Nigeria Content Online

President Jonathan
declared his intentions for the 2011 election on Facebook two nights
ago, and will formally announce it on Saturday, September 18th. His
actions have been loud and clear in terms of what he believes should be
his priority for Nigeria, namely, electoral reform, electricity, and
Niger Delta. I am not sure in what order those priorities are, but if I
were one of his advisers, the order will be electricity, electricity,
electricity.

This is my premise:
once you have electricity, the other two will quickly fall into place.
For example, Nigeria recently approved close to $500 million for the
Independent Electoral Commission to purchase 120,000 computers and
other equipment to register Nigerian voters.

Even if the computers are battery operated, the batteries may need to be recharged at some point.

The people of Niger
Delta want to make progress and succeed, but they are handicapped by
lack of infrastructure, specifically electricity. If everyone in Niger
Delta has electricity, the problems will begin to disappear fast.

Nigeria, a country
of 150 million people generates 3,500 megawatts of power while the city
of Los Angeles, generates 7,200 megawatts for its 4 million residents;
yet, most Nigerian leaders, except President Jonathan have been aiming
for 10,000 megawatts for the last 10 years. Nigeria needs 150,000
megawatts now, and if you build it, the demand will be even more.

Nigeria’s
telecommunications has grown from 500,000 lines to 70 million lines in
less than 10 years, and the industry has attracted over $12 billion in
private investments, according to a statement made by President
Jonathan. Ten years ago, most people could have argued that Nigeria
should not dream of having 70 million lines, but now we know 70 million
lines is not enough. If we aim for 150,000 megawatts, the possibility
exists that we can attract over $100 billion in foreign investments
during the build out.

Jonathan was quoted
as saying, “South Africa, a nation of some 47 million people generates
about 50,000 megawatts. For Nigeria, a nation of 150 million people to
realise the ambition of becoming one of the 20 largest economies in the
world by the year 2020, we should be thinking of producing some 80,000
megawatts as soon as possible.”

The operative word
used by the president, is “as soon as possible”, that is why complete
privatisation and emergency measures are needed. Our first objective
should be 24/7 power for every Nigerian household immediately, by any
means necessary, regardless of vision 20/20. This is why Capital
Investment Group is offering to build, finance and deliver 4,000
megawatts within the next two years. We understand the urgency of the
situation.

We plan to use
distributive generation to provide power across Nigeria faster than it
is currently being done, by focusing on simultaneous build out in each
state. It is a lot easier and faster to build 10 megawatts of power in
one locality than it is to build one power plant of 1,000 megawatts.
So, if each local government concentrates on building 5 to 10
megawatts, it is even possible to deliver our 4,000 megawatts in less
than a year.

Eventually, Nigeria
may decide to build the 1,000 or 3,000 single power plants, but right
now we need power, and since the 1,000 or 3,000 megawatts plants take
at least 3-4 years to deliver, we must explore the fastest alternative
now, while we plan long term mega plants. Let us generate power now for
our people and give them the opportunity to build and manage the plants
themselves.

The recommendation
of the President’s task force may be on the right track, but it needs
to go further. It is okay for the federal government to have some say
in transmission, but having one entity control all transmission
throughout the country is courting the same disaster that has plagued
us for the last 30 years. Every state and every locality must be given
the opportunity to generate their own power by law.

Transmission should
be split up among three or four groups of independent public utility
commissions that are governed by specific laws. The members of the
commission may be appointed by the president or the state governor, but
neither the president nor the state governor should have the ability to
fire members of the commission, so that they would be able to discharge
their duties faithfully without the fear of termination or the desire
to favour any government policy that may be detrimental to the
stability of the industry.

To achieve
stability and succeed with the privatisation initiative, Nigeria needs
to attract investors, especially foreign ones. How do you attract
foreign investors when your country has just been declared the “13th
worst country to operate business”?

So Nigerian
leaders need to ask themselves, what can I do today to make my country
more stable. Is zoning more important or political stability?

