Nigeria Content Online

According
to Richard Cust, Professor of Early Modern History early modern England
was a “solidly hierarchical society”, defined by acts of landowning,
hunting and hospitality (i.e. the hosting of receptions and dinner
parties).

Mr. Cust said this in a May 2009 University of Birmingham inaugural lecture, titled “The Invention of Snobbery in Early Modern England”.

The English have long
been masters of what Cust described as a “culture of distancing and
distinction; elitism; social condescension.” According to him, in a bid
to set themselves apart from the ranks of the undistinguished many
Englishmen resorted to tracing their ancestries as far back as they
could. Some went as far as the Norman Conquest. In at least one case a
gentleman traced his genealogy to Noah’s Ark.

Cust’s
lecture touched on a number of interesting issues, such as the
obsession of many English families in early modern England with
possessing “Coats of Arms”, as markers of “collective honour”, or for
the purposes of “mask[ing] ancestral and social origins.” All of these
were of course the beginnings of the (still-baffling and cruel) British
class system.

Fortunately
for us in Nigeria, however, the ‘Snob’ industry is nowhere near as
complicated as the English version. Trust Nigerians to simplify their
imports, even whilst managing to maintain their size and importance.
Where you stand in the Nigerian society is determined primarily by how
much money you have today, not by how much you had last year, or how
much your father had forty years ago. It really doesn’t matter where
you are coming from, as long as you have done well for yourself. It
also doesn’t matter by what route you arrived at your current financial
success – politics, business, the civil service, Internet fraud,
religion – everyone is welcome at the table of abundance.

As
the Yoruba saying goes, money made from carrying shit will not smell of
shit. Unlike the English system, designed to run on a certain, ruthless
form of exclusivity, the sky seems big enough for all birds to fly in
Nigeria. We are pragmatic people, the edges of our practicality having
been honed by years of wildly volatile economic conditions.

I
once watched a documentary, about an Englishwoman whose family owned
thousands of acres of land, upon which sat a mansion in which
generations of the family had lived. The woman, finding it difficult to
maintain the property, then decided to give guided tours to visitors,
as a means of raising money. In line with traditional British obsession
with the past, she was sure that people would visit, awed by the mix of
grandeur and ancient history that she had inherited. England is laden
with the ghosts and shadows of aristocratic backgrounds like these,
sustained on the leftovers of proud pasts.

If
that woman lived in Nigeria, a sad fate would await her. Lacking money
today, her noble past would be unable to deliver her. Nigerians do not
reckon much with the past. Which is what I think explains the gross
disrespect we extend to our museums. No one is permitted to live on
past wealth, or forgiven for attempting to do so. On the other hand
forgiveness for past poverty is readily dispensed. The man who today
struggles to pay his children’s school fees, will have the chance to
start afresh when tomorrow he becomes a local government chairman rich
enough to export all his children to private school in England. By the
time the children return speaking like native English people, the man’s
place in the Nigerian social pecking order is all but assured.

I
doubt that money would buy “class” in England. In Nigeria, the case is
different. Even though there are occasional hints of a ‘taxonomy’ –
“Old Money” and “New Money” and “Money-Miss-Road” -in the final
analysis, all monies are one and the same thing. Chieftaincy titles,
honorary doctorates and praise singers do not discriminate between one
form of money and another. Money indeed matters, and God help you if
you think that a mouth fluent in English will make up for a pocket that
is not fluent in money. You will be told point-blank that you are only
“blowing grammar!” Polite conversation was also something that the
English paid attention to. The higher your class the more adept you
were in the ‘Art of Polite Conversation’. Coarse and rough and vulgar
talk was for the bottom of the social heap. In contrast, rich Nigerians
have no qualms about overlooking all laws of conversational decency.
They are allowed to be shamelessly coarse, to throw, “Bullshit! Do you
know who I am?” at everyone who seems to be getting in their way.

Nigeria
certainly has its laws, which anyone aspiring to ‘stand-out’ would do
well to learn. One example: The First Law of “shining”, as follows:
“The more the darkness you surround yourself with, the brighter you
will shine”. It is this law that explains why there are streets that
have only one house with its lights on, while the rest remain at the
mercy of PHCN, mournful in the glow of the powerful lamps from the Big
Man’s house. Welcome, all ye intending snobs, to Nigeria.

