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Festival sights and sounds

Fittingly, the
festival ended with a music concert sponsored by a consortium including
MTN, Star, Seaman’s, Dansa, Hyra Motors, and the Osun State government
at WOCDIF Centre on Friday, August 27. The concert featured upcoming
musicians and established stars including Isedale, Asindemade, Queen
Benny Black, Saheed Osupa, and Adewale Ayuba.

While Isedale and
his group sang some traditional Yoruba folk songs, Asindemade brought
back memories of the late Apala maestro, Haruna Ishola. Jimoh Buraimoh,
Ifagbenusola Atanda, and some others who couldn’t resist the pulsating
beats of the young man, showered him with crisp naira notes.

The biggest star of
the night, however, was self styled king of fuji music, Saheed Osupa.
The crowd welcomed him uproariously and later turned the hall into big
dance floor during his over one hour performance. The artist, who has
obviously mastered live performance and praise singing like his
illustrious forbears, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and Ayinla Kollington,
stole the thunder of Bonsue fuji king, Adewale Ayuba, who rounded up
the show.

Arugba’s Circle

The Arugba Osun
(votary maid) was recognised when a statue in her honour was unveiled
at Oke Fia, one of the major roundabouts in Osogbo. Speaking at the
unveiling ceremony held on Thursday, August 26, Biodun Odejayi, senior
manager, regional marketing operations, MTN, thanked the people and
government of Osun State for allowing the telecommunication company
adopt the roundabout it will henceforth maintain. He stressed that it
is good to live in a good environment and pledged the company’s
continuous support for the festival.

Principal
coordinator of the Osun Osogbo festival, Jimoh Buraimoh, reiterated the
importance of the Arugba to the annual rite and expressed hope that MTN
will continue to support the festival. The Osun State commissioner for
environment, Olajire Omotoso, disclosed that his ministry is
facilitating the adoption of roundabouts “with a view to bringing a
facelift to the city and for the adoptee to brand their products.”

He promised that the renovation would not be limited to the state
capital and urged the people not to deface the renovated structure.

Dirty Stones

Dirty Stones

The Super Model

never minced words about

those “dirty-looking stones”

that came in a dirty-looking pouch

in the middle of the night

in dirty-looking Africa

The Magi (two this time)

who brought the gift

bowed dutifully low and left

Our Super Model

asked no questions

sought no answers

even as she threw open her door

to two imperfect strangers

in the middle of a dirty-looking night

The Super Model

swore she never heard about

how flirtatious Charlie Taylored that pouch

from the scrotums of castrated men

and the crusted blood which lent

the stone their dirty coat.

Has the Super Model

ever seen amputated dreams

cat-walking the runway

of dirty-looking jungles, while handless

Stone Children* clapped, and pogromed

hordes watched with hollow eyes?

Thanks to the Court’s Geography lesson,

our Super Model

heard the word “Liberia”

for the first time;

what a dirty-looking buzz it left

in her regal ears!

The universe bows in remorse

for this dirty-looking inconvenience

to Charlie’s Angel. . .

Now, on to the Laundromat!

*Reference to Stone Child, Syl Cheney-Coker’s recently published collection of poems.

Korean Film Festival showcases ‘Hallyuwood’

Korean Film Festival showcases ‘Hallyuwood’

The first ever
Korean Film Festival in Nigeria which started in Abuja, as part of the
Korean Embassy activities celebrating the 30th anniversary of Korea’s
diplomatic relationship with Nigeria, ended on the evening of Friday,
August 22 with a screening of the movie, Le Grand Chef (The Grand Chef).

During the
week-long festival, no fewer than 2000 Nigerians, members of the
diplomatic corps, and friends of Koreans resident in Abuja, were
treated to the best of Korean movies, carefully selected by the Korean
Cultural Centre for the delight of their guests.

Featured films

The festival, which
opened on Monday, August 16, and was attended by an average of two
hundred people in a day, featured films like ‘Take Off”, ‘Rough Cut’,
‘Hwang-Jin-Yi’, ‘The King and the Clown’ and Jeon Yoon-Soo’s acclaimed
‘Le Grand Chef’ which most of the audience described as the star film
of the festival.

The Grand Chef is a
culturally rich movie which tells the story of a special cooking knife.
The last Korean Royal Chef of the Chosun Dynasty, in brazen display of
his loyalty to his king and patriotism to his country, cut off his
right arm to avoid being forced to cook for the Japanese bureaucrat of
the time. Years later, deeply moved by the Chef’s conviction, the
Japanese decides to return the special knife to Korea, and to whoever
who deserves to own it.