Time is of the
essence, and the rest of the world is moving on; therefore, I say to
Nigerians, make your voices heard, and force the government to listen
to you.

Don’t just pray
for electricity, demand it. Don’t just pray for good leaders, help
elect some. Join our movement by logging on to “Nigeria let there be
light.”

Send us an email
if you want to make a contribution or have ideas on how we can deliver
power faster. We need you and Nigeria needs you.

Let’s go.

Toyin Dawodu is the Managing partner of CapitalInvestment Group Email: toyin@capvestgroup.com

Nigerians are such
ungrateful people. It is only here that the presidential ambition of
former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, would be opposed;
elsewhere, in recognition of his contribution to national development,
Babangida would not only get the PDP ticket uncontested, but go on to
win the presidential polls with the biggest landslide in electoral
history. Even Saddam Hussein’s regular 99 percent of all votes cast
would be child’s play in comparison.

Have we forgotten
so soon how this former general, at great personal risk overthrew the
uncompromising administration of Buhari/ Idiagbon and freed Nigeria
from a government that was using a whopping 42 percent of national
income to pay off foreign debts when Nigerians had to queue for
essential commodities?

Our politicians are
particularly unappreciative. Why should any politician have second
thoughts about working for the man who freed Second Republic
politicians from the draconian prison sentences handed them by the
Buhari regime? Have they forgotten that Babangida not only freed them
from prison, but also returned the billions they allegedly stole from
Nigerians?

It is only an
ungrateful people that would forget the eight glorious years Babangida
gave Nigeria. This man decided that our currency, the naira had no
business being more valuable than the almighty American dollar and
promptly devalued it with his second tier foreign exchange market. That
was only in 1986, the same year he dissolved Nigeria’s Commodity Boards
and left farmers of cash crops to the mercy of ‘market forces’.

Have we forgotten
so soon that for the first time in our history, a leader actually
engaged the citizenry in debate on whether to collect dubious loans
from the International Monetary Fund? We all gave a resounding NO, but
Babangida could see what we couldn’t. So he went ahead and took the
loan, along with the bitter pill of a Structural Adjustment Programme.
The structure of Nigeria has never been the same.

It is truly strange
that a man who did so much for the country would face the possibility
of being rubbished by the same people he worked so hard to serve.

It is unfortunate
that Babangida is not picking an automatic ticket to the presidency as
a birthright. This man committed billions of naira to the longest
political transition programme anywhere in the world. The record still
stands.

At the end of the
transition, he again saw what 14 million Nigerian voters could not see
and promptly annulled the election. He did it in the national interest,
but we still refuse to see the great service he did us.

Babangida has always had the interest of Nigeria at heart, in or out of office.

Seeing that the
country was teetering on the brink of disintegration, he promptly
imposed Obasanjo as president in 1999. Evidently, we are yet to fully
recover from the damage to our collective psyche inflicted by
Obasanjo’s eight years, otherwise, we would all be jostling to usher in
the Prince of the Niger for another eight golden years.

Babangida knows
more than all Nigerians combined; that is why we must take him
seriously when he says he will not only win the PDP primaries, but also
trounce Buhari and other pretenders to the throne. Sadly, this time
around, he will not give us another eight precious years of his life.
He has told us to be content with only four as he will be in his mid
seventies by the time he completes his four years. But the four years
will be magical and will transform Nigeria beyond belief.

When Babangida
becomes president, he will re-appoint the indefatigable Michael
Aondoakaa Minister of Justice and Attorney General. That charlatan
Jonathan should never have sacked him. As president, Babangida will
embark on national reconciliation beginning with the immediate
rehabilitation of James Ibori. All charges would be dropped. All assets
seized from Tafa Balogun, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and others would be
returned. All pending cases against politicians and bankers would be
dropped in the spirit of reconciliation.

Again, for
transparency and accountability, President Babangida will order a probe
of Obasanjo’s eight wasted years, Yar’Adua’s useless interregnum and
Jonathan’s costly ‘no zoning’ jamborees. All the trillions missing from
the NNPC, the Federation Account, LNG, and ‘excess’ crude account will
be traced and returned to the country. He will arrest Professor Jega
and lock him up as he did before.

