Nigeria Content Online

Look, officer, I
was going to stay out of this, but after watching CNN and seeing the
kind of pekelemes preparations for Prince William’s wedding, I can’t
stay out of this matter anymore. From all indications, it seems you
British people think a royal wedding should be like that of a Nigeria
Railway junior staff’s marriage. Therefore, I am applying for visas for
the best wedding planners in Lagos. I am sure you have been around long
enough in Nigeria to see how weddings are conducted here. We want your
people to have a taste of that.

We will bring Lagos
high life to London and shake whatever cold off your bodies, and throw
summer colours into your sombre hued London Fog coats. All of these
people applying for visas today are owanbe specialists. It’s a pity you
are going to be in Lagos while we are leaving a taste of a lifetime in
your palace dwellers’ palates.

Here are the applicants, please:

Mama Tunde – she is
locally known as the aso-ebi queen. Let’s assume you sneeze right now,
instead of her to say “bless you” and offer you a hankie, right under
your nose she would sew and sell aso-ebi (uniform) for the entire
embassy staff, gate men, security guards and other visa applicants just
to tell you “e pele o, e pele o”. Mama Tunde knows every textile mill
in Sub-Saharan Africa and by the time she is done donning ankara,
damask, tie and dye, etc on white wedding attendants, you would think
you were in a Yinka Shonibare art opening at the Smithsonian, instead
of a royal wedding.

Aunty Titilayo –
she is our souvenir baroness. If you want to know the meaning of
‘branding’, check her out first. She will brand everything under the
sun for William’s wedding. Name it: from Raleigh bicycles to Mini
Coopers, office chairs, jacuzzis, shower curtains and pure water. If
you need branded babies (just in case the likes of Madonna would be
attending the wedding), let Aunty Titilayo know. And she would have no
qualms distributing these items during the reception, no matter the
crowd.

Iya Buki – she is
also known as Mama Silk. She has no problem covering the entire
Trafalgar Square with yards and yards of silk. If you need her to lay a
red carpet on the road from Heathrow Airport to Buckingham Palace, that
would simply be like asking her for a throw pillow on your living room
couch. She can also give the London Bridge the ‘Breadfruit Effect’,
which is what she does with balloons at events.

Ronke – she is the
Change Agent. People need to ‘spray’ the newlyweds with money during
their first dance and that is where she comes in. Forget the fact that
the Royal Family is wealthy; you British should learn to show off a
little bit. Ronke’s job is to break your large notes to manageable
smaller crisp pounds sterling notes. If you need to break a hundred to
fives, her charge is two percent – you need to be quick on mental
arithmetic or Ronke will show you that Balogun Street is smarter than
Broad Street.

Mama Ngozi –
Emotion Generator. What does she do? Ah, she is very important; she
whips up emotions during wedding speeches. Something like, “I wish
Sister Diana was alive to see this William her son on this beautiful
day…boohoohoo.” And before you know it, everybody is crying and
donating their houses and cars to William and Kate without thinking
twice.

Uncle Bankole – The
Wine Merchant. You people’s plan is to serve wine in glasses and
calculate how much each glass costs? That is not how we do it in Lagos,
please. Leave this matter to Uncle Bankole, who will give each and
every one of the invited guests as many bottles of the most expensive
wine on earth as they can drink. Beer, champagne, brandy and other
kinds or drinks will be distributed in cartons by his boys. As we used
to say in Ekpoma, don’t count the people on a table, count the bottles.

Iya Bose – Chef
Extraordinaire. This woman here can cook jollof rice and fried meat
that will send an aroma from the British Isles to the Isle of Pigs. For
the vegetarians among you, she has Lagos Special Salad. I must warn you
that our salads are full meals, not appetizers, please. As for the
wedding cake, she has already designed one of Buckingham Palace, with
William and Kate sitting on the roof.

Meet Pastor
Adeboye. He will pray for the royal family and cast out all those
generational curses that may have plagued the royal family since they
looted arts and artefacts from Benin Kingdom.

Pastor Kumuyi will
pray for the Middletons and abate their fears in case they are nervous
about their daughter’s future. You know our people say inhabitants fear
ordinary lizards in a house where snakes bite.

Pastor Chris will pray for the newlyweds. His acquired accent is the only one the youngsters can understand.