To determine the
rightful owner of the royal knife, the bureaucrat’s son announces a
cooking contest to find the best cook for this knife. Thus, the
predestined cooking contests between two grandsons of the two
apprentices of the royal chef.

The high point of
the movie, which drew applause from the audience, is the manner in
which the movie uses food recipes to discuss such national issues as
internal democracy, as represented by the recipes the eventual and
rightful winner uses to cook the ‘secret king’s soup’ during the final
of the cooking contest.

The Korean Wave – Hallyuwood

America has
Hollywood, India has Bollywood, and Nigeria has Nollywood. Likewise,
Korea has its own ‘Hallyuwood.’ This newly-coined word combines the
meanings of the word “han (hal),” for Korea, and “ryu (lyu),” which
means ‘wave’. When these two Korean syllables are put together, it
gives us a new word meaning “Korean Wave.”

The Korean Wave is
a trend of increasing popularity for Korean pop culture, including
television dramas, films, and music in Asia and around the world. This
phenomenon began in the latter half of 1990s and is still growing and
spreading worldwide, including the Middle East and South America.

Some Korean TV
dramas have also been introduced to Nigerian audiences. “Jewel in the
Palace” aired on AIT; “The Painter of the Wind” is now being shown on
the same channel every Sunday morning; while “Winter Sonata” is also
being broadcast by the National Television Authority (NTA).

Silent motion
pictures were first introduced to Korea in 1903, and the first movie
with sound was produced in 1935. During the 1950s, the government made
great efforts to promote the film industry and later introduced a
screen quota system to ensure that domestically produced films had the
opportunity to be shown widely. In the 1960s, Korea witnessed its first
golden age of the film industry. After a setback in the 1970s caused by
the widespread penetration of television, the film industry rebounded
with even greater strength, thanks to increased investment by large
companies into film making and distribution in the 1980s. With the
emergence of young, talented film directors and the liberalisation of
the market, Korean movies began to occupy a major share of the domestic
market and Korean film exports started to grow. All these have laid the
foundation for the Korean Wave and the subsequent popularity of Korean
films all over Asia; and lately Africa and the rest of the world.

In his remarks at
the opening of the festival, the Korean Ambassador to Nigeria, Park
Young-Kuk said, “Korean films have developed on the strength of
incessant creativity, despite challenges from international film
markets like Hollywood. I hope you will be able to see and appreciate
the different styles and merits of Korean films, and enjoy what they
have to offer.”

A reward for friendship

As a means of
engaging the interest of festival goers, 20 Nigerians received various
prizes, ranging from Satellite TV decoders, wristwatches, footballs,
phones and other valuables as a reward for their friendship with the
Korean Embassy in Nigeria. One recipient, 28-year-old Amarachi Amunabu,
commended the Korean Cultural Centre for present and also commented on
the featured movies. “I have watched all of the five movies featured
and I must say that I am impressed at the quality of creativity and
positive projection of the ways of life of the Koreans. The quality
also is superb and commendable. I have always thought Asian movies are
all about kung fu. This is the first time I am watching a subject-based
Asian movie and I am very happy to have had the opportunity.”

In his speech, Suh
Jeong Sun, Director of the Korean Cultural Centre in Abuja, indicated
that the festival is to become a yearly event. “The Korean Film
Festival in Nigeria will hold every year. The 2011 edition will take
place in Lagos and Sierra Leone while the 2012 edition will return to
Abuja,” he said For Abuja residents whose interest may have been
sparked by the festival, Mr Sun had this announcement: “If you love
Korean movies, you can visit the Korean Cultural Centre’ studio every
first and last Fridays of the month for a free show of Korean movies.”

Art and Nigeria at 50

Art and Nigeria at 50

“There was an
Independence Trade Fair held on the grounds of what is now Bonny Camp
in Victoria Island and there was a pavilion for Art,” Bruce
Onobrakpeya, the doyen of the Nigerian art scene, recalls with
nostalgia. “Uche Okeke, Demas Nwoko and I decorated some of the other
pavilions,” he continues “and the works of the older artists like Ben
Enwonwu and Aina Onabolu were shown as well as those of us younger
artists.” Onobrakpeya was speaking to me a day after his 78th birthday
and at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos, after the re-commissioning
of a new Murtala Mohammed Gallery in the Museum complex.

