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These are not the
best of times for Amos Adamu, Nigeria’s suspended member of the FIFA
executive board. A highly decorated sports administrator, Adamu is the
current president of the West African Football Union (WAFU), and
executive council member of the Confederation of African Football. He
was the pioneer director of sports development in the Ministry of
Sports in 1991, CEO of the 8th All Africa Games in Abuja, and a former
director general of the National Sports Commission. A doctoral degree
holder in physical education, he has taught sports and practised it at
the highest levels.

Adamu’s domineering
presence in sports has been his strength and weakness. Over the years,
he has dispensed many favours and has built a coterie of admirers in
high places. In many quarters it is settled judgment that being in
Adamu’s good books is the beginning of wisdom. On the other hand his
success has also antagonised many forces who swear that he is the
author and finisher of all that is wrong with Nigerian sports, football
especially.

Obviously, the
truth oscillates between the two opposing ends. What is indisputable is
that sports cannot be discussed in today’s Nigeria without devoting
more than casual attention to Adamu’s role. At 58, Adamu is a director
in Nigeria’s civil service, and two years away from retiring peacefully
to Zuru or Ogbomoso, probably to write a best seller on his days on the
sporting turf.

Suddenly, the dream
of a peaceful retirement is threatened by some pestering newsmongers.
Operating under the credo that they are watchdogs of society, some
reporters from The Sunday Times of London hatched a plot to entrap.
Adamu. Claiming to be lobbyists for a consortium of American
businessmen anxious to host the World Cup in the United States in 2018,
they asked Adamu if he was ready to play ball and cast his influential
FIFA board vote for their clients.

Unbeknownst to him,
the Times journalists were secretly taping their conversations. When
they aired a clip from their recordings on the BBC on 17 October,
someone resembling Adamu reportedly asked for $800, 000 to build four
artificial pitches in Nigeria as consideration for the vote. Now, in
this age of digital imaging and electronic manipulation, anything is
possible and I am not suggesting that the distinguished. Adamu is
guilty. It remains an allegation, which must be proven beyond
reasonable doubt to convict Adamu of wrongdoing in FIFA’s court, even
if not in that of public opinion.

FIFA, anxious to
protect its reputation, has already asked Adamu and co-accused, Reynald
Temarii, president of Oceania Football Confederation, to step aside
pending the full investigation of the charge. FIFA president, Sepp
Blatter has already dubbed the development a “sad day for football; a
sad day in life” adding ominously, “you can’t always have sunny days”.

I have heard the
lawyers disclaim the purported move by the journalists as an entrapment
to seduce people into doing what they would otherwise not do. I have
heard concerns expressed about the methods of journalistic inquiry as
to whether in the guise of exposing misconduct, journalists are not
themselves embracing unethical means. I have also heard people berate
the Nigerian press for not going the extra mile like the Times (that is
if what they published was true) to unearth misconduct To all those
critics, I refer them to the Code of ethics of Nigerian Journalists.
Adopted March 20, 1998, it contains 15 articles. The relevant ones are
articles 10 (Access to Information), and 3b (Privacy). While the former
enjoins journalists to “employ open and honest means in the gathering
of information” it approves “exceptional methods only when the public
interest is at stake”.

Under article 3,
while approving respect for the privacy of individuals it sanctions
invading it where the public interest is affected. It justifies
publishing such information on grounds of exposing crime or serious
misdemeanour, antisocial conduct, protecting public health, morality
and safety etc. Read together, the press is expected to employ
exceptional information gathering methods where it is in the public
interest so to do. It follows therefore that what the Times of London
has done is justifiable even by our rules if the intention is to expose
fraud or absence of fairness in FIFA’s bidding process for the
selection of host countries.

Such a course of
action is expensive, dangerous and to be employed sparingly and
everyone knows Nigerian media houses are not the most buoyant. It is
not true that Nigerian journalists have not been daring. Idowu Sobowale
as a reporter in the 60s had to patronise a native doctor to expose his
thriving, fraudulent activities on the pages of the Nigerian Sunday
Times. Maxim Uzoatu and Ndubuise Okwechime had to go underground to
report a crime syndicate for Thisweek in the late 80s.

Occasionally, these
days, one comes across some investigative articles, written by
enterprising reporters. But it is true that the general fare is run of
the mill spot reporting, punctuated by “the President said,” the
“Senate speaker opined” and “the dignitaries at the event included….”

