Nigeria Content Online

Author’s note: If there was a competition on my personal blog for which of the articles out there is my magnus opus, this particular one
would in my not so humble opinion would be very high on the list. It was
written at a point in my life when I was going through what I now know to have
been the only heart break I have ever suffered. All the previous ‘heart breaks’
were nothing more than puppy love issues as compared to that one. Whereas when
I suffered heart break back in UNIBEN, the only effect really was to go a
little mental, but recover as soon as the next pretty face strolled along, and
they were not in short supply, in this case, I lost almost 10 kilos in weight,
lost a whole lot of sleep, was made redundant at work (was it because of the
recession or because of her?), and was for a brief period of time engulfed in a
level of hatred that I frankly did not know I was capable of. Thankfully as
things pan out, I have managed to move on from all of that.

What reminded me of
all that was a conversation I had with a friend this morning. He is in exactly
the same situation, and seeing it eating him up was pathetic to say the least.
Uwa my guy, there are only two reactions in such a situation, either you bend
or you break. It would be most unfair for you to let this break you, so bend a
little, then shape up, wax lyrical, and life has to go on. We dey your back…

My son, you do not know me yet. But there is time for that to
change after you are born. My name is Chxta, I am your father. I am writing
this down as my testament to you, a few words of advice to dispense, just in
case I forget to do it whenever the time comes. That I may forget to do it
serves as my first lesson to you. Yes son, I am fallible. Just like any other
human out there. I will make mistakes over time, you will be disappointed in me
once in a while. But like you are going to be, I am only human, and making
mistakes is the most fundamental human right there is out there. What really
matters is the person’s acceptance of his mistake, and more importantly, his
determination not to repeat that mistake. So, whenever I make those mistakes or
do things that are not in line with what I have to say now, bear in mind that I
want you to do as I say, not as I do.

Over the
years I have quietly observed a lot about people, and the world we live in. And
I have come to the conclusion that life is indeed worth living. The only
problem with it however is that you only have one, one that will be full of
mistakes and thus regrets, but one that will also be full of achievement and
thus joy. Try to live so you have more of the latter.

Make every
effort to enjoy your youth, so that you won’t grow up with regrets. The best
time in your father’s life so far were his undergraduate years. Those should be
yours as well, so you have some time to wait yet. However be careful to avoid
excesses, and above all take your studies seriously. A good education is the
only safety net you will ever have. Be mindful to have a complete education
though, a complete education encompasses everything you learn, not just the
school curriculum. Always remember that whatever certificate you might receive
in life would read that you were found worthy in ‘character and learning’. Note
that the character always comes before the learning…

Always plan
ahead. But whenever you plan keep two things in mind, firstly always try and
make alternative plans. As religious people say, ‘man proposes and God
disposes’. Again always keep in mind lessons learned from previous successes
and failures. There are bound to be failures in life as there are bound to be
successes. But remember that you can never know where you are headed if you
don’t know where you are coming from. And then again, there is no point living
life if you don’t have a solid idea of where you are headed. In making plans
never underestimate the value of intelligence. There aren’t many truer sayings than
‘to be forewarned is to be forearmed’. The real value of knowing all there is
to know about a potential foe or situation is that when things go wrong as some
surely will, you will not so much as not be shocked, but you would be in a
better position to absorb the shock.

Sometimes I
will not follow you, your siblings and your mother to church. This is not
because I don’t believe in God, I believe He is there alright. Rather it is
because my Bible starts and stops at Matthew 7:12. The ethic of reciprocity.
You must always bear in mind that you are what you are because of all the other
people around you and nothing else. If they were any less, you would be less,
and if their circumstances improve, so would yours. Keep that in mind and
always be good to the people around you. Your father is no masochist, so he
would never go out of his way to cause pain to anyone around him lest the
person turn around and hurt your father as well. Those are lessons that I
learned quite a while ago. Be nice to people, always offer to help in any way
you can. Don’t offer to help when you can’t do what is needed, don’t offer to
help when it would spite you. Whenever you help, do not forget that you helped
such a person. If the person turns around someday and spurns you, know then that
you are a better person, but never entertain thoughts of vengeance. Nothing
wears down a man more. Always be grateful, and never hesitate to express your
gratitude. Remember, as simple as it sounds, the words ‘thank you’, go a very
long way in making someone repeat a feat of assistance to you. More importantly
though, your actions in expressing that gratitude go even longer. Never demand
assistance. If it comes, don’t spurn it. If it doesn’t shrug your shoulders and
life goes on.