Did you ask who will pay for all this? The federal government of
Nigeria, of course. We all delivered our wards and constituencies
during the presidential election.

The governorship
election has provided yet more proof of the seismic shift in Nigerian
politics that has taken place over the past few weeks.

In many parts of
our country, it was a tale of hitherto strong-men of local politics
being humbled right on home turf. While the surprising defeat of a
politician in and of itself is nothing to be cheerful about – and in
many cases, there is hardly an ideological difference between victors
and vanquished – it is remarkable as a demonstration of people-power
when the people who appear to have held our hard-won democracy hostage,
are sent a strong message.

Across the country
for the past two days, that has been the case. As one newspaper put it,
for the first time in Kwara State, it appears that Olusola Saraki,
variously referred to as the godfather of the state’s politics, was not
responsible by influence or activity for the ‘installation’ of a
governor-elect. In Anambra State, the assumed favourite, Dora Akunyili,
after a run-off, missed the mark by a few hundred votes – to the
surprise of many. In Delta State, Great Ogboru almost reached to snatch
the mandate from the sitting governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan; and in the
south west, many strongmen came tumbling down, including the scion of
the late Lamidi Adedibu’s ‘amala politics’ heritage – Adebayo
Alao-Akala, governor of Oyo State.

Indeed, the south
west, following the trend of the National Assembly elections,
effectively went back to the hands of the opposition – the result of
almost four years of strategy and grassroots mobilization; and a
combination of street smartness and aggressive politicking.

In Imo State, it
is a titanic battle between the incumbent, Ikedi Ohakim and perennial
candidate, Rochas Okorocha – a mishmash of accusations, cancellations
and rumours. No one knows exactly who the leading candidate is. The
electoral commission sounds and looks as confused as impatient
onlookers, but one thing is clear: Mr. Ohakim – whose image has taken a
beating following a string of media stories about strong-arm tactics on
his part – is in the fight of his life to retain his seat, and to save
face.

This is a state of
affairs that should be pleasing to Nigerians – and by this we do refer,
not to the fate of individual candidates, but to the atmosphere and
appearance of robust democracy that it suggests. Clearly, politicians
now have to go to the people for power. It used to be that when two
elephants fight, the grass underneath suffers – but it begins to appear
that where democracy is alive and well, when the elephants fight, the
people have the last laugh.

There are of
course, a lot of factors involved in this – a vibrant, even militant,
opposition; a media that has admirably taken its place as an unbiased
umpire; an Independent National Electoral Commission that is determined
to see through its promise of credible, if not completely fair,
elections; a Presidency that continues to impress with its complete
refusal to interfere with electoral processes and a country that is,
finally, ready for some real change in the way it is governed.

Twelve years ago,
the headliners of Nigeria’s ruling party, the People’s Democratic
Party, would wave away any imperfections – natural or man-made – in the
system with a casual “this is a nascent democracy”. With the benefit of
hindsight, they were right. Our democracy has had its teething
problems, and it has struggled and stumbled along the way, but it has
continued to grow.

That, fortunately
for Nigerians, was where the ruling class missed it. Yes, once it was
nascent, but now it has grown. If Nigerians keep up this tempo, the
balance of power will really change hands. In another four short years.

One of the several strategies adopted by companies to entrench
their brands in the minds of consumers is free trial.

This is a key marketing effort intended to engage consumers and
deepen their experience of the brand. It also helps the brand make appropriate
adjustments in order to enhance consumer satisfaction. Free trial aids direct
connection with the target audience.

The brand connects to consumers through several touch points and
free trial is a major one. It is indeed a veritable avenue to build consumer
loyalty and followership.

This strategy is aimed at selling the values and benefits of the
brand to the consumers, and empowers them to differentiate between brands they
can trust and the ones they should not.

Consumer experience has a great impact on brand equity, as it
helps them experience the perceived quality, thereby encouraging loyalty. This
can be achieved through free trial, which fosters interaction between consumers
and the brand.

Free trial also ensures a renewed focus on the consumers, as it
empowers them to feel the brand to determine whether it aligns with their
aspirations. DStv mobile was an innovation and value added mobile television
entertainment for subscribers and when unveiled in the Nigerian market, the
company announced free trials which lasted for over a year for subscribers.

The ultimate goal was to enable the subscribers experience the
unique service of mobile entertainment on the go and also promote brand
acceptability. The approach yielded the desired results.

