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It was one of those special days at St. Mary’s Catholic Parish, Trans-Ekulu, Enugu, for many of the local people would at last be admitted into the fold of believers, following their proclamation that they had rejected Satan and his works. Luke Adike, the reverend father who would perform this ritual, had prayed fervently the night before, asking to be used as an instrument for putting the fear of God into the members of his parish. He was particularly worried that many of the parishioners were still trying to put the new Christian wine into the old Igbo cultural calabashes, and wondered how such a practice could enhance their spiritual growth. He knew that the Vatican had, in authorizing the African Rite, allowed the use of local African forms of signification and expression in making God known to the people. The Vatican had reasoned that some ‘inculturation’ – whereby indigenous cultural forms would have an upper hand than the foreign in proclamation of the Good News – would not only be effective but also right and just in making Christianity a global religion. But Father Adike didn’t quite like this idea of localizing Christ, for he felt it would confuse people the more. Anyway, it was within his power as a parish priest to determine how the parishioners interpreted this Africanization of Christianity. He didn’t have to worry much, though, for many of the parishioners were ignorant of this new orientation, and the few educated ones did not seem to bother.

The candidates for baptism lined up in front of the altar, their candles burning confidently just as their hearts glowed with the light of the miracle that would soon happen in their lives. Father Adike was going from one candidate to the other, interviewing them to make sure they had the ‘right’ names ready for their baptism. Once he performed the speech act on behalf of Jesus Christ, calling the candidate by the approved name, that was it: the person was saved! And only European names – or preferably saint names – in his thinking, were good enough as the identities of those coming into the circle where God’s love could reach and bless them. Father Adike was, therefore, annoyed to hear one of the candidates, a 14-year-old boy, respond that the baptismal name he would like to bear was “Chibuikem,” a local name that means “God is my strength”. What would be the evidence that the bearer of such a name was a Christian, the priest wondered. How could a local Igbo name be a ‘Christian’ name? Moreover, was there a “Saint Chibuikem” anywhere in Heaven to be praying for this boy, or that would make sure that the boy’s prayers reached God? Suppressing his growing rage, he simply told the fellow to look for another name and moved to the next candidate.

Other candidates had ‘acceptable’ names such as Mac-Joe, MacDonald, Eliseus, Eubandus, Epaphrastus, Faustinus, Apollonia, Apolonus, Julius, Luciana, Agatha, Thomas, etc, and so Father did not have problems with them. When, in making the final round, he came to Chibuikem and asked him, “What have you now chosen as your baptismal name?” the boy still answered, “Chibuikem”, Father lost his cool and gave the boy what Nigerians usually refer to as a ‘dirty’ slap. It was really a dirty slap; first, because no one in the church expected the priest to slap a boy he was bringing to God Almighty. Second, it was the type that could cause the victim to ‘see’ stars in an instant. Dirty slaps are humiliating. In that very instant that Chibuikem experienced this priestly violence in the presence of other children and other people who had come to witness the baptism, he felt terribly ashamed of himself and wished he hadn’t come to reject Satan and his works. He wished the whole church could disappear and that he were somewhere else doing those things that made a boy happy. Did being a baptized Catholic mean being a victim of this kind of violence? Did it mean not being free to answer a name one could understand, a name in one’s local language?

The priest had given him a special, violent baptism. The flames that flashed across his eyes when the priest slapped him were from the fire of that baptism. “He will baptize you with fire and the Holy Spirit!” Chibuikem simply opened his mouth and the words tumbled out, “Michael, Father.” When the moment came for making Chibuikem a new person, the priest pronounced him “Michael.” But he would always be a different Michael baptized first with a dirty slap.

As the Roman Catholic Pontiff today tries to repair the damage done to the image of the church by some Catholic priests, one hopes that cases like that of the violence against Chibuikem, a candidate for baptism at St. Mary’s Parish, Trans-Ekulu, Enugu, would eventually come to his attention.

Rising prices following years of economic failure, five decades of oppressive one-party rule, an aged first family, an education system producing graduates with few prospects, a rich exile community waiting in the wings.
In this year of revolutions, will Cubans follow the Arab example and demand a better, freer future? Or are they condemned by the inertia bred of socialist egalitarianism and the opiate of Cuba’s wonderful music to remain passive? Or can this Communist regime follow Asian peers such as Vietnam and transform its economy while maintaining its grip on power?
Of course Cuba is sui generis, however some aspects of it may remind one of North Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam or the former Soviet Union as well as of Arab regimes that have failed or are under threat. As the Arabs have shown, stasis can continue for decades and revolt come when it is least expected. A superficial view provides scant hint of impending upheaval here. But there is an expectation that next month’s Communist Party Congress, the first since 1997, will point as to how far it will go in abandoning socialist shibboleths in the search for the economic gains it needs if its power is to survive much beyond the bombastic but genuinely egalitarian era of Fidel Castro and the more pragmatic era of Raul Castro.
Pressure is rising not just among the public but within the 700,000-strong party. How far can the party go in moving to a market economy, opening more space to the private sector and foreign investment, how far in cutting subsidies and welfare? The road to reform means more job cuts, lower food rations, higher prices – more risk of popular resentment.