Interestingly, a
photography exhibition, ‘Nigeria Yesterday and Today’, made up of black
and white photographs of past leaders; traditional, civilian and
military, was hung on the walls surrounding the bullet-ridden black
Mercedes Benz car in which General Mohammed,then military Head of
State, was assassinated on his way to work in 1976.

For a National
Museum, the quality of most of the photographs displayed was
embarrassingly poor. Some of them had been digitally-treated and
re-copied; but all the same, this display speaks volumes of our lack of
depth in preserving and respecting our national archives. There were a
few excellently-conceived portraits; particularly from the military
regime eras; taken by the great photographer Peter Obe. By some quirk
of coincidence, the first photograph in the exhibition was that of a
distraught Oba Ovonramwen of Benin on a ship on his way to a
British-imposed exile in Calabar. This historic and world famous
photograph was taken in 1897 by Nigeria’s first master photographer,
Jonathan Adagogo Green of Bonny in now Rivers State. It is a shame that
the supposed custodians of our national archives do not know this fact.
Yet, it took two American Art-History professors, Anderson and Aronson,
to discover and identify Green’s body of extraordinary photographs in
the nineties!

Pockets of celebration

In Onobrakpeya’s view, the bullet-ridden car is not an appropriate commemoration of Murtala Mohammed as a leader.

“That car reminds
us of violence. There should be a more befitting monument to him like
they have done for leaders in Asia, Kenya and Ghana.”

How are we using
Art to celebrate Nigeria at 50, I ask him? “Whatever we are celebrating
in the Arts now has its beginnings in the Independence Art Exhibition,”
he explains. “Art in Nigeria has grown and developed because of the
resilience of the artists, sponsorship of patrons, emergence of Art
galleries, Art workshops like the annual Harmattan workshop and
government’s efforts like FESTAC ‘77 and more recently, ARESUVA. For
Nigeria at 50 there are pockets of celebration. The exhibitions of old
pottery and the re-commissioning of the Murtala Mohammed Gallery at the
National Museum Lagos is part of it. One would have wanted a central
focus that would be spread for a whole year. I suppose if you put all
the pockets of celebration together we will have a great celebration,”
he concludes.

Bolanle
Austen-Peters, MD of Terra Kulture, believes that Art is gaining more
relevance and the industry is vibrant. “We still need additional
government sponsorship and visibility. For all the money voted for the
celebration of Nigeria at 50, how much was allocated for the Arts? At
the last minute, a lot of charlatans will be used instead of creative
people with experience and know-how, so we will not have a meaningful
and significant input from the Arts in celebrating Nigeria at 50,”
Austen-Peters predicts.

Arinze, a
celebrated ceramics artist is emphatic. “I am not sure we are doing it
rightly,” he says. “There should have been an Art competition that is
juried after which there would be one big Art Exhibition opened by the
President. Artists were invited by the Nigerian government to hold an
Independence Art Exhibition in 1960. From this Exhibition came the
Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA) which has been in the forefront of
developing Art and artists in Nigeria.” Arinze, the Director of ArtZero
– a collective of artists that hold yearly exhibitions and participate
in group exhibitions and the Art Expo – knows the dynamics of the
present Art scene in Nigeria quite well.

It is heartening
that the Art community and artists are not waiting for government to
set the tune or show the direction in using the Arts to prominently
celebrate Nigeria at 50. In fact, evidence that government had no
clear-cut policy strategy for the role of the Arts in celebrating
Nigeria at 50 had been obvious for quite some time. As many artists
point out, plans for involving the Arts in celebrating Nigeria at 50
should have been rolled out more than a year ago.

Last minute efforts

There are ad hoc
and last minute official efforts to integrate the Arts into the huge,
planned celebrations. The idea of building a commemorative tower was
muted and unresolved. Various art groups and associations have been
asked to submit artworks, at their own expense and as late as
September, for an exhibition to be mounted at the National Stadium,
Abuja.

President of the
Guild of Fine Artists and a much respected painter, Efosa Oguigo is of
the opinion that the lack of commitment from government agencies in
planning a huge contribution from the Art community and artists, “will
make the forefathers of the SNA unhappy.” “Immediately after
Independence,” he points out, “the SNA was formed and the government
started to court them. That is why we have so much great art by
Nigeria’s best artists in our public spaces, government buildings and
government galleries.” He laments that plans to involve the Arts in
celebrating Nigeria at 50, “are disjointed because we just see concerts
of efforts. I would have thought that there would be a streamlined
thing that would have the punch it should have.”