The EFCC and the
ICPC, those needless irritants would be scrapped. That troublemaker at
the CBN Sanusi would be dismissed. He will transform Nigeria to a Land
of Milk and Honey and we will live happily ever after.

When Babangida becomes president…

My white friend, my good friend, welcome to my country, the happiest nation on earth.

Yes, that was hectic but we made it through immigration and customs.

I must apologise for hiding you behind newspapers as if I was ashamed of bringing a friend like you into my country.

No, not at all. I
was not hiding you because Nigerian Customs will demand money from me
for an oyinbo like you. I think you read too much on your Department of
States website before this trip. Have I ever entered your country
without your immigration officers flipping through my passport as if it
is a magazine on how to make a dirty bomb? And please don’t put me in
trouble, we don’t blab about bribing like that here. We have code words
like “oga wetin dey” or “oga na weekend o”. This is Lagos you need to
be a bit cautious!

You ask too many questions, but if you must know – oyinbo means white person. No, it is not like the N word in America.

Oh you mean why the airport is not well lit and the road leading to town is dark? Well that is our way of saving on energy.

You Americans keep preaching about energy conservation and going green.

So don’t question my country for contributing its quota to saving the ozone layer.

Yes, I know that we
are an oil producing country and don’t have to worry about energy
saving that much, but I am just explaining to you the main reason why
everywhere is dark and we have to rely on the car’s headlights to get
home tonight.

Relax man! Why are
you so nervous each time we stop at a police checkpoint as if this is
the first time you are seeing an AK47 dangling carelessly.

I know it is
possible for it to go off but you need to relax and stop being so
jittery, I thought you said you could handle anything before we left
America?

What is it with all these complaints?

You are in Lagos, the earlier you adjust the better and the more fun we’ll have.

No we cannot play
computer games while we are driving home from the airport, some Lagos
eyes can see clearly in the dark. How do you think they kidnapped
Elizabeth? Abeg, let’s not draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.

We are home.
Welcome to my humble abode. I hope you can cope? And sorry for the
bumpy ride here, the roads get like that during rainy season. Hey you
want to hear something funny? In the morning when I am rushing to the
office and have no time to brew coffee, I just dump a spoonful of
instant coffee, sugar, powdered milk and hot water in a flask. By the
time I drive for a mile, my coffee has shaken and made itself, ready to
drink – hahahaha.

Why aren’t you laughing, you are too uptight. Here in my beautiful country, you must laugh not to cry.

My house is a bit hot and stuffy; let’s manage the fan.

Sorry I cannot open
the windows; the noise will drive you bananas. And you need to take
that jacket off anyway; you are in the tropics now.

You are too funny, no I don’t have a Wi-Fi for you to check your email, let’s do that in the office tomorrow.

No, there is no sawmill around here; those are my neighbours’ generators. And mine.

Yeah, this was where your sister, my darling Elizabeth of blessed memory, used to live and she never complained once.

No, I am not crying
for her, something got in my eye. But I miss her. Yes, I know – she is
alive and well, though I won’t recognise her even if I bumped into her
in an office.

Anyway, let’s not
talk about stolen apples. You are Elizabeth’s relative, so I will take
you places where you will be adored as well. I bet people will be
whispering about you in offices and cafes.

We have cafes,
c’mon now! Where do you think you are, Ubiaja? Lagos is hip; forget the
fact that electricity is aweweriore here, we rock in our squalor!

As I was saying,
you will have to tell my friends how you ship so many books, games, and
cool stuff for me without breaking my bank account.

Oh, I almost forgot one very important thing; we need to figure out how you can make me money.

Sorry we can’t do
that my friend, not all of us are corrupt as you people think, I don’t
pad contracts, and don’t tell me that is why they call you IPAD in
America!