The regime has a few things going for it. Number one remains U.S. hostility, an embargo which is a mirror image of Cuba’s island redoubt mentality and makes anti-gringoism respectable.

Secondly are its very real, internationally recognized and very popular, achievements in health and education. Thirdly is the lack of high-level corruption. The official cult is of long dead Che Guevara, not Fidel. Leaders lead modest lives, the party has a broad base and no one expects a dynastic succession to the Castros. Less admirably, the population is both aging and falling, so its demographic pressures are the opposite of those in the Arab world. But the time is up for an economic model which, for all the nationalist, self-reliance rhetoric, and tired revolutionary slogans, has always been dependent on foreign subsidy – currently cheap fuel from Venezuela’s Hugo Chà vez. Cuba’s agricultural failings have been remarkable even by Soviet and North Korean standards, and revenue from tourism, remittances and minerals is not only insufficient but has created a divide between those with and without access to foreign currency. Raul Castro has promoted many younger practical military and party types in place of old revolutionaries. The overt military role in the economy is growing.
These new leaders may be the sort who can push toward a Chinese-style semi-privatized economy where market and party share power. Some of them may already be looking to feather their own nests, as counterparts elsewhere have done, as joint ventures with foreign companies seeing Cuba’s vast potential start to blossom.
But this is not a vast China nor even a large mid-sized, self-confident Vietnam. It is a small country next to a giant neighbour which harbours a million people of Cuban origin who mostly do not want the island to evolve into a more successful version of the current system, but want the party to be swept from power and its system as well as personnel replaced.
So to survive, the regime must have economic reform and much more engagement with the outside world without being swamped. It needs foreign money and markets, but it also needs the U.S. embargo as a political crutch.
To survive, too, it may have to give dissidents – those who bravely speak out and decline to be exiled – more space, and so disarm those who view the whole system as an oppressive relic. Raul Castro’s men may be economic pragmatists, but their instincts are naturally authoritarian, and they may find it easier to talk to foreign capitalists than to their own artists and intellectuals.
Cuba looks unlikely to have a counterrevolution in the near future. But change is being forced on the regime, and it will be very difficult for the party to manage. Can Cuba find the space between socialist failure and again becoming an economic colony of the United States, a social democratic mean between one-party oppression and the corruption and violence of pre-Castro Cuba?

New York Times

The Arise Magazine Fashion Week has finally
come and gone. By now, the tents have been packed and everyone is back
on the daily grind. By the time you read this, you’ve all probably
ogled every photo; oohed, aahed and yeuched at the clothes in the best
way we Nigerians know how. So the time has come, as the grumpy cynics
say, to talk of many things. Of timing and pricing. Of attitudes and
beverages, of clapping in the middle of shows, falling models and
leaving before the final bow. The time has come to give a final
briefing. Here’s the thing about Arise Magazine Fashion Week. I can
safely say that we all lusted for you ages before you arrived. Long
before a lot of those models were conceived. The idea of a full weekend
of fashion shows, after parties and general air kissing was probably
the idea of many a fashionista’s castle in the air. By Jove, if you
hadn’t come around this weekend, I’d probably have spent the entire
time indoors watching or waiting to watch a vice presidential debate
with a bag of plantain chips. I don’t mean to exaggerate, but your
fashion week, complete with 51 designers under two roofs is the best
thing that happened to the Lagos fashion scene since shoulder pads were
banished. You’d have noticed our excitement judging by how geared up we
all were. It was one of those few rare opportunities we had to wear
those outfits that were simply too “fashion” to be worn anywhere or
anytime else. So understand that my sage advice on how to improve the
next one and avoid the same mistakes is written with no hard feelings.

The first thing to avoid is the belated ticket price announcement.
Look, I’m not against opportunism. Sure, when you had similar events in
New York and South Africa, tickets were free and invitation only –
given in that extremely elitist way to those selected by your team and
the designers. Still, I get it. Nigerians are more gullible and more
easily convinced to part with cash but would it have killed to announce
it earlier? Would it have been overwhelmingly uncomfortable to announce
it just a week or two before the actual event. To perhaps suggest with
the ambiguity fashion planners are famous for that “Hey, who knows,
this just might not be a free event”?