It’s not that Nigeria at 50 just crept up unexpectedly and took
everyone unawares. We are notorious as a country for not planning well
ahead and being meticulous about detail. Amazingly, the Presidency and
the chambers and committee rooms of the National Assembly have many Art
works on their walls. Are we to believe that other more important
aspects of the celebration distracted the decision makers from seeing
these Art works on their walls and deem them fit to be part of
celebrating Nigeria at 50? Or is it just a subtle way of telling the
nation that Nigerian Art has not inspired them to greater levels of
appreciation? But then how many of our fifty-odd political parties have
policies for Arts and Culture in Nigeria?

PERSONAL FINANCE: ‘Sixty is the new 40’

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PERSONAL FINANCE: ‘Sixty is the new 40’

Building a nest egg
for your retirement is only one aspect of retirement planning; this may
well be the easy part. For many people, what is more difficult is
ensuring that those savings you have accumulated over the years,
actually last as long as you do. Indeed, perhaps one of the greatest
challenges to financial security is the transition from earning money
and accumulating assets to spending down those hard-earned assets over
what could end up being almost a third of your lifetime.

The risk of longevity

Over the last 50
years we have seen an extension of life expectancy all over the world;
this has huge implications for retirement planning. ‘Sixty is the new
forty’ and the generation approaching retirement age have to a large
extent redefined the traditional view of retirement; they are radically
reshaping societies views of how ‘older’ people are supposed to act.
From the traditional view of relaxation, leisure, and comfort, it is a
time for renewal, growth, new opportunities, self-fulfillment and
challenge. With medical advances, it is increasingly likely that
today’s healthy 60-year-olds may live well into their 80s or 90s.

Withdrawal risk

Withdrawal risk
keeps many retirees awake at night, as they must determine how much
they can realistically afford to draw down from personal savings and
investments without seriously depleting their capital. The rate at
which you withdraw money from your assets is one of the most important
factors affecting how long they will last.

Several studies
have been carried out using various portfolio compositions to see what
withdrawal rates would leave portfolios with positive values after say
20 years. Some of these scenarios assume 100 per cent cash, 100 per
cent bonds, 100 per cent stocks along with 25/75, 50/50 and 75/25
mixes. For years, financial advisers have presented the 4 per cent
rule, which is a rough guide for portfolio withdrawals in retirement.
The basic premise is that you withdraw a conservative 4 per cent to 5
per cent of your portfolio in the first year of retirement and then
every year afterwards you withdraw the amount you took out the previous
year with an inflation adjustment.

With the help of
simulations of thousands of possible investment and inflation
scenarios, observing decades of stock market returns, William Bengen, a
financial advisor and one of its leading proponents, concluded that a
retiree with a relatively balanced portfolio should draw down a
portfolio by 4 per cent or less per year. He felt that retirees who did
this had a better chance of making their retirement money last a
lifetime whilst those taking more than 5 per cent, increased the
chances of depleting their portfolios during their lifetime.

What’s a safe withdrawal amount?

It is virtually
impossible to give precise guidance as to how much you can afford to
spend from your savings in any given year; no simple solution exists
and investors’ withdrawal rates will vary from person to person and
according to the vagaries of the markets.

Many investors end
up withdrawing well over 10 per cent of their portfolio each year to
support the lifestyle they have become accustomed to. This can rapidly
deplete that portfolio. Others are very pessimistic and scared of the
prospect of being dependent on family in their later years and after
building a portfolio of Certificates of Deposit, Bonds and dividend
yielding stocks only withdraw interest and dividends and are too scared
ever to touch principal or liquidate stocks.

Clearly there is
some compelling research to support the “4 per cent rule” but in
reality there are many considerations to be taken into account
including, your age and health, the overall size and composition of
your retirement portfolio, your objectives, your spending pattern and
lifestyle, and the fluctuation of your investment returns, the impact
of inflation on your assets and cost of living. With the reality of the
extended bear markets, minimal annual stock market gains and sustained
high inflation, retirees must be cautious particularly where portfolios
are not well diversified and investments underperform for long periods
and interest rates remain low.

Seek professional help

Developing a plan
for this spending phase can be difficult, as obviously no one knows how
long he or she might live. It is worth seeking financial advice. A
professional will help you to plan with the timing that makes sense
given your overall goals and your own unique situation.