So, while awaiting
FIFA’s final verdict on the Sunday Times’ expose, we wish Amos Adamu
well, as we wish Nigeria and journalism renaissance.

There’s no escaping
Africa, no matter how far from it you are. From England’s supermarket
shelves bottled water leaps at you, chanting, “buy me and save a
continent!” You blink, once, twice, to be sure you’re not
hallucinating. You’re not. The voices are as real as they are earnest:
by buying a bottle of water you can help build a borehole in the
remotest jungles of Africa. And so you hearken to the plea; a black
person taking on guilt once monopolised by whites.

There’s even more
fascinating stuff in print. I’ve been coming across a
call-for-donations insert in UK magazines, in which a circular hole
sits in the middle of the page, accompanied by the chilling line: “The
upper arm of a child who has severe acute malnutrition would fit
through this hole.”

Talk about shock
therapy. But let it not sound as if I’m complaining, I‘m not. Hey
world, Africa is indeed grateful for the aid, and even more so for the
headlines and media mentions. (Father of ‘em all: the May 13 – 19, 2000
issue of The Economist which paid tribute, on its cover, to “The
Hopeless Continent”).

Bono and Bob Geldof
also have a place in my Hall of Fame; celebrities who could have busied
themselves checking in and out of rehab, but have instead chosen to
work tirelessly saving Africa and its citizens. Unlike

fad-hunters Madonna
and Angelina Jolie who simply want to parachute in for a quickie
adoption (“Err, jus’ gimme the baby and keep the change darling…”) –
with a photo-shoot to boot – Bono and Bob Gee are commendable
long-distance ‘activists’.

If like me you are
worried about who will take the baton from them, worry no more. We have
Britain’s Prince William to thank for making plans to order the
over-sized shoes of the Irishmen.

Sky1 has just aired
a documentary titled ‘Prince William’s Africa.’ In it TV presenter Ben
Fogle follows the prince to ‘Africa’, to celebrate the 20th anniversary
of the Tusk Trust (a UK charity devoted to the protection and
conservation of wildlife in Africa), of which the prince is patron
saint.

Prince William’s Africa… never mind that Botswana is the only African ‘province’ they visit.

I recently realised
that of my many foolish (random) assumptions, the biggest has been this
– thinking that Africa is what the atlas says it is. No, Africa is what
tourists say it is: the jungle and its gorillas/guerrillas (same
difference!) the game park and its sunsets, elephants, lions and zebras.

Kabisa! Lagos’s concrete jungles are not “Africa;” they are “Nigeria”. Ibadan’s “running splash of rust and

gold” is not
Africa, it belongs to the “predominantly Christian South” (as opposed
to a “largely Muslim North”) of “oil-rich Nigeria”.

Unless we can
convince Prince William that ‘observing’ our politicians – especially
caged in their convoys – will provide as much entertainment as a
Southern Africa safari; unless we can convince him that what we lack in
real pachyderms we more than make up for in (cashnivorous) ‘White
Elephant’ projects; we should give up any hopes of seeing His Royal
Highness’ Africa extend in the direction of Nigeria.

The prince’s
interest in Africa is clearly not a mere tweenage fad. He’s been into
this continent since like forever. His twenty-first birthday party,
held seven years ago at Windsor Castle, was, according to the BBC,
“African-themed.”

“As the party
started, outfits spotted arriving at the castle included a furry lion,
Tarzan and a banana. The castle’s ancient rooms were transformed into
scenes from the African bush, which include a life-sized elephant made
out of papier mache,” the BBC tells us. “Other outfits seen on arriving
guests included a lion suit topped with a gold crown, a full foreign
legion uniform, a Biggles-esque pilot, a banana and a top-hatted
witch-doctor.”

I’m hoping the
future king will choose to have his coronation staged in his beloved
Africa. Dignitaries – faces painted of course – will arrive at Africa’s
International Airport (named after none other than the most famous
living citizen of Africa, Nelson Mandela), waving ‘iSpears’ (trust
Steve Jobs to cash in on this) and singing ‘God save the king’ in
‘African’.

It’ll be like the
2010 World Cup all over again! All we’d need to do in terms of security
would be to prevent the Swazi King Mswati III from coming near the new
king – we don’t want anyone extolling the virtues of royal polygamy to
the head of the Church of England do we?