Some of us need a week’s notice, you know?
To starve and buy nothing while saving up to afford tickets. We
Nigerians are not against the opportunism, merely the strategy that was
used. Speaking of strategies, I’m sure you’ll agree that it wasn’t
really the best idea to have Darey be the host for the awards show. His
crooning voice has brought many females and a few males to their knees
in the past and at your show. I even understand that he can be quite
charming as a person. But did we need someone who repeated several
times how much Aliko Dangote was worth as our fashion spokesperson. I
know fashion enthusiasts are supposedly not the brightest or funniest
stars…but do we have to suffer so much for that? And while we’re
still on the subject of fashionista habits, what happened to the food?
Why was it so absent? Most people, quite understandably, think fashion
folk have little interest in food (beyond avoiding it, that is).
Please. This is probably the biggest myth invented. Fashionistas,
especially those in Lagos are the biggest food enthusiasts I know.
They’ll chomp everything you put in front of them. The fact that there
was no access to food, even for sale, anywhere close to the tents did
not go down well. Anywhere else in the world, people might be more
understanding. In Lagos, not so much. Again, no one is even asking you
to cover the costs. Just make it available. But on a positive one, the
models tripping and falling? Genius. Even, dare I say, more genius than
Tinie Tempah’s performance? How did you come up with that one? Finally
being able to see models fall went a long way in amusing Nigerians.

Oddly enough, it also taught us to admire and respect the resilience
and determination of models. Absolutely brilliant to include that. I
couldn’t have come up with a better plan myself. So well done. And well
done on the production team too. I sit here, writing a few words, as
though I could have done better, when the truth is, I most certainly
couldn’t. Oh, one last thing. You’ll notice, I didn’t talk about the
timing and delays. You’ll notice I didn’t once mention that most of the
press expressed exhaustion at the repetitive delays at the press
accreditation. You’ll also notice I didn’t dwell on designers throwing
strops after waiting four hours to show their collection.

Or the
ungrateful guests who waited even longer. I didn’t mention any of these
things because in the grand scheme of things, the opportunity to get a
fashion week, to admire the craftsmanship of struggling artisans, to
network, to air kiss and to brown-nose with fellow fashionistas far
outweighs any concerns about timing. Naturally, we won’t complain if it
was a little bit more organised. But this is Lagos and complaints about
timing would be like throwing stones in glasshouses. So if any
ungrateful person comes up to you and says more than a few whingey
things about how disorganised the timing was, I advise you to simply
roll your eyes, and like the superior being that you are, shrug and
just say “meh”.

But once again, without you, our weekends would have
just been another Friday night out, Saturday wedding-church, brunch, a
movie and Ice Cream Factory on Sunday. So many thanks for coming and
hopefully, see you next decade.

Though many Nigerians will remember COJA, the 2003 edition of the All African Games, for the cases of mismanagement that ushered in and bade farewell to the games, the event is fresh on my mind for two reasons: firstly, the perfectly done lighting of the games’ torch by a Sango priest. Secondly, the Nigeria Police band could not play the Madagascar national anthem after one of that country’s athletes was decorated with a gold medal. There was a prolonged silence of over three minutes before, out of the blues, a Madagascan in the audience went up to the announcer, collected the public address system and started singing his country’s national anthem.
While screening prospective Nigerian diplomats, the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs discovered that one of the ambassadors designate, Ijeoma Bristol, could not sing the national anthem. Though many of us Nigerians see this as a strong reason to reject Mrs Bristol’s nomination, the leadership of the upper legislative chamber says she will learn about Nigeria in the course of her job.
I am not a student of international relations and diplomacy but the three fundamental national symbols we learnt in social studies way back in primary school are: the national anthem, the national pledge and our coat of arms. None of these has changed in over two decades. Sending such a person as Mrs Bristol to represent a country she knows little or nothing about is like sending an athlete who does not know the rules of the game to represent his country in a relay. He will definitely not know how to change baton with his teammates.
If Mrs. Bristol is indeed a career diplomat and the next in line for the position as some members of the Senate claimed, what will she be telling the world about Nigeria when she is also learning about the country on the job? This explains why the executive arm of government will still have to spend taxpayers’ money to sell Nigeria to countries where we have diplomatic missions. If we have a good number of our diplomats scattered all over the world who do not understand Nigeria, do you still blame investors for not coming to Nigeria even after the rebranding campaign?
The fact that the Senate failed to see anything wrong with a Nigerian diplomat’s inability to sing our country’s national anthem is a confirmation that, to them, the anthem is just like any other song and that it does not matter. A patriotic citizen who does not know his national anthem is akin to a geography student who does not know the four major cardinal points. In some countries, the national anthem is referred to as a hymn. It is glaring that the ‘you are on your own’ syndrome created in the minds of Nigerians as a result of bad governance has made them not to attach any importance to such symbols meant to instil patriotism in us. Just take time to look into the cars of Nigerians and you will see flags of different countries on their dash boards, including flags of even countries like Somalia. Only a handful of cars have Nigerian flags.
To encourage patriotism in Nigerians is to make life worth living for them such that they will out of their own volition answer the clarion call as demanded by the first line of the anthem. In England, their national anthem is called, ‘God Save the Queen’; in the USA, it is the ‘Star Spangled Banner’; it is the same story for other serious countries of the world. What is the name of the Nigerian national anthem? How do you expect people to respect a nameless man? Urgent action must be taken to bring back the lost respect for the national anthem, the national flag and other symbols of nationalism, before our diplomats start flying flags with horizontal greens on the trunk of their cars (after all, it will still be green white green).
For starters, the government must ensure that every person in public office can recite the national anthem. It is disheartening to know that if one is to randomly pick 20 Nigerians in a busy street in any part of the country, probably only about two will be able to recite the anthem without flaws. Now that we are in the era of political debates, I suggest that the moderators of such debates should start by asking the country’s presidential candidates in the April elections to sing the national anthem. We might be shocked by what we will hear.

