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The Broom has done it again.

This time it is the
Okada that ended up at its wrong end. In one clean swoop, the broom
flogged them off our roads and into the bin. Away with the nuisance,
they chant. The Okada don’t fit into the plan for the Mega City, which
the Broom peddles. The Okada must go. Now they are gone.

The Broom has swept
the Okada away yet the traffic is still there, as alive as ever. Even
with the Okada, reporting to work on time was a challenge. Now everyone
is wondering but the Broom has provided us no alternatives. They will
adjust with time they say.

It doesn’t matter how. We are just meant to adjust.

The Broom has done
it again and someone says the worst hit are the policemen. Their take
home pay has just been reduced by many portions. No more rojaring at
the bus stop. The bus drivers cheer. Now we will go home richer, they
rejoice. Soon they will increase the fares and we will have no options.

The Broom will look the other way, for even their own BRT buses already hiked theirs.

The bourgeoisie in
their air-conditioned cars are happy. The sight of poverty, which the
Okada represent, nauseates them. The Broom is really working, they
hail. Being a car owner has suddenly got a whole new meaning. Now their
car bumpers will be safer from scratches. And yes, there is a little
more entertainment for them as they inch along in the traffic. What
better satisfaction could there be for them but the sight of people
trekking in the sun and the rain because the Okada are gone.

The Broom refuses
to see that it has just swept many men into joblessness and many a
family deeper into poverty. It doesn’t want to notice that the able
bodied men who ride the Okada aren’t doing it by choice. It pretends it
doesn’t know the relationship between unemployment and crime. It boasts
of having bought a helicopter for the police. Shoot those nuisances on
sight they order. We don’t need them in our Mega City.

The rest of us are
divided into two camps. Some cheer the Broom, citing the many ills of
the Okada. Others boo the Broom and say it is insensitive. Some point
to Abuja where the Okada system worked, as example to follow. Others
remind them that Abuja is quite different from Lagos in many ways.
Another lot however is just looking, they don’t have an opinion.
They’ve been awed by the other impressive work of the Broom that now
they don’t know how to approach this new development.

In all this no one
cares to talk about the issues that led to the emergence of the Okada
in the first place, or the conditions that led to the birth of graduate
Okada riders. We brush the main issue under the carpet and argue about
trivialities. The real issue of rapid urban expansion without
proportional expansion of utilities and a poorly developed transport
system; the real issues of grave economic imbalance and extreme poverty
in the land, remains un addressed.

The Broom has done it again, but this time I think it has swept a
little too much. It has thrown away the bin along with the dirt. It has
acted like those before it who forgot the welfare of those that gave
them the mandate as soon as they got comfortable in the chairs of
Government House. It has shown us that indeed the difference between
the Broom and the Umbrella is only in the physical structure. In
thought, they are one and the same and the rest of us are just on the
other side.

WASHINGTON – Even in the thick of a historical tragedy, Tony Blair never seemed like a Shakespearean character.

He’s too rabbity
brisk, too doggedly modern. The most proficient spinner since
Rumpelstiltskin lacks introspection. The self-described “manipulator”
is still in denial about being manipulated.

The Economist’s
review of “A Journey,” the new autobiography of the former British
prime minister, says it sounds less like Disraeli and Churchill and
more like “the memoirs of a transatlantic business tycoon.”

Yet in the section
on Iraq, Blair loses his CEO fluency and engages in tortured arguments,
including one on how many people really died in the war, and does a
Shylock lament.

He says he does not
regret serving as the voice for W’s gut when the inexperienced American
princeling galloped into war with Iraq. As for “the nightmare that
unfolded” – giving the lie to all their faux rationales and glib
promises – Tony wants everyone to know he has feelings.

“Do they really
suppose I don’t care, don’t feel, don’t regret with every fibre of my
being the loss of those who died?” he asks of his critics.

In Iraq, marking
the transition to the “post-combat mission” for American troops,
Defence Secretary Robert Gates was eloquent with an economy of words.