Ok now I must
change your name, here in Nigeria names are meaningful. I hereby name
you Ipadeola, which was probably your original name before that Steve
Jobs guy shortened it to iPAD, because you people cannot pronounce
African names. Yes, iPadeola is a beautiful Yoruba name.

Now let’s get some rest, but please sing me a lullaby or play me Sam
Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come! I just heard a good friend of mine has
thrown in his round hat for the presidential race.

According
to Richard Cust, Professor of Early Modern History early modern England
was a “solidly hierarchical society”, defined by acts of landowning,
hunting and hospitality (i.e. the hosting of receptions and dinner
parties).

Mr. Cust said this in a May 2009 University of Birmingham inaugural lecture, titled “The Invention of Snobbery in Early Modern England”.

The English have long
been masters of what Cust described as a “culture of distancing and
distinction; elitism; social condescension.” According to him, in a bid
to set themselves apart from the ranks of the undistinguished many
Englishmen resorted to tracing their ancestries as far back as they
could. Some went as far as the Norman Conquest. In at least one case a
gentleman traced his genealogy to Noah’s Ark.

Cust’s
lecture touched on a number of interesting issues, such as the
obsession of many English families in early modern England with
possessing “Coats of Arms”, as markers of “collective honour”, or for
the purposes of “mask[ing] ancestral and social origins.” All of these
were of course the beginnings of the (still-baffling and cruel) British
class system.

Fortunately
for us in Nigeria, however, the ‘Snob’ industry is nowhere near as
complicated as the English version. Trust Nigerians to simplify their
imports, even whilst managing to maintain their size and importance.
Where you stand in the Nigerian society is determined primarily by how
much money you have today, not by how much you had last year, or how
much your father had forty years ago. It really doesn’t matter where
you are coming from, as long as you have done well for yourself. It
also doesn’t matter by what route you arrived at your current financial
success – politics, business, the civil service, Internet fraud,
religion – everyone is welcome at the table of abundance.

As
the Yoruba saying goes, money made from carrying shit will not smell of
shit. Unlike the English system, designed to run on a certain, ruthless
form of exclusivity, the sky seems big enough for all birds to fly in
Nigeria. We are pragmatic people, the edges of our practicality having
been honed by years of wildly volatile economic conditions.

I
once watched a documentary, about an Englishwoman whose family owned
thousands of acres of land, upon which sat a mansion in which
generations of the family had lived. The woman, finding it difficult to
maintain the property, then decided to give guided tours to visitors,
as a means of raising money. In line with traditional British obsession
with the past, she was sure that people would visit, awed by the mix of
grandeur and ancient history that she had inherited. England is laden
with the ghosts and shadows of aristocratic backgrounds like these,
sustained on the leftovers of proud pasts.

If
that woman lived in Nigeria, a sad fate would await her. Lacking money
today, her noble past would be unable to deliver her. Nigerians do not
reckon much with the past. Which is what I think explains the gross
disrespect we extend to our museums. No one is permitted to live on
past wealth, or forgiven for attempting to do so. On the other hand
forgiveness for past poverty is readily dispensed. The man who today
struggles to pay his children’s school fees, will have the chance to
start afresh when tomorrow he becomes a local government chairman rich
enough to export all his children to private school in England. By the
time the children return speaking like native English people, the man’s
place in the Nigerian social pecking order is all but assured.

I
doubt that money would buy “class” in England. In Nigeria, the case is
different. Even though there are occasional hints of a ‘taxonomy’ –
“Old Money” and “New Money” and “Money-Miss-Road” -in the final
analysis, all monies are one and the same thing. Chieftaincy titles,
honorary doctorates and praise singers do not discriminate between one
form of money and another. Money indeed matters, and God help you if
you think that a mouth fluent in English will make up for a pocket that
is not fluent in money. You will be told point-blank that you are only
“blowing grammar!” Polite conversation was also something that the
English paid attention to. The higher your class the more adept you
were in the ‘Art of Polite Conversation’. Coarse and rough and vulgar
talk was for the bottom of the social heap. In contrast, rich Nigerians
have no qualms about overlooking all laws of conversational decency.
They are allowed to be shamelessly coarse, to throw, “Bullshit! Do you
know who I am?” at everyone who seems to be getting in their way.