Make new
friends, but keep the old ones. One is silver, and the other is gold. Never
forget that. Be loyal to your friends. True friendship is more important than
all the gold in Fort Knox, and let the friendship flow from you. You don’t have
to wait for the next person to always make the first move. Ensure that your
friends’ problems are your problems. That way when you have problems they would
be their problems. Try not to keep enemies, but sometimes that can’t be
avoided. Make sure that your enemies are also the enemies of your friends.
Always be truthful to your friends. However, try and have the wisdom to know
when to be economical with the truth. It may be better on some occasions to be
economical with the truth as that would help the situation a lot more than the
blatant truth. Never tell a barefaced lie. That only complicates matters more.
Hang on desperately to the friends who improve you as a person. Those who don’t
improve you, keep at arm’s length. Even though I asked you to strive as much as
you can to keep your friends, some would prove themselves not worth having as
your friends. Give such people as long a rope as you possibly can, and when the
rope has grown too long, cut it, but never look back in anger.

Make sure
you learn a language other than that which we will speak at home. Make sure you
learn as much as you can in that language. Also make sure that you learn the
basics of as many languages as you possibly can. There is no telling if the day
would come when a simple knowledge of the question, ‘quo vadis?’ would
be all that stands between you and a lynching. Learn Igbo. It is the language
of your father, his father before him, his father before him, his own father
before him, und so weiter…

Love
completely and like a fool. You will meet girls as you grow up, you will be
infatuated with some, but you will fall out of it. This thing called love is a
placebo, and when you are on the other side of it, it hurts terribly. Never
forget that. Always keep in mind however that the really tangible things in a
relationship are respect and care. Any other physical yearning will diminish
given time and lack of proper care. As a man however, when you are in love,
give your all completely. Don’t hold back, don’t expect anything in return. If
you fall victim of unrequited love, hang on for as long as you can, then like
in all other relationships, walk away without looking back. Nothing destroys a
person’s confidence more than unrequited love. If you are lucky to find someone
who loves you back, walk in the air and return her love completely. There is no
greater feeling than when you are with a girl and you know that she belongs to
you completely. I know that because your mother loves me completely. Do not
under any circumstances think that ‘complete’ love cannot die. Like a plant
that is denied of nourishment, it would die. If fed, it would flourish. This is
a topic I won’t dwell on however because it is full of contradictions. Two
things you must take away from it however are these, first true love between a
man and a woman comes only when you have learned about the baggage which she
carries, and are able to accept that she has that baggage, and put up with it.
The second thing you must understand is that there with one exception, there is
no such thing as unconditional love. The one exception is the love a mother
feels for her child at the moment of birth, the one she will feel for you on
that day in the not too distant future when you are born. Even the love of God
which the religious people will tell you about has strings attached; if you
mess it up, He will burn you in hell for eternity.

NEVER keep
secrets. There aren’t too many more correct statements than that of Tigran
Petrosian, ‘there is more deception in chess than in poker, but while in poker
you hide your hand, in chess everything is out in the open’. Live in such a way
that no one can use some dark secret against you in future. However even with
all that openness, learn what is most valuable, and keep that close to your
chest. Always speak your mind. That way you will have a clear conscience and
you will sleep better at night. People will ridicule you for it, some will make
statements such as ‘you talk carelessly’, but as your father can tell from his
own experiences in life, when the chips are down they will seek your counsel.
There is something in the human being that appreciates brutal honesty.

Keep at the
back of your mind that he who must have peace must be ready for war. With that
in mind, never back down in the face of provocation. However, always be mindful
that YOU, not your adversary should be the one to select the time and place for
the fight.

Eat healthy.
My body has felt a lot better since I began to cut down on the junk, so would
yours.

The next one
is one that I’m only beginning to come to terms with, image is everything. Be
mindful of your appearance. The way you are dressed will be the way that you
are addressed. Always be neat and well manicured. It will open doors.

Never be
afraid to show off your knowledge. If people around you do not like the fact
that you are more knowledgeable than they are, direct them to the nearest
toilet with the appropriate instructions on how to insert their heads inside
the bowl.

The last I
can think of now my son, and extremely important: don’t watch football. That
game has an evil spirit, and your father is possessed. I don’t wish that on you
my son, my IfeChukwude. I love you son.

P.S: Another letter to the boy for reference.