Fresh from their one day strike that left
Nigerians underwhelmed and the presidency obviously scrambling to
prevent a disruption of the launch of its power plan, staff of the
Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), our spectacularly inept
electricity utility, have announced a resolve to fight the federal
government were it to go ahead with the plans to dramatically
restructure the industry.

The planned deregulation of the sector will
enthrone private electricity suppliers , to be watched over by a strong
regulatory agency.

This plan will usher in an environment very much
like what is happening in the telecommunications sector now, where
competition is stiff among operators and creativity has brought much
choice and access to telephones, and now the internet, to the customer.

Both sectors used to have a lot in common,
synonymous as they were with powerful, unaccountable and ineffectual
state-backed behemoths – the PHCN or its previous incarnation as NEPA
for the power sector, and Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL) for the
telephone sector.

Now, in less than a decade, NITEL has become so
irrelevant that many younger Nigerians would be hard pressed to believe
tales that the company used to be held in awe by Nigerians and that its
workers were little gods that customers had to pamper and fear – either
to get connected to the phone lines or to keep them connected. The
state monopoly was an epitome of corruption and inefficiency.

The power sector workers have some genuine reasons
for their cautious approach to the federal government’s power plan. For
instance, there have been several policy somersaults over the past six
years that even the most hardened staff of the PHCN should by rights
now have a healthy skepticism of government’s seriousness about truly
reforming the sector.

One of the offshoots of the reform is that some
funds are to be paid to the workers as part of the monetization of
their benefits. This goes back to some seven years and was actually the
reason given by the workers for their last strike. The federal
government has started paying some of the arrears – some N57 billion in
compensation, including retirement benefits, is said to have been
deposited with the Central Bank to effect this – but the fact push has
to come to shove before the payment arrives is some attenuating factor
in the workers’ favour.

The electricity workers have also expressed worry
about the expected privatization of the sector – and the fact that the
presidential adviser to power, Barth Nnaji, himself ran a private power
generation company (or at least one to be when the plant he is building
comes on stream.) Going by the explanation of the workers, Nigerians
would actually be at the mercy of these private operators in the area
of charges. Posturing as the savior of the Nigerian customer, they have
warned that the pricing of electricity could remain within spending
ability of Nigerians only if the PHCN is allowed to continue to
dominate the industry More realistically, they also expressed fears
that the career of electricity workers might be jeopardized by the
private operators’ expected fixation on the bottom line rather than the
welfare of their workers.

The best answer to the fears of the electricity
workers is for them to ponder the telecommunications sector, for the
experience of that sector is the most relevant to their situation.
There is no doubt that the only way the country could get anything like
near the volume of power it needs is to liberalise the sector and
involve the private sector. And by all accounts workers in today’s
telecom sector are by far better paid than under the Nitel monopoly.

The country has spent hundreds of billions of
naira on the sector in the last eight years and the volume of
electricity generated has remained stuck around 3000 megawatts—same as
40 years ago. It is evident, as the workers themselves have kindly
pointed out, that pumping more money into the sector with the present
crop of PHCN leadership in office is like throwing money into the ocean.

There is no doubt that some workers would lose
their jobs. But those with the right frame of mind and attitude who
prepare themselves to work with the private operators would be better
for it. There is little that doubt that the telecommunications industry
has continued to be one of the more attractive industries for young
graduates. The payment structure therein is enough to make NITEL
workers choke on their tangled wires.

And on the issue of charges, Nigerians would
rather stick their lot with those who can provide them with regular
electricity. Even as it is, government has promised to increase the
tariff on the non-existent power supplied to Nigerians by the PHCN.

It would therefore appear as if the most
constructive thing electricity workers could do for the country is to
work with the presidential task force to evolve the most efficient and
workable power generation and distribution system for the country.
Threatening to shut down the system is hardly salutary. It might even
hasten the desire of Nigerians to get of the whole underperforming lot.

Twenty-five
years ago, November 24, 1985 to be precise, just exactly when this
country was 25, I wrote a column in The Guardian with the above title.
It was a lighthearted satirical piece, Nigeria was likened to a young
nubile woman and all her past and current heads of state, the different
men she had been had by.

There
was John whom she had met on the rebound from the thoroughly resistible
Chief Saz, mucho macho, born to be obeyed, a man with healthy
appetites. When the relationship started going south Young and Nubile
made her escape on a cold January night, grateful that her neck was
still in one piece.