Nigeria
certainly has its laws, which anyone aspiring to ‘stand-out’ would do
well to learn. One example: The First Law of “shining”, as follows:
“The more the darkness you surround yourself with, the brighter you
will shine”. It is this law that explains why there are streets that
have only one house with its lights on, while the rest remain at the
mercy of PHCN, mournful in the glow of the powerful lamps from the Big
Man’s house. Welcome, all ye intending snobs, to Nigeria.

Fresh from their one day strike that left
Nigerians underwhelmed and the presidency obviously scrambling to
prevent a disruption of the launch of its power plan, staff of the
Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), our spectacularly inept
electricity utility, have announced a resolve to fight the federal
government were it to go ahead with the plans to dramatically
restructure the industry.

The planned deregulation of the sector will
enthrone private electricity suppliers , to be watched over by a strong
regulatory agency.

This plan will usher in an environment very much
like what is happening in the telecommunications sector now, where
competition is stiff among operators and creativity has brought much
choice and access to telephones, and now the internet, to the customer.

Both sectors used to have a lot in common,
synonymous as they were with powerful, unaccountable and ineffectual
state-backed behemoths – the PHCN or its previous incarnation as NEPA
for the power sector, and Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL) for the
telephone sector.

Now, in less than a decade, NITEL has become so
irrelevant that many younger Nigerians would be hard pressed to believe
tales that the company used to be held in awe by Nigerians and that its
workers were little gods that customers had to pamper and fear – either
to get connected to the phone lines or to keep them connected. The
state monopoly was an epitome of corruption and inefficiency.

The power sector workers have some genuine reasons
for their cautious approach to the federal government’s power plan. For
instance, there have been several policy somersaults over the past six
years that even the most hardened staff of the PHCN should by rights
now have a healthy skepticism of government’s seriousness about truly
reforming the sector.

One of the offshoots of the reform is that some
funds are to be paid to the workers as part of the monetization of
their benefits. This goes back to some seven years and was actually the
reason given by the workers for their last strike. The federal
government has started paying some of the arrears – some N57 billion in
compensation, including retirement benefits, is said to have been
deposited with the Central Bank to effect this – but the fact push has
to come to shove before the payment arrives is some attenuating factor
in the workers’ favour.

The electricity workers have also expressed worry
about the expected privatization of the sector – and the fact that the
presidential adviser to power, Barth Nnaji, himself ran a private power
generation company (or at least one to be when the plant he is building
comes on stream.) Going by the explanation of the workers, Nigerians
would actually be at the mercy of these private operators in the area
of charges. Posturing as the savior of the Nigerian customer, they have
warned that the pricing of electricity could remain within spending
ability of Nigerians only if the PHCN is allowed to continue to
dominate the industry More realistically, they also expressed fears
that the career of electricity workers might be jeopardized by the
private operators’ expected fixation on the bottom line rather than the
welfare of their workers.

The best answer to the fears of the electricity
workers is for them to ponder the telecommunications sector, for the
experience of that sector is the most relevant to their situation.
There is no doubt that the only way the country could get anything like
near the volume of power it needs is to liberalise the sector and
involve the private sector. And by all accounts workers in today’s
telecom sector are by far better paid than under the Nitel monopoly.

The country has spent hundreds of billions of
naira on the sector in the last eight years and the volume of
electricity generated has remained stuck around 3000 megawatts—same as
40 years ago. It is evident, as the workers themselves have kindly
pointed out, that pumping more money into the sector with the present
crop of PHCN leadership in office is like throwing money into the ocean.

There is no doubt that some workers would lose
their jobs. But those with the right frame of mind and attitude who
prepare themselves to work with the private operators would be better
for it. There is little that doubt that the telecommunications industry
has continued to be one of the more attractive industries for young
graduates. The payment structure therein is enough to make NITEL
workers choke on their tangled wires.