For most of the past eleven years, the Peoples Democratic Party has held sway over politics in Nigeria. The party, which has controlled the federal government since 1999, also produced a majority of the state executives – thus cementing its hold on the nation.

Buoyed by the attendant access to national resources that this engenders, young and wizened politicians thought it best to join the ruling party and hide under its sturdy umbrella to nurture their ambition. Its leaders, unmindful of the dangers of hubris, have also taken to boasting that the party – the largest party in Africa, according to its promoters – will continue to provide the leadership for the country in the next 60 years.

On current assessment, though, that might actually sound wildly optimistic. The party is currently locked into an internal struggle that might either remake it or mar its continued existence. Of course this is not the first crisis the party has undergone.

The party has always, over the past couple of years – especially when elections were around the corner – revealed a predilection for eruptions as its gaggle of big men and women struggle with the need to subsume their ego for party discipline.

Of late, some of those who left the party in a huff over their defeat in the run-up to the last election have started retracing their steps back. The most nationally significant of these being former vice president,

Atiku Abubakar who is leading his band of supporters back into the party.

So, the party appears to be gaining further strengths. But in this also lies its weakness. The fabled large tent of the party is now struggling with coping with the large crowd huddling under it. The party is in turmoil and unsure how to accommodate the mostly conflicting needs of its many factions.

The leadership appears to be smack in the middle of the road that these new interest groups need to pass – and it thus being stream-rolled. The national chairman of the PDP, Vincent Ogbulafor is fighting a personal battle to hold on to both his post and his liberty. On Monday, he lost a legal challenge to his arrest and trial by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over alleged misappropriation of millions of naira. A conviction could send him to jail for years.

One of the most coherent forces against the PDP national leadership is led by a disparate group of individuals united mostly by their disdain for the leadership of Mr. Ogbulafor and his team. These include people such as former Senate president, Ken Nnamani and a former Speaker of the House,

Bello Masari, former governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili and his former campaign director, Aleigho Dokpesi.

These politicians, who have recently been suspended by the party, say their goal is to reform the party and make it more responsive to the needs of Nigerians. There are, however, dark mutterings that this might mutate into the breakaway of the group to form another political party. This appears far-fetched; but the PDP could benefit from a well-structured reform pushed by its members if this is well intentioned.

Which is exactly where the worry lies. More hard headed analysis would show that all this commotion is little better than posturing and scheming for relevance ahead of next year’s national election. This would mean that rather than a belief in the high minded speeches they have been delivering, members of the reform group want nothing better than a smoother access to the feeding trough for themselves and their followers. Incidentally, this appears to be the assessment of the Ogbulafor-led executive of the party.

No matter. The fact that there is a very visible division in the perception of leaders of the PDP on which direction the party should follow presents immense opportunities for positive-minded members of the party (no sniggering here) to come together and inject a more civic orientation into the activities of an organisation that is tagged with the slightly demeaning title of People Deceiving People party.

Because of its size and reach, the goings-on within the PDP matter to Nigeria. The acting president, who is also the party’s number one member, should step into the party’s fray to forge a more responsive body out of this behemoth. It makes little sense to talk grandly of ensuring electoral reform at the national level when the nation’s biggest party is in thrall to the politics of gangsterism and opacity.

Nigeria’s political system is no doubt in need of reform. One place to start is within the PDP.

The
wife of the outgoing Greek ambassador, Mrs. Eva Dafaranos, was quoted
as having said the following about her experience in this country:
“When I came to Nigeria…I said to myself: the Nigerian people are so
happy. There is something different about Nigeria; no matter the
diversity, the people are happy. They are kind to each other and they
believe in God. I feel Africans and Nigerians are the best of the human
race.” This characterisation brings to mind a similar one made by the
former Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Boutros Boutros
Ghali,who is said to have called Nigerians the happiest people in the
world and would wish to be born a Nigerian, were he to have a second
life. The BBC also reported in October 2003 that a study of more than
65 countries suggested,“the happiest people live in Nigeria”.

When those
statements were made years ago I felt rather good about them, believing
that they paid tribute to our resilience as a people, able to keep
their spirits up even in rather trying circumstances.

We’re obviously a
fun-loving people, drumming and dancing, seeking every opportunity to
throw a party, and apparently quick to shrug off whatever problems
assail us as God’s will. Life must go on.

This time around,
however, reading Mrs. Dafaranos’ declaration, I felt very bad indeed,
almost insulted. Six good years have gone by since 2003, and I wonder
if that characterisation still holds – or indeed, whether it is proper
for it to still hold. Those of you reading these lines, are you happy –
truly happy – about our current situation as a country?