The free trial strategy also helps to measure consumer
experience, as it increases the word of mouth effect. There is every likelihood
of satisfied consumers recommending the service to others.

It is important to inquire from them how their experiences have
been in order to offer them premium services. The feedback mechanism put in
place revealed exciting experiences for subscribers, as the DStv mobile service
gave subscribers memorable moments, especially during the World Cup.

When a brand aligns with the lifestyle of consumers, they are
poised to tap into the enormous benefits of value and entertainment.

DStv mobile has a deliberate strategy to stimulate consumer
experience through exciting service delivery and the free trial was a vantage
platform to achieve this. Indeed, there had never been mobile TV entertainment
in Nigeria before the DStv mobile free trial which was relevant and meaningful
for the consumers.

The benefits of free trial are enormous, as it generates a
relationship building direct marketing programme. It definitely expands the
frontiers of bonding touch points that have been created with the consumers.

Something positive
is stirring in India. Over the past few weeks, a number of senior
government officials have been frog-marched through the country’s
courts to answer to charges of fraud and corrupt self-enrichment.

Last Tuesday, an
India court remanded Suresh Kalmadi, the former chief organiser of the
Delhi Commonwealth Games, for eight days. Mr Kalmadi, a senior lawmaker
who has been suspended from the Congress party, is charged with
cheating in tenders for timing equipment worth millions of dollars in
the sporting event which held last October.

The $6 billion
Commonwealth Games were originally billed as India’s answer to the
highly successful 2008 Beijing Olympics. It, however, almost never
held, as preparations descended into acrimony over leaking stadiums,
dirty and unsafe athletes’ rooms and gross corruption. As Mr Kalmadi
headed to the courtroom, an enraged Indian threw a sandal at the
accused – an insult in the Middle East which has spread across the
world.

Mr Kalmadi is not
the most senior politician to be facing trial. Andimuthu Raja, a former
telecoms minister sacked because of his manipulation of the sale of
telecoms licenses and spectrum in which India lost close to $39 billion
in revenue, is also facing trial. Mr Raja is being arraigned alongside
executives from telecoms firms and the daughter of the chief minister
of Tamil Nadu state. She was accused of taking bribes routed via a TV
channel owned by her family.

Indians are,
naturally, excited by this crackdown on corrupt businessmen and
government officials. It is not every day that senior politicians in
the country are hauled before judges and these ongoing trials are being
held amidst stiff opposition by other political grandees, some of whom
have threatened to bring the government down. It is thus a credit to
the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and the leadership of the Congress
party that this trial is permitted to take place. Perceived impunity by
the political leadership has dented the image of the country and is
seen as one reason why it lags behind China in the receipt of foreign
investment.

This holds major
lessons for our country. In many ways, the Nigerian society is as
corrupt as India’s, if not more. The thieving elites in government and
business also routinely evade punishment, or escape with a slap on
their well-connected wrists. It would be a good departure from the
usual if the incoming government of Goodluck Jonathan would make a
concerted effort to break the myth of invincibility surrounding corrupt
senior government and political officials.

We would like to
suggest that President Jonathan pay his first official visit to India
to consult with Prime Minister Singh on how he is dealing with the
pressure by his political allies who are opposed to seeing their
colleagues publicly sanctioned. The Indian leader might then also be
persuaded to throw in some advice on how the country is tackling its
infrastructure challenges – including the ongoing registration of
Indians that will result in the provision of cutting edge identity
cards to the over one billion of them.

In other words, Mr
Jonathan should fight corruption with the same single-minded zeal with
which he had prosecuted his electoral reform agenda. One of the bogeys
associated with the ruling People’s Democratic Party, which made a
number of voters turn their backs on the party, is the perception that
its ranks are filled with unreconstructed looters of public treasury.
Mr Jonathan could start his reform of his party by letting his
supporters know that it will no longer be business as usual. He should
also strengthen the EFCC – possibly with new leadership if that is what
it takes – for optimal performance. If INEC could become a qualified
success, then the EFCC should also become one as well.

Mr Jonathan’s election represents a new opportunity for Nigeria. One
way he can effect the positive change he often spoke about for his
nation during his pre-election campaigns, is by tackling heads-on, the
hydra-headed monster of corruption. NEXT has done several
groundbreaking stories to expose skulduggery in high places. The most
recent, published on April 15, 2011, concerned Diezani Allison-Madueke,
the petroleum minister’s involvement in a N2.2 billion bribe scandal.
That case could be a good place for the president to start.