After
that close shave came Julius. All was sweet and dandy initially until
Young and Nubile kept bumping into women at parties wearing exactly the
same set of diamonds and emeralds that she had. Then came Musa, he too
was a man who had to be obeyed but he was different, with a sense of
purpose and work to do so. Unfortunately Musa was shot to death and
that was that. After a long period of brooding Young and Nubile finally
noticed Segun who had been hovering around all the while. Segun had a
constant preoccupation with virility …

Sheik
the inefficacious lawyer with his profligate crew was followed by
Bello, tall and ramrod straight. Out went the dresses and jewelry from
her former lovers and Young and Nubile was put out to work. But she had
the shock of her life when Bello demanded that she give him her entire
salary and he would put her on an allowance.

So
Young and Nubile began a regimen of discipline and sacrifice for a
better future but Bello too turned. She was watched all the time,
treated with disrespect. Her phones bugged and she had to suffer the
indignity of answering to the gateman anytime she wanted to go out.
Eventually Bello told her they would get on much better if she only
spoke when she was spoken to. Things had gone past a joke!

Finally
came a new man on the scene and Bello and his paddy, Tayo, ended up
somewhere (though between you and me Bello is very much back on the
scene). Mr. New Guy was still on probation at the time the column was
written in ’85. (Between you and me Mr. New Guy is now Mr. Too Old Guy
and back on the scene too.)

So
here we are a quarter of a century later on the brink of another
electoral process with new faces and old ones and a scenario that is
very much one of a whole slew of Messrs Big Stuff thinking they can
play hard to get. In today’s world though that trick is old hat so very
last century it is laughable.

Here is what works nowadays: if you are carrying I am primed and able.
If you are not, out of my way. The days when the late Waziri Ibrahim
thought he had something with his party slogan of Politics without
bitterness are long gone. It was a sweet message but thoroughly with
out substance. But you do not even get that nowadays. Obafemi Awolowo
and his UPN are long gone and buried and with them the concept of a
party political machinery that had a cerebral arm and devoted time to
putting down thoughts on paper that amounted to programmes and policies
and a reason for being.

You
chop I chop, the party that solved the problem of choosing a campaign
slogan and refining a winning name with one stroke at least provided
some levity in the always scary prospect of Nigerian political
contesting. It was realpolitik Naija style, just telling it like it
really is.

Young
and Nubile is still young in mind though the nubility has long gone the
way of gravity having become a victim of serious spread body. At 50 she
is still naïve and young in mind, not an attractive prospect. Two of
her suitors were playing hard to get for no justifiable reason.
President Goodluck Jonathan was being unbelievably coy about whether he
was going to run and no one was deceived. It is a ploy that any women
will consider a complete waste of her time. If you don’t know how to
woo me, stop blocking the road.

As
for Mr. Babangida, he is ironically like those women of a certain age,
that is certainly too old, squeezing themselves into outfits they
should have passed on to their daughters. They have no idea that they
are past it, their time has gone and they should settle into dignified
old age and be very, very, happy that they can do so.

In the end this crazy dance will all come down to ‘settlement’ of the you chop I chop kind: Such a tired old game.

Say you were 50 and a foolishly youthful 50 at that, much married but never satisfied, how would you like to be wooed?

WASHINGTON – Harry Reid tweets Lady Gaga while Newt Gingrich is truly gaga.

The 67-year-old
former speaker, who has a talent for overreaching, is more unbridled
than ever. He’s decided he’ll do or say anything to stay in the game –
even Palin-izing himself by making outrageous, unsubstantiated comments
to appeal to the wing nuts among us.

The conservative
who fancies himself a historian and visionary did not use his critical
faculties to resist his party’s lunacy but instead has embraced it,
shamelessly. He has given a full-throated endorsement to a dangerously
irresponsible and un-Christian theory by Ann Coulter-in-pants Dinesh
D’Souza.

Gingrich praised
D’Souza’s article in Forbes, previewing an upcoming book called “The
Roots of Obama’s Rage.” Newt told The National Review Online that it
was the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about
Barack Obama” and said D’Souza shows that the president “is so outside
our comprehension” that you can only understand him “if you understand
Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.” Newt added: “This is a person who is
fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to
have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president.”
So the smear artists are claiming not only that the president is a
socialist but that he suffers from a socialism gene.

“Our president is
trapped in his father’s time machine,” D’Souza writes in Forbes,
offering a genetic theory of ideology. “Incredibly, the U.S. is being
ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This
philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world
for denying him the realization of his anti-colonial ambitions, is now
setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in
his son.” Playing into the bigotry of birthers and haters who paint
Obama as “the other,” D’Souza writes that the president was raised
offshore, spending “his formative years – the first 17 years of his
life – off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan,
with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa.” The ominous-sounding time
in Pakistan was merely a visit when Obama was a college student.

