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I doubt if former
vice president, Atiku Abubakar, aspirant for the presidential ticket of
the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, had quite last week’s events in
Tunisia in mind when he quoted the warning that “those who make
peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable”. But the
Tunisian revolution arrived nevertheless, in neat counterpoint to the
decision by delegates at the PDP convention in Abuja on the 13th of
this month that (at least as far as their presidential ticket went)
their hope was that the result of the April elections would be no
change at the top.

Not, it must be
emphasized, because change was made impossible, simply – apparently –
that it was deemed undesirable. The two events; one a national
catharsis played out before an international audience, the other, a
personal tragedy of only (and instantly limited) national concern,
suggest – particularly considering the calm with which his defeat was
greeted – that the unfortunate reality for Atiku is that for ‘the
people’, real change is about something rather more significant than
the settling of the precedence between the flea and the louse.

As might be
expected, Tunisia galvanised the Middle East commentariat, while
copycat self-immolation events attempting to replicate the alleged
trigger of the Tunisian revolution, although they failed to achieve
traction, certainly highlighted the festering despair of so much of
Arab youth, trapped in systems which offer little or no avenue for
peaceful change.

It had long been
Israel’s boast that it was the only democracy in the Middle East, and
its Arab neighbours could point to little in riposte, particularly
given their lukewarm to non-existent support for the democracy in
Palestine which expressed itself in an electoral preference for Hamas,
and Arab governments’ collusive acquiescence the sanctions and
restrictions imposed by the United States of America and the European
Union that stifled the Hamas-led government that was democratically
elected in 2006.

With only post-war
Iraq left to tout democratic credentials, the monarchies and
quasi-monarchies (presidents-for-life-then-my-son) of the Arab world
might all seem vulnerable to the same kind of upheaval that saw
President Ben Ali chased out of Tunisia by his angry subjects.

Of course they are
not all the same. Some Arab governments are very much alert to the need
for reform and keeping alive the hope that change remains possible.
Indeed, the establishment of the Arab Democracy Foundation in Qatar
would appear to be direct recognition of the need to get out ahead of
the yearnings of the people.

Naturally,
oil-rich, low population states like Qatar may have more leeway and
more time for reform than resource-poor, high population countries like
Tunisia but apart from the head-in-the-sand panicked condemnation of
Tunisians by the Brotherly Leader in Tripoli, still convinced that
(after 40 years) he IS the revolution, the urgent question for Arab
leaders is no longer simply how to contain or suppress yearnings for
change, but how to give expression to them.

Here at home, we
have already decided how we will make change possible: democratic
elections. Meaning firstly, elections which reflect the choices
actually made by the people, and secondly, the aspiration that one day
our collective choices will be about ourselves and what we want from
our government, rather than selecting which flavour of crumb we might
graciously be allowed to gather under the table where our political
warlords are sharing the national cake.

Perhaps that is a
long term aspiration, particularly when the said warlords seem so
determined to prevent the realisation of even the basic requirement of
an accurate count. Witness, for example, how swiftly calls started
coming for the Independent National Electoral Commission to scrap
electronic registration of voters by direct data capture. Who does not
know that political fixers are already registering as many of their
supporters as many times as possible? They are confident that contrary
to INEC’s assurances, multiple registration of voters will not be
detected, and that multiple registrants will not only be able to vote
on Election Day, but that they will either be able to vote as any times
as they like, or to have several otherwise ineligible persons vote on
their behalf.

After all, they
reason, is not exclusion and prosecution of multiple registrants what
Maurice Iwu threatened last time in 2007? And in the end, was it not
the dummies (writer included) who believed him who ended up looking
like fools?

Having registered
with little problem, said writer continues to hope that attempts to
sabotage, crash or overwhelm the present DDC voter registration will
fail. Actually, rather than give in to pressure to abandon electronic
voter registration, what is needed from INEC (as well obviously, as
upping its game) and as soon as possible, while the exercise is still
taking place – is a few (or a lot of) well-publicised cases of detected
double registration and speedy retribution for offenders, starting with
the penalty of exclusion from the register of voters.

On the other hand,
if INEC is in fact unable to detect multiple registrations, we might as
well know now. Then we will understand that some people still think it
is smart to make peaceful change, through democratic elections,
impossible. We can decide how long we are going to allow those idiots
to be right about taking us for fools who have no alternative.