The Africa that the
prince will be ‘inheriting’ when he becomes king will f course be
vastly different from the one his grandmother inherited when she became
queen almost sixty years ago. But who cares? Prince William’s Africa –
full as it will be of elephants, witch-doctors, Tarzans, vast farms and
BBC and SkyTV cameras – will be, for most of Europe and America, a
vastly recognisable Africa. I’m betting The Economist will want to atone for past sins. Atop an image of frenzied crowds
lining the streets of Africa to hail the brand new King William V, our
beloved newsmagazine will plaster these words (a marked improvement on
a decade ago): “Africa: The Hopeless BUT Happy Continent!”

“Is this is how public institutions die?” I wondered after seeing another example of this malaise.

I have always been
puzzled by the low level of trust that Nigerians have for their public
institutions and I am yet to understand why anything owned by the
government is looked upon with derision, particularly where performance
and transparency are concerned.

A friend told me
the trend started when the late Murtala Muhammed brutally sacked civil
servants at a time when Nigeria’s civil service was reputed as the most
vibrant in Africa.

I realised that although they are called public institutions, the public does not own them.

Instead of owning
their institutions by asking questions and demanding answers, Nigerians
malinger while investors cash in on a mismanaged institution. So, when
public schools were dying, the public asked questions but did not
insist on answers.

Consequently, the savvy South-Westerner established privately owned schools and the public embraced the idea.

A local government
chairman in Lagos said it is the children of the poorest of the poor
that attend public schools in his council.

He observed that
parents send their children to private schools even when they are not
financially capable of doing so. They would rather go into debt than
opt for public schools.

The same trend is
creeping into our university education system. Many civil servants now
have their children in privately owned, and by Nigerian economic
indices, hugely expensive universities. This trend is capable of
increasing the potential targets of the anti-corruption agency, EFCC.

When the
locomotive engines of trains stopped roaring, the public played the
ostrich. The business acumen of the South-Easterner saw the rail line
as a veritable spot to sell used clothes and shoes. Once in a blue
moon, a train comes around and kills an unsuspecting poor buyer.

The pressure of
transportation was offloaded onto the roads with the surge in the
number of heavy trucks crisscrossing from north to south. Our roads
degenerated faster, causing unprecedented carnage and loss of
productive man-hours to traffic jams. Nigerian roads are a bus stop
away from the morgue and it is now commonplace to see road transport
companies hiring “pastors,” whose job is to offer prayers of protection
against road accidents. Our roads are now blood-sucking demons.

For two months,
medical doctors in public hospitals in Lagos have been on strike and
the public, in its usual reticence remains aloof, like it does not feel
the impact. Yet, the public is at the receiving end, losing several
lives to the impasse between the doctors and the government. The
menacing impact of the strike gains in significance when one considers
the fact that most Nigerians go to hospital when an ailment has defied
self-medication.

While the strike
continues, some “pro-democracy” and “good governance” civil society
organisations have held “anti-IBB” rallies in Lagos and I cringe,
wondering whether IBB is the one killing patients or the government
they trust so much. These groups are quick to spot corruption and
maladministration at the federal level and to praise the Lagos State
government, even where the credit is not deserved.

When the rumour
about the plan to impeach the state governor, Babatunde Fashola,
reached its peak, thousands of Lagosians, under the aegis of different
organisations, stormed the House of Assembly, threatening to lynch the
lawmakers if they did not desist from the unpopular move. The state
governor, lawmakers, Oba of Lagos, and the governor emeritus of the
state have all intervened in the matter of the doctors’ strike with no
headway.

Though, the
traditional kingship system has been relegated to just cultural issues,
the gene of submissiveness to the monarch is still obviously dominant
in Nigerians. Therefore, as if the government is always right in its
decisions and the doctors are a bunch of stubborn children, some are
calling for the striking medics to be sacked.

The doctors have
one demand: that government publish a circular documenting its decision
to implement a new salary structure from 2011. But each intervening
entity has one appeal: please go back to work.

Can the civil society organisations ask the government why it is difficult to publish a circular?

Last week
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe expressed his frustration with the
power sharing deal between his party – Zimbabwe Africa National Union
(ZANU-PF) and his prime minister’s- Movement for Democratic Convention
(MDC)- when he said that he is looking forward to having a new election
held next year.

The present
government was brought about by the disputed 2008 elections in which Mr.
Mugabe’s party ZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC both claimed victory
in the disputed election. The then Secretary General of the United
Nations Kofi Annan brokered a deal which led to the compromise
government.