Gingrich, who
ditched two wives (the first when she was battling cancer; the second
after an affair with the third – a House staffer – while he was
impeaching Bill Clinton), now professes to be a good Catholic.
Evidently the first two wives don’t count because he hadn’t converted
to Catholicism. He even had a big Catholic conversion Mass here with
his third wife, Callista, celebrated by a retinue of priests and church
leaders.

But he is downright un-Christian when he does not hesitate to visit the alleged sins of the father upon the son.

Some of Newt’s old conservative friends worry that he has gone “over the ledge,” as one put it.

If it wasn’t so
sick it would be funny. It’s worse than a conspiracy theory because
this conspiracy consists of a single dead individual. The idea that
there’s something illegitimate about anti-colonialism on the part of a
Kenyan man in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s is stupid. And it’s inconsistent
to accuse a president who’s raining drones on bad guys in Pakistan,
Somalia and Yemen of having an inherited anti-colonial ideology.

It’s also low.
D’Souza and Gingrich are not merely discrediting the president’s
father’s ideology. They’re discrediting his character and insinuating
that the son inherited not just his father’s bad ideology but a bad
character, too.

Newt has always
displayed an impressive grandiosity. Who can forget the time during his
congressional heyday when he declared himself a “defender of
civilization, a teacher of the rules of civilization, arouser of those
who form civilization … and leader ‘possibly’ of the civilizing
forces”?

And he who thinks
Obama is too messianic said in 1994: “People like me are what stand
between us and Auschwitz. I see evil all around me every day.” This
fear mongering is ugly. D’Souza and Gingrich employ the tactics the
Bush administration used to get us into Iraq – cherry picking,
insinuation, half-truths and dishonest reasoning.

If the
conservatives are so interested in psychoanalyzing father and son
relationships, why didn’t they do so back when W. was rushing to avenge
and one-up his father by finishing what Daddy started with Saddam?

On their website,
Callista and Newt tout “Gingrich Productions” and promote an
apocalyptic movie with the same kind of scary music that Fox uses,
suggesting that the Obama administration is weak in the war against
“radical Islam.” The movie and the website are called “America at
Risk.” It’s Newt and D’Souza and their ilk who put America at risk.

© 2010 New York Times

Last
Saturday the world marked the ninth anniversary of the September 11
attacks that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Centre.

The events of that fateful day set off a chain of
events that have irrevocably altered the world, as we know it. From
increased security at airports to the invasions of Iraq and
Afghanistan, 9/11 has stamped itself on the face of the world.

It is hugely disturbing that during the week
leading up to the anniversary of 911, there was a resurgence of the
Boko Haram sect in Bauchi State. More than a year after a series of
deadly attacks that caught law enforcement agents by surprise and
resulted in the destruction of police stations and government
buildings, and in hundreds of fatalities, Nigeria was again caught
napping.

It would be impossible to remember 9/11 without
thinking of Jos, a city that has since exchanged its legendary serenity
for the din of bloodthirsty gangs.

And then there is what is arguably the most
far-reaching (in terms of Nigeria’s international reputation) attempt
of all – the alleged plot, last December, by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
to blow up an American airliner in American airspace. That attempt
instantly earned Nigeria a place – mercifully short-lived – on an
American terror listing.

Against this backdrop of religious crises the
question that looms largest is the one to do with the state of
preparedness of Nigeria’s security and intelligence agencies. Judging
from how we have faced up to the age-old challenge of armed robbery and
the more recent one of kidnapping, the immediate conclusion is that
against the schemes of determined terrorists, Nigeria is a glaringly
helpless country.

Nigeria’s intelligence agencies appear to be far
more adept at clamping down on genuinely frustrated citizens than on
actual threats to national security. During the military era, the (now
defunct) National Security Organisation (NSO), the Directorate of
Military Intelligence and State Security Service made a name for
themselves terrorising journalists and activists, suppressing the
clamour for democracy and justice,

and nipping coup plots in the bud.

It is not clear if the country’s intelligence
agencies have properly adjusted to this democratic dispensation. The
SSS appears to have been reduced to carrying out perfunctory screenings
of nominees for senior government offices. The Federal Investigation
and Intelligence Bureau (FIIB) remains a part of a hopelessly
inefficient police force. The National Intelligence Agency (NIA)
doesn’t even have a website.

