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It is Friday, Jan.
14, in downtown Tunis. In the streets, we shout “No!” – a million
tongues together against the dictatorial, 23-year-long government of
President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Tear gas, bullets and death fly
above us. We are ambushed at the Barcelona metro station, one of the
city’s main transit hubs, and attacked with tear gas. I cover myself
with a black scarf as I run toward Bourguiba Avenue, which tourists
call the Tunisian Champs-Elysees. There, we are met with sticks and
rifles.

Counting our every
breath, we dodge bullets for many more blocks until we run into a wall
of police officers in civilian clothing. They order us brusquely into a
nearby metro station, pile us into trains and take up positions at each
end.

An old man near me
who had left his home to buy bread and got caught up in the
demonstration is gasping. I tear my scarf in two and give him half. I
would love to ask him what he thinks of the protests against the
government, but everyone is struggling against the tear gas.

That night, the
militias come out. In my apartment building, we hear bullets ringing
overhead. My wife is shaking. Word of raids and rapes has begun to be
broadcast on the radio and on the streets. She asks me, as she looks at
our 18-month-old son, Haroun, playing and laughing to himself: “What
will we do if they attack us? Please don’t defend me; take care of
Haroun.” I go out to see if our neighbours and I can take shifts
standing guard outside our building. I take a small kitchen knife and a
metal rod. I ring my neighbours’ bell. No answer; either they’re not at
home or they are panicked. I shout from the bottom of the building’s
staircase, “Neighbours, get down and let us prepare ourselves!” No
answer.

I return to our
apartment. My wife says, “No one’s there, of course.” I try to calm her
down, but Haroun is a rambunctious child and we can’t explain a state
of emergency to him. My brother, who is in the Tunisian Army, phones
and asks me how we are doing, telling me that his wife is also besieged
in the area where he is posted. My brother fails to reassure us.

Tunisian television
is making me nervous. Another politician is announcing, slowly, that he
is taking power, and he interrupts himself, saying: “By God Almighty,
protect yourselves.” A civilized nation is announcing its independence
from keeping the peace.

I can’t stay here
and keep looking my wife in the eye; I’m panicking too. So I grab an
ax, and kiss my wife on her forehead. I take my place on the building’s
steps, intoning, “either kill or be killed.” The night plods along,
heavy, murderous.

I hear that the
militias are driving around in requisitioned ambulances. They are
transforming the vehicles from carriers of mercy to carriers of death.
The country has suddenly become the setting for a Hollywood gangster
movie, its peaceful, enlightened people the extras.

Shots ring out, and
I hide behind a wall. The sounds of an army helicopter come from far
away. I slip back into my apartment to see my wife’s petrified,
questioning face. Haroun is dancing joyfully.

I try to reassure her, telling her that I am all right and that the army is protecting us with its helicopters.

I go back out to my
sentry post and decide to take refuge in the Quran. But I forget the
opening section, the Fatiha, with its prayers for God’s guidance; I
stumble over the lines, jumbling their order. I think of writing, and
feel for my pencil in my coat pocket.

Suddenly, bullets
ricochet all around me. I flatten myself on the ground. I wait to hear
the helicopter again before I return inside to reassure my family and
recharge my energy with Haroun’s enthusiasm.

On Saturday morning
we venture into the street to find our neighbourhood filled with
unfamiliar faces. The shopping centre near my home has been looted. I
go with my wife and son to a relative’s house to coordinate our
neighbourhood security.

With sticks and
stones, we take control of the neighbourhood. We spend that night
shooing away strangers and strange cars. In the morning we roam the
city looking for bread and milk for our children. There is no milk to
be found. Gradually, city residents become used to the state of
emergency and the curfew, and begin to enjoy the free time they now
have, especially since they are able to speak freely, able to openly
curse and ridicule Ben Ali and his corrupt family.

On Monday we are
told that a new “unity” government has formed. When Tunisians see that
some members of the old regime have been named to cabinet posts, there
is a new wave of disturbances, and people start saying that the
revolution has been stolen from them.