Actually, I hold no
grudge against Mrs. Dafaranos; I am sure she is paying us a sincere
compliment. The problem is, I wonder whether this might not actually be
an indictment on us? That is, with all the difficulties facing us now
as a nation, we still come across as a happy people! Is something wrong
somewhere?

To my mind, there
are at least two ways to explain this phenomenon. The first is that
such characterisations might be based more on observations made on the
minority, party-throwing Nigerian population. After all, which category
of Nigerians do ambassadors hobnob with? Certainly not the ordinary
people on the streets! I am not sure that happiness is so easily
discernible on the face of the labourer struggling hard to eke out a
living, going home to his family of five at the end of the day with
less than the equivalent of one dollar in his pocket.

When the minister
of education feels comfortable enough to throw a lavish party at a time
when all the public universities in the nation are closed, then he must
be an incorrigibly happy person. When leaders celebrate their
children’s weddings with sums of money that far exceed the budgets of
federal institutions (hospitals, universities, etc), then they must be
truly happy, for they obviously see themselves as having been so well
favoured by their circumstances (that is, the public positions they
occupy), and they just have to let it be known.

The second possible
explanation might be even more worrisome, for it suggests that we are a
bunch of unthinking people, unable to recognise or feel the gravity of
our situation and act accordingly – and this is not limited to the
leaders or the society’s crème de la crème, sadly. It’s like we’re
morons living in an unreal world, a world of make-believe. We close our
eyes to the reality and continue on our happy-go-lucky way.

Many of us fall
under this category. We readily overshoot our financial abilities when
there’s an occasion to celebrate, mortgaging children’s school fees and
other important considerations in favour of a talk-of-the-neighbourhood
party.

We decide on an aso
ebi that is beyond the reach even of some members of the immediate
family – but they just have to find a way to pay for it, and they do!
People travel five hundred kilometres in ramshackle buses on terrible
roads for the burial ceremony of their boss’ friend’s husband’s
grandfather, telling themselves that they absolute have to be there.
Some of us cannot survive a party-less weekend; we are addicted to
pleasure – and the country might fall apart if it pleases! I wonder,
how did Ghana manage to turn things around for itself – by pursuing the
happiness road? I remember that when I was an undergraduate in the
seventies some Ghanaian students once came for the West African Games
and their situation was so pitiful, we had to contribute money to buy
soap, toothpaste and other basic needs for them to take back home.

Now, thirty years on, Nigerian children are applying to study in
Ghanaian schools because we have chosen to leave our own educational
institutions to rot. And I’m being told we’re a happy people! A version
of this article was first published on July 23, 2009

At
a time when Nigerian politics, education, and social life are in great
travail, especially because of wrong decisions or even lack of
decisions on the part of those who play important roles in these
sectors, one is led in the search for ideas to “dying” indigenous modes
of articulating the problem of decision-making.

In the indigenous
Igbo world, one model of decision-making, which is perhaps considered
the most faulty as well as the most risky, is the Tumbom Tumbom.
Usually enacted with the recitation of “Tumbom tumbom nkwa nwa isi
eregede, nge!” the Tumbom Tumbom is a formula often applied in the
local Igbo setting whenever a person is confronted with the difficult
task of choosing from among several options that have little or nothing
to differentiate them.

The process is
simple: the finger of the chooser is made to travel from one option to
the other in the physical space, and wherever the song ends, or where
the word “nge” falls, that is considered the inevitable choice ordained
by Fate.

Related to the
tradition of casting lots, this approach to decision making is not
really determined by any supernatural intelligence. From a simple
understanding of kinesics and spatiality, the onset point, to a large
extent, determines the termination point, or just to say, the beginning
determines the end, or rather, the end is in the beginning.

The Tumbom Tumbom
model is risky, for it makes one’s decision subject to chance. But it
is not as risky as the Zero Option one encounters when one is
challenged to handle a dilemma, “Leta ira Mbajiaku na ikwu eriri, were
otu” (Choose between making love to Mbajiaku and committing suicide).
Mbajiaku was a mad woman with sores all over her body.

Her sad condition
made people avoid her completely, and so the question of a sane man
wanting to make love to her was considered inconceivable.