And on the issue of charges, Nigerians would
rather stick their lot with those who can provide them with regular
electricity. Even as it is, government has promised to increase the
tariff on the non-existent power supplied to Nigerians by the PHCN.

It would therefore appear as if the most
constructive thing electricity workers could do for the country is to
work with the presidential task force to evolve the most efficient and
workable power generation and distribution system for the country.
Threatening to shut down the system is hardly salutary. It might even
hasten the desire of Nigerians to get of the whole underperforming lot.

Twenty-five
years ago, November 24, 1985 to be precise, just exactly when this
country was 25, I wrote a column in The Guardian with the above title.
It was a lighthearted satirical piece, Nigeria was likened to a young
nubile woman and all her past and current heads of state, the different
men she had been had by.

There
was John whom she had met on the rebound from the thoroughly resistible
Chief Saz, mucho macho, born to be obeyed, a man with healthy
appetites. When the relationship started going south Young and Nubile
made her escape on a cold January night, grateful that her neck was
still in one piece.

After
that close shave came Julius. All was sweet and dandy initially until
Young and Nubile kept bumping into women at parties wearing exactly the
same set of diamonds and emeralds that she had. Then came Musa, he too
was a man who had to be obeyed but he was different, with a sense of
purpose and work to do so. Unfortunately Musa was shot to death and
that was that. After a long period of brooding Young and Nubile finally
noticed Segun who had been hovering around all the while. Segun had a
constant preoccupation with virility …

Sheik
the inefficacious lawyer with his profligate crew was followed by
Bello, tall and ramrod straight. Out went the dresses and jewelry from
her former lovers and Young and Nubile was put out to work. But she had
the shock of her life when Bello demanded that she give him her entire
salary and he would put her on an allowance.

So
Young and Nubile began a regimen of discipline and sacrifice for a
better future but Bello too turned. She was watched all the time,
treated with disrespect. Her phones bugged and she had to suffer the
indignity of answering to the gateman anytime she wanted to go out.
Eventually Bello told her they would get on much better if she only
spoke when she was spoken to. Things had gone past a joke!

Finally
came a new man on the scene and Bello and his paddy, Tayo, ended up
somewhere (though between you and me Bello is very much back on the
scene). Mr. New Guy was still on probation at the time the column was
written in ’85. (Between you and me Mr. New Guy is now Mr. Too Old Guy
and back on the scene too.)

So
here we are a quarter of a century later on the brink of another
electoral process with new faces and old ones and a scenario that is
very much one of a whole slew of Messrs Big Stuff thinking they can
play hard to get. In today’s world though that trick is old hat so very
last century it is laughable.

Here is what works nowadays: if you are carrying I am primed and able.
If you are not, out of my way. The days when the late Waziri Ibrahim
thought he had something with his party slogan of Politics without
bitterness are long gone. It was a sweet message but thoroughly with
out substance. But you do not even get that nowadays. Obafemi Awolowo
and his UPN are long gone and buried and with them the concept of a
party political machinery that had a cerebral arm and devoted time to
putting down thoughts on paper that amounted to programmes and policies
and a reason for being.

You
chop I chop, the party that solved the problem of choosing a campaign
slogan and refining a winning name with one stroke at least provided
some levity in the always scary prospect of Nigerian political
contesting. It was realpolitik Naija style, just telling it like it
really is.

Young
and Nubile is still young in mind though the nubility has long gone the
way of gravity having become a victim of serious spread body. At 50 she
is still naïve and young in mind, not an attractive prospect. Two of
her suitors were playing hard to get for no justifiable reason.
President Goodluck Jonathan was being unbelievably coy about whether he
was going to run and no one was deceived. It is a ploy that any women
will consider a complete waste of her time. If you don’t know how to
woo me, stop blocking the road.

As
for Mr. Babangida, he is ironically like those women of a certain age,
that is certainly too old, squeezing themselves into outfits they
should have passed on to their daughters. They have no idea that they
are past it, their time has gone and they should settle into dignified
old age and be very, very, happy that they can do so.