Last September, the
world gathered again in New York for the UN Special Review Summit on
the Millennium Development Goals (also known as the MDGs+10 Summit).
The event was a significant milestone in the global quest to halve
poverty and inequality by the year 2015. Two-thirds of the way down the
line, the world had to pause for a breath, as it were, to reflect on
what had been done so far and what more needed to be done.

As usual, the
Nigerian government and civil society were strongly represented, with
our officials reporting that the country is on track to achieve most of
the goals. On MDGs 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 relating to universal primary
education, gender and women’s empowerment, reducing child mortality,
combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and global partnership for
development, the lights show green and amber, says Nigeria’s 2010 MDGs
Report. The report, however, admits an emphatic red light for goals 1,
5 and 7 on extreme poverty and hunger, maternal health and
environmental sustainability.

To be fair, there
has been good progress on some of the goals. There has been an amazing
effort by the MDGs Office at the Presidency to channel debt relief
gains into poverty-reducing projects across the country. Despite
teething challenges, the Conditional Grants Scheme (CGS) which makes
funds available to states and local governments for use on locally
identified pro-poor priorities has been hugely successful in delivering
social infrastructure, strengthening the partnership between the three
tiers of government and improving public expenditure practices in some
ways.

But achieving the
MDGs for Nigeria does not begin and end with the MDGs Office or the
micro-level interventions it coordinates. What about the macro-economy?
In the past few years, we have seen growth in Gross domestic product
(GDP), but this has not been accompanied by any significant development
outcomes for the majority of Nigerians. Jobs are critical to poverty
reduction but they cannot be created in an economy that lacks the
critical infrastructure to support business. The commitment to building
Nigeria’s road network and overhauling the power sector, for instance,
must move beyond rhetoric to concrete action, if the private sector is
to gain the confidence it needs to play well in the economy.

Over 70 per cent of
Nigeria’s population, its poorest, may remain poor for a long time to
come because they continue to depend on the natural environment for
their survival. Unfortunately, while climate change continues to wreak
havoc on their livelihoods, governments at state and local levels
remain oblivious to the challenge, with little or no effort to
implement actions to promote adaptation at that level.

And then the
question of international partnerships for development keeps nagging.
Granted, the 2005 debt relief has led to the freeing up of at least $1
billion a year for pro-poor, MDGs-related spending. Yet those gains are
threatened by international protection for stolen assets which
continues to block progress in the fight against corruption in-country.
Besides, aid in-flows at under $10 per capita still fall far short of
donor promises, while the quality of that aid and the actual percentage
of it that touches the ground remain dubious. Civil society
partnerships, long proven to facilitate development efficiency, are
widely being undermined by aid agencies.

Even as
agricultural productivity in the country has increased, the vast
majority of Nigeria’s over 60 million peasant farmers are still locked
in a vicious cycle of poverty. This is mainly due to the skewed
international trade system which denies their products access to
markets while condoning massive dumping and subsidies for farmers in
the USA and Europe. Nigeria’s government and its international friends
need to realise that without a genuine international partnership for
development, the MDGs will turn out to be another celebrated waste of
time.

Lack of social
data, especially at sub-national levels, is still a huge obstacle to
monitoring progress. Similarly, coordination between targeted MDGs
projects and wider development efforts in the context of Vision 20:2020
seems to be lacking. Policy reversals and inertia usually associated
with change in political leadership in Nigeria also pose a serious risk
to the sustainability of MDGs projects.

But nothing appears
to be standing in the way of the MDGs like money. The MDGs Office is
currently implementing its projects in arrears, due to budget gaps. In
2010, over N65 billion was appropriated for the office but only N38
billion was released. Due to this shortfall, many of the 2008/09 quick
win projects and the CGS and monitoring and evaluation activities for
last year have been rolled over 2011. A review of Nigeria’s funding
gaps for the MDGs conducted in 2009 put the cost of meeting the MDGs
between 2010 and 2015 at $171 billion, or between US$19 billion and $27
billion annually.

At the current rate
of progress, and in the context of time constraints and limited
financial and human resources, Nigeria is very unlikely to achieve many
of the goals.