To be asked to
choose between making love to her and committing suicide is to be put
in a situation where it is impossible to make any choice, assuming that
the person asked to make the choice is still sane. Making love to
Mbajiaku is as horrible as killing oneself, at least in the
understanding of the local community in whose discourses the narrative
features sometimes.

The English would
call this dilemma “being between the devil and the deep blue sea”. For
the local Igbo community, the Mbajiaku script presents a situation they
can relate with as well as use in representing helplessness in the
selection of a suitable option. In a sense, it is a script used for
humiliating and subjugating an addressee.

Is one being unfair
to Mbajiaku? Is one merely exploiting her condition as a semiotic of
the reject, without a humanistic consideration about her right to
association, to company, and even to sex? Perhaps. And this means one
has to interrogate the assumptions in the cultural interpretation of
Mbajiaku, especially her representation as the outsider, as one
undeserving of what other human beings use in constructing and
maintaining their humanity. So, we must recognise the weaknesses in the
local Igbo use of the expression.

But in spite of
such weaknesses, one can still recognise the Mbajiaku script as an
important cultural statement on dilemmas in decision making, especially
in relation to crucial matters of societal and individual survival.

It is a great
misfortune for a society to find itself in a situation where, in
electing its leaders, it has to choose between making love to Mbajiaku
and committing suicide outright. One has to become like Mbajiaku in
order to be able to make love to her. She still has her teeth and could
bite. She still has her talons and could scratch. And she still has
some other “goods” she could “sell” to her crazy partner to help him to
kill himself sooner. Indeed, one has to become an Mbajiaku to be able
to approach an Mbajiaku for sexual favours. For if what the
psychoanalyst tells us about the relationship between the sex instinct
and the death instinct could be accepted, it is easy to kill oneself in
having sexual union with Mbajiaku at both the interpersonal and
societal levels.

I think that
Nigerian voters have for a long time been subjected to situations where
they have to apply the Tumbom Tumbom model of choice as well as perform
the Mbajiaku script. Sometimes they are asked to choose between two
retired military dictators who are known for their disrespect for human
freedom and human life. Sometimes they are asked to choose between an
Ivan the Terrible and a crook that loved money so much that he gave his
only begotten son in a money ritual.

It seems to me too
that when Nigerian voters are confronted with the Mbajiaku script, they
often find themselves applying the Tumbom Tumbom model, which produces
the predictable result of killing the self in the risky “either/or”
that the Mbajiaku script imposes.

With the 2011
federal elections getting closer, one is watching to see whether
Nigerians would prefer to perform an Mbajiaku script in the Tumbom
Tumbom mode, or choose to undermine and reject the electoral suicide
principle entirely.

More than a year ago the then Attorney
General and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, wrote a letter to
his counterpart in the US asking for the names of the implicated
Nigerians. This paper also reported that the Senate and House of
Representatives also wrote to US authorities requesting the list.

In April 2009 Mr. Aondoakaa told
journalists “we are going to constitute a committee … that will be
charged with the responsibility of gathering information. If the
quality of information we receive internally is sufficient for us to
commence prosecution, we will commence prosecution.” Mr. Aondoakaa also
added that the prosecution would be dependent “on the cooperation we
have from the U.S. government.”

At the time that Mr. Aondoakaa was
blowing hot and cold NEXT had already published exclusive reports
listing some of the most prominent Nigerian beneficiaries of the
bribes, based on court documents obtained in the US, UK and France.
They included at least three former Nigerian Heads of State – the late
Sani Abacha, Abdulsalam Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo, a former
Petroleum Minister Dan Etete and a former Group Managing Director of
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Gaius Obaseki.

Nigerian authorities as is their
custom pretended to be unaware of the widely available evidence, and
appeared more interested in writing letters to foreign authorities and
blaming them for not cooperating. At that time we observed, in a news
report, that “our law enforcement authorities, notably Attorney General
Michael Aondoakaa, have lately been making noises but have in reality
done little to pursue those indicted in this scandal, which reveals us
as a nation that fully justifies its reputation as one of the world’s
leading cesspits for corruption and unrestrained graft.”

In the months since then nothing has
changed. Nigeria is no closer to getting to the roots of that scandal,
or to prosecuting the implicated officials than it was when the news
broke. This is in spite of the fact that the other countries whose
nationals were involved in the scandal have since taken action and
meted out necessary punishments. Mr. Etete, sentenced to three years in
prison by a Paris criminal court in 2007, was in 2009 fined $10.5
million by a French Court of Appeal after he was convicted of money
laundering.