Mr. Mugabe who
called for a referendum said, ‘‘after a referendum then we have
elections by mid next year. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have
elections next year. February next year, which is about four months to
go, then it will have lived its full life and I do not know what is
going to happen if we are not ready with a constitution.” He dismissed
the current arrangement saying “Some will say let us negotiate and give
it another life. I am reluctant because part of the things that are
happening (in the coalition) are foolish.”

Under the power
sharing agreement a new constitution is to be drawn up before the
expiration of the tenure of the government. However, this has not been
done due to all the crises that have polarised the government since it
was constituted.

Only a few weeks
ago, Mr. Mugabe appointed some senior government officials without
recourse to the prime minister. Among those appointed are the Central
Bank governor, attorney general, six ambassadors and five judges. The
prime minister immediately came out to denounce these appointments
saying he would not recognise the appointees because they were named
without any consultations with his office or party.

As a result of this, Mr. Tsvangirai has decided to boycott all cabinet meetings.

These simmering
disagreements that have characterised the government of Zimbabwe in the
last two years have gone a long way to stifle the economy and
development of the country. Mr. Mugabe has been carrying on like an
imperial emperor who has all the power reposed in him, unwilling to
share with the other party in the agreement.

This has largely
resulted in the immeasurable suffering by the majority of Zimbabweans
who have been wallowing over the years in abject poverty. Rather than
the president and the prime minister seeing themselves as partners in
progress, their relationship has been that of a cat and mouse or eternal
rivals who are fighting over will have a better portion of a dish.

The idea behind
the setting up of a power-sharing government, we believe, was to find a
way of diffusing tension and create an atmosphere where the two parties
could work for the progress of the country. This has not been so. It is
our belief that Mr. Mugabe sees his party as the senior partner in
government and therefore is at liberty to do what it likes.

It is sad that after the gains of the eighties, which saw to the wave
of democracy on the continent, Africa is gradually seeping back into
the hold of civilian dictatorship with the likes of Mr. Mugabe hanging
on to power. Three decades after leading Zimbabwe to independence and at
eighty-six, Mr. Mugabe’s tenacious hold on power is a sad commentary on
his record as a liberation fighter. The best way for him to go is to
step down after this tenure and not contest in next year’s election. It
is time to give room for fresh ideas in Zimbabwe.

Since the bombings
of October 1st 2010 that disrupted the 50th anniversary celebrations,
many advocates of the Niger Delta amnesty programme have found a reason
to rethink their position.

The renewed threats
of the spokesperson of the Movement of Emancipation of the Niger Delta
(MEND) Mr. or is it Mrs. Gbomo Jomo in well circulated press releases
can easily lead one to a hasty conclusion. But there is a diversity of
views on this, just as there exist different narratives on how best to
approach the eradication of the conflict itself.

The Niger Delta
conflict has got multiple dimensions like an existential octopus –
environmental, economic, and political developmental and even strategic.
Many of us do recall how the agitations started in the 1990s and how
the hostilities grew gradually and took a new astronomical phase in
2006-2008. The conflict escalated leading to massive destruction of oil
installations, disruption of oil production, kidnapping of expatriate
oil workers (and later indigenous ones), lawlessness and criminality.

The national crude
oil production figures dropped drastically from almost two million
barrels per day to less than one million barrels per day. As a major oil
supplier in the Gulf of Guinea, the disruptions in Niger Delta
distorted global crude oil supplies. As a country that depends on crude
oil earnings for more than ninety percent of her foreign exchange,
budgetary deficits were starring Nigeria in the face.

It took the decisive
action by the Nigerian late President, Umaru Yar’ Adua to grant
unconditional amnesty to Niger Delta combatants who renounced militancy
and surrendered their arms late last summer. Looking at the figures, one
will say that the amnesty programme has been a modest success. Reports
from government indicate that oil export figures have improved from
800,000 barrels per day that it was during the hostilities in 2006-2008
to 2.3 million barrels per day in 2010. A majority of the militants have
dropped their arms and embraced amnesty – at least if the last Abuja
meetings with government were anything to go by. Kidnapping and hostage
taking has considerably reduced, at least, in the Niger Delta, though it
is in a rapid increase in the south east zone and other parts of the
country.

It is my view that
it is a remarkable achievement by the current administration in Abuja,
but many activists in the region still see it as a mere window dressing
and at best a treatment of the symptoms without a comprehensive
diagnosis and political will to decisively treat the systemic malady.