The recent televised debates, and the general excitement that have accompanied them amidst sections of the Nigerian public, have made me wonder about what it might be like to have a business card that said: ‘political strategist.’ Have we got ‘strategists’ in Nigeria; who do such things as crunch numbers and data, divide up the electorate into ‘catchment areas’, and devise campaign plans to reach all those segments?

Do we have, in the engine rooms of our political parties, people obsessed with polling as a means of understanding the electorate? (In the first place, is polling feasible in the Nigerian system; can it ever be considered credible enough to depend on as a mechanism for electoral planning?) We are witnesses to how the revelation, from INEC, that the largest numbers of voters lie in the north-west and south-west, have shaped the ongoing presidential campaigns. In the absence of such basic statistics, how is a candidate supposed to prioritise and allocate scarce campaign resources?

Or are Nigerian elections meant to be driven solely by the crudeness we have come to associate with them – noisy campaigns full of cursing your opponents and remixing gospel songs; sharing biscuits, cash and bags of rice; and the use of plain old voter intimidation before and during the voting?

One of the big words in the Nigerian political lexicon is “masses” aka “grassroots” (often used in a rather condescending manner). It is common these days for people to speak scornfully of social networking tools, and dismiss them as places where youthful noisemakers gather, oblivious of the fact that the ‘grassroots’ – who supposedly determine election outcomes – are somewhere out there, far away from the Internet.

You can’t but wonder what people mean when they use that term “grassroots” – do they mean the poor, or those living in rural areas, far away from campaign jingles and television debates? Or do they mean the illiterate – with whom Nigeria, Giant of Africa, is richly blessed? If they mean the illiterate – how do you reach that class with ideas originally conceived in English? How many are these “grassroots”, where are they based, what informs the political choices they make? Think of those millions of Nigerians who will vote for a candidate simply because he is their kinsman. Is it possible for an opposition politician to sway their allegiances?

Related to campaign strategising is the task of creating the ideas around which good governance ought to revolve. Watching the NN24 debates, and listening to the pronouncements of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, I found myself hoping that what they said was actually the product of thoughtful deliberations away from the limelight and bustle of campaign grounds.

I assume that they are all surrounded by teams of technocrats, policy-makers and speechwriters who advise and tutor them; and help them craft coherent and detailed, yet easy to communicate manifestoes.

I would like to believe that behind the public speeches and promises, some level of brainstorming is going on.
We tend to forget that while politics (i.e. the showy, public aspects of it) may often be compelled to revolve around individuals, proper governance itself ought to be about teams and alliances and collaboration.

Behind every (successful) politician should be an assemblage of smart, savvy aides, advising, strategising and evaluating. When we talk of the successes of the Obasanjo years, it is mostly due to the visionary work of a team of brilliant technocrats who drafted and implemented policies in due process, budget management, foreign debt management, anti-corruption work, privatisation, pension reform, etc.

Obasanjo as president was merely the public face – and godfather perhaps – of this team; giving them his blessings as well as the confidence to proceed in the face of opposition from those bent on maintaining status quo.

That is how politics should work – the president or governor as public face; the one on whose table the buck stops, the one whose duty it is to ensure that the government is staffed with the right set of people in the right places, and who gives them all the support they need to achieve.

Presidents and aspiring presidents must be ‘big-picture’ people, curious, eager to learn, able to process large amounts of information, and able to synthesize coherent ideas from complicated and often conflicting pieces of advice. They should be able to assemble and rely on the work of value-adding teams of thinkers and advisers; and confident enough to acknowledge their dependence on those people. With the above in mind, I guess the question we should all be asking ourselves is this: how can we ensure that ideas – and not rigging strategies and empty politicking – rule our politics? Should our elections be elevated into a game of ‘survival of the fittest ideas’; or should we simply forget about that and allow cash and violence and trickery to carry the day – as always?

As it happened with the vice presidential candidates March 12, the first presidential debate held on NN24 television station last Friday was a three-man conversation. Present were the flag bearers of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, Action Congress of Nigeria, and the Congress for Progressive Change, Ibrahim Shekaru, Nuhu Ribadu, and Mohammadu Buhari. Missing in action was the candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, Goodluck Jonathan.

