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One of the major challenges
confronting us as a people today is the “copy-cat syndrome” which in pidgin
parlance is referred to as “kopi kopi”. It is about our knack for imitating
foreign styles and mannerisms that fail to gel with our unique socio-cultural
makeup.

Despite being aware of this, most of
us still go on pretending about it. Laik say notin de hapun. Time without
number, I had reason to ponder over the mannerisms of supposed “trained”
receptionists and telephone operators who in replying visitors either in person
or via the phone, would say “how may I help you? “- a new way of receiving guests
since the advent of GSM. In the old days, it was “Can I help you?”

My grouse actually is with the
oyi-boik manner in which they speak. Receptionists have had to repeat
themselves with attendant man-hour losses. Situations like these have resulted
in quarrels with pipul wey no get taim fo nonsense. Why not just say “abeg, e
get wetin ah fit du fo yu?” Meaning, “please, can I be of help to you?” Pilots and
crewmembers sometimes spoil the day for passengers in their “spree spree spree” (blabbing) because they hardly communicate.

Passengers have to strain to make
out what they are saying about flight time and general safety tips. After
delaying our flight departure time from 3.20 to 8.30pm, the annoyance of
passengers was set to blow. It was an Abuja – Sokoto flight by one of these new
generation airlines. As preparation for landing at Sultan Abubakar III
International Airport, Sokoto began a member of the cabin crew started
announcing in “spree spree spree” which stoked the anger even more.

You could hear loud hisses and comments like, “abeg mek una drop os”, “wich kain tin bi dis?” “Dis won na big nonsens”. And
there was no apology whatsoever to passengers. To my mind, and just like the
earlier scenario painted in the case of the receptionists, a smart cabin crew
would have doused the tension on board dat aftanun to nait flait by saying, “wi de beg una wel wel. Wi don fol awa han. Wi no go du so egen lai lai. Mek una
fogiv os”.

Translation: We seriously plead for forgiveness. We are clearly at fault. We have
disappointed you all. We will never do so again. Please, forgive us.

In
situations like that, only the use of the language of the people would help. No
bi big big grama wey pesin no go hia wel. Don’t tell that us there may be other
nationalities on board the flight. Oyibo na awa languej? How about pilots
learning Naija Pidgin?

Nigeria’s No.1 rap artist, RUGGEDMAN
once accused his fellow musician Idris Abdulkareem of “kopi kopi” meaning that
his work was “not original”. The accusation led to a thaw in their
relationship. However, they later made up and even did a musical “kolabo” as a
proof of their peaceful reconciliation and resolve to move the music industry
forward.

Previously in this column, I
recounted how a Nigerian broadcaster lost the golden opportunity of working
with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) because, at the interview
session, he was said to have indulged in “tok tok fo noz” like “spree spree
spree”, “kopi kopi” and all that jazz. He was imitating the oyibos, trying to
be more British than the British. He lost the job. Of kos na!

If you have seen Hamisu Rogo
reporting on NTA, you can differentiate between genuine reporting and kopi kopi
reporting; he is a true Nigerian. No kopi kopi! At the National Assembly, one
Hon Alias “Igodomigodo” from Edo State does a lot of kopi kopi that reminds one
of the late Sam Mbakwe of “timba & kaliba” fame.

Whether he is actually helping his
people get the dividends of democracy by his verbosity or effectively
communicating with his colleagues in the hallowed chambers is none of my
business. Mai oun bi se, dis kain tok tok wit big big grama no dey fo maket
egen. (e no de ren).

After taking a second look at the “copy cat syndrome”, it needs to be repeatedly said that, in these times of
re-branding, kopi kopi de fol awa han. It is doing a lot of damage to our true
identity as a nation, as Nigerians in all ramifications. A re-orientation is
urgently required. Hau pesin go jos de tok wit noz. Blo oyibo we no get hed, no
get tel. Haba!

In less than two months, China has seen six cases of men
charging into schools and kindergartens to kill and hurt children. On April 28,
29 and 30, there was one incident per day in three separate cities. Last
Wednesday, a man with a cleaver killed seven children and two adults in a
central China kindergarten, while on Saturday the man behind the April 29
attack was sentenced to death for stabbing 29 children in an eastern province.
The situation has become not only very dark but very surreal.

News like this spurs social criticism and debate on the faults
of modern society. But what these child killers stirred up was a backlash
against freedom of the press in China. An angry article on an official
government website blamed sensationalist reporting for the copycat killing
spree in small Chinese cities. After the article came demands by the public for
the press to be banned from reporting on any further incidents.