Asked by a reporter
if Iraq would have to be a democratic state for the war to benefit U.S.
national security, Gates cut to core: “The problem with this war for, I
think, many Americans is that the premise on which we justified going
to war proved not to be valid – that is, Saddam having weapons of mass
destruction.” He added, candidly: “It will always be clouded by how it
began.”

Iraq will be “a
work in progress for a long time,” Gates said, and, “how it all weighs
in the balance over time, I think remains to be seen.”

Blair writes that
he thought he was right and that he and W rid the world of a tyrant.
But he winds up with a bitter anecdote: “I still keep in my desk a
letter from an Iraqi woman who came to see me before the war began. She
told me of the appalling torture and death her family had experienced
having fallen foul of Saddam’s son. She begged me to act. After the
fall of Saddam she returned to Iraq. She was murdered by sectarians a
few months later. What would she say to me now?”

There is no apology, but Blair sounds like a man with a guilty conscience.

He concedes that
the invasion of Iraq was more about symbols than immediate security,
about sending “a message of total clarity to the world,” after 9/11,
that defying the will of the international community would no longer be
tolerated.

In other words,
Osama bin Laden had emasculated America, and America had to hit back,
and did so against a country that had nothing to do with him or 9/11.

Blair did not want
to be W’s peripheral poodle. He wanted to “stand tall internationally”
with Britain’s main ally and not “wet our knickers,” to use a Blair
phrase, when the going got tough (or delusional).

Blair fantasized
that Saddam might someday give WMD to terrorists. This, even though the
dictator didn’t like terrorists because they were impossible to
control, and even though, as Blair admits, (the secular) Saddam and
(the fundamentalist) Osama were on opposite sides. (When Saudi Arabia
felt threatened by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, Osama offered to fight
the Iraqi dictator.)

It is criminally
naive, given the billions spent on intelligence, that Blair and W
muffed the post war planning because they never perceived what Blair
now acknowledges as “the true threat”: Outside interference by al-Qaida
and Iran. So the reasoning of the man known in England as Phony Tony or
Bliar amounts to this: They had to invade Iraq because Saddam could
hypothetically hook up with al-Qaida. But they didn’t properly prepare
for the insurgency because they knew that Saddam had no link to
al-Qaida.

He knew Dick Cheney had a grandiose plan to remake the world and no patience for “namby-pamby peacenikery.”

“He would have
worked through the whole lot, Iraq, Syria, Iran,” as well as
“Hezbollah, Hamas, etc.,” Blair writes of Cheney, adding: “He was for
hard, hard power. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. We’re coming after you,
so change or be changed.”

The religious Blair
fancied himself a conviction politician who had intervened for good in
Kosovo and Sierra Leone and would do so again in Iraq. So he did not,
as he said others did, “reach for the garlic and crucifixes” when Dick
hatched his sulfurous schemes.

If he had
challenged W and Cheney instead of enabling them, Blair might have
stopped the farcical rush to war. Instead, he became the midwife for a
weaker Iraq that is no longer a counterweight to Iran – which actually
is a nuclear threat – and that seems doomed to be run one day by
another brutal strongman.

Maybe Blair should
have realized the destructive Oedipal path W was on. At their first
meeting at Camp David, W screened “Meet the Parents.”

© 2010 New York Times News Service

Yesterday marked
one year since the death of human rights activist and lawyer, Gani
Fawehinmi, at the age of 71, after a protracted battle with lung cancer.

While alive Gani
was without doubt the conscience of Nigeria – thorn in the flesh of
dictators and dictatorial governments, a voice for the voiceless, and
arguably the country’s most prolific public commentator

Over the course of
three decades Gani was jailed several times for what he believed in:
justice, fairness and equity for all citizens of Nigeria, irrespective
of religion, ethnic group or social class. For Gani law was far more
than a way to ensure a comfortable existence for himself.

His life was spent
demonstrating Wole Soyinka’s assertion that “justice is the first
condition of humanity.” He never shied away from taking governments to
court for irresponsible actions and decisions.

In 1992 he
challenged the Babangida administration in court for devaluing the
naira. He defended Ken Saro Wiwa during his trial by the Abacha
government. In 1999 he sought the judicial nullification of the
Nigerian Constitution on the grounds that it was the product of an
unconstitutional military government.