In the past the
conventional wisdom was to have begun to divest from stocks as one
approached retirement, and then migrate to bonds and cash as safer
guaranteed investments, stocks being volatile in the short term.
Nowadays you might be encouraged to continue to retain stocks and stock
mutual funds in your portfolio so that there is still the prospect of
long -term growth.

An investment
strategy that is too conservative can be just as dangerous as one that
is too aggressive, as it not only exposes your portfolio to the effects
of inflation but also limits the long-term upside potential that stock
market investments offer. On the other hand, being too aggressive can
mean assuming too much risk in volatile markets.

The artificial deadline that retirement appears to present is
becoming less practical and should not be what rigidly drives planning
decisions. What is thus required, is a strategy that seeks to keep the
growth potential for your investments without assuming too much risk.
After an ‘official’ retirement age of 60, there is a real possibility
that you may need 30 more years of retirement income and the ideal
should be to find a balance between growth and preservation.

Money

ACN says not obsessed with wresting power from PDP

ACN says not obsessed with wresting power from PDP

One of Nigeria’s main opposition
parties, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has declared that the party
is not obsessed with taking power from the People’s Democratic Party
(PDP) in the next general elections but, rather, it is concerned about
getting people’s votes to count.

Lai Mohammed, the party’s national
publicity secretary, said this while on an official visit to NEXT
Newspaper’s office at the weekend to discuss a number of issues. “We
are not obsessed about taking power from the PDP. We are more concerned
and, therefore insisting that votes must count. Nigerians must be
allowed to choose who they want to rule them. They are the ones
responsible to choose who rules them,” Mr Mohammed said.

Opposition party in Nigeria

On the dwindling
strength of opposition parties in Nigeria, despite being over 50
parties, Mr Mohammed stated that the only opposition parties in Nigeria
are the ACN, Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All People’s Grand
Alliance (APGA) and Labour party. “All the other parties are just PDP
in different names. Or how will you explain 46 political parties
supporting a candidate of the ruling party” he noted, following the
announcement on Friday that 46 parties under a nebulous grand coalition
of political parties declared their support for the candidacy of the
incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan, ahead of the 2011 polls. “Those
parties only exist to sell their votes to the PDP on the day of the
election.” He also affirmed that talks are ongoing with some of the
parties. “We were recently in talks with the CPC before it collapsed
but consultations have resumed and we are also in talks with Labour
Party and we will be very willing to talk with the APGA,” he said.

Internal democracy within ACN

Mr Mohammed noted
that internal democracy is a strong virtue of the party and this will
be very evident in the forthcoming party convention. He explained that
there will be no consensus candidate on the party’s platform, as every
candidate will be subjected to a very “transparent and due process.”
“People need to understand our history, that AC did not become a
political party until July 2006 and we were expected to submit
candidates within only three months for the 2007 election, hence the
consensus candidate. But this time around, a thorough due process is
what we are using,” he said.

He described the
party (ACN) as a “new factory” that will churn-out “great product.” “We
are working towards building ACN into a great party with strong
foundations, as we now send some of our staffers to South Africa for
exchange courses with the African National Congress to learn and,
therefore, deepen our democratic structures.

Election tribunal

Asked whether the
party will again resort to the court rooms to solve electoral matters
post-2011 elections, he said the party will not go to court at all this
time around. “We have told our members across the nation that the true
results must be determined at the polls. We will sit on the fields by
the ballot boxes and ensure that nobody tampers with the voting this
time,” he said.

“You will agree
with me that in the interest of democracy, it is not proper for five to
six judges to determine the results of elections.” He claimed the party
recorded success in its suits against the 2007 election malpractices as
seen in Bayelsa, Cross River and Ekiti States, where re-run elections
were ordered, but they again lost owing to what he described as
“symptomatic of the same problem everywhere the election was
re-ordered.”

Atiku Abubakar

Responding to
whether the party will again welcome its presidential candidate in the
last election, as he is struggling to get a place in the PDP. Mr
Mohammed said that “he is welcome back as a member of the party, but
definitely not for an elective office.”

“We feel very disappointed for him (Atiku) because his move is
tantamount to a political suicide for him. He would have been a
president in waiting, if he had stayed with AC.”

Iran’s president calls on Palestinians to fight on

Iran’s president calls on Palestinians to fight on

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged Palestinians to
keep up their armed struggle against Israel a day after Israeli and Palestinian
leaders agreed to continue talks on a U.S.-backed peace deal.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who hosted in
Washington the first session of talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, voiced confidence that this
latest attempt to bring peace to the region could succeed where so many others
have failed.