On Tuesday, young
people again take to the streets, demanding the dissolution of Ben
Ali’s party, the Democratic Constitutional Rally party, which has ruled
Tunisia since independence in 1956. Others argue that this risks being
a repeat of the purges of members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party in
Iraq, which contributed to the insurgency there. While I agree that it
may be impossible to dissolve the party without sending the country
into chaos, I think we have no choice but to try.

There are also
demonstrations at the offices of the largest opposition group over its
complicity with the old regime in the new government. By the end of the
day at least five ministers have stepped down, and nobody knows what
will come next.

As for myself, I
feel an overwhelming happiness that I will now be able to write freely.
A year and a half ago, one of my novels, which describes life under
oppression, was performed as a play at a cultural centre here. The
police monitored those of us involved constantly; none of the
journalists in attendance wrote reviews.

That is why I
support the revolution and, like so many of the young people, worry
that it will be stolen from us by the traitors, thieves and killers who
have ruled us for far too long.

Kamel Riahi is a novelist.

© 2011 The New York Times

Reports of the recent presidential primaries of
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have largely been based on
television footage of the exercise. Any deep political observers do
know, however, that the outcome of the presidential primaries or any
primaries at all is determined by events that are never captured by
television cameras. The PDP convention is no exception.

Atiku Abubakar had delivered a fiery speech
targeted at selling himself and unsell the candidacy of Goodluck
Jonathan. In his own speech, Jonathan spoke more about what he would do
if elected, with occasional jibes at his main rival. Serah Jibril’s
speech did not receive much attention because she was never considered
a major contestant in the election.

In the morning of the convention, there was
controversy around the format to be adopted for the exercise. The
election panel led by Professor Tunde Adeniran had adopted the
identification of states on the ballot boxes. The Atiku Campaign
opposed this, arguing that the format will intimidate the delegates
from freely expressing their choice among the candidates. Their
argument was that state governors who are standing election for a
second term will not allow the defeat of President Jonathan in their
states otherwise; he might use his position as President to work
against their election in April.

Another argument of the Atiku Campaign is that in
an environment where agencies like the EFCC is used by the incumbent
government to fight political battles, every governor will work for the
victory of Jonathan in their states. Finally, it was argued that since
Chief Tony Anenih, a Jonathan promoter, had threatened that any
delegate who voted for Atiku in the South-South would be fished out,
tagging the ballot boxes with the names of the states will frighten
delegates from freely expressing their choice. The Jonathan camp was
reportedly averse to these arguments. In spite of hours of debate, the
election panel went ahead to tag the ballot boxes with the names of
states.

Another bone of contention in the weeks ahead of
the election was the list of delegates. The Atiku Campaign and the
National Secretariat of the PDP were engaged in a battle of wits over
this. Three weeks to the election, the Atiku Campaign addressed the
media in which it alerted that the ground rules for the election had
not been released. It also requested that the list of delegates should
be made available to all campaign organizations.

There were crises over the accreditation of
delegates. The tags for delegates were handed over to state governors.
The governors, in turn chose which delegates to accredit for the
election. In most of the states, delegates identified as being
sympathetic to Atiku were denied accreditation. The states in this
category included Adamawa where most members of the State House of
Assembly who were sympathetic to Atiku were denied accreditation. The
others include Ogun State where members of G15, members of the state
legislature estranged from Governor Gbenga Daniel and who had openly
supported Atiku were denied accreditation by the governor. The same was
reported by delegates in Akwa Ibom, Cross River,Jigawa, Gombe, Kwara,
Oyo, Benue, Kogi, Nasarawa and Plateau states. In those states, the
delegate’s tags meant for these delegates were reportedly given to
other persons who claimed to be the delegates.

Perhaps, the most popular television footage of
the primaries was that of the Minister of Youths, Senator Olasunkanmi
Akinlabi, who stood at the polling booth directing delegates from Osun
State on who they should vote for. As the delegates walked into the
booth, he checked as they wrote on the ballot, sometimes pointedly
instructing them on what to write. This went on for several minutes
before he was confronted by officials of the Atiku Campaign
Organization. The same experience was replicated in Ondo, Ekiti, Oyo,
Kwara, Gombe, Adamawa, Anambra, Cross-Rivers and Benue State among
others where identified officials supervised delegates to vote for
President Jonathan.