No one is under any
illusion that all the arms in the Niger Delta region have all, been
surrendered. The routes for oil theft from the Niger Delta are alleged
to be the same through which small arms and light weapons are still
being funneled into the creeks. An urgent and comprehensive mop up
operation is essential to ensure that any residual stockpiles of arms in
the Niger Delta communities are retrieved. Some pundits believe that a
United Nations assisted strategy may help as it did in Sierra Leone and
Liberia. Though the contextual issues might be different, the Nigerian
government can tap into the expertise, neutrality and professionalism of
the United Nations in future phases of the amnesty programme. This
programme as a matter of urgency must be insulated as much as possible
from the vagaries of politics and fortified with both official courage
and sincerity of purpose.

The repented
combatants who have undergone or are currently undergoing training must
be immediately re-absorbed in areas where they have capacity and
competence. A special fund should be set aside as start-up capital for
those who are willing to start small and medium enterprises in line with
what was agreed ab-initio.

The amnesty
programme must be seen by this administration as a quick win and a
recipe for long term institutional resolution of the conflict in the
Delta. A coordinated approach in collaboration with the Niger Delta
state governments and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) will
reduce duplication of efforts and maximize available resources for
effectiveness.

The looming
eco-catastrophe in the Niger Delta region must be averted by a quick but
comprehensive remedial strategy; where those who contributed to the
pollution must be made to pay back as it is done in other parts of the
world with similar challenges. There is a complex web of issues and we
must adopt a listening culture to appreciate the how and where of their
interconnectedness.

We must generate
comprehensive baseline data to tell us exactly where we are and enable
us track progress. Pro-activeness must replace reactionary conduct,
which may be counter productive especially as the 2011 elections
approach.

Finally there is
consensus that the Niger Delta Technical Committee Report summarises the
yearnings and aspirations of the people of the Niger Delta region. The
same government that set up that committee must have the courage to
publish a White Paper on its findings and commence earnest
implementation of its recommendations.

Further inaction
will threaten our national prosperity, regional stability and energy
future. This amnesty programme must not fail! Uche Igwe is an Africa
Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre. He contributed this
piece from Washington DC, USA.

A vote scheduled for early next year will elect a president,
more than 30 governors and 469 members of the national legislature. Under an
informal power-sharing agreement in the dominant political party, the
presidency has alternated between the largely Muslim north and the mostly
Christian south.

But the death in office of President Umaru Yar’Adua, a Muslim
from the north, who succeeded Olusegun Obasanjo, a southern Christian, has
threatened the prevailing political arrangement. Furthermore, President
Jonathan has announced his intention to contest the upcoming election.

Nigeria’s international allies have tended to endorse the
north/south alternation as the glue that has held the country together. Former
U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell in an article published in Foreign
Policy warned that the end of ‘a power-sharing arrangement’ between the Muslim
North and the Christian South, ‘could lead to post – election sectarian
violence, paralysis of the executive branch, and even a coup.” On the other
hand, many Nigerians are questioning whether the formula has become an excuse
for dividing the spoils of office among an elite, while the country’s economic
and social problems mount. Nasir el Rufai, former minister of the Federal
Capital Territory, argues this point in an article published on AllAfrica.com
earlier this year.

“Simplistic analysis of the reasons for Nigeria’s problems of
governance – that Christians are at odds with Muslims, the North with the South
– has distracted the world’s attention from what many Nigerians believe is the
principal threat facing our country: the disenfranchised youth, a government
that lacks competency and credibility and a sense of hopelessness and despair
about the future,” he said. “Nigeria needs a government accountable to its people.”
Another proponent of change is Nuhu Ribadu, a respected anti-corruption
crusader and former head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of
Nigeria. Last month he announced his intention to run for the presidency on the
Action Congress of Nigeria ticket. He hopes to model his campaign on an
Obama-like appeal to the nation’s youth, who comprise more than 65 percent of
the population.

Visiting Nigeria a year ago, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton backed the growing movement for reform. “Without good governance, no
amount of oil or no amount of aid, no amount of effort can guarantee Nigeria’s
success.” Good governance demands that Nigeria’s resources contribute to
general welfare. The nation’s allies should promote policies and programmes that
strengthen the voices for meaningful democracy. This “demand driven”
accountability – with its dividend of good governance – is vital to the future
of Nigeria.

How can that change come about, and what can the United States
do?

First, it can throw its support behind a free and fair election.
The United States should make it clear that it will not recognise a government
that emerges from a corrupted process, such as that of Nigeria in 2007, or
those in Kenya and Zimbabwe in 2008. The U.S. government can press the African
Union and the European Union to take similar positions.