Ahmadinejad said that the talks, seeking to end a conflict that
has boiled for six decades, would once again fail. He criticised some Muslim
leaders for not providing all-out support to the Palestinians in their revolt
against Israel.

“The Palestine’s issue cannot be resolved through talks with
the enemies of the Palestinian nation. Resisting is the only way to rescue the
Palestinians,” Ahmadinejad told worshippers at Tehran University in a live
broadcast to mark the annual Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day in the Islamic Republic.

“How can these talks succeed when them mediators were those who
created this conflict,” he added.

Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to meet again on September 14-15
with Clinton also present.

Ahmadinejad called on regional leaders in the Middle East to
unite against Israel.

The Al-Quds day was launched by Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution
founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It is held on the last Friday of the
Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Opposition leader banned

State television said millions marched in a nationwide rally to
mark the day, including soldiers, students and clerics.

Black-clad women with small children clutching balloons
emblazoned “Death to Israel” were among those flocking the streets of central
Tehran.

“Death to America, Death to Israel,” chanted the marchers, many
carrying portraits of Khomeini and his successor Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei.

Iran does not recognise Israel and has repeatedly called for
the destruction of the Jewish state as the only solution to the conflict in the
Middle East. It backs Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad
militant groups in their fight against Israel.

“The nations of the region are able to eliminate the Zionist
regime from the face of the earth,” said Ahmadinejad, adding that the Israeli
“regime has no future. Its life has come to an end.” The United States accuses
Iran of sponsoring terrorism by arming and financing those organisations. Iran
says it provides moral support to the Islamist militant groups.

Pro-government hardliners surrounded the house of Iranian
opposition leader Mehdi Karoubi to prevent him from attending the rally,
fearing his presence could revive anti-government protests that jolted Iran
after last year’s presidential vote, his website Saham news said.

Mirhossein Mousavi, who along with Karoubi lost to Ahmadinejad
in the vote, said he was willing to march towards Karoubi’s house, a move that
could revive unrest in Iran.

Authorities deny any vote-rigging and there have been no major
rallies since December when eight protesters were killed.

‘Any PDP candidate will win in Lagos’

‘Any PDP candidate will win in Lagos’

Babatunde Gbadamosi is the Director of Amen Estates and a PDP
gubernatorial aspirant in Lagos State. He speaks on governance and politics in
the state. Excerpt:

What is your political background?

I lived mostly with
my grandfather, who was one of Action Group’s financiers. He taught me
that service to the people is more than any amount of money one could
ever make in the world. As I grew up, I began to see what he meant as I
observed different governments fail their people repeatedly.

I was a member of
NADECO (National Democratic Coalition) in the UK and we
internationalised the fight against Abacha’s dictatorial rule. I want
to believe that my activities then contributed in some small way to the
advent of democracy in Nigeria.

Your grandfather was a member of Awolowo’s party, why did you join the PDP?

Many people from
Awolowo’s political heritage moved into PDP by 2003. So, those claiming
to be Awoist now are the furthest from Awoism. If Awolowo is to rule
Lagos for 12 years, it won’t be like it is now.

I have been a
sympathiser of PDP since 2002 because of things I heard President
Olusegun Obasanjo say then and started supporting the party actively
since 2006 prior to the general elections. I admired Obasanjo for being
a quiet achiever. He never makes noise about his achievement. If you
are a businessman before Obasanjo’s regime, you will appreciate how he
stimulated the economy within a few years.

He sorted our poor
international image almost totally. Nigeria’s debt was a millstone
around our neck and we could have drowned because of it. We had our
first reconnaissance equipment, an imaging satellite, also. What about
the Universal Basic Education, anticorruption campaign, the national
economic empowerment strategy, revamping of NIPOST, increase in
agro-allied and nonoil exports.

If AC builds a
drain, they will construct a billboard that is costlier than the drain
itself but Obasanjo just got on with his work, refusing to buy into
media hoopla. And that is what I will do when I get into office.

The PDP is the only
party with a national outlook. The interest of Lagosians will be better
protected in PDP because government at the centre does not interfere
with those at the state level.

I simply want to
key Lagos into all the exciting things that are happening at the
federal level. We are missing out on a lot. Whatever is being done at
the federal level will be replicated and improved upon.

What are your plans for Lagos?

I believe I can make a difference in issues that matter to Lagosians. Power generation and road infrastructure are important.