It was a development, which angered Olu, my friend and collaborator on many worthy causes, prompting him to post on his Facebook page that other candidates should boycott subsequent debates involving Mr. Jonathan. In Olu’s view, the president was unnecessarily standoffish, and should be allowed to debate himself.

To the discredit of the PDP, there have been conflicting reasons adduced for why the president and his deputy were unable to honour the NN24 invitations.

They range from the multiplicity of requests from various organisations, to the clash with state duties and previously arranged campaign itinerary, to the mode of invitation, to the format adopted for the debates, and to the need to streamline the requests and prioritise on which best serves the party’s interests.

Rather than honour the request from a satellite station, which is available on the pay TV, DSTV, the PDP has settled for the March 29 debate being organised by the Nigerian Election Debate Organisation, an initiative of the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria, the umbrella body sheltering most electronic stations in the country; the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria, which boasts of leading newspaper titles in the land; the Nigerian Guild of Editors; the Nigeria Union of Journalists; and a handful of civil society groups. All the electronic stations will broadcast the debates live, and the newspapers will give generous coverage on subsequent days. It is an opportunity every serious candidate should seize.

To critics like Olu, the PDP was just inventing excuses to shield its disdain for civilised discourse, citing the examples of Mr. Jonathan’s predecessors in office, Olusegun Obasanjo and Umar Yar’adua, who also shunned such invitations. They charge that the PDP boycotted the NN24 debates because it failed in its bid to have an advanced copy of the questions to be asked, and was uncomfortable with the directing minds behind the initiative.

Does this mean that the debates being organised by BON and NPAN will oblige the PDP with advanced questions? “No,” says Feyi Smith, executive secretary of the NPAN, adding, “our role is to defend the best interests of the industry.” Taiwo Allimi, coordinator of the debates, asserts on phone, “That cannot happen. There is no room for it.” I believe them. My position is that people reserve the right to choose the company they keep. If the PDP, National Conscience Party or any other party are convinced the BON-NPAN initiative offers the broadest platform to reach Nigerians via a televised debate, it is within their right to embrace it. Really, it is about cost and benefit.

What does it cost any party to put aside its own campaign arrangement to embrace one floated from outside? What benefits will accrue from it? How many such requests should a party honour? What is the price the party will pay when it gives the impression it has something to hide? Rather than give conflicting reasons, the PDP, if indeed it has nothing to hide, should have stuck to the cogent reason from the outset that it prefers the BON-NPAN platform as giving it the broadest reach.

The March 29 date signals that the debate proper is about to hold. Eight candidates in two batches of four will participate. All previous ones were dress rehearsals. No presidential debate is complete without the participation of the PDP. Mr. Jonathan, as the PDP flag bearer, has to address the barrage of attacks that has come the way of the party, and project his plans for the country. After all, it is his job that all the 17 other candidates want.

I am not disparaging the NN24 effort. For one, it has provided a window of opportunity to examine the credentials of some aspiring office holders. Subsequent efforts will be measured against the standard it has set. Indeed, in tone, carriage, and substance I found the presidential debate a notch higher than the previous parley involving three vice presidential candidates. The questioning was more vigorous. I found Shekarau, articulate and calm in answering questions.

Ribadu’s presentation was somewhat exuberant and Buhari’s disposition understated. I don’t know why the moderator, Kadaria Ahmed, was made to sit down throughout the debate while the aspirants stood. I preferred the previous arrangement where she stood alongside the vice presidential candidates. It makes for better connection. But I enjoyed her questioning and found the warning bell urging the debaters to round off their submissions an improvement on the previous exercise where they were cut off midstream without notice.

I look forward to more conversations involving candidates for public office, for the useful insight they provide; but caution that articulate public speaking does not necessarily translate into competence or effectiveness.

This week, something of a rare debate
flared up in Lagos. The state governor, Babatunde Fashula, perhaps
needlessly, accused the People’s Democratic Party of planning to rig in
Lagos. It is a rare occurrence because, up until now, citizens would be
forgiven for believing that the candidates of other parties have ceded
the field to the incumbent governor of the state.

This is understandable. Governor
Fashola has garnered acclaim from inside the country and outside for
model governance – for a canny ability to make governance seem easy, to
inspire an entire generation of Nigerians to believe that government
can work for them again. Mr Fashola’s engagement with the issues of
local transportation and beautification have endeared many Nigerians to
him, so much so that a PDP governor this month announced to the nation
that the Action Congress will win in Lagos State.

Still, this is a democracy – and
democracy involves, indeed requires, a relentless engagement of ideas
and platforms. It is a contact sport – one that requires people of a
certain strong character, and a willingness to fight for what they
believe in to compete for the trust of the public. Even more to the
point, the very nature of democracy abhors comfort, abhors a situation
where a public office holder becomes too comfortable in his seat.