Under the watch of these agencies Jos and Bauchi
have burned again and again, and kidnappings have become a national
industry, with no high-profile arrests made and no concerted clampdown
on the perpetrators. What chance then do these so-called intelligence
agencies have of succeeding in the fight against terrorism?

The threat of terrorism is very real in Nigeria.
There is nothing to stop Nigeria’s teeming numbers of unemployed and
frustrated youth from being indoctrinated by extremist religious
groups. If that happens terrorism could very easily become the ‘new’
kidnapping.

In February Reuters reported that an Al-Qaeda cell
based in North Africa had offered, on its website, to provide arms and
personnel to Nigerian Muslims “to enable you to defend our people in
Nigeria.” Only last July Kampala,

the Ugandan capital, was rocked by a series of terrorist explosions that left no less than 60 persons dead.

In the face of these threats Nigeria requires an
efficient network of intelligence agencies. The decisive American
response to 9/11 is instructive. In the wake of the attacks, the United
States Government immediately created the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) at cabinet level to ensure the protection of the United
States from terrorist attacks. In the years since then the mandate of
the DHS has expanded to include coordinating the response to natural
disasters. While we have concerns about some of the tactics and
measures employed by the DHS in its quest to secure America, there is
no doubt that the wide-ranging bureaucratic reorganisation that
produced it is a sign of a country genuinely concerned about the
security of lives and property within its borders.

We should learn to be proactive in the quest to
maintain national security, instead of resorting to setting up
unproductive panels of enquiry after every security breach. The
appointment or replacement of the National Security Adviser (NSA) – who
should oversee the country’s combined intelligence efforts – should not
be reduced to an act of political expediency. There is far too much at
stake. If it is true that the current NSA (Mohammed Gusau) is
interested in contesting in the 2011 presidential elections, then he
should resign immediately. The responsibility of that office is a
full-time one.

We urge President Jonathan to go a step further
and initiate a radical reorganisation of all the intelligence agencies.
It is not enough to replace the bosses, as he did last week with the
State Security Service.

Nigerians can remember a time, not too long ago, when kidnappings
were not the order of the day. If care is not taken we will soon be
recalling a time when terror attacks were a rarity in the land.

Some of the richest
Americans got together last month. The gathering was not a shindig to
celebrate their stupendous wealth nor was it a meeting to share tips on
stocks and investment. It was to announce a drive called the ‘Giving
Pledge’.

Initiated by
Microsoft guru, Bill Gates and Investment Legend, Warren Buffet, the
group in a statement released to the press said the aim of the pledge,
“ is to convince billionaires across the country to give up most of
their money – 50 percent or more – to charity.’’ The statement went
further to say, ‘‘ it is about asking wealthy families to have
important conversations about their wealth and how it will be used.’’
Already 40 American billionaires have committed to the ‘Giving Pledge’.
They include CNN founder Ted Turner, New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg,
Hollywood Director, George Lucas, Oracle Founder, Larry Ellison and of
course Gates and Buffet. These moneybags will continue to speak to many
other billionaires as they hope to convince more to make the commitment.

Not surprisingly,
in America, the pledge has elicited mixed reactions. Some have
commended it and see it as indication that the American dream and what
one commentator described as ‘American exceptionalism’ are alive and
well and say the billionaires do America proud. Among conservatives,
the pledge has been described as a bleeding heart liberalist action
that is sure to not only encourage dependence but promote giving to
none productive sectors of the society. One commentator was even
uncharitable enough to suggest that these people are looking for
‘redemption’. Others were of the opinion that these billionaires would
better serve humanity if they kept investing their money in their
businesses and continue to provide jobs and help the economy grow.

If only we had the opportunity for these sorts of discussions in this country.

Here, our
moneybags, many of whom can hardly be described as ‘self made’ unlike
their American counterparts, would rather their money be safely locked
away in vaults in foreign banks. Never mind that much of their wealth
has been possible because they have received licenses, concessions and
all sorts of advantages from government, they are not much interested
in ploughing back into society.

Even getting them
to pay taxes is a neigh impossible feat. Ask Ifueko Omoigui Okauru,
head of the Federal Revenue Inland Service, the battles she faces
trying to get our wealthiest to pay what is a statutory obligation.

They don’t care
that taxes should be used to provide basic infrastructure. They build
mansions worth billions of dollars in glorified slums. Every so often,
they are able to take off on their jets to enjoy their other homes
situated in societies that actually function. This deludes them into
believing their lives are alright.