Amid all the hurt and confusion, there was, for a couple of
weeks, a public push to further regulate the media in China. I was a bit taken
aback by the whole debate. It made me wonder seriously whether this country is
ready for democracy. Maybe we have been told what to think for so long, we have
lost our common sense. Take this debate on media responsibility. The public has
confused two completely separate issues: freedom of the press and media control
during a criminal investigation. Talk about shooting the messenger!

But it doesn’t surprise me. So often, conversations in China
become warped. And our society in general is prone to vengeful violence. The
fact that the killers used hammers and other blunt objects to commit these
crimes shows that they are not hard-core criminals who have access to serious
weapons. It means that otherwise, these very disturbed people could have looked
quite normal walking down the street. Thank goodness guns are illegal in this
country. Getting even seems to be very important to the Chinese. Forgiveness is
definitely not in vogue. It’s scary sometimes.

Fortunately, several Chinese magazines have finally started to
do in-depth reporting on the child killings and have tried to diagnose the
social maladies that might have caused such crazy behavior. The articles note
that none of the killers wanted to get away with murder – they all attempted to
commit suicide. And some other reasonable theories have begun to surface.
Caijing, a leading financial magazine, speculated that Chinese frustration with
the lack of an independent justice system, wrongs that are not righted and the
little guy who cannot be heard have led to desperate acts like this.

To kill children in a country with a one-child policy is a knife
aimed at everyone’s heart. Caijing noted that when the weak prey on the weaker,
it is the most desperate kind of cry for public attention. Unfortunately, I
don’t think the public has heard this message.

Southern Weekend, a popular weekly, ran a story with the headline
“Now That He Is Executed, We Are All Relieved,” on the day the first murderer
was executed: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Yet no one has lit a
candle for all the dead children. Sympathy is a scarce commodity in this
country unless it is a natural disaster. These kinds of incidents are dealt
with and quickly forgotten, because they are embarrassing to the country.

So I was relieved when Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said in an
interview with Phoenix TV in Hong Kong that the child murders reflect deep
social problems in China. Thank goodness the prime minister actually recognizes
that fact – and didn’t blame the killings on freedom of the press.

(Huang Hung is a columnist
for China Daily, the English-language newspaper in China. She is also an avid
blogger with more than 100 million page views on her blog on sina.co

New York Times Service

On paper, the 2010 Electoral Act is an ambitious piece of draft
legislation. The Act seeks to repeal the 2006 Electoral Act, under which the
disgraceful 2007 general elections were conducted, and to introduce
unprecedented changes to the electoral process. One striking example is the
independent candidature model.

The Act also seeks to end the idea of state funding of political
parties. In addition, it seeks to confine election petition adjudications to a
sensible time frame, a departure from the current situation where cases are
still being decided by the courts three years after the elections that gave
rise to them.

The bill has its failings. In not seeking to alter the current
mechanism by which the Chairperson of INEC is appointed – the powers of appointment
and sack are currently vested in the President – it falls short of being truly
revolutionary.

There are those who will argue that the conferment of these
powers on the President is the principal defect of our current electoral
set-up. Indeed, speaking at the presentation of the Electoral Reform panel
report to former President Umar Yar’Adua at the Aso Villa in 2008, the Chair of
the panel Mr. Uwais said: “The independent national electoral commission and
the state independent electoral commission lack the requisite independence.
This is a key deficiency of our electoral process.”

To remedy this the Uwais-led panel recommended that the Head of
the Electoral Commission should be appointed by the National Judicial Council,
subject to the confirmation of the National Assembly.

It is indeed absurd to grant that power of appointment to the
President, a patently partisan individual, who clearly has vested interests in
the election process. Take the current scenario as an example: very soon
President Jonathan will appoint a substantive head for INEC. This appointee
will be the person who will oversee the conduct of the 2011 presidential
elections, in which, from all appearances, Mr. Jonathan will be not only a
contender, but also the candidate with the overwhelming advantages of
incumbency.

The failure of the 2010 Electoral Act to adopt the Uwais panel
recommendation on the appointment of an INEC chairman is its “key deficiency”.
As the 2011 elections approach, there are therefore no guarantees of the
autonomy of the electoral commission. We hope that as the draft bill undergoes
further deliberations in both chambers of the National Assembly, and as
Nigerians get a chance to make an input through public sittings of the
Assembly, the Act will be rendered free of glaring loopholes and deficiencies.

It must also be noted, however, that until the new Act is
signed into law by the President, it is merely a commendable listing of hopes
and aspirations, of no value to Nigerians and to the electoral process. As
things stand, the significantly flawed 2006 Act is still the final word on
elections in Nigeria. There is no guarantee that will change in time for next
year’s elections.