The Election Panel was flooded with complaints but
its ability to contain many of these practices had been put in question
for several days by the Atiku Campaign Organization. The committee was
populated by supporters of President Jonathan. Its chairman, Prof.
Tunde Adeniran, the Chairman of Universal Basic Education (UBEC), is a
member of the South-West Coordination Committee for the Jonathan /Sambo
Campaign Organization.

These aspects of the convention were compounded by
the now open story of the offer of $7,000 to each of the 3,500
delegates by President Jonathan’s men to “defray” their transport cost
to Abuja.

The conduct of the PDP primaries may just be a rehearsal for how Jonathan will conduct the April presidential elections.

Mr. Ofodile wrote in from Abuja.

My 2011 starts the way 2010 began: wondering where my seven-year-old son is and mourning our enforced separation. In a nutshell, no change in a painful situation as his father continues to deny me custody of and access to our son.

One divorce and a re-marriage later came June 26, 2009, a date I will never forget. As I prepared to board the plane to take us to Boston for me to start a Masters program, my son was pulled from my arms and for twelve months I could not see him and had very limited access.

When I returned to Nigeria, I expected to be able to take my son home where he belongs, but for some reason, it makes sense to his father that our son is raised not by his parents but by a paternal uncle and his wife.

When my son was taken from me, my identity as a mother was brutalised and my belief in God and society shaken to its core. I waited for the heavens to fall for this injustice. Nothing. I waited for the clarion call of angels who guard the hearts of mothers. Silence. It took me close to a year of agonized pondering to understand why. We have a saying in Islam: whoever sees something wrong should change it with their hand; if not, then with their tongue; and if not, then with their heart. If I’m honest, I had done none of these things when I saw injustice around me. Like most Nigerians, I did not speak. And now there was no one to speak for me.

How does a society which worships parenthood separate babies from their mothers for no just cause? Why do men use children to punish or hold on to women? And what is it about our culture that makes it so easy to ignore and ill treat children and young people?

When inexplicable things happen you look for answers and explanations the same way you look for missing keys: under the table, between the cracks of chairs, in jacket pockets…everywhere and anywhere. I found to my surprise that what has happened to me happens every day. Women comfort and oppress me in turn; telling me ‘this is a man’s world’, ‘stay in your corner and pray’ and ‘your son will find you when he grows up’.

In Nigeria – I am a woman first before I am anything else. I am expected to be a certain way, and have certain expectations and to know my place. Then, I am in the same position as the average man. Not crowned by ill-gotten wealth nor cloaked by the power of ill-used public office and so like most Nigerians, the system is not supposed to work for me. I am told God is my only hope; my sword and my shield. I smile through my tears; how easily we forget that God works in mysterious ways. I think of a Hadith which says in response to a question put to Prophet Muhammad PBUH about whether a camel owner should tether his camel or trust in God, Prophet Muhammad answered ‘ tie your camel and trust in God’.

I decided to tie my camel and take a different route; I filed a lawsuit.

Most of the sisters in sorrow I have met on this journey or whose stories have crossed mine, have taken the path of least resistance. One weeps outside the gates of the house and school where her four daughters are being kept from her. Another waited 4,380 days (the time it takes the earth to go round the sun 12 times) for the son she last saw when he was 3 to find her. And others stare at their adult children, now near strangers, with unfamiliar traits. On all sides there is pain.

It is for these women and their children, our children, that I share my story, because my story like theirs is not unique. However, what makes our stories different is how we choose to interpret them and use them to empower not only ourselves but those around us.

Gradually my thoughts stopped leading me to unanswerable questions outside the realm of my influence and I found myself wondering: what am I supposed to learn from this experience? How are other mothers like me coping, what are the children thinking and what can I do to help?

There is no poem, no picture, no perfume on earth that captures the depth and tenderness of a mother’s love. It is this tenderness that I hear keeps Death at bay when a mother is near. It is said that Death waits patiently for that second when a mother’s eyes are averted from the face of her child before taking the life of that child away. But humans have no such sensibilities and so openly and with impunity they tear children away from mothers and damage our collective psyche.