In 2008, seeking a
declaration that Farida Waziri’s appointment as Chairman of the EFCC
was illegal he took President Umaru Yar’Adua, the Senate, the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Attorney General of the
Federation to court. With Gani, no one was above the law.

The last two
decades of his life were spent trying to bring the killers of
journalist Dele Giwa to justice. Regarding the Dele Giwa assassination,
he testified before the Oputa Panel with the same energy and
determination he demonstrated fourteen years earlier.

Not content with
simply fighting an oppressive system, Gani channelled substantial
portions of his wealth into philanthropy. He was a generous dispenser
of scholarships to indigent students.

It can be said
that Gani was in a class of his own. There was none like him. At his
death one of the most widespread sentiments that floated around was
that Nigerians had been orphaned. Who would speak truth to power in the
matchless Gani style? Who would take presidents to court? Who would
write frank letters to the authorities, protesting their
thoughtlessness? Who would defend the Constitution with as much vigour?
Who would make Nigerians resist the temptation to give in to total
helplessness?

One prevailing
sentiment since the death of Gani has been “What would Gani have done?”
It would not be incorrect to say that Nigerians felt Gani’s absence
during the six-month constitutional crisis that accompanied the
disappearance of late President Yar’Adua. Amidst the clamour of voices
Gani’s would have rang out loud and clear, backed with figures and
statistics and generous quotations from the Constitution.

He was after all
the man who in 2005 compiled a comprehensive record of former President
Olusegun Obasanjo’s many foreign trips, and issued a public statement,
as follows: “Even when Mr. President is in the country, he hops from
one state to another paying social visits. He returns to the country
from his tours at times to start such internal state visits and when
such internal state visits end he jets out of the country. In all, our
president has slept out of Nigeria 512 days in the last 6 (six) years.
The foremost house keeper of the affairs of Nigeria is many times
absent from the house.”

Gani would have
had a lot to say on the profligate decision of President Jonathan to
purchase three new jets in a country hard hit by poverty and failed
infrastructure.

As Nigerians mark the first anniversary of Gani’s demise, we must
not forget that much of what Gani suffered for still remains a mirage.
True justice remains a luxury, and the average citizen struggles to
survive in spite of the government. Commemorating the death of Gani
should serve as a wake-up call to Nigerians across all economic and
religious divides: the battle for the soul of this country continues,
and every sensible citizen should seek to be a Gani in their own sphere
of influence.

If one has be

selective when considering the advice of Theodore Roosevelt (US

President 1901-1909) to ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’, it’s

probably better to go with the ‘big stick’ part. Naturally, one is free

to speak harshly and carry a big stick – countries which have them

often do. But what one wants to avoid – especially in international

affairs – is speaking harshly when one has only a small stick.

This does not

appear to have been the policy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in

its recent dealings with the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,

whose ‘Brotherly Leader’, Muammar Ghadaffi, it will be recalled,

suggested in March that Nigeria should be divided into a ‘Muslim North’

and a ‘Christian South’.

Our response was

bold and forthright. Although Senate President David Mark felt that

there was no point discussing anything said by a “madman”, the House of

Representatives called on the government to sever ties with Libya,

report Ghadaffi to the United Nations Security Council and ask the

African Union to investigate whether he was funding sectarian crises in

Nigeria. On its part, the federal government expressed “strong

reservations and disappointment” and recalled our ambassador for

‘consultations’.

The national mood

was of anger and rejection, as well it might be. According to Ghadaffi,

his suggestion was modelled on the 1947 Partition by which British

India was divided into secular India and Muslim Pakistan. That caused

not only the displacement of over twelve million people, but sectarian

violence during which up to 500,000 were killed.

Even when it was

pointed out that there were many Muslims in southern Nigeria and many

Christians in northern Nigeria, the great advocate of African unity did

not sheath the knives with which he proposed to dismember Nigeria.

Instead, he recommended our division into several “ethnic” states. This

time the ‘Guide of the Revolution’s model was Yugoslavia, whose break

up gave rise to the odious practice of “ethnic cleansing” and scenes of

violence, rape and abuse of human rights on a scale unprecedented in

Europe since the end of World War II.