Second, Nigeria’s voter roll must be tackled. A fair election
starts with the preparation of an accurate roll. Although Attahiru Jega, chair
of the Independent National Electoral Commission, seems truly committed to
holding a free and fair election, he is challenged by weak staff capacity. This
is why he is – correctly in our view – calling for the January vote to be
pushed as far back as April.

Third, technologies that utilise the millions of cell phones,
along with expanding Internet access, must be used, as has been done
effectively in other places. For example, the U.S. National Democratic
Institute helped to mobilise preliminary vote tabulation in Ghana through SMS
messaging. Kenya’s Ushahidi online crisis-response platform allows the
gathering and presentation of data via SMS, email or the web. A new Nigerian
initiative called Pay4me – a payment transaction via the Internet – could
permit a Nigerian to contribute to a political party, however small the amount.

Fourth, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the
Department for International Development of the United Kingdom should pay for
credible polling to be conducted at regular intervals preceding elections.
Polling allows the public to learn what their neighbours think about the
candidates, the parties and their platforms; helps parties gauge their strong
and weak areas; and can reduce challenges to the results.

Finally, support for civil society should be expanded and sustained.
Programmes should particularly target vulnerable populations, such as women and
girls. Voters need to understand what governments can do for them and what
citizens have a right to demand.

With economic growth so unevenly distributed and rage mounting
in areas like the oil-rich Niger Delta – whose militants claimed credit for the
independence-day bombings – Nigeria’s friends should reject the notion that the
status quo is synonymous with stability. We must ask the question – stability
on whose terms and at what cost?

Our bet should be placed with the people of Nigeria.

K. Riva Levinson is
Managing Director of KRL International, a consultancy dedicated to emerging
markets. Gregory Simpkins, is founder of the African Democracy Network and
currently advises the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation.

At the mention of
the bottle, every tongue confesses that the liquid content deserves to
be welcomed with delight, or as delight. Whether it is an alcoholic or
non-alcoholic beverage that is involved, the truth is that the liquid
makes one feel good.

A drink appears
always to have the magic of doing good and many who drink believe that
there is something dark and terrible in the lives of those who don’t.
That perhaps ushers one into the very pleasurable wine talk that goes
with drinking at bottle stores, bars, clubs, parties, and (I must not
forget) age-grade meetings in my own part of Nigeria.

Wining and talking
seem to go together very well, especially when one is in the good
company of those who love njakiri (or yabis) – that peck-me-I-peck you
banter in which one, with a spice of humour, can tell the other the
bitter truth of their lives without the fear of being sued to court, and
should likewise, be ready to endure the sharp edge of the other’s
tongue. With yabis, the drink flows down well, and one never even
realizes that many bottles have been laid to rest.

In spite of the
interpretations that pastors give to what happened at the wedding at
Cana in Galilee, drinkers like me believe that Jesus was a jolly good
fellow who knew the value of a good brew, even if the brew was delivered
late. A bottle of booze is not a bottle of sin. And wine talkers, who
sometimes are visionary and prophetic, do not hold hard feelings. They
say it and leave it there with the empty bottles. Those who pick up what
should be left with the bottles are the real sinners that need to
repent.

Someone somewhere,
filled with guilt feelings about their past could read this and conclude
that I am on my way to either losing my kidneys or selling my wife
someday like Michael Henchard in Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of
Casterbridge. Some would open the Holy Book and read to me the section
that says that wine is a mocker. Others yet would support abstinence by
quoting the portion that one should give wine to those that are
perishing. But those that are likely to perish faster than expected are
those who, claiming to have retired from alcoholic beverage so as to go
to heaven, would down six or seven bottles of orobo soft drink in a day
and still be asking for more. One thing though: those who do not touch
alcoholic beverage on account of religiosity do not mind drinking agbo
soaked for days in ogogoro. Their excuse: it cures malaria and typhoid
very fast! Wait a minute. I once eavesdropped on a conversation between a
bottle of coke and a bottle of beer at a party and here is what the
beer said to the coke: “Listen, my friend, stop all this shakara wey you
dey do; make you no think say because pastor dey drink you, you too go
go heaven. Na for the same urinal we two dey go!” By the way, why should
I be afraid of a bottle of beer; will it drink itself?