That 2006 Act, in the light of the massive changes that its
successor seeks to bring to it, represents the dark ages of the Nigerian
electoral process. It leaves INEC at the mercy of the Executive arm of
government, in terms of funding. It makes no provision for expeditious
adjudication of election petition cases. At the moment, Alphonsus Igbeke, a
member of the National Assembly – the arm of government in whose hands a speedy
overhaul of the Electoral Act lies – is still unsuccessfully trying to claim
his seat, three years after he was elected. Joy Emordi, who fraudulently
usurped his seat, has managed to hold on all the while by exploiting the
snail-like progress of the petition process. Unfortunately, Mrs. Emordi’s
antics are the rule, not an exception.

Instances like this hurriedly dispel whatever meager hopes
Nigerians have that the National Assembly is ready to ensure that 2011 does not
end up being a repeat of 2007.

The
conversation on this topic fell into two distinct chapters but both had
to do really with hubris, his hubris of course, and the
quintessentially Nigerian version of it. Both conversations were laced
with humour, the confident and safe humour of people who are sure they
will never end up in such dire straits.

What
possessed the man to go to Dubai? Even Farida Waziri, head of the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which wants him for the
illegal disposal of 528 million shares belonging to Delta State in
Oceanic Bank, almost could not contain herself: “My initial reaction
when I heard of Ibori’s arrest was that of excitement, and surprise
too. Surprise because somebody said he had gone to Ghana. Some people
also said he is still somewhere in Delta, some say in his village in
Warri. My mind never went to Dubai.

“But
the MET police have a relationship with Dubai police. They told me that
if he is in Dubai they will get him; that it will be easier to track
him down. If he had gone to places like China or Japan, and then it
would have been difficult. I was very excited.” Ibori could comfortably
have lain low at home, hiding as it were, in plain sight, enjoying
wholesome Nigerian food under the protection of his people who had
sworn to defend their native son against his political detractors. It
did really strain credibility to try to imagine Mr. Ibori, PDP big man
and presidential campaign funder as a political prisoner, but Nigeria
is a land of infinite possibilities.

There
were suggestions that Mr. Ibori might even have fared better if he gave
himself up at home, even if that meant ending up in a Nigerian prison
where he would still have retained a modicum of power and influence
enough to ensure that even if he was a prisoner he would still be a
very important one, a VVIP.

Comparisons were made with Bode George, also a PDP bigman, now, as they
say cooling his heels in the VIP section of Kirirkiri Maximum Security
Prison in Lagos. Already the dust has settled around that momentous
event and the relentless cycle of life in Lagos and environs, Abuja and
the hinterlands, and in all other restless corners of our land, has
continued in its steady whirr, without Chief Bode George.

It
is not likely that the British Penal System has similar VIP wings or
that it would consider the likes of Mr. Ibori as candidates for
“special treatment”. The crimes he is alleged to have committed, along
with those he was found guilty of so many years ago, are pretty tawdry
in nature.

Almost 20 years ago, a much younger Ibori and his then girlfriend
Theresa Nkoyo Nakanda were found guilty and fined for theft. Ibori was
working as a cashier at Wickes Store in Ruislip,

London
and had allowed his girlfriend to leave with goods without paying for
them. The penalty was a fine of 300 pounds and costs of 450 pounds.
Seventeen years later Theresa, who had become Mrs. Ibori, was arrested
on November 1, 2007 at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of money
laundering.

It
was this angle that prompted the next conversation about the former
governor of Delta. Also charged with Mr. Ibori, in a case of money
laundering that began hearing at the Southwark Crown Court in London
are Bimpe Pogoson, Ibori’s former personal assistant on confidential
matters; Christie Ibori-Ibie, his sister, and Udoamaka Onuigbo
variously described as associate and girlfriend, and a lawyer Bhadresh
Gohil.

Ms.
Ibori-Ibie and Ms. Onuigbo were accused of “being a party to an
inflated price fraud in respect of the contract for the building of a
sports track for the Delta State government, as well as participating
in “the provision of an inflated invoice fraud in respect of the supply
of vehicles to the Delta State government.” Mr. Ibori had, until that
ill advised trip to Dubai, avoided a second encounter at the hands of
British justice and was able to follow from afar, the course of the
trials of his wife, associate cum former girlfriend and sister. That is
a fearsome number of women to leave carrying the can for actions that
you were in the primary position to spearhead as Delta State chief
executive.

But
that is not the end of the story. While the Mesdames were facing the
music in Southwark, Mr. Ibori was also frequently seen here in the
company of (at least) ‘a’ female. There is nothing illegal or
unNigerian about that. It is just that as a beloved Aunt of mine used
to say, in the sometimes rough and tumble world of male -female
relationships, you must leave cussing room.

It promises to be an interesting ride from now on, what with all the
possibilities for turning state witness and negotiating settlements.
Stay tuned!