That is the situation in Lagos State,
unfortunately. The PDP’s campaign has been halfhearted, almost a play
for a ministerial position rather than a serious-minded effort to win
the state, and the other candidates are barely registering their
presence. Unfortunately, the only two candidates who actually raised
questions that would have put this governor on the hot seat have bowed
out of the race.

Jimi Agbaje, an impressive candidate
from the last election cycle, had made it a point of duty to raise
alarms about waste and corruption in the state, however, amid rumours
of a failed bid to get a Bola Tinubu endorsement, he slinked out of the
race. Femi Pedro, former deputy governor of the state, raised a bold
question via bill boards and other material in Lagos State: Lagosians,
have your lives really changed? – but quickly crashed out of the race.

The debate in Lagos also showed
Lagosians the absolute dearth of choice that they are faced with. The
other candidates couldn’t provide data about many of the state’s
indicators; one candidate spent half the period settling a personal
score, and when the governor announced incorrectly that contracts
awarded in the state are available up-to-date online, no one was
informed and engaged enough to challenge him on the falseness of that
statement.

This is sad. It is sad because, for all
of his bright spots, there are many dark circles right under the
governor’s eyes. The healthcare system has been wracked by a series of
strikes, the education system – most especially the physical state of
schools – as a special report by NEXT showed last year, is suffering a
worrisome abandonment, the inner parts of the Lagos metropolis have
communities who can only be amused by the spectacle of flowers and
paint in Marina, and the housing crisis in Lagos continues to mount.

These are questions that a credible and
vibrant opposition would have raised to the governor, and which he
would have been forced to answer to allow Lagosians the opportunity to
vigorously assess his stewardship and the ability to make a choice: to
settle for what Mr Fashola offers or to reach for a brand of governance
that reaches the people at the point of their needs. When one also
considers the fact that Mr Fashola seems to have chosen for himself an
elitist brand of governance that has little empathy for the ‘common
man’ and doesn’t seem to be engaged with common realities of poverty in
his state, the tragedy of a lack of choice is emphasised.

Lagosians deserve a robust conversation about who can best serve
their interests. We hope the other candidates can finally step up to
the plate – in driving the conversation and firing up the people – and
give the present governor a run for his money. Even if the incumbent
wins re-election, Lagos will be the better for it.

If your home was
hit by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, a tsunami, and radiation from a
nuclear power plant, you’d be forgiven for not remaining calm. Yet
that’s what many Japanese quake victims appear to be doing. People are
forming lines outside supermarkets. Life is “particularly orderly,”
according to PBS. “Japanese discipline rules despite disaster,” says a
columnist for The Philippine Star.

Anyone who has seen
“Big Bird in Japan” knows the shorthand for Japanese culture: they’re
so honest and disciplined! They’re a collective society! They value the
group over the individual! Of course they’re not going to steal
anything after the most devastating natural disaster of their lifetimes
— unlike those undisciplined thieves in post-Katrina New Orleans and
post-earthquake Haiti. Even if they’re desperate for food, the Japanese
will still wait in line for groceries.

There’s a
circularity to these cultural explanations, says Mark D. West, a
professor at University of Michigan Law School: “Why don’t Japanese
loot? Because it’s not in their culture. How is that culture defined?
An absence of looting.” A better explanation may be structural factors:
a robust system of laws that reinforce honesty, a strong police
presence, and, ironically, active crime organizations.

Honesty, with incentives

Japanese people
may well be more honest than most. But the Japanese legal structure
rewards honesty more than most. In a 2003 study on Japan’s famous
policy for recovering lost property, West argues that the high rates of
recovery have less to do with altruism than with the system of carrots
and sticks that incentivizes people to return property they find rather
than keep it. For example, if you find an umbrella and turn it in to
the cops, you get a finder’s fee of 5 to 20 percent of its value if the
owner picks it up. If they don’t pick it up within six months, the
finder gets to keep the umbrella. Japanese learn about this system from
a young age, and a child’s first trip to the nearest police station
after finding a small coin, say, is a rite of passage that both
children and police officers take seriously. At the same time, police
enforce small crimes like petty theft, which contributes to an overall
sense of security and order, along the lines of the “broken windows”
policy implemented in New York City in the 1990s. Failure to return a
found wallet can result in hours of interrogation at best, and up to 10
years in prison at worst.

Police presence

Japan has an active
and visible police force of nearly 300,000 officers across the country.
Cops walk their beats and chat up local residents and shopkeepers.
Police are posted at ubiquitous kobans, police boxes manned by one or
two officers, and in cities there’s almost always a koban within
walking distance of another koban. A survey in 1992 found that 95 per
cent of residents knew where the nearest koban was, and 14 percent knew
the name of an officer who worked there. Cops are paid well — the force
attracts many college graduates — and can live in cheap government
housing. They also care a lot about public relations: The Tokyo
Metropolitan Police even has a mascot, Pipo-kun, whose name means
“people + police.” They’re good at their jobs, too: The clearance rate
for murder in 2010 was an unbelievable 98.2 per cent, according to West
— so unbelievable that some attribute it to underreporting.