The money in question is believed to be
part of the Halliburton bribe payments. In September 2007, just before
this conviction, Mr. Aondoakaa wrote a letter to French prosecutors
requesting that the prosecution of Mr. Etete be suspended.

Mr. Etete has been on the run from
French authorities, and was convicted in absentia. If anyone thought
that his conviction in Paris would spur the Nigerian authorities to
bring him to justice at home, they were wrong. From all available
evidence Nigeria’s law enforcement agents are neither interested in Mr.
Etete, nor in making efforts to ensure that he is extradited to France
to face his jail term.

Mr. Aondoakaa inaugurated the
Halliburton probe Committee on April 21, 2009, and gave it eight weeks
to complete its assignment and submit a report.

Today, one year later, the Committee
has yet to submit its report. As expected, all that is coming from the
government is more empty words. “If the report gets to him, I can
assure you the Attorney General will act on the recommendations and
based on what the law says,” a spokesperson for Bello Adoke, the new
Justice Minister (who replaced Mr. Aondoakaa) said last week.

These facile assurances from Nigerian
authorities have gone on for far too long. If Acting President Jonathan
is indeed serious about making a difference in government and tackling
corruption, he should not only order the immediate release of the
Halliburton report, but also issue a query to the Committee for sitting
on the report for this long.

When Abiodun
Kumuyi, wife of the General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Christian
Ministry passed on April 11 2009, very few sensed that she had
unobtrusively left behind lofty precepts far beyond the precincts of
church business. Fewer still were aware that although these ideas were
bred in a humble religious cradle they represented an answer to the
suffocating sophistication of a secular man.

Apart from her
husband Pastor W.F. Kumuyi, their two children Jerry and John along
with a cluster of brethren who worked with Biodun or watched her at
close quarters there was probably no other person (or group) in the
church that had an inkling of the great work she was doing as she paced
the grounds of Deeper Life Bible Church, Gbagada, Deeper Life Christian
Centre, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and International Bible Training
Centre, Ayobo, and as she travelled worldwide with her spouse.

The majority of
Deeper Life Church members and of the larger world may be forgiven if
we did not discern her contribution in her lifetime.

This world of
decadent values is given to recognising only the voluble and
voluminous. Our age contemns those who shroud what they do in
simplicity and meekness. Society approves the showy and upbraids the
lowly. It enlists a juggernaut to crush those who stand for
self-effacement.

But to be sure
Sister Biodun Kumuyi did not seek man’s approbation. There’s no record
she did, nor is there any that she lamented the lack of social
recognition. She couldn’t have, otherwise we would charge her with
being a closet Pharisee.

Starting with her
involvement with the Christian Women Mirror Magazine, Mummy (as she was
fondly called by the church folk) assembled a team of keen
professionals who of course were in the first instance genuine
believers. They shared her vision of delivering a monthly journal that
would cater for the interest of the women in the church.

We must quickly
address a point here to draw an enduring bestowal in this field.
Although the magazine started in October 1992 as a forum for the
sermons of the pastor, Biodun moved beyond that vision to accommodate
other features needed to build a woman into an all-round Christian
homemaker. Under her supervision as she heeded the plan of God for the
magazine, the publication became a quiet weapon of evangelism.

By the time Biodun died last year Christian Women Mirror had become a must-have in almost every Christian home!

Although it’s a
Deeper Life Christian Ministry effort, it has ceased to be a
denominational journal. The reason is because its contents are
Catholic, rooting fundamental Biblical teachings into everyday
practical use for the woman, her home, church and society.

Absolute credit for
this success must of course be given to God. But He used Biodun Kumuyi
as a vessel. He considered her a worthy of the vision. It was a high
calling which would have instilled in others a false sense of
self-esteem and achievement. Others would have flaunted the success as
a personal one. The manifestation of this elsewhere would be the ornate
display of the photograph of the woman behind the pastor. But Biodun,
out of deference to what the Bible teaches about the place of woman in
church, operated silently behind the scenes.

This style in no
way reduced her impact or influence. It rather was responsible for the
giant strides of her work, both in church, among the women and in the
society. It couldn’t have been otherwise.

Her modus operandi had divine approval!

Her work in the
Women Ministry of the Church was no less phenomenal. She was reputed to
have designed, planned and executed enriching programmes for women. For
this class of citizens who the society and government had neglected or
marginalised, the programmes offered hope and a sense of worth and
belonging.