If the best

Ghadaffi could suggest for a major nation in the continent that he has

always dreamed of leading was displacement, death and destruction,

Nigerians might be forgiven for imagining that humble words and abject

apology ought to precede any return to the status quo ante. We might

expect confirmation that Libyan funds and assistance (which, in the

post-Lockerbie settlement era, are no longer free to make trouble in

the Western world) have not been re-directed towards stirring things up

in Nigeria.

Apparently not.

Well, it is Nigeria whose citizens are on death row in Libyan jails. It

is Nigeria whose impoverished political opposition could be such a

tempting target for Libyan campaign contributions. And it is Nigeria

that has the sectarian crises.

Perhaps our

government ought to have considered all this before going out on a limb

to make a lot of indignant noise about Ghadaffi’s suggestions while

leaving him in possession of the saw. Small wonder that President Ellen

Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia felt bold enough to try to ease it out of

his hands, a strange intercessor between Nigeria and Libya. Despite our

pulling Liberia’s chestnuts out of the fire both by sending our

soldiers to fight and die in that country’s civil war and by granting

their ex-president, Charles Taylor shelter in order to pave the way for

peace there, Johnson-Sirleaf only seems to remember our contribution

when she is actually on Nigerian soil. In other parts of the world, she

only improves on her usual silence when Nigeria is being disparaged

with some cutting remark of her own.

For example, during

her 2006 visit to Libya she remained silent while Ghadaffi berated

Nigeria for handing Taylor over for trial by the Special Court for

Sierra Leone. No doubt it would have been awkward to interrupt

Gadaffi’s rant to admit that it was actually her own government that

had handed Taylor over to the UN-run court, and that all Nigeria had

done was return him to Liberia – and to her custody. Perhaps she

resented our failure to accede to her earlier suggestion that we should

send Taylor direct to Sierra Leone.

With such a

mediator, it’s hardly surprising that the traffic has been pretty much

one-way. Libya sends an envoy who is received in Abuja by our

president. Said envoy comes not to withdraw or apologise for Ghadaffi’s

offensive suggestions but to protest about David Mark’s. We send a

whole minister of foreign affairs who is received in Tripoli by Libya’s

prime minister. Our minister signs an agreement by which we agree to

normalise relations, exchange ambassadors and generally make nice. We

rush our ambassador back to Libya. Libya, which had not bothered to

decorate Abuja with an ambassador before the crisis, ignores the

agreement to designate one as part of the settlement now.

Perhaps Nigeria

ought to have followed David Mark’s advice to ignore the ‘Brotherly

Leader’ after all. As one observer, quoting Shakespeare, put it: our

initial reaction turns out to have been “full of sound and fury,

signifying nothing”.

No apology. No assurance of non-interference. No Libya cowering at our big stick. Indeed, no big stick. Nothing.

On August 31, Nigeria’s ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) turned twelve.

As expected, the party pulled out all the stops in

its self-congratulatory mission. A press statement from the party’s

Chairman and National Publicity Secretary described it as, “the most

successful political party in Nigeria’s history.”

The statement listed the party’s many reasons for

celebrating: 29 state governors, 96 Senators, 260 members of the House

of Representatives, uninterrupted occupation of Aso Rock since 1999,

Nigeria’s first civilian-to-civilian transition, a telecoms revolution,

amongst many others.

The party however conveniently forgot to mention

many other achievements – the fact, for example, that the transition it

is boasting of was described by the head of the European Union observer

mission as having “fallen far short of basic international and regional

standards for democratic elections…”

Shortly after the murder of Bola Ige, Attorney

General and minister of justice, in his home in Ibadan in December

2001, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka described the Peoples Democratic

Party as a “nest of killers.” Barely two years later, following the

sacking of the Anambra State government house and abduction of Governor

Chris Ngige by thugs loyal to Chris Uba, a powerful member of the PDP,

Soyinka restated his charge.