We did a study and
discovered that an estimate of N30 billion is expended on power
generation daily in Lagos. So, power generation will be a major problem
I will solve. Again, we are hearing of fantastic figures being spent on
infrastructure by the current government. The figures and the projects
do not match at all. We have not seen the money they say they are
spending in action.

Can you imagine
that LASU-Iba road costs N500 million per kilometre? Adeniran Ogunsanya
is just about 3km and there is allegation it was awarded for N11.6
billion. The backstreets of Lagos is in complete mess because the local
governments are not allowed to function. The only impact local councils
have is in revenue collection. After 11 years, Lagosians still spend
about 20 percent of their time in traffic.

I am not saying
they didn’t spend the money; all I’m saying is that I will spend a lot
less for the same quality of roads. What I want to do is to make our
taxes go further than they presently do. Roads construction won’t cost
as much as they do now because corruption will be fought to the
minimal. Of course we know that will be difficult but it can be done.

Public education,
water supply and hygienic environment will closely follow. Healthcare
is almost beyond manageability in Lagos now because hygiene is low.

What are your chances in the PDP, knowing that some have been in the race for years now?

PDP in Lagos still
has the best internal democracy and our people are sophisticated
electorate who know the quality of leaders that can match any
competition. The party elders and executives are very wise people who
know the terrain and I believe in their ability to lead the party
aright. I believe the best aspirant will emerge the party candidate and
any such aspirant will surely win Lagos’s gubernatorial election in
2011.

Do you foresee a credible general election in 2011?

A credible election
is the job of every Nigerian, especially the youth. I want to tell the
youth that it’s not cool not to vote. You have no swagger if you don’t
vote. So, get your swagger on, register, vote, and defend your vote
because you are taking control of your future by doing that.

Also, the media,
especially electronic, has a major role to play and we must harness it.
We can use our mobile phones to record election proceedings, take
pictures and upload such content unto the Internet.

What’s your assessment of Fashola’s administration?

Of course you can
see what he has done but I want people, when assessing the governor to
do so in the knowledge of the amount of money at his disposal, not only
the internally generated revenue but also the international grants.

Lawmakers design scheme to hide jumbo pay

Lawmakers design scheme to hide jumbo pay

Harassed and
cornered by public outrage over their jumbo pay, members of the
National Assembly are desperately weaving a scheme to protect other
allowances, an investigation has shown.

Under the new
dispensation, legislators have agreed to halt the collection of the
ex-legal payments, hitherto hidden under a sardonic pay head called
“office running cost”, according to sources familiar with the new
arrangement.

Legislators arrived
at this mind shift, according to the sources, at a meeting of some
members of the House of Representative, in Abuja on Saturday, June 19.

NEXT found out that
in order to ensure they retain their pay haul, the lawmakers have
decided to “re-channel their money into committees, which is then
distributed to members on committee basis in a way that each member
will still get the amount that is due to him.” One of the attendees at
the meeting, who spoke off record, said the legislators were already
getting wary about the noise their allowances are generating and have
decided to ‘re-strategize.’ “They (the legislators) are worried about
the public outcry, especially over the extra budgetary allowance each
honourable gets. You know the senators also get their own. So, since
all legislators belong to at least one committee, the idea now is to
re-channel the money into committees and ensure that each person still
gets his money,” he said. “You know that committee budget, expenses and
allowances are approved by the legislators themselves.”

“Office running cost” and committee allowances

Each member of the
House of Representatives already gets an RMAFC unapproved N35 million
naira each as “office running cost.” “The money is broken down. I can’t
recollect all now, but I remember that when I checked in 2007, each of
us was getting about 500, 000 naira per quarter as stationery
allowance,” the source said.

The source also
confirmed that before the decision to divert the office running cost to
committees, the various committees were already a way for them to make
money.

“There is already
enough money to be made from the committees. Do you know that we get
our “overseas trip allowances” up front? So, if there is a budget of N5
million for each member of a committee to travel overseas for a
quarter, you get the money up front. So whether you eventually go with
other members for the tour or not, you already have your money, even if
all the trips eventually get sponsored,” the source said.

Secrecy required

Unlike in the
United Kingdom, where all the entitled salaries and allowances of the
parliamentarians are made public and even put on the parliament’s
website, that of the Nigerian National Assembly is not made public.

The annual basic
salary of members of the House of Commons for example is 65, 738 pounds
(1.6 million naira), though chairmen of select committees and ministers
in the government earn more.