In the end this crazy dance will all come down to ‘settlement’ of the you chop I chop kind: Such a tired old game.

Say you were 50 and a foolishly youthful 50 at that, much married but never satisfied, how would you like to be wooed?

WASHINGTON – Harry Reid tweets Lady Gaga while Newt Gingrich is truly gaga.

The 67-year-old
former speaker, who has a talent for overreaching, is more unbridled
than ever. He’s decided he’ll do or say anything to stay in the game –
even Palin-izing himself by making outrageous, unsubstantiated comments
to appeal to the wing nuts among us.

The conservative
who fancies himself a historian and visionary did not use his critical
faculties to resist his party’s lunacy but instead has embraced it,
shamelessly. He has given a full-throated endorsement to a dangerously
irresponsible and un-Christian theory by Ann Coulter-in-pants Dinesh
D’Souza.

Gingrich praised
D’Souza’s article in Forbes, previewing an upcoming book called “The
Roots of Obama’s Rage.” Newt told The National Review Online that it
was the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about
Barack Obama” and said D’Souza shows that the president “is so outside
our comprehension” that you can only understand him “if you understand
Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.” Newt added: “This is a person who is
fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to
have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president.”
So the smear artists are claiming not only that the president is a
socialist but that he suffers from a socialism gene.

“Our president is
trapped in his father’s time machine,” D’Souza writes in Forbes,
offering a genetic theory of ideology. “Incredibly, the U.S. is being
ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This
philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world
for denying him the realization of his anti-colonial ambitions, is now
setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in
his son.” Playing into the bigotry of birthers and haters who paint
Obama as “the other,” D’Souza writes that the president was raised
offshore, spending “his formative years – the first 17 years of his
life – off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan,
with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa.” The ominous-sounding time
in Pakistan was merely a visit when Obama was a college student.

Gingrich, who
ditched two wives (the first when she was battling cancer; the second
after an affair with the third – a House staffer – while he was
impeaching Bill Clinton), now professes to be a good Catholic.
Evidently the first two wives don’t count because he hadn’t converted
to Catholicism. He even had a big Catholic conversion Mass here with
his third wife, Callista, celebrated by a retinue of priests and church
leaders.

But he is downright un-Christian when he does not hesitate to visit the alleged sins of the father upon the son.

Some of Newt’s old conservative friends worry that he has gone “over the ledge,” as one put it.

If it wasn’t so
sick it would be funny. It’s worse than a conspiracy theory because
this conspiracy consists of a single dead individual. The idea that
there’s something illegitimate about anti-colonialism on the part of a
Kenyan man in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s is stupid. And it’s inconsistent
to accuse a president who’s raining drones on bad guys in Pakistan,
Somalia and Yemen of having an inherited anti-colonial ideology.

It’s also low.
D’Souza and Gingrich are not merely discrediting the president’s
father’s ideology. They’re discrediting his character and insinuating
that the son inherited not just his father’s bad ideology but a bad
character, too.

Newt has always
displayed an impressive grandiosity. Who can forget the time during his
congressional heyday when he declared himself a “defender of
civilization, a teacher of the rules of civilization, arouser of those
who form civilization … and leader ‘possibly’ of the civilizing
forces”?

And he who thinks
Obama is too messianic said in 1994: “People like me are what stand
between us and Auschwitz. I see evil all around me every day.” This
fear mongering is ugly. D’Souza and Gingrich employ the tactics the
Bush administration used to get us into Iraq – cherry picking,
insinuation, half-truths and dishonest reasoning.

If the
conservatives are so interested in psychoanalyzing father and son
relationships, why didn’t they do so back when W. was rushing to avenge
and one-up his father by finishing what Daddy started with Saddam?

On their website,
Callista and Newt tout “Gingrich Productions” and promote an
apocalyptic movie with the same kind of scary music that Fox uses,
suggesting that the Obama administration is weak in the war against
“radical Islam.” The movie and the website are called “America at
Risk.” It’s Newt and D’Souza and their ilk who put America at risk.

© 2010 New York Times