It is as if they
don’t realise that until and unless their societies are functional,
their worth does not amount to much in the eyes of the world.

It is a truism in
our personal life, that until we learn to like and respect ourselves,
it is unlikely that others will like and respect us.

It is a truism our
billionaires will do well to understand. Until and unless they can love
their country enough to work towards making it functional, they will
continue to be billionaires from a place no one likes and respects.
Whether they recognise it or not, it affects their standing everywhere
they go.

Some of our rich
people will argue this assessment is unfair. They will point to a
classroom block here and there that they built, the few millions given
to an orphanage or to sponsor a hospital ward. However, this is not
giving on a scale likely to transform society.

The irony of the
pledge by the American billionaires is that they have not limited their
giving to only their society. Many causes across the world will benefit
from their generosity. Indeed, already someone like Gates is having a
huge impact on lives through his foundation which is helping to tackle
life threatening diseases like AIDS and Malaria not just here in
Nigeria but all over the world.

So a few questions
to the Adenugas, Dangotes, Otedolas, Babalakins, Odogwus, Dantatas,
Ojukwus, Ibrus and all the rich in this country. How will history
remember you? Will you be remembered for your jets and mansions and
your ability to live blissfully in the midst of want and squalor or
will it be for making fundamental contributions that transformed your
society?

Several years ago
when I was living in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, an artist friend once took
me to the home of a rather remarkable personage. Located in the
outskirts of the city, we were ushered past a gate that opened up into
a forested sprawling compound. On the veranda sat an old man in the
company of his wife and frolicking grandchildren.

The man looked
rather frail, but his face shone with a noble serenity that comes only
with wisdom and knowledge mixed with a pure heart.

We were welcomed as
though we were princes. Refreshments were laid at table before us. The
wife was all over me, wanting to know more about me, Nigeria, my work
and family. She told me, “‘mon mari est un profésseur”.

It turned to have
been one of the great understatements of the century. The man in
question was none other than the distinguished Ivoirian philosopher,
sociologist, statesman and sage, Professor Georges Niangoran-Bouah.

Born circa 1928 and
orphaned at an early age, he surmounted every odd to become a man of
learning and great accomplishment. Having graduated with a doctorat
d’Etat at the prestigious Parisian Institut Pratiques des Hautes
Etudes, Niangoran-Bouah pursued a distinguished career in academia in
France and in his own native Côte d’Ivoire.

But the man’s claim
to fame are not his chain of academic qualifications or even the senior
cabinet positions he held in government. Rather, it was in his
originality of thought.

Niangoran-Bouah
stands, in my view, in the same rank as W. E.B. Dubois, Chancellor
Williams, John Henrik Clarke, Joseph Ki-Zerbo and Cheickh Anta Diop who
have done so much to shape our understanding of Africa’s place in the
great heritage of universal civilisation. His contributions have been
mainly in the field of ethno-sociology, in particular, Akan gold
weights and in a new field which he singlehandedly invented,
‘drumology’.

In a path-breaking
study of traditional Akan gold weights, Niangoran-Bouah was able to
prove conclusively that these objects were no mere ornamental
decorations as had been generally supposed, but that they contained
forms of secret knowledge dating as far back as ancient Numidia. He
believed there is a treasure trove of secret knowledge that lies buried
in our ancient ornaments and artefacts. Such hidden knowledge was not
meant for the masses but to those initiates who can use it and preserve
it for generations yet unborn.

The other field in
which Niangoran-Bouah has made significant contributions has been in
the area of drumology, i.e. the study of African drums as a system of
communication. Again Niangoran-Bouah was able to prove that drums in
traditional Africa were not merely instruments for music and
entertainment; rather, they served the higher purpose of communication
to which only the discerning were privy.

It was my honour to
have met this great African sage. I learned from him that the pursuit
of science as a vocation also requires an openness to the strange and
the mysterious. He taught me that we Africans have a great heritage and
must never see ourselves as the inferiors of anyone. In fact, he
believed our ancestors had a sphere of gnosis that was way beyond what
was fathomable to the ancient Greeks and Romans.

He told me that in
the forest of his native Grand Bassam, he could make a particular sound
and the bird of his desire would appear. He insists this is not magic
but a form of science that our ancestors have known since time
immemorial. He was not bluffing. An endless stream of European and
American researchers and scholars were beating a path to drink from the
reservoir of this ancient Akan wisdom.