Those of us who wine
and talk could be philosophers, you know. We can also bend the rules,
so that a bartender who is a non-initiate gets confused. If I place an
order for a bottle of pepper soup and a plate of beer, every drinker
immediately knows that I am a philosophical drinker. Don’t mind that
pot-bellied former president of PDP, sorry president of Nigeria, who
opened the mouth with which he was using to eat amala and ewedu and said
that “clubable” ASUU members were only good in eating (or did he say
“drinking”) pepper soup and beer at staff clubs and harassing their
female students. I wonder why ASUU did not sue him to court! What that
pot-bellied fellow did not know was that drinking at a club could
inspire a groundbreaking research paper publishable in an international
journal. Also, a drinking place in a university is good for the mind of
the highly overworked but poorly remunerated Nigerian lecturer. A drink
in time saves nine mental breakdowns, especially with a bad president
who believes that paying workers good salaries is a kind of favour
doing.

Philosophical
drinkers like me know very well that too much “overnight” could make
even an Oba talk nonsense publicly. That is why we advocate moderation.

We philosophical drinkers also warn that fly wey no dey hear word de folo beer enter bele.

Honestly, one should
sympathize with Giringori, a character in New Masquerade, when he tells
Chief Zebrudaya, his boss: “My mate dem don begin to drink stout.” The
creative power of “Shine shine bobo” requires that one gets one’s
“beering” right, even as a houseboy.

If you imprison cheerfulness in a bottle, do you expect it not to boil over when you uncork the bottle?

Those pictures
you see on international media about generic Africans looking emaciated
and near death from illnesses that should otherwise be easily curable?
We have them aplenty in our country. Daily, while politicians close the
roads of Abuja and the president makes a big deal of dropping the title
‘commander in chief’, children and adults across the country are dying
from illnesses that are easy to prevent.

As if to drive
home this point, the United Nations delivered the news on Monday that
more than , 500 people have died of cholera – spread mostly through
bacteria-contaminated food and water – in our country this year, more
than four times that death toll reported by the government in August.

The reasons for
this are easily the same reasons for the deaths in Zamfara from illegal
mining of gold, the deaths in the Niger Delta from the illegal sale of
petroleum and deaths around the country generally – a dereliction of
duty by our governments; a complete refusal to engage with the issues
that day to day Nigerians struggle to deal with – of trying to find a
way, anyway, to survive.

In this case,
heavy rains and flooding in rural areas already burdened by problems of
access to safe drinking water and sanitary facilities are responsible
for the spread of the disease.

These deaths are
most striking because, as noted, there are more than four times the
number revealed by government (352) only as far back as August,
overwhelmingly in the north.

And they are
scarier because at that time, the health ministry had warned that there
was a risk of a nationwide outbreak. Clearly, not much has been done to
stem the problem since. The minister of health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, wrote
a letter of alert to all the governors of the 36 states on the need for
increased funding to combat the epidemic, but not much came out of
that, apparently.

“The outbreak is
still ongoing and spreading to new geographical areas. Severe flooding
and displacement of large numbers of people have occurred, aggravating
the situation,” a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) report says.

According to a
UNICEF spokesperson, Marixie Mercado, “the outbreak is the highest
since 2004. My understanding is that it is peaking right now, even
though efforts are made to contain it. But there are still new cases
from already affected states, mainly in the north and other parts of
the country.”

The WHO makes it
all a bit clearer in its summary on the global outbreak of the disease,
stating that 29,115 cases, including 1,191 deaths, have been reported
between January 4 and October 3 this year, in 144 local government
areas in 15 states.

Now, cholera’s
rapid spread has emerged strongly in the South West. In August, the
Chief Epidemiologist in the Federal Ministry of Health, Henry Akpan,
listed affected states to include Bauchi, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Kano,
Jigawa, and Taraba. Others are Katsina, Rivers, Ogun, Cross River, and
Osun.

To be sure,
cholera is a global threat and not a uniquely Nigerian problem, but its
occurrence indicates the social development progress of countries. The
disease no longer poses a threat to places with minimum standards of
hygiene, only a scourge for countries where access to safe drinking
water and adequate sanitation cannot be guaranteed – and it is a shame
that Nigeria is on this sorry list even when we have the capacity to
avoid it.

Generally,
citizens can prevent to a reasonable degree the possibility of giving
in to cholera by improving living standards in a number of ways
including washing of hands before eating, proper disposal of excreta
and waste and protecting food from flies and other dangerous conveyers
of bacteria. In the absence of clean water however, citizens can only
do so much.