Over the past week, the only issue in Nigeria has
been voter registration. The celebrated arrival of the direct data
capture machines did not translate into a smooth take off of the voter
registration process. The problems have been extensively discussed. The
training of the registration officers was insufficient and many of them
simply did not know how to use the equipment. Software glitches cropped
up with the finger print scanner and the printers in some cases did not
work.

With our legendary inventiveness, some Nigerians
have been seeking short cuts and ridiculous solutions. Some
registration officers are reported to have photographed the fingers
when they could not get the scanners to work, while others have been
wiping people’s fingers with various chemicals to remove possible
contaminants that were “annoying” the scanners. In the process, some
scanners have been ruined. Many people have actually been registered
and given cards without their fingers being scanned which makes their
registration illegal, null and void.

In many instances, the solutions were perfectly
straightforward. In some cases, the plastic seals on the finger print
scanners had not been removed, so naturally, the machines could not
read what was placed on them. In other cases, INEC staff had not
updated the software to resolve the known problem about “tropicalising”
the machines.

The result is that the there has been considerable
delay in the registration process. As we approach the end of the week,
I myself have been unable to register in spite of the fact that I have
been engaged in advocacy campaigns for every eligible Nigerian to come
out and register. My problem is that the area where I live in Abuja –
Sun City to the mechanics village area is newly built and did not exist
during the previous registration exercise. No DDC machines have been
programmed for such areas and it is a serious problem in many parts of
the Federal Capital city and other urban agglomerations.

However, along with many of my neighbours, I
continue to spend long hours at the nearest village with a DDC machine
determined to register so that we all can exercise our franchise. It is
imperative that INEC extend the registration period by at least two
weeks so that we can all partake in the exciting process of the
forthcoming credible elections that are being planned. I am aware that
there are legal difficulties to surmount to have the extension but the
registration is simply too important a process and we can find
solutions if we search for them. My reading of the situation is
positive. Nigerians are agonizing over the hitches in the registration
process because their civic consciousness is very high and most people
are determined to vote in the forthcoming elections. This means the
belief that Professor Attahiru Jega and his team will produce credible
elections remains high so citizens want to be part of the historical
moment when our political future w be decided. The agony of difficult
registration is therefore linked to the hope of consolidating democracy.

The political situation in the country is
presently very encouraging. It is clear that the forthcoming elections
will confirm what we know that one political party cannot be a behemoth
controlling the politics of over two-thirds of the country. Nigeria is
a federal country and four or five strong parties should emerge from
the elections.

Preparing for and addressing this outcome would
encourage the political class to negotiate alliances. The fact that the
candidate of the ruling party is from a minority zone without a huge
natural constituency means the chances for the opposition are real if
they can get their act together. It also means that there is a
possibility that the presidential election would require a run-off.

In many states of the country, ruling parties will probably change.
What this means is that the value of the vote is going to be very high.
Our votes will count in determining those who rule and those who do
not. The godfathers would become less important and less capable of
determining our political life. Yes indeed, the registration process is
agonising but we have hope for a greater political future. Political
parties should take note; their success depends on citizens and not
money, violence and electoral fraud.

A reader of my One
Man’s View of the CPC Convention wondered why I did not subject Messrs
Atiku Abubakar and Goodluck Jonathan to the same scrutiny.

Another said he
detected personal issues which he did not specify, as well as contempt
for the rural citizen who contributes more than the urban elite. He
said that “the qualification of mastery of English is a function of a
captive mind,” adding that the Chinese who have recently done more than
most to pull their people out of poverty never bothered to master the
English language.

All my writing is
the reflection of personal experience. I have had some experience
interviewing applicants for employment. It is the most interesting
candidate that receives the closest attention, the one that detains you
the longest. If I have not commented on Jonathan or Atiku then consider
the possibility that that explains why. Put another way, I chose to go
shopping in the General Buhari Department Store because I value good
reputation and it has a reputation as a good store selling good
products at affordable prices. I was disappointed that the products
that I was interested in as displayed in the store, and as I lifted and
closely inspected them, were of a very substandard quality. Hence, what
I wrote.

I said Buhari has a
poor speech writer. Let me explain why there should be no doubt about
that and why it matters. A writer must be conscious of the audience he
is addressing. If village people do not watch television, then he
should not use their language in his television address. A speech
writer should in addition be aware of who will deliver the speech.
English, like most human languages, contains synonyms, words which
convey the same or similar meanings as other words. If the writer knows
that the deliverer has a problem with the correct or intelligible
pronunciation of “fetch,” he should use “get.” If he does not know, or
if he does and doesn’t use the more accessible word, then it is clear
to me that he does not know his job. The point is that a speech should
not contain surprises which divert, rather than focus our attention.