Also unlike in
Nigeria where each representative earns N500,000 a quarter, totalling
N2 million a year for stationery (it is higher for senators), whether
he/she buys the stationery or not; in the UK, the stationery is bought
centrally, with each parliamentarian entitled to receive from the
common pool to the tune of 7,000 pounds (1.75 million).

Efforts to speak
with House spokesperson, Eseme Eyiboh, were unsuccessful. But the
Senate spokesperson, Ayogu Eze, refused to be drawn into the matter.

“What do you want
to know about the issue of the office running cost. Your newspaper has
been publishing fiction about the matter,” he said.

When NEXT explained
that this was the opportunity for him to clear the air over it,
particularly as we understand that the money has been diverted into
committees, he said, “I’m not inclined to speak on this matter. Your
newspaper published that the matter is in court. Let us wait for the
outcome of the court process.” He then politely said farewell.

ABUJA HEARTBEAT: Professional mobilisers in Abuja

ABUJA HEARTBEAT:
Professional mobilisers in Abuja

It is really a sad
thing to say, but when somebody said we need to wipe out at least two
generations of people for us to ‘get it right’ I could not help but
agree with him. But when another person in an entirely different forum
now said we need to annihilate everybody in Nigeria and leave only
those from 10 years and below, I felt uneasy this time because dry
bones have been mentioned and the old woman cannot be comfortable.

It means if we agree to the second or even the first option, yours sincerely may not survive the pogrom.

It is this core
eruption of our moral fibre by the word ‘corruption’. Is there any
government office that does not practice corruption? Even the EFCC and
the judiciary that are the hope of the common man have often been
accused of corrupt practices.

Our case has become
like that of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah, where Abraham was trying to
plead for the Lord to spare the people. God said if he could find 10
righteous persons in the land, he would not destroy it.

Here in the FCT, a
particular church leader, with over 10,000 members, was said to have
entered the church one Sunday morning, crying and rolling on the floor.
When he finally spoke, he said God told him the previous night that if
the trumpet should sound, right now, they do not have 10 people that
can make heaven. If this is so, what do we expect from those who do not
know or fear God? So it is possible for one bad apple to spoil the
entire apples in the basket; with the hundreds of thousands of church
and mosque goers?

My thrust this week
is our youth that are supposed to take over from our present crop of
leaders. In Abuja, it is common to see near illiterates become rich
overnight. Some of them are the heads of mobilization for political
groupings and they come with different titles in different political
parties: youth leader, mama grass-root, youth mobiliser, head of
mobilization, women leader, market women leader, youth president and so
on.

Some of them have
been given permanent suits in highbrow hotels and to say they are
enjoying will be an understatement; what with the beehive of okpekes at
the snap of their fingers and the luxurious cars they now drive. A lot
of them now masquerade their activities with well registered NGOs and
business is booming as the election approaches.

The most painful
thing is that the same youth leader in party A, for instance, is the
Secretary for party B and the Treasurer for party C. All they need is a
‘face-cap’, dark sunglasses and an agbada to complete the
transformation, and they mobilize essentially the same crowd for the
different political parties. Some of them are honest enough not to
pledge their allegiance to any party. They have become professional
mobilisers. That is why it is easy to see the same set of women or
young men in not less than three different rallies by different
political parties.

Maybe we should advocate for simultaneous holding of rallies to discourage these ‘man must survive’ groups.

Ready for any rally

A friend of mine
said one young man’s speciality is to be ‘anti-anything’. That this
same young man was ‘anti-abacha’ ‘anti-atiku’ during Obasanjo’s time,
later he became ‘anti-third term’, he was ‘anti-cabal’ and now he is
‘anti-zoning’; that it is like the man has an octopus that tells him
which way the pendulum will swing because it always swings in his
favour.

He will mobilize
men and women for an ‘anti-anything’ campaign as long as he is paid. It
doesn’t matter if it is ‘anti-good’. Believe it or not, they are
beginning to have assistant professional mobilisers who can pull out
men and women who would easily leave their work places – okada riders,
farmers, mechanics, bricklayers, motor park touts, market women,
jobless people and even students.

The mobiliser takes the job, for N2,000 to N3,000 per person to
provide 2000 people during their rally, and goes to offer N1,000 to the
individuals per day. They provide maybe 1,500 people and then fill in
fictitious names to make up the number. In the heat of the moment, you
really cannot count to confirm if you have 2000 people. How do we
reverse this kind of thinking, knowing that their patrons are those in
the National Assembly or government houses. INEC and the rest of our
nation will have to reach deep into the solution box for a way out.