Countless testimonies have streamed in since the woman’s death of how she demonstrated a squared understanding of the Bible.

In her usual quiet
and unassuming way, she was able to reach out to a many widows and
trained large numbers of fatherless children. She started women in
small-scale business through a scheme whereby they took loans and paid
back as their businesses grew. They didn’t pay any interest and for
some she wrote off their loans. Those who were genuinely struggling
with financial problems had a listening ear with her.

It is obvious that
death can’t destroy this noble pitch of servant hood, discipline,
humility and submissiveness wrought in a churchyard.

In turn these
affirmations of Sister Biodun’s work represent a stinging vote of
censure on our governments and institutions whose enormous resources,
aren’t deployed to the service of the common man, but rather are
ploughed into the coffers and interests of a selfish thieving class.

Ojewale, a Media Executive lives in Onibukun, Ota, Ogun State.

Is it something
deeply rooted in our DNA or is it something learned: this ability we
have to be aggressive about the most mundane of things but docile about
very important things? When a driver overtakes us on the road in a
manner we consider improper, or someone gives us a look we don’t like
or understand, or speaks to us in a manner we consider rude, the
average Nigerian will aggressively confront the behaviour he has
identified as unacceptable. Brawls on the streets and markets are
common place, as is the parlance, ‘do you know who I am’ once the
gloves are off.

Compare this to our
attitude when it comes to holding our leaders to account and demanding
good governance. On that score we are fast earning the reputation as
the most docile people on earth. We seem to have lost not only our
ability to feel outrage at the most outlandish things, but also the
stomach to speak out and if necessary, protest against these things.

In Thailand, the
Red Shirts, the name given to the anti-government United Front for
Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) have been demonstrating for over a
month now. Their aim is to force the immediate dissolution of the Thai
government. Mostly poor and rural, the protestors are exerting a huge
price on the Thai economy as they have invaded business districts and
are doing all they can to make the country ungovernable. The numbers of
these protestors have been estimated at about 90,000 people. Try and
imagine this, a crowd of that magnitude who feel so strongly about
their country and the political process that for a month they have been
taking to the streets to show their displeasure.

What is impressive
about what is happening in Thailand has nothing to do with the
rightness or wrongness of the course the Red Shirts are fighting for.
The willingness though, to be mobilised, to be galvanised in such
numbers is striking. It is a clear indication of deep engagement of a
people with the destiny of their country and preparedness to influence
the process of governance in spite of the sacrifices this entails.

It is passion like this that builds great nations.

In Iran last year,
a similar spirit was on display. The country went to the polls in
unprecedented numbers. When the result of the elections was released,
supporters of the opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi believed a
fraud had been perpetuated and despite the obvious risk in publicly
protesting, they refused to slink away quietly to mourn and lament
their loss in their homes.

Instead they took
to the streets, in their thousands. They were tear gassed, bludgeoned
by police batons and some 72 people were killed, but still they kept
coming out, to protect their votes, to fight for a democratic society,
to help build a country they can all be proud of. When they held a
candle light vigil in Tehran to mourn those killed in the protest, they
numbered 100,000 strong.

We have had our
share of street protests in Nigeria in the last few months. The last
one was two weeks ago when Nigerian youths decide to march under the
banner of ‘Enough is enough’ as a way of insisting on electoral reforms.

Despite the
publicity that preceded the protest, and the organisers’ utilisation of
social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to call people out,
only 1,000 people showed up for the match. Another dismal turnout was
recorded at the Save Nigeria demonstration in Abuja and Lagos. Despite
the presence of notable personalities like Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka,
the people that showed up numbered only 5,000.

When exactly did
the culture of mass protest die in Nigeria? As an undergraduate student
demonstrations were a regular part of my university life. We believed
in our right to protest against the ills in our society. Led by an
active union at the local and national level, the street was our arena
to air our grievances against bad governance. We became experts not
just at soaking hankies and towels in water to protect our mouths and
noses against noxious tear gas that was a staple at these protests, but
also in guerrilla tactics.

Many of us were
excellent swingers and would throw stones and other missiles at the
wall of faceless and well equipped mobile policemen who were always
sent to stamp out our protests forcefully. Once we got our shot, we
would sprint away from the swinging batons to get temporary relief from
tear gas before returning to try and once again fight for our right to
peaceful protest against a tyrannical government.

This was the era of
military rule where dissent was not only not tolerated, but sometimes
met with death by bullets. It didn’t stop us though; we protested
whenever we felt there was a need. In fact, there was something almost
exhilarating about thumbing our noses at dictators who could only stay
in power because they had guns.