“I repeat indeed, insist that there is a nest of

killers within the PDP. From Ngige’s recent experience, the well-laid

plans for his ultimate fate, it is evident that the vipers in the nest

do not strike only outwards but inwards,” Soyinka was quoted as saying.

Shortly before then, Iyiola Omisore – principal

suspect in the murder of Ige – was elected from prison to the Senate,

on the platform of the PDP.

Has the party forgotten so quickly the unresolved

murders of high profile members: National Vice Chairman, A.K. Dikibo in

2004, and governorship aspirant Funsho Williams in Lagos in 2006; to

mention just two?

This is also the party that produced Lamidi

Adedibu, the man who ensured that Ibadan politics did not rise above a

crude, thuggish scramble for power and money. In 2007, Obasanjo said of

Adedibu: “Let it be known to all in the PDP that in Oyo State, the

southwest and all over the country, Baba Adedibu is the father of the

PDP, who cannot be looked down on, rather, we will continue to pray for

long life and good health for him so that he will always be there for

us.”

The PDP also did not remember to take credit for a

vocabulary of militancy introduced into the political space. Former

President Obasanjo famously described the 2007 governorship elections

in Lagos State as a “do-or-die” affair.

The party’s disgraced Deputy National Chairman, Bode George, announced that the party would “capture” Lagos.

In July, former governor of Cross River state,

Donald Duke, said of his former party: “PDP held a lot of hope for

Nigerians. It started off as a great party.

But today, it has ceased to be a party. It is now

a platform to win elections,” Mr. Duke said. Mr. Duke must know what

he’s talking about, having won two elections on the platform of the

party.

One of the first things that any observer will realise about the party is that it is a nest of delusions of grandeur.

In April 2008, the then Chairman of the party,

Vincent Ogbulafor, announced that the party would rule Nigeria for the

next sixty years. “I expect that every Nigerian will soon join the PDP.

I don’t care if Nigeria becomes a one-party state. If we succeed in

bringing all the states under the control of the PDP, we would have

achieved a lot.”

A few months later, Edet Nkpubre, National

Vice-Chairman of the South-South region of the PDP updated his boss’

declaration. “Ogbulafor said PDP will rule Nigeria for 50 years, but

I‘m saying that the party will rule for 100 years,” Nkpubre said.

This is clearly what forms the very kernel of

PDP’s philosophy. Here is a party that judges success by quantity, not

quality; to wit its oft-pronounced self-description as “the largest

political party in Africa.”

Here’s a party that has ruled Africa’s most

populous country for eleven years, yet failed to cobble together even

the mere outlines of a coherent manifesto.

It would however not be fair to deny the party

credit for the economic reforms of 2004 to 2006, and the isolated

successes of agencies like NAFDAC and the EFCC during the Obasanjo era,

and perhaps the Niger Delta peace plan. But in truth, those successes

are few and far between. On the whole the PDP has failed the country

woefully, and, just like the country it is in charge of, lacks any

justification for celebrations.

All the other parties themselves however also

deserve censure. Every one of them is a PDP-in-waiting – one only need

turn to the states ruled by these parties to see that they are not very

different from the PDP. Alien to them all is the idea of a manifesto.

The leading opposition parties at national level, the Action Congress

of Nigeria and the All Nigeria Peoples Party are perpetually in crisis,

consumed by internal wrangling while the PDP runs the country further

aground.

The truth is that Nigeria, as things stand now, is at the mercy of

all its political parties. Were the PDP to relinquish control of the

national government to another party today, there is no evidence that

Nigeria would fare any better. Might this realisation – that it is not

much worse than its alternatives – really be what the PDP is

celebrating?

Not many people look back to the ‘90s with fond memories. That’s because it was terrible times to be a Nigerian. The country was ruled by a military dictator whose sunshades guaranteed that he only viewed the country in one unsettling shade of grey.

Very few things survived under the oppressive reign of the military regimes. Actors only featured in movies with the titles such as ‘Living in bondage’ and the grass over most of the country turned a depressing shade of dirty brown. It was depressing times made even more depressing by one alarming fact. Somewhere, somehow, the Nigerian music industry died.