Organised crime

Police aren’t the
only ones on patrol since the earthquake hit. Members of the Yakuza,
Japan’s organized crime syndicate, have also been enforcing order. All
three major crime groups — the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Sumiyoshi-kai, and
the Inagawa-kai — have “compiled squads to patrol the streets of their
turf and keep an eye out to make sure looting and robbery doesn’t
occur,” writes Jake Adelstein, author of “Tokyo Vice: An American
Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan,” in an e-mail message. “The
Sumiyoshi-kai claims to have shipped over 40 tons of [humanitarian aid]
supplies nationwide and I believe that’s a conservative estimate.” One
group has even opened its Tokyo offices to displaced Japanese and
foreigners who were stranded after the first tremors disabled public
transportation. “As one Sumiyoshi-kai boss put it to me over the
phone,” says Adelstein, “’In times of crisis, there are not Yakuza and
civilians or foreigners. There are only human beings and we should help
each other.’” Even during times of peace, the Yakuza enforce order,
says Adelstein. They make their money off extortion, prostitution, and
drug trafficking. But they consider theft grounds for expulsion.

That’s not to say
that a culture of reciprocity and community doesn’t play a role in the
relatively calm response to the quake. It’s just that these
characteristics are reinforced by systems and institutions. Adelstein
quotes an old Japanese saying that explains the reciprocal mindset:
“Your kindness will be rewarded in the end. Charity is a good
investment.” But there’s a flipside, too: Unkindness will be punished.

New York Times

If I didn’t
understand Yoruba’s musically intoned words, I would imagine ila cocoa
to be the perfect marriage between something sweet and something
savoury, or the name of a beautiful country. I’m allowed to imagine.
But ila cocoa is a soup made from young cocoa pods. I love the way food
becomes animated when introduced to words. Even if you don’t speak
Yoruba, there is an expectation of a treat when you hear ila cocoa. The
words are resonant and soft and sexy, especially the ‘cocoa’ that
knocks twice on the roof of your mouth. Better than mundane recipes are
descriptions of how flesh and blood and food interact. What you get are
engaging stories; muscular images that connect the mind to the emotions
to the gastric juices.

The story of ila
cocoa belongs to Festus Adetula who insisted that his wife, Oyebola,
must never cook him okra soup in that lazy Yoruba way. The Yoruba cut
up or grate okra pods, stir them into boiling water with salt and
potash (‘kaun’ is the bell-like Yoruba word for potash), serve the
briskly cooked okra with pepper stew and a choice of gari, pounded yam
or fufu. This simple treatment of okra is scandalous to people from
other parts of Nigeria who dress up the vegetable with as many as 10
other ingredients. Mr Adetula considered it an abomination for a strong
brewed Owo man from Ibami Mose’s farm to eat such spiritless food.

As a child
approaching his adult years, Mr Adetula’s life moved seamlessly between
work and hard work; from school to the farm and back to school. When he
and his wife moved into their marital home, one of the first things he
did was to plant his own cocoa trees. His wife thought that he grew
them for the childhood sweet treat of sucking on cocoa beans, or to
beautify the garden, but he grew them for the nutritious mucilaginous
ila cocoa soup. He taught his wife how to harvest 20 to 25 very young
pods of cocoa. The green, grooved elongated pods of cocoa are like
oversize okra pods, and perhaps this is what inspired the Yoruba to
cook them down into soup. The cocoa pods are wrapped and tied in glossy
green cocoa leaves and steamed until the skin of the cocoa is very
soft. They are then mashed in a mortar, not with heavy pounding but
with a measured firm back and forth movement of the pestle. This
produces a mucilaginous coarse mash of cocoa skin, beans and pulp.

In a pot, the stock
for the ila cocoa is put together from ground pepper; chopped onions;
boiled stockfish that flakes under the pressure of a fork; periwinkles;
iru pete (fermented locust beans processed into a mushy consistency);
ogiri (fermented sesame seeds) and the holy grail of Yoruba delicacies,
the legendary eja osan. Eja osan is a freshwater knife shaped fish. It
is so highly esteemed that King Sunny Ade immortalised it in song.
Forty-two pieces of fragrant smoked eja osan are presented by the groom
to the bride’s family during traditional Yoruba weddings. Stewed eja
osan is a strong aphrodisiac and a recognised ‘husband-bewitching’
device. Mrs Adetula uses the smoked eja osan.

Water is added to
the stock ingredients and everything is brought up to boil. The mashed
ila cocoa is added to the stock with salt and a little palm oil.
Shredded ugwu may be added at the end, just before the soup is taken
off the fire.