Last year I saw in
an American journal the picture of a page in the draft of an address
prepared for US President Barack Obama. The President had made some
edits by hand. If you take a close look, you will notice that
everywhere there was a passive tense, Mr Obama had modified it with the
active voice. That was smart. He was to read it out loud. The active
voice works better. This is the sort of attentiveness that I require in
my leader. It is not an impossible ask nor is it foreign to Nigeria. We
had that kind of leader in Chief Awolowo.

The day after the
results of the 1979 elections were announced, Awolowo’s UPN held a
meeting at the Federal Palace Hotel in Lagos. After the meeting, a
radio reporter accosted Chief Awolowo with a question about the
controversy surrounding the interpretation of the declared results. The
way the reporter posed the question showed that he did not understand
the issue. What Awolowo did was to tell him that, rephrase the question
properly, and then answer it. I was a young boy at the time but I was
very much impressed. In fact I wrote an essay a few years ago about how
something else that Awolowo once said has had a lasting influence on my
life. If I appear hard on Buhari it is because he offers nothing to
inspire any young boy today.

Nevertheless, I was
well aware that my argument about the usage of English could be
dismissed as elite snobbery, hence the care I took to provide a
specific context for it. English is what unites us; if you want to
reach everyone then you stand a much better chance if you speak it in
an accessible manner. Another thing you could do, of course, if you are
the Nationalist you think you are is to speak in your native Hausa with
an English interpreter alongside you. Better yet, given that the
Chinese have a National language of their own, you could tell us your
plans for giving effect to the Constitutional recognition of Hausa,
Yoruba and Igbo. We will demand that those plans are made very clear.
How, for example, are you going to make Hausa an effective modern tool
of communication in Nigeria? Have you considered that despite our many
advanced-degree-awarding University Departments of Hausa with their
professors not possessed of captive minds, the only true Hausa
dictionary available is the result of the work done by an Englishman in
the 1930s? Have you noticed that the development of most of the new
information technology terminology in Hausa has been funded by the
Voice of America and the BBC? Is there an Igbo word for potassium
permanganate, and if not, how do you propose to create one? In which
schools will all this language learning take place? Do you have
sufficiently large numbers of speakers of Tiv able to teach Yoruba?
Provide a plan that has answers to these sorts of questions and I can
begin to take you seriously.

Confront me with an
argument that discussion about English or Hausa speech is really old
fashioned and not forward-looking and I will take you even more
seriously. Today’s world is one in which many young people are able to
conduct five or six conversations simultaneously using tools Made in
China, which is what enables the Chinese to do what they do for their
rural people. Dora Akunyili can express her horrow at the usage of the
term Naija, but it will not go away. A new version of English, and
Yoruba, and Igbo circumscribed by a 160 or 140 character communication
boundary is fast evolving. What new opportunities does it present for
Nigeria? What if General Buhari had not made an underwhelming personal
appearance at the convention at all? Imagine instead of that busy,
overcrowded podium, a large screen Made in Naija. In a large attractive
font, we are reading tweets or texts as Buhari sends his presumed
anti-corruption message from his home in Daura: “i wont steal n wont
let u,” “if u steal its jail 4 u,” “even if u r in d cpc.” He will have
his critics but I won’t be one of them. It will surprise in the right
way. It will capture the imagination of his immediate audience, but
also that of the outside world. Here was a leader with a novel approach
fully in tune with modern realities. Out of Nigeria! “i will ensure dat
all laws n rules r en4cd,” “if u will break dem beta leave d cpc now,”
“leave now.” It would have been interesting for me personally, as that
last text came in and focus switched to the audience, to see whether
Senator Faruk Bunza, who led the Convention to approve Buhari’s
nomination would get up and leave. Bunza, the same man who sent four of
his boys to my home to threaten me because I wrote a confidential
letter to him explaining why his plan to build a department store at a
bend on the road, on land crudely excised from one residence,
surrounded by two other residences was a bad idea, and why it was not
too late to convert the building into a residential one. The only
reason they didn’t beat me up, they said, was because I was not an
Nyamiri. If you do not have your vision of a good country articulated
in clear and unmistakable terms, such as is enforced by a 160 character
boundary, any old barbarian can rally with you.