It’s hard to place when exactly the last real Nigerian song was heard. What is undeniable is that somewhere between the last Danny Wilson hit and the first Plantation Boys record, a record span of almost ten years, people simply stopped singing. What was there to sing about anyway? National heroes were being hung. The Super Eagles had been banned from playing in the Nations Cup and somehow, a million people had found time to march in Abuja in support of a “morphing cap” candidate. No Nigerian looked forward to singing and even fewer had the means too. All seemed hopeless, until someone stepped in to save the nation. His name was ‘Big Boss Jigga Man.’

Most people might be unaware of who the Big Boss Jigga Man is, but odds are there are legacies of him still lying around in their homes. Big Boss Jigga Man is the name behind the first batch of pirated audio CDs that slowly began to creep into the Nigerian market. It started out with a Boy Band CDs that could typically be bought for 300 naira. Albums of West Life, the Backstreet Boys, and Michael Learns to Rock gently began to ease into the homes of most people. These CDs appeared in many ways to be the same as the original versions, except they were a lot cheaper and they carried the signature, tucked behind, beneath the copied glitz of the album, of the maker of the pirated copy: Big Boss Jigga Man. Music pirate.

As the years went by, the influence and appetite of the Big Boss Jigga Man grew in turn. Soon, Nigerians could not only buy CDs of Western boy bands, they could also buy albums of their favourite rappers. Ja-rule was available for 200 naira, so also was Eminem, Jayz, and Outcast. With audio CDs so readily available and even more affordable, more people began to consider the option of buying CD players. Tapes were tossed out the windows and turned into strings of kites and replaced by glittering pirated albums. Nigeria, a country that had sat in silence for almost a decade, had rediscovered the joys of music. Like any half starved man would do, they dived right in without a care of the possible after-effects.

Ten years later, we are once again a nation of music. Many Nigerian artistes might hesitate to admit it, but there is no denying that the early influx of pirated CDs which began years ago, contributed in rekindling their love for music. More importantly, it opened up a Nigeria audio market where people were more willing to pay money for an audio CD, provided the price was below 500 naira-a fate that seems likely to remain for yet another decade.

As for Big Boss Jigga Man, it is hard to know what exactly happened to him. His name is no longer found on most of the pirated CDs. There are some who claim that he was arrested after he foolishly began to publish his address on the pirated CDs that he was making. A few whisper that he is currently locked in a basement by music executives where he is forced to listen to nothing but marching music and songs by Chichi of Africa as punishment for his excesses. Others suggest that he was taken out by the Chinese music mafia, who are willing and capable of creating pirated CDs that can be bought for an even cheaper 100 naira. Is any of these true? That, I do not know.

What I, however, do know, is that his story, like most things Nigerian, carries with it the dual Nigerianesque standards that the world has come to grudgingly recognise. Any nation might consider the Big Boss Jigga Man a financial piracy terrorist, but here in Nigeria his case is likely to be viewed differently.

For giving us affordable music when we had none. For triggering the rebirth and musical minds of our youth. For helping us once again find the Sound of Music. For doing all these and still remaining largely anonymous, the Big Boss Jigga Man is bound to receive our silent thanks. Big Boss Jigga Man: Pirate. Rebel. National Hero.

Is it not shameful
and even scandalous that the seemingly endless conflict between Jews
and Muslims (and by extension Christians and Muslims) originated from a
family quarrel? A man called Abraham made love to his house-help and
impregnated her. Because he was such a coward, he refused to accept the
baby as his legitimate child. He conspired with his wife, Sarah, to
send the house-help (Hagar) away with the baby, Ishmael, so that
Sarah’s own baby, Isaac, who was the younger brother, would be his heir.

Thousands of years
later, the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael would
have different heroes in their worship of one God, their religious
differences being a continuation of the family quarrel by other means,
a continuation of their prejudices and even a struggle to force God to
take sides on the issue of who are the legitimate heirs in His kingdom.
Abraham’s descendants want to recruit Almighty God into their war for
supremacy and legitimacy.

