coming elections
will improve our lives is certainly excessive and my fear is that these
very high expectations might be followed by disappointment and rising
frustration.

It is however very promising for deepening
democracy that in spite of our history of consistently rigged
elections, Nigerians refuse to be apathetic and maintain their belief
that democracy will eventually produce dividends. This refusal to give
up has been strengthened by confidence in the new leaders of key
institutions. The polls show that 76% of Nigerians have confidence in
President Goodluck Jonathan and 63% have confidence in Attahiru Jega’s
leadership of INEC. Even more significant is that 84% of Nigerians
believe that all will be ready for the April elections.

According to the polls, 77% of Nigerians believe
that the elections will be free, fair and credible. This response is
broken down along ethnic lines and the responses in order of confidence
are interesting – Ijaw 91%, Hausa-Fulani 74%, Igbo 70%, Yoruba 68% and
the Tiv 40%. I guess Goodluck and Jega need to reach out more to the
Tiv population.

The proof of this optimism in the coming elections
is expressed in the massive determination of Nigerians to get
registered for the elections. We have all observed people getting up at
4 a.m. to queue up in registration centres to get their voter’s cards.
Nigerians were buying fuel to run generators and purchasing ink for the
printers to facilitate the registration process.

Nigerians however need to temper their optimism
with vigilance. The future of credible elections in Nigeria relies not
only on President Goodluck Jonathan and Professor Attahiru Jega but
also on other stakeholders. The political parties have an important
role to play. Political parties in Nigeria have shown themselves to be
instruments used by unscrupulous political entrepreneurs for selfish
purposes. As we have seen from the recently concluded party primaries,
most of them acted in total disregard of the Electoral Act and imposed
candidates that had not emerged in genuine primary elections. They are
likely to continue to use their favourite instruments of state power,
money and violence to impose their candidates during the forthcoming
elections.

Indeed, the godfather syndrome makes it impossible
for true accountability to be practiced in parties. The fact that one
or two individuals bear the cost of running campaigns and funding of
other party activities leads to a privatisation of both party and state
machinery because government officials would naturally owe allegiance
to the political godfather who “put” them in office rather than to the
ordinary citizen.

Yes, it’s good that Nigerians have high optimism
for the coming elections. We must however strengthen this by closely
monitoring the elections as citizens. We must be there to count, escort
and protect our votes because as the survey shows, the improvement of
our lives depends on free, fair and credible elections.

The road to free and fair elections must be lined
with civic education and citizen engagement. The real challenge for
future elections is about enlightening the citizenry on how to defend
the sanctity of their votes: and showing ruling parties that they do
not own the country.

There’s been quite a bit of angst, south of the Sahara, about recent events in some Arab countries.

To be sure, not as
much as in the Arab world itself, where rulers fear that they can no
longer rely on the complicit acquiescence of the United States of
America in their fundamentalist/Islamist = Hamas/Hezbollah =
terrorist/destruction of Israel equation as an excuse for repression.

But in sub-Saharan
Africa, the commentariat has been exercised about whether it could
happen here, why it hasn’t happened here, and how docile Africans (and
in particular, Nigerians) are: quite a reversal from the belief of many
Africans that it was the Arab people who were spineless and
downtrodden! Only short memories can explain ignorance of the fact that
“it” has happened and continues to happen here.

In September 2009,
157 peaceful opposition protesters were killed in Conakry, the Guinean
capital. Before that, West Africa saw Ghana’s June 4th uprising in
1979, and Southern Africa had the continuing civilian resistance to
apartheid of which the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre and the 1976 Soweto
uprisings were bloody punctuation marks.

But as the world waits to see the outcome of the Egyptian revolution, some similarities with our own history are striking.

During the June 12
crisis, troops commanded by General Sani Abacha killed 194 Nigerians in
the streets of Lagos. The kind of restraint that informed the Egyptian
Army’s declaration that it would not fire on the people for making
“legitimate demands” was not a big feature of the Nigerian Army’s 1993
philosophy. Nowadays, even if cold-blooded firing on unarmed
demonstrators in the full glare of the international media might no
longer be acceptable, reports of the army-of-hostile-occupation
behaviour of troops quelling civilian unrest in places as far apart as
Jos, the Niger Delta and Zaki Biam suggest that our armed forces are
yet to fully imbibe the principles of ‘friendly relations with
civilians’.

Indeed, it was the
violence of Abacha’s soldiers that informed the decision of civil
society leaders to continue the June 12th protests by a ville morte
(dead city, no movement) strategy. And it worked: despite his bluster,
our dictator du jour, Ibrahim Babangida, was forced out.