NEXT’s comments
editors, clearly apprehensive about everyone getting along, deleted my
response to a comment by that infamously cheeky fellow in the comments
section of NEXT online news. The fellow owns the inscrutable
appellation of Truck Pusher.

He is sometimes
affectionately regarded, and sometimes reviled; an omnipresent
garrulous encyclopedia of a man or woman who very recently began to
claim that he is also an avid home cook who as a progressive monogamist
regularly and enthusiastically churns up meals for his current and
former wives. Last week he suggested that I use the Maggi version of
crayfish in my cooking of Ogbono soup. My deleted response:

“For the very last time Truck Pusher, I do not eat or cook with Maggi!”

The incidental
debate in the comments section was not actually about Maggi but about
Ogbono soup and what one was to put in it or exclude from it to make a
genuine Nigerian version of the soup. It was apparent from the debate
that many Nigerian cooks are “purists” when it comes to their choice of
soup ingredients: Crayfish is in; Maggi is in, Iru is in, pepper is in,
smoked fish is in; garlic is out, ginger is out, bay leaf is alien and
onions are strongly debated.

Those who argue
that Maggi is a classic Nigerian condiment are of course in a fashion
accurate. But the statement has many limitations. The stock cube
whether Maggi or Knorr or Royco can also be argued to be alien to the
Nigerian pot of soup. It can be argued to be alien to any pot of food.
The stock cube has no real resemblance to what it claims to represent.
It supposedly stands for the flavour of natural glutamates in meat,
chicken, crayfish, or vegetables, yet in form it is some vague powdery
substance held together by God knows what and preserved with some other
substances whose definition the layman is unsure of. Take for example
the stabilizer in the stock cube; what is a stabilizer anyway if it
isn’t that electronic device used for keeping NEPA sane.

Secondly in its
relationship to the mouth, the Maggi cube cannot be put on the tongue
on its own without causing some serious gagging. Without the addition
of water, its taste is pure acridity. It is basically inedible on its
own merit, so does it have a right to pretend that it is food or that
under any other label it is edible or an enhancer of taste?

It might be worthy
of mention that according to Maudlyn Park writing for Sahara Reporters
in her article “Shhhh! Maggi Cubes and big bubbly butts”, Congolese
women have found a novel use for the Maggi cube; have innovatively
discovered other parts of the body which will accept the Maggi cube
whole without cringing…Enough said

In its physical
similitude, its shape in no way or form follows nature’s shaping of
food. Real chicken stock made from a whole chicken in a generous pot of
water with herbs and spices and plain salt is renowned for being so
nourishing as to be considered medicinal. It is also an honest flavour
enhancer.

A stock or Maggi
cube on the other hand is convenience Umami, taste (questionable taste)
and nothing more. And for those who have found themselves reacting to
glutamates manipulated in laboratories, it can be a lot more in terms
of hazards to their health.

If from a table of
possible ingredients, the Nigerian picks out the bay leaf or garlic or
ginger or onion as the odd person, that choice needs to be strongly
questioned. At the least it is a superficial choice because many stock
cubes will profess to contain some form of onion or bay leaf anyway.
How can one, with any integrity snub ginger and garlic grown in Nigeria
with reassuring dirt still clinging to it at the point of purchase, and
choose in its stead, a stock cube!

Any Nigerian who
votes for the Maggi cube as the quintessential traditional Nigerian
condiment might be some class of purist, but he is the very worst kind.

I like the type of
Nigerian purist who swears by smelly Ogiri and Dadawa, fishy crayfish
and good plain homemade meat stock. In my opinion, that is the purist
worth his salt!

By the way,
Michelin star and celebrity chefs are known for their snobbery of stock
cubes; there is an unwritten code of conduct in which cooking with
stock cubes is considered unprofessional and dishonest. In that code of
conduct, in order to qualify even as a good home cook, one must be able
to make basic stock from scratch. I suppose all these reservations
don’t really apply to us Nigerians.

The conclusive point I suppose will still boil down to taste, since
a lot of eating is not about what is morally upright or even nutritious
but about what appeals to the taste buds. I believe that even by this
parameter…even where there is the comparison in taste between a pot
of Jollof rice cooked with Maggi, or a pot of Jollof rice cooked with
fresh homemade beef or chicken stock, there is no question that Jollof
rice cooked with wet, fresh, designer stock made up of chicken, ginger,
garlic, bay leaves, honey, hot pepper and salt wins and will always win
hands down!