As we conversed
into the wee hours, I could see that he felt bitterly disappointed at
the turn of events on our continent, much of which external meddling by
world powers — war in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the crisis in Côte
d’Ivoire and the descent into barbarism in Rwanda, Somalia and the
Congo. He looked upon me with deep compassion as though from a distant
height. For the first time in my life, I felt the summons of fate, the
call to higher duty in the service of my continent and my people.

This year marks the
golden jubilee of over a dozen African countries, from Senegal to
Benin, Cameroon, Gabon and our own country Nigeria. For most of our
countries, the celebrations have of necessity to be rather sombre
affairs. The sobering reality is that there is more to lament about
than to celebrate. From the feet of this master, I learned that
Africa’s crisis is not just a social and economic one. Rather, it is a
profoundly spiritual crisis borne of moral distemper and derailment of
our most sacred values. Our continent needs more Niangoran-Bouahs who
embody the honour, dignity and spirituality of our ancient African
people and who can give us guidance in these benighted times.

Niangoran-Bouah went to join the ancestors on the 26th of March 2002. His work must also be ours.

I have spent the
last week reflecting on hill top palaces and misrule in my dear country
Nigeria. I could not help it; my thoughts were imposed by the
surroundings. The last week found me on the six-acre Neemrana Fort
Palace in Rajasthan, India, about 122 Kilometres from Delhi. This
palace of the Maharaja was the site from which the Chauhans dynasty
ruled Rajasthan from the 15th century to 1947. The palace of 55 rooms
is carved into eleven storeys on the hilltop.

Located in a site
of exquisite beauty, it allows occupants on the hilltop to oversee the
vast rolling countryside with tiny looking peasants tilling the land or
coming up the hill to serve the lords of the palace. Following the end
of princely rule in India in 1947, the palace was sold off as a
heritage hotel and yours faithfully could live like a Raj for one week
and participate in a conference on citizenship, democracy and
development.

The conference
signalled the end of a ten-year international partnership of the
Citizenship Development Research Centre of the Institute of Development
Studies of the University of Sussex and scholars in the United Kingdom,
India, Bangladesh, Angola, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and
Jamaica.

Over the period, we
carried out 150 case studies of citizens struggling to improve their
lives, livelihoods and liberties. The conclusion of the studies is
starkly clear. Nobody gives you development; nobody gives you human
rights and democracy. You get what you struggle for. The state is not a
repository of entitlements, it’s an interlocutor you combat, cajole,
contest, infiltrate and subvert to improve your lives and livelihoods.

As we reflected on
the thought provoking results of our studies, the site compelled me to
reflect on what the accoutrements and palaces of rule does to
occupants. By the end of the week, after enjoying sumptuous meals
served by a bevy of well dressed servants in beautifully decorated
halls overlooking spectacular landscape, I began to feel like a Raj and
found it normal that the world should serve me.

I began to
understand why after eight years of misrule, General Ibrahim Babangida
believed he needed a fifty-room palace, carved out of a Minna hill top
where people would have to climb up to continue to pay him homage. Even
our dearly believed General Abdulsalam Abubakar, who ruled for only
eleven months needed to build himself a hilltop palace to keep his
distance from the people.

The latest of the
hilltop palaces is of course that of General Olusegun Obasanjo carved
out of the largest hill of Abeokuta. It is maybe befitting that this
General who has ruled and ruined our country longer than anybody else
should have the largest and most magnificent palace from which he can
continue to plot and scheme on ways and means of ruling and ruining us
forever. Clearly, these palaces fabricate illusions of grandeur that
encourage our rulers to believe that they have a right, and indeed, an
obligation to continue in power.

How else can we
understand General Babangida’s determination to return to power? Was he
not the one who introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP),
which sank Nigeria into the deepest economic crises in her history?
Although during the 1985-86 national debate, Nigerian citizens had
overwhelmingly voted against SAP, was it not the same General Babangida
who said he must implement it because the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) had given him clear instructions to do so.

Nigerian citizens
fought against SAP. Workers and students and ordinary people organised
massive street demonstrations in many towns. However, the Babangida
dictatorship went ahead to implement unpopular policies, which had
negative consequences for the country and its people. SAP in practice
meant the dominant role of market forces in the economy, liberalisation
and deregulation, devaluation of the Naira, retrenchment, privatisation
of public property (that was mainly cornered by the rulers), withdrawal
of subsidies, and government retreat in the area of social provisioning
and welfare services.