But these efforts pale in comparison to the responsibility of government. Unfortunately, the case in

Yobe State shows
the priorities of our elected leaders: the governor recently rejected
bus loads of anti-cholera solutions for treatment of patients in 11
council areas of the state despite the fact that his has one of the
highest figures for cholera in the country.

And in the aftermath of the release of the UN summary, this paper’s
reporters tried to reach out to the Federal Ministry of Health for its
reaction. No one was accessible, and 24 hours after there is yet no
official response. While they fiddle, the cholera spreads.

Here is a riddle. I
board a plane in Lagos, Nigeria at 7.30am. Thirteen hours and two plane
changes later, I finally arrive at my destination tired and dirty but
glad that the journey is finally over. So which city in this wide world
am I visiting? Is it Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Doha, Dubai or some
far-flung exotic corner of the world? No, nothing like that, in fact my
plane hopping and many hours have not taken me beyond the West Africa
region. All of the travelling hours and the three plane rides have
taken me only as far as Bamako, Mali’s capital which is just some 900
miles or so from Lagos.

Anecdotal evidence
from friends had always suggested that travelling within the West
Africa region is a nightmare, but not having experienced it, I always
thought the stories were somewhat exaggerated; not anymore. In order to
visit Bamako, I first had to fly to Accra and wait a few hours, after
which I boarded another plane and made my way back, yes you read
correctly, back to Togo. Another four hours later, I was on another
plane heading to Niamey from which after a two-hour wait, I finally
embark on the final leg of my trip to Bamako.

This trip, if I were flying directly from Lagos to Bamako would have lasted no more than two hours.

The problem of a
lack of functioning infrastructure within the sub region is more than
an irritation; it comes with a heavy economic price, an inability to
maximise trade among the various countries in the sub region. Figures
available show that just 10 percent of total trade by Economic
Community of West Africa countries (ECOWAS) both imports and exports,
is to other West African nations.

Another example
that may bring home the seriousness of the problem is this, according
to EU figures ‘‘ Ghana sends less than 3% of its exports to neighboring
Benin (compared with 49% to the EU).

However, this is
not a problem that is peculiar to the sub-region, all across the
continent we are losing opportunities that can allow us to grow
economically because we lack the basic infrastructure to trade with
each other. Here is another example, this also taken from an EU
produced document, (sadly as with a lot of other things we rely on
others to tell us about ourselves) ‘‘ it costs as much to move a
container from Mombasa to Kampala as it does from Mombasa to Shanghai.’’

The total value of
trade between Africa and the EU in 2008 was EUR 278 billion; this is
for both imports and exports. Can you try and imagine the impact on the
continent if this level of trade was taking place among African
countries?

The wealth that will be created through job creation and other value added services would immediately transform our societies.

While it is true a
lot of unofficial trading takes place that is not captured by the
numbers, the informed consensus is that trade within African countries
is miniscule compared to trade with other regions.

It also pales in
significance when compared to the volume of trade among Western
European countries, which is 60 percent of their total trade.

The World Bank has
estimated that Africa has a population about 1 billion potential
consumers and says’’ it is a powerful engine for growth, employment and
intra-African trade, especially at a time when other markets are
contracting in the wake of the global financial crisis’’

But we are not
talking advantage of this. At various forums the obstacles to making
trade flourish have been identified and solutions proffered, yet we
seem to lack the will to implement the necessary measures.

The president of
Coca-Cola South Africa, William Egbe, is on the record as saying ‘‘ a
litany of measures aimed at curbing behind-the-border trade
constraints; improving trade facilitation and logistics and reforming
customs unions and other regional trade institutions continue to
languish in drawers, awaiting implementation’’.

This is tragic
because Africa does not need to look to any other place for the panacea
for poverty and many other ills. The solution is staring us in the
face. It is time to dust those documents that Mr. Egbe refers to and
begin to implement them, one item at a time. The difference this will
make will be immediate.

As for my arduous trip to Mali, it is

symptomatic of the
wider issues we face on this continent and these sorts of trips are
only one obstacle among many to flourishing trade among African
countries. If, however, we can start by tackling this one area by
making travel easy it would be a big first step. Let us build a decent
road/ rail network and encourage the setting up of airlines that will
offer cheap direct flights to major African cities. Sectors like
tourism would receive a boost. There are many like me who I am sure
would love to visit Mali if only to see the world heritage

sites in Timbuktu. As things stand, many won’t even be tempted to make the journey, as it is tedious and expensive.