I have a problem
with Abraham, who is misrepresented in Jewish, Christian and Islamic
theologies as a man of faith. This “man of faith” could not wait for
his God to decide when his wife Sarah would give him a baby. Obviously,
Hagar was being used as a means of getting a baby. If Sarah hadn’t got
a baby boy afterwards, Ishmael would have definitely been Abraham’s
favourite. What sensible man would send his own son, his own blood,
along with the mother, away into the wilderness and claim it is the
will of God? If such a thing were to happen today, wouldn’t Abraham be
arrested and charged to court for scandalous neglect and abuse?

Abraham is further
known as the one who was so faithful that he obeyed his God and tried
to sacrifice his own son, Isaac, to Yahweh. And the memory of this
scandalous and criminal act has emerged as the special feasts in Islam
and Judaism, with millions of rams dying on behalf of Isaac, the
attempted murder of Isaac also highly applauded by Christians in their
remembrance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary.
If Abraham were to try such today, claiming that Almighty God asked him
to do so, shouldn’t he be arrested quickly and charged to court for
attempted ritual murder? And wouldn’t we doubt his sanity?

Abraham was not a
man of faith in my own theology. He is not the father of our faith
either, but the father of the war without end between the descendants
of Ishmael and those of Isaac – the endless animosity that he created
as an irresponsible head of his household.

Abraham was a mumu.
He hardly had a mind of his own; he was simple-minded and left his wife
to manipulate him. He was such a coward that he went to Egypt with
Sarah his wife and lied to Pharaoh that she was his sister. A man of
faith has no business lying and almost leading the pagan Pharaoh to
commit adultery.

Even though we
celebrate Abraham and tend to condone his transgressions or try to
justify them (as a way not doing disservice to our religions), it is
dangerous to try be like him today. An Abraham who tries to play a
trickster with getting a male child cannot win applause as a Christian.
An Abraham who tries to solve his problem of polygamy by exiling some
members of his family, or denying and alienating them in order to be
honoured and buried by the Church when he dies, cannot be our hero in
the Faith.

I am, as a matter
of fact, concerned with the prevalence of other Abrahams that try to
use the Abraham of the Bible as their model today. In some local
communities in Nigeria, some men who married many wives before
converting to Christianity, or while Christians, are told by their
churches that the only way that they can make peace with God is for
them to pick one of the wives and wed her, and to deny other ones. And,
curiously, such Abrahams pick the women that have certain things they
desire most: beauty, tempting breasts, male children, education, and
good cuisine. And the women are also forced to play the dangerous
politics of influence, in order to be the ones favoured and selected as
legitimate wives.

Some, of course,
have to use juju in this war to retain an Abraham as husband. The one
selected becomes the enemy in the house. What do we have then? Simply
this: a holy war, an unending war comparable to the one between the
Jews and the Arabs. The Abraham of our time starts a war without end
only to escape some years later to rest in peace.

I have a problem with Abrahams, ancient and modern.

In seeking to
establish the countries that provide the best environment for human
existence, the August 23, 2010 edition of Newsweek magazine asked: “if
you were born today, which country would provide you the very best
opportunity to live a healthy, safe, reasonably prosperous, and
upwardly mobile life?” Newsweek chose five basic indices of national
wellbeing: education, health, quality of life, economic
competitiveness, and political environment. The magazine then ranked
the best 100 countries in the world.

For Nigeria, so
uniquely blessed by God, and so uniquely blighted by its rulers, the
verdict is as damning as it is shameful. We took the 99th position,
just ahead of Burkina Faso. Finland, Switzerland (a haven for the ill
gotten wealth of Nigeria’s rulers) Sweden, Australia and Luxemburg took
the first five positions in that order.

The first African
country to make the list is Tunisia, which came 65th. The next two are
Morocco (67th), Egypt (74th). Note that the first three African
countries are in North Africa. The first sub-Saharan African country on
the list is Botswana (80th), with South Africa coming 82nd. Ghana is
86th, Kenya – just back from a terrible, albeit short-lived, civil war
– (87th); Ethiopia 94th, yes Ethiopia is ahead of my country.