So beyond practical
action on the goals and targets, government must also be willing to
make an important strategic choice. It is critical at this point to
decide whether we still want to achieve all the goals in four and a
half years or we want to double up efforts to reach a few of the goals
that we consider most critical for the country’s long-term development.

Mr Bolton is an associate director of DevPro Group, a development consulting and policy advisory firm, based in Abuja.

In retrospect, one
of my favourite toasters from my university days was a guy nicknamed
Buscopan. And it is not because he was the most sophisticated of
charmers. On the contrary, he was always tipsy, a little too happy, and
a little too close and touchy feely. One could blame the irony of his
life.

He had an exquisite
musical ear, could play a few musical instruments, and played the
church organ by instinct; with such precision and beauty that one could
not reconcile the drunk with the natural instinctive brilliance.

It is hard to
describe, but maybe if his time had been now, he would have been
tolerated better; mercifully labelled as Aspergers, left to his
God-given devices, not confined and compelled to studying something
like Sociology or Law when it should have been music, music and more
music.

Buscopan, like many
brilliant minds, was socially inept, and spoke his mind without really
adding up the sums. He, one day, gave me ‘a look’, and followed it up
by telling me that he would like to “cook me in some hot pepper…” No,
in fact, it was more explicit than that, but the word “cook” cleans up
the sentence considerably. The closer word, though awkward, is “turn”,
and Nigerians use it often in place of the word “stir”.

For what purpose
did he want to “turn” me in pepper? I’m afraid I’m going to have to
leave that to you to decide. It might help give a genuine sense of my
extreme befuddlement at being offered such an unusual treatment.

These days, I
cannot eat peppered snails without thinking of Buscopan. My neighbour
in Calabar and a dear friend, Sylvie Dunn, makes the best peppered
snails, and the secret may be the simplicity of her recipe.

I have to put this
in perspective because preparing snails for cooking is not easy. It
only really becomes simple after the cleaning of the snails, which in
fact can be quite harrowing.

Sylvie always
chooses the small snails; the bite-size ones. It must be possible to
put a whole snail in your mouth and have lots of space for chewing on
it.

Sometimes, it is
hard to tell if the snails are alive when they are being purchased,
especially if they are sold out of a container or basket. It is best
when snails are bought off the bare-floor because the dead ones are
easy to sight. Perhaps this is only possible in tidy markets, like
those in Calabar.

Always buy large
pieces of alum for cleaning the snails because smaller pieces will make
your job twice as hard. Coarse salt is also good for washing snails,
but one still needs the alum to get squeaky clean snails.

During washing, one
needs to go over the snails again and discard any that have shrivelled
entrails or broken pieces of shell in the skin. Both are a sign that
the snail was dead on purchase. Sylvie always insists on “cutting off
the faces of the snails” because she claims they give her nightmares. I
must personally admit that I have never seen a face on a snail in all
my years of eating them. Maybe I’m too distracted! The snails are
boiled with salt, a little ginger and garlic, until they are al-dente,
not soft. Also, not chewy; the sensation when biting on a well cooked
snail is brisk, almost crunch-like. This is the advantage of using
smaller snails. They are easier to cook just right. The ‘pepper’ for
the snails is a mixture of onions, tomatoes and small aromatic hot
peppers. The onions are cut in long slivers, the tomatoes are chopped
roughly, the hot peppers are chopped very fine.

Sylvie puts quite a
scandalous amount of oil in a pot over high heat. She throws the
onions, tomatoes and peppers in and fries, stirring all the time. She
does this until the mixture resembles a sauce, then she adds some
tomato puree, a stock cube, and a little water.

She throws the
snails in the pot and stirs until they are well coated. The snails are
served on their own or with a bowl of basmati rice soaked for 20
minutes, washed, then briskly boiled. The rice is enhanced with a
generous tablespoon of coconut oil.

I could eat the
combination of peppered snails and basmati rice day in day out, year in
year out, and in my sleep. Delicious! Unfortunately, I was the butt of
many rude jokes for many semesters afterwards because of Buscopan’s
rather raw offer, made in a very loud voice in a very public place.
Buscopan did not get to live very long; he ran into an unfortunate and
tragic incident with vigilantes, on his very own doorstep. He might
have read this and had a good laugh. He might be reading this and
having a good laugh.

This article was first published in the April 15, 2009, edition of NEXT