The result of the
Babangida policy framework was the intensification of suffering of the
people. Our health system collapsed, rural poverty grew as peasants
could no longer afford to pay for agricultural inputs and the era of
graduate unemployment arrived at the national scene while the middle
class was pauperised.

It was under the Babangida regime that institutions of governance,
and official positions, were used for unbridled primitive accumulation.
In was an era in which governance was transformed into a question of
unlimited power without responsibility. It was above all the regime
that brazenly organised elections and refused to hand over power to the
winner of the elections. The history of General Babangida is a bold
statement that citizens do not matter. The time has come for Nigerian
citizens to make an even more bold response to those who live on
hilltop palaces and say we have memories, which we shall use to
sanction those who have ruled and ruined our dear nation.

In the village of South Orange New Jersey where I lived for 6 years the celebration of Halloween was taken fairly seriously.

We had chosen South
Orange because it was a stable well-integrated middle class community a
popular location for upwardly mobile professionals just starting a
family and looking for a well-established environment with good public
schools. So with young children at elementary and kindergarten age
participation in Halloween was de rigueur. Even if you as an adult had
no time for it, the pleasure it provided your children made you swallow
hard and pitch in for their sakes, as I did, commending their
willingness to be part of the community they were living in.

The origins of this
festival are mixed and its history checkered combining as it does poly
religious elements that span Paganism, Christianity and Roman
Catholicism. But as far as the festival itself goes today, the
celebration is entirely secular and superficial. The dressing up in
costumes, doling out of sweets, trick or treating and playful
fascination with ghosts and spirits is completely disembodied from the
historical celebrations of the day of the dead, the preparations for
winter or the passing of spirits that formed the origins of All Hallows
Eve. Elementary school children loved the dressing up in costumes and
the parade at the end of the school day where they showed off and had
fun with their teachers while parents watched.

Many families in
the village spread their enthusiasm for this celebration into
decorating their gardens, which they begin to do well before the
October date on which it occurs. One house in particular went all out
one year and turned their lavish home into an eerie grave yard, replete
with greyed tombstones, ghoulish figures hanging from the trees, owls
watching from the branches and dank cobwebs trailing over the bushes.

South Orange was
also a dormitory town, just 35 minutes on the train from Manhattan’s
Penn Station, and a number of parents who worked on Wall Street had
made homes in the village because it provided the perfect bridge
between urban and country.

On the morning of
Tuesday September 11, 2001 when I got that call to collect my children
from school early there were other little ones whose parents did not
get that message. They never returned from work.

The George
Washington Bridge links New Jersey to Manhattan, New York. On a clear
day in SO walking up by the ridge that leads to the park or running on
South Mountain Avenue you can look across the river to the skyline of
Manhattan. For weeks after the 11th you could see the smoke from ground
zero casting a pall on the horizon and you knew you were looking at a
live mausoleum of some 3,000 bodies. Passing that painstakingly
decorated garden on my morning runs made my heart ache. Here was
playmaking at death while across the horizon was an unspeakable horror,
the real thing, not child’s play.

9/11 turned the
world around. There is almost no country or continent that did not lose
nationals or descendents of nationals in that bombing or in subsequent
acts of horror in Spain and in Britain. The victims at ground zero came
from 70 different nations. The lists of those dead include Nigerian
names, known and unknown and people from all religious faiths and this
is why the backlash against Islam as a religion is so patently
irrational. To those lists we also have to add the numbers of dead who
have been victims of outrage against perceived criticism of Islam.

We all live with
the legacy of that destruction, whether it is in the increased security
that trails all aspects of our lives or in mundane everyday activities
like banking, transferring money, receiving money, seeking education
abroad, attending a public event, entering a public arena or the trauma
of obtaining travel visas.

The backlash
against Islam in America has been a long time coming. That site called
ground zero where the towers came down is a raw wound. Those American
right wingers and rednecks who call Barack Obama a Muslim are sending a
calculated message that is sinister and carries a barely veiled racism
that those who plan the kind of destruction that occurred on 9/11 must
relish. But still, there is a lot to be said for the restraint,
maturity and compassion with which the overwhelming majority of
humanity has reacted to 9/11 and similar events. The condemnation that
greeted Mr. Terry Jones’ senseless plan to burn copies of the Koran to
commemorate 9/11 is an example of this. Unfortunately the minority who
really need to understand the message don’t have the ears to hear,
which makes it incumbent on those who do, to keep pushing the call for
calm.