This soup’s
ingredients are so dear that it is really only practical as a meal for
one or two persons. It must be served with authentic pounded yam made
from yams grown specifically for pounding. The yams must be worked in a
mortar and must at the end of pounding give a smooth supple texture;
otherwise, Mrs Adetula says her husband would not eat it.

A few years ago, I met a Nigerian pastor who lived in Houston,
Texas. He confided in me that there was no question of him coming back
to live in Nigeria because he won’t be able to buy his sausages here. I
was so astounded, my mouth hung open in anticipation of the punch line.
I can’t resist contrasting the shallowness of living in a foreign
country because of cheap sausages to the integrity of being opinionated
about nutritious home grown food. If Mr Adetula had not turned his nose
up at a dull bowl of okra soup, what sort of ila cocoa story would we
have to tell?

I recently had
lunch with one of my very good friends and her sprightly white-haired
father who is in his seventies. We had arranged to catch up over lunch
on a weekday and I was surprised to learn that her father, who still
worked in the office with her, would come along as he did several times
a week.

In the course of
the meal, as is usual with people in their 70s, we were treated to many
anecdotes, most of which my dear and indulgent friend had heard many
times over the years. What caught my ear most particularly was the tale
of how she joined the family business, which is a manufacturing concern.

Like his father and
his father’s father, her older brother joined the family business as
soon as he left university. Both siblings grew up visiting the factory
as young children and I recall spending a day there with them on school
holiday when we were all in our teens. If there was any question of her
brother choosing another career,it was never discussed. Soon after she
finished university, my friend also joined the company – continuing a
family tradition started three generations before.

When she arrived to
join the administrative side of the business, she was welcomed with
relief by the staff, much to her father’s surprise. Her brother was
working on the revenue generation side of the business. They felt that
as a person with long familiarity with the business, who had worked
there intermittently, and who was hard-working and well-educated, she
would be a contributor and not a drain on resources.

Twenty years later,
she and her brother have taken over the management of the family firm.
Their father retains his desk in the office in a titular role as
chairman. Their own children, in turn, spend school holidays working in
the factory or lending a hand in the office when their parents need
them to. It would be interesting to see how many more times the
company’s management will pass from parent to child.

Several years ago, Leap Africa Foundation published, ‘Defying the Odds:

Case studies of Nigerian organizations that have survived generations’.

They could only find seven family businesses that had successfully passed from one generation to another.

Examples that I am
familiar with, where the founder brought in his/her children to work,
are common in the traditional professions and in new entrants such as
telecoms, oil and gas and information technology. In most of these
cases, the parents are still firmly at the helm or providing leadership
while the children are in management or on the board. Clearly outlined
succession either to one’s child or to an identified executive is so
rare that it is notable.

Unfortunately, few
of the family firms have truly institutionalized or gone public. So,
corporate governance that would manage succession is absent or
imperfect. In a few cases, succession has been forced due to
irresistible external pressures.

Missing on positives

Where it has
occurred that a parent passes their business or influence onto their
child, how successful has the transition been? Again, from anecdotal
evidence, not very successful! For starters, it is rare for the child
to have grown up with the business as a significant part of their lives
– other than as a source of their parent’s income and pocket money for
them. Then, where the child knows that the business is his/her
inheritance, it is both their expectation and their parent’s plan that
they will take over as workers and not necessarily as management.

The in-depth
knowledge of the business, the day to day interaction with customers
and stakeholders, the ability to relate to and empathize with the
circumstances of their staff – all these things that are necessary to
give them a good probability of maintaining or building on the success
of the business – is mostly absent. To explore the reasons why family
enterprises are failing to be sustainable, let’s start with our history
and culture of running enterprises. Historically, there was nothing
like work/life balance. One’s personal life was involved in one’s work
and vice versa. Farming involved the entire family, and when visitors
came to say, they automatically helped out as well. Children would help
in the farmhouse or on the farm from when they were small, and unless
they were that odd individual who yearns to leave home to discover the
unknown, they would grow into that life and the cycle would continue.

For professionals,
parents would heavily influence the choice of training and career,
sometimes only paying tuition for the course they want they child to
follow. Of course, there are cases where the children admire their
parents so much that they want to be exactly like them.

The missing link

Why doesn’t succession work?

Major contributing factors on the side of the parents are parental interference,

refusal to
relinquish authority, inability to view their child as a competent and
capable adult, resistance to institutionalization, unrealistic
financial demands and expectations, unwillingness to transfer key
stakeholder relationships,

favouritism between
children, sabotage to prevent the child from outshining their own
achievements and more. The crux is agreement about ownership of the
vision and the assets of the family business.

Yet with all the
difficulties, sitting with my friend and her father over lunch, all I
could think about was how blessed they both were to be working together
in relative harmony.