But not only did
Babangida leave Abacha planted in the Transitional National Government
of Ernest Shonekan, he himself didn’t go anywhere. Similarly, Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak has ruled out a fate similar to that of
Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who reportedly fled with a gun to the
pilot’s head to dissuade him from turning the airplane back to Tunisia.
Instead, Mubarak insists that he will live (and eventually die) in
Egypt.

Of course, at 82,
Mubarak can hardly be hoping for the kind of comeback that our own
ex-dictators hanker after (with apparently only General Abdusalami
Abubakar immune to the disease). But despite the international arrest
warrant issued for Ben Ali, Mubarak is not unrealistic in looking
forward to a happy old age in the country of his birth if the fate of
Nigerian dictators is anything to go by.

Provided you go when you are advised to go:

Mubarak however,
insists that he will go at a time of his own choosing in keeping with
Egypt’s constitution. This might bring his fate more closely in line
with that of the same Sani Abacha. It is not for nothing that Nigerian
wags declared that ABACHA was an acronym for After Babangida Another
Criminal Has Arrived. His rule almost exactly mirrored that of his
military predecessor: civilian assassinations, phantom coups, attempted
coups, constitutional assemblies and so on.

Except that by the
time Abacha was ready for his own metamorphosis and subversion of the
democratic process only to find that the Nigerian people were no longer
afraid of his guns and soldiers; he failed to learn from Babangida’s
example. We have the battered face of Olisa Agbakoba, convener of
United Action for Democracy which called the ‘Five Million Man March’
in Lagos, as well as the dead of the Ibadan counter-demonstration and
the May 1st rally to remind us that the Nigerian people were indeed
ready to take risks and make sacrifices for their freedom in 1998.

Abacha’s fellow
generals certainly took note, and Nigeria being a military
dictatorship, the line of succession was already established. By
contrast, in Egypt Mubarak’s immediate successors were only moved into
place when the crisis was well underway, with the appointment of a new
vice-president and a new prime minister, both old soldiers.

Still, now that
they are in place, Mubarak should remind himself of what happened to
Abacha at the point where – unlike Babangida who tearfully agreed to
“step aside” – he insisted on steering the good ship ‘Nigeria’ onto the
rocks (i.e. continuing to resist the demands of the Nigerian people).

We were only told
that Abacha had died. But if a ship’s captain sets his course for the
rocks and resists the advice of his fellow-officers (who are at quite
as much risk of drowning as everybody else on board), nobody was really
all that surprised that the next thing we heard was: ‘Man Overboard’.

It was Archbishop Desmond Tutu who was credited in
1994 with coining that evocative expression Rainbow Nation, a phrase
that captured the hope and optimism of multiracial unity, but also
suggested the eclectic mix that makes up South Africa.

Here you have the most liberal constitution in the
world that recognises the right to homosexual unions resting cheek by
jowl as all the seven colours do, with the practice of virgin testing.

No surprise then that a rainbow nation should
produce a rainbow of issues including this latest on the subject of
sushi, a Japanese culinary delicacy and the serving of it. To be exact
sushi is prepared from a base of vinegared rice pressed and rolled
between fine thin sheets of seaweed with toppings or inserts of various
other ingredients consisting of fish, seafood and vegetables. Sashimi
is the term for sliced raw fish often included in sushi.

Japanese cuisine is regarded as an art form in
some quarters and a distinguishing feature of Japanese aesthetics for
outsiders is the complete marriage of form and substance, to wit: the
presentation of the food is just as paramount a consideration as the
taste. In other words, the reason for being of this cuisine might just
be considered the complete antithesis of man must whack, especially for
those whose lifestyles have soared way above the primary consideration
of just filling the gut.

Let me put it another way: gari, tuwo or pounded
yam have a clear purpose, sushi appears to be something you eat to
enjoy which of course would be why you would find sushi served on the
body of a naked woman, Nyotaimori to you, meaning female body
presentation or adorned body of a woman; or on a naked man Nantaimori.

This practice of using naked women as food
platters is described as rare, obscure even, and according to Wikipeda
has been outlawed in China for public health reasons. One can well
imagine a typical Nigerian reaction, what new form of poisoning is she
trying on me now?

Last October South African Kenny Kunene,
businessman and club owner had a big bash for his fortieth birthday.
The party was held at his club in tony Sandton and featured models
lying on tables in bikinis their bodies covered with sushi. This act
raised the hackles of ANC politicians, the Trade Union leadership and
women’s groups including the ANC Women’s League.

Undaunted, or perhaps spurred on by the
significant publicity Kunene repeated the stunt at the launching of his
latest club ZAR on the Cape Town waterfront late last month.

ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe was moved to
voice his condemnation of the “serving of sushi on the bodies of
scantily clad women,” calling it, “defamatory insensitive and
undermining of women’s integrity,” The Times wrote. As for that, women
must mind their own integrity, but that is another column. Kunene told
the paper he understood the party’s concerns and since he was humbled
by the way Mantashe handled the situation would desist in future from
serving sushi that way. He told the paper:

“If the ANC had not spoken I would have had Indian
and Chinese girls in Durban. I just wanted to change the plates to see
how the sushi tastes from one plate to the other – so South Africans
will miss the Indian plates and the Chinese plates,” he said bursting
into laughter’. Kunene also added he was not the only one who enjoyed
picking sushi off beautiful bodies. “White ladies were also enjoying
sushi off male sushi plates.”

Well that’s alright then equal opportunity pleasure!

Jokes aside what strikes one in all this is the
incongruity of the behaviour in the context of the setting. Put simply
it is a typical example of money miss road insensitivity that is
universal, but on this continent has a heightened impact because of the
wide gulf between those who have the means to live like this and the
conditions of the vast majority who do not.

Kunene, a former teacher and ex convict who served
6 years in prison for fraud, has argued in interviews that he now makes
his money honestly and has the right to enjoy it. He adds that he
donates substantial sums to charity and visits schools to tell children
that they can live well if they earn money the right way.

But it goes beyond that. This was an act in bad
taste and the depiction of a wealthy black man in the new South Africa
bending to eat food off the body of a naked woman left a bad taste in
the mouth. It had echoes of Idi Amin riding on the shoulders of a white
man and loving it because it signified a reversal of the status quo.
Surely we should have gone beyond that by now. There are far more
important goals to reach.

For a country with a reputation for abandoning its
citizens whenever they get into trouble abroad, Nigeria surprised the
world with the news, on Thursday, of the evacuation of 500 Nigerians
from Egypt. President Jonathan deserves our commendation for the
promptness of the action taken. The government should make every effort
to ensure that all Nigerians who wish to return to Nigeria are
airlifted as soon as possible.

We sympathise with all the Nigerians who were
caught up in the crisis, and who have had to leave their homes and
friends behind in Egypt. The reality for many is that making the
decision to quit is never an easy task, and one imagines that Egypt is
home for them as much as Nigeria is.

As the standoff in Egypt enters a second week, and
as a hitherto largely peaceful uprising degenerates into violence and
bloodshed, we urge President Hosni Mubarak to heed the voices of
reason, and the clear signs that he has outstayed his welcome, and
immediately relinquish power.

From his comments Mr. Mubarak is no doubt trapped
in that dangerous state of delusion common with tyrants and dictators.
On Thursday he told reporter Christiane Amanpour: “I was very unhappy
about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other.”
We therefore see a man who has, without any sense of irony or shame,
decided to award his own ‘unhappiness’ greater importance than the
overwhelming unhappiness of the people he has lorded it over for thirty
years. He doesn’t seem to realise that all those Egyptians who have
kept vigil in Tahrir Square since January 25 are determined to fight
him, the tyranny he represents, and his mass of diehard supporters, to
the very end.

Mubarak also told Amanpour: “I don’t care what
people say about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about
Egypt … You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen
if I step down now.” That is an argument that is as silly as it is
unoriginal. Every dictator from time immemorial has predicated his
continued stay in power on a similar reason. We recall the attempts of
the late General Sani Abacha to transform into a civilian president;
the desperate attempts to convince Nigerians that Abacha was the only
person “whom the cap fit”. And had President Obasanjo gone on to
publicly acknowledge the existence of a third term bid, we believe he
would have made a similar argument: ““I don’t care what people say
about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about Nigeria…” If
Mubarak really cares about Egypt, he should respect the clamour of its
frustrated citizens, step down at once, and immediately rein in his
bloodthirsty mobs that have since stepped up efforts to regain control
of Tahrir Square at all costs.

The recent happenings in Egypt also raise certain
questions about Nigeria, beyond the rather simplistic debate over
whether those uprisings we have seen in Tunisia and Egypt can happen
here or not.

Crises like the one in Egypt, and the Ivory Coast
debacle, are opportunities for Nigeria to (re)assert itself on the
diplomatic stage. At a White House press briefing on Tuesday President
Obama’s remarked that he had communicated to Mr. Mubarak “my belief
that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and
it must begin now.” From Nigeria it has mostly been silence so far,
apart from the triumphant announcement of the evacuation by the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

President Goodluck Jonathan should speak loud and
clear, and declare Nigeria’s position on the crisis. As Africa’s most
populated country, and one of its largest economies, and current
occupier of the chairmanship of regional body ECOWAS, Nigeria cannot
afford silence on this issue.

There are many who believe that the golden days of
Nigeria’s diplomacy, when we spoke with boldness and conviction
regarding our position on global affairs, are long behind us. President
Jonathan should realise that a time like this, is an opportunity to put
some verve into the distressingly quiescent diplomatic profile of the
giant of Africa.