We tell ourselves that the decay in our society is because we have lost our values and followed the western world. The truth is we have lost the best of our ways and adopted only the worst from outside. We have traded the strength of the Aba women and the governance of Hausa Queens for western consumerism. We continue to buy machines we cannot make or fix and continue to treat children as chattel, while ignoring the science of psychology. In the West the young have a voice, they thrive and innovate, ours use drugs in the north to escape a bleak future and in the south, use arms to rage against inequity and to join the band of greed. The latest shared iniquity – the defilement of a young girl by policemen in Kano, might not have happened if this child lived with her mother and had not had to ‘travel’ to visit her. How many of our children are put at risk daily for reasons which dissolve under scrutiny?

As I continue on my path, I wish mothers like me would realize that what makes our stories powerful is how we can take what we have learned from our experiences to deal with our narratives from yesterday, the questions that haunt us today and our dreams for tomorrow.

My dream for tomorrow is that in a country where apathy, masked as piety and nobility, has risen to an art form, we each see something wrong and change it with our hands or our tongues or at the very least with our hearts.

Ayisha Osori is a writer and lawyer. She invites
all mothers and children who have experienced forced separations due to
divorce, death etc. to share their stories at aosori@yahoo.com

Phew! Yes, you can
exhale now, anti-climax or not! In one fell swoop, the former Governor
of Lagos State, ASIWAJU Bola Tinubu, spoilt months of ‘sweet’ future
gist which would have thrived, whether true or not, on how or why the
party did not give the Governor of Lagos State a second term ticket.
“… by the power conferred on me by the ACN, and following
consultations with the leaders and members of the party, I wish, on
their behalf, to announce the final endorsement for re-election of
Governor Babatunde Fashola”, said the Leader of the Action Congress of
Nigeria [ACN], Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Date was Wednesday January 5, 2011;
Venue was the Lagos State Party secretariat in Ikeja; in attendance
were leaders of the party, Federal and State Legislators of the ACN,
Local Government officials, and members of the State Executive Council,
women and youths. The jubilation and applause was spontaneous; fans of
FASH, who have been waiting to exhale, can finally do so! Imagine
spoiling a serious gist that’s guaranteed to sell any paper,

Just like that! The
story made for good reading anytime. Don’t forget: this is a country
that thrives on gist. And we love our gist to come with a little dose
of the truth/reality, no matter how tiny [less than 1% suffices]. This
means that once you know someone who lives in the same house with
FASH’s neighbour’s cousin’s in-law’s driver, everyone will believe you!
Add to that, a semblance of signs that you are ‘doing well’, [everyone
will assume it’s obviously as a result of your seeming connection],
then you will always be summoned by people to come and share the latest
gist on the alleged face-off. Of course, to maintain your relevance,
you shall not give the impression that you are nobody and do not know
gist emanating from FASH’s inner caucus, will you? So, you let rip, any
which way! “Do you know ASIWAJU stormed out of a meeting where
prominent Elders of the State gathered to ‘beg’ him to please let FASH
go for a second term?” While the neighbours are still digesting that,
you go for the kill, adding for maximum effect: “Dem say e dey jealous
say the Governor Don too work, sotay e wan spoil ASIWAJU record, with
all this award wey e dey carry up and down”.

Guess what? We all
lapped it up; we were always looking out for those little tell-tale
signs confirming that all was indeed not well. The two were actors in a
movie they could not remember agreeing to participate in. Damned if
they did; Damned if they didn’t! ASIWAJU does not attend FASH’s
birthday? Ah-Haa, the rift is real! They turn up hand-in-hand,
together, in the same fabric, sewn in the same style, or any event? We
wrinkle our noses at their attempt to hoodwink us into thinking they
are cool together! Or FASH must have laid ambush for the man: “as soon
as ASIWAJU came down from his car, FASH jumped and muscled in to start
walking beside him; you know ASIWAJU now, he didn’t want to embarrass
the boy by walking away”. They appeared together with the Chairman of
their party and said all was well? Who listened? Who cared? Of what
value was that denial? The gist was not in there not being a fight; the
gist was in there being a fight! And the gist was sweeter if only in
the purported fight continuing until about this time when FASH is
finally not given the party ticket.