As we prepare for election in 2011, the question has to be asked,
are we prepared to put our necks on the line to protect the integrity
of the electoral process? Unless and until a substantial number of
Nigerians answer in the affirmative, changes that are necessary for the
advancement of this society will continue to elude us.

Our former military
President Ibrahim Babangida is one individual about whom it is
difficult to be neutral. His many loyalists say they are willing to
follow him into the pits of hell-fire. His fans are all over the world,
ranging from a wealthy Jewish commodities magnate I met in Antwerp to a
former Guinean minister I met at a conference in Libreville and a
leading Cameroonian banking colleague in Paris, His foes are also
legion. And they swear that the hottest parts of sheol are reserved
precisely for his type. “Even when they cannot get their wives
pregnant, they say it is because of IBB”, he once lamented.

When you meet him
in person you will find him to be disarmingly charming, elegant and
witty. A man of good taste, he is unostentatious and unfailingly warm
and courteous — a good listener. He radiates a self-command and
charisma that one is likely to find only in the truly great. A
Bonaparte in a brown skin is the first impression I had when we first
shook hands. Some of us mourned with him and with Mohammed, Aminu,
Aisha and Halima when the agelessly beautiful Maryam went the way of
all flesh.

Even Babangida’s
worst enemies must get it very clear that he reserves a constitutional
right to aspire to any position in our fledgling democracy. Whether he
has a moral right to do so is another matter. His many critics have
painted him as this monster that wreaked untold havoc by the agency of
a corrupt and murderous military dictatorship. Much has been made about
the ‘missing’ US$12 billion oil windfall. Dele Giwa’s ghost refuses to
go away. There is also the dilemma of June 12. Others have dug up tales
about Bongos Ikwue and military aircraft that went up only to disappear
into the lagoon. A lot of it is hysterical nonsense.

As combative as the
armoured commander that he once was, Maradona has fired back, daring
anyone to produce evidence linking him to stolen funds. He has denied
ever knowing Dele Giwa. As for June 12, he would like to have us
believe he caved in to certain “powers”; powers that must remain
nameless. He insists he is the man of the hour because “the youths”
cannot save Nigeria.

That unfortunate
obiter from the mouth of our self-described ‘evil genius’ has only
succeeded in further fuelling the embers of mass opprobrium. Many say
they will never forgive him for having destroyed their future only to
turn round and mock them as leadership no-hopers.

For sheer political
shrewdness, few can match the wily Old Fox. But in the here and now, I
believe his dharma is to remain an elder statesman and ‘king maker’. At
three score and ten, he’s had his innings, as the cricket-loving
English would say. He should spend his time mentoring those ‘incapable’
young men that he has unwittingly insulted with such uncharacteristic
indiscretion. Besides, he has enough stocked up in his library to keep
anyone with a minimum of curiosity busy. He still owes us a book of
memoirs. And there are the grand children to dote over and the pupils
from the El-Amin Schools left behind by the immortal Maryam Babangida.
From time to time, government may have cause to use his talents on some
intractable African bushfires as it did not long ago in Guinea-Conakry.

From where I stand,
I see nothing new coming from the man once described as “the Prince of
the Niger”. Almost every misfortune that haunts our generation began
from his time: state-sponsored assassination; oil bunkering; armed
robbery; cultism; the collapse of NEPA; the culture of impunity;
disappearance of the railways; the grounding of Nigeria Airways;
devaluation of the naira; domestication of corruption; privatisation of
government; destruction of the universities; and the wholesale
humiliation of a gifted people.

If, in the vigour
of youth, Babangida led us down the gadarene slopes of collective
ruination, I do not see how, in old age, he can lead us back to glory.
There are many who covet his wealth and would never tell him these home
truths. He may not be the monster that he has been made out to be, but
I am not convinced he can muster the moral and intellectual wherewithal
to lead the New Nigeria of our dreams; a country destined to take its
rightful place among the leading nations of the twenty-first century.

The German-Jewish
literary critic Walter Benjamin, in his ninth thesis on the philosophy
of history, depicts the Angel of History as having turned his face
towards the past: “Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one
single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of
his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole
what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has
got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer
close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which
his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward.”

The Babangida years began the process that hurled us from the
heights of world-historic ambition to the quagmire of an irresponsible,
beggarly fourth-world nation. He cannot give what he does not have.