We would never have
stopped talking about how the ACN shot itself in the foot by
‘wickeding’ FASH. “No mind those AC people; u no say FASH no be
politician”. Was it conceivable that the party would have denied the
Governor the ticket? Truly speaking? This, a Governor adjudged by
everyone, including Governors of rival parties, as the best performing
Governor in the country? In fact, some had wanted the Governor to
decamp to another party because he is the brand that the people will
vote for. In other words, any party he joined would be sure to win.

Many wondered why,
in the face of seeming disrespect from a reportedly unappreciative
party hierarchy, the Governor opted to remain within. Now, you know!
You may say the loss of Ikorodu, if only for a few months, brought
about a change of heart, but then is anyone admitting that any heart
changed, at all? Whatever! What is not in doubt is that FASH has got
his swagger back. But is the ACN’s endorsement too little, too late?

At the beginning of
the year the Federal Government announced the closure of primary and
secondary schools nationwide to enable the Independent National
Electoral Commission make use of their premises for the voters
registration exercise.

That in itself was
a dubious decision, rightly condemned by all well-meaning Nigerians. It
shows Nigeria up for what it is, one of those for which the adjective,
“Orwellian” (associated with the novel, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’),
appears to have been created. In such societies government appears to
exist primarily for the purpose of oppressing citizens and restricting
freedom – in this case the rights of children to a decent education.

None of the
protests moved the government, it went ahead to enforce its decision.
And so the schools were shut, and the students, who, like the rest of
the citizenry, are often to be found bearing the brunt of clueless
political leadership, are at home.

But that is not all there is to the story.

We have to turn to
George Orwell again, to make sense of this. This time it is his novel
‘Animal Farm’, whose very famous premise is that “all animals are
equal, but some are more equal than others.” (And nowhere is that truer
than in the Nigerian context. Petty thieves are asked to go directly to
jail, while the thieving elite are allowed to serve out their sentences
in private hospitals).

That Orwellian
‘equality’ ended up being applied to the government directive on school
closure. In a country of discretionary “waivers”, one more was not
going to be a big deal. All schools are equal, yes, but some are more
equal than others.

One of those more
equal schools is The American International School, Abuja. Last week we
reported that the school, which appears to have links to the American
Embassy in Nigeria, and “which counts among its pupils and students
children of prominent senators, ministers, governors, and even the
president – resumed on January 10 and has remained open ever since,
running a normal school programme.”

Right under the
nose of the authorities in Abuja, the American International School
decided to defy a government directive. It is hard to know what their
defence would have been – perhaps they assumed the diplomatic
affiliation earned them some immunity of sorts. Or perhaps they
concluded (rightly in this case, we must admit) that the American
system of education they run does not permit such a closure on the
basis of a voters registration process.

However, after our
exclusive story on this defiance of the government order, the situation
changed. And so, two days after our initial story, we reported that
“the school’s website [announced] the closure of the school yesterday
in a message posted by Amy Uzoewulu, the director: ‘In compliance with
the Nigerian Government’s directive, AISA will reopen for preschool
through Grade 8 on Tuesday, February 1, 2011.’

A teacher in the
school later told our reporter: “Go and read NEXT newspaper of
yesterday (Tuesday edition) and you will know why we have to close.”

So, finally, the
President’s children are at home, like all other children. That is the
proper thing. If government officials insist on permitting mindless
decisions then they should not be allowed to exempt their kin.
Hopefully in future we will find a way to prevent our leaders from
sending their children to school abroad while our universities languish
beneath the burden of strikes and empty laboratories

The successful
closure of the government-defying American International School
notwithstanding, the real tragedy still remains – that Nigeria’s
schools will remain closed for another three weeks because of an
electoral process that has in the past only succeeded in producing
politicians who have never had anything of value to contribute to the
future of these children.