Mozambique so
mercilessly ravished and repressed by the Portuguese up to the late
1970s, at 95th is ahead of Nigeria too. Cameroun, our partner in the
club of highly corrupt nations is a nudge better (98th). And the
self-styled giant of Africa ruled in the last 12 years by a thug-like
political party that prides itself as the largest political party in
Africa, came 99th.

The survey also chose the best 10 heads of governments. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia made that list.

The worst thing to
happen to a country is to be saddled with corrupt and visionless
leaders. Nigeria’s tsunami of corruption is by far more devastating
than the flood in Pakistan or the earthquake in Haiti. Apart from the
brief periods of the Murtala and Buhari governments (cumulatively two
out of 50 years of independence), the other years have been the ones
that the locust visited.

I recall that as a
university student in the late 1980s, Babangida’s government deafened
us with the mantra “food, water, health, education, electricity,
housing for all by the year 2000”. The only thing David Mark
(communication minister under IBB and now Senate President) vowed the
poor would not have is telephones. Ironically, 25 years after those
promises, it is only telephony that is commonplace.

Today, just as in
the 1980s, the same rulers (who still behave as if tomorrow will not
come) have promised Vision 202020. For the uninitiated, this means that
by the year 2020, Nigeria will become one of the 20 largest economies
of the world. To date, none of those mouthing this new mantra has told
us Nigeria’s current position in the world economy. I know that USA,
China, Japan, Germany, France, UK occupy the top places in that order.
For someone who aspires to move to the 20th position, shouldn’t the
current position be known? Luckily, Newsweek has provided the answer
free of charge! Unfortunately, our politicians still behave as if we
are a rich nation. The president has just bought three state-of-the-art
jets at a pricey N25 billion (at a time when over 350 of his
compatriots have died of cholera); our National Assembly members, who
in over three years have passed only five bills (apart from the
appropriation bills), are gobbling up billions with padded allowances
and ‘constituency projects’.

In a regime where
the per capita income is below $1000, our lawmakers want to earn 500
times that figure. At the state level, the medieval lords, are busy
stealing us blind. At the local government level, the chairmen are in a
fierce popularity contest with indomie noodles or other fast moving
consumer goods on who should adorn the pages of newspapers just because
they have fixed a leaking roof in a classroom block.

To think that 150
million Nigerians have put up with this for decades defies logic. Do
our rulers know that the first responsibility of leadership is service?

One thing is clear
about Nigeria: there is a dearth of leadership at every strata of
national life. As the nation turns 50, we need people of character,
Nigerians with a zeal for service, who have not sold their conscience
to the god of money. We need Nigerians who have a sense of history, who
know that they will account for their actions here or in the hereafter.
We need men who will stand up to evil and pull down the structure of
corruption to give us a new and prosperous nation. We need them like
yesterday. God help Nigeria.

Akaninyene Esiere is a business executive in Port Harcourt.

People walk up to the Arthur Ashe Endowment booth at the U.S. Open, and they start talking.

Leslie Allen
listens. She was Ashe’s friend in the tight little world of black
tennis, and later part of a small clique on the pro tour. She hates
that Arthur is gone, and she also fears he has been forgotten, or
turned into a cliché – the man who died in 1993 of AIDS from a blood
transfusion.

Arthur was not a
victim. He was the wise leader who organised the annual outing to Chez
Haynes on Montmartre during the French Open, for fried chicken and
honey “and a facsimile of collard greens,” as Allen puts it.

He was the friend
who heard she was going to the University of Southern California and
reminded her that he had gone to UCLA and knew the area.

He was also the
Wimbledon and Open champion who pointed out to her one year at the
French Open that she had lasted longer in that tournament than he had.

“That was when I
knew I was a professional,” said Allen, who played on centre court at
the U.S. Open, beating Ruta Gerulaitis in straight sets in 1979 as
Althea Gibson came out to watch her play.

Now Allen runs the
booth at the Open, on the main pathway between Ashe and Armstrong
Stadiums, selling handsome T-shirts and auctioning tennis souvenirs for
the Ashe Endowment, which sponsors AIDS research via Weill Cornell
Medical College.

A sign on the booth
says the Endowment has raised $1,136,706 to date – actually a little
bit more because I bought a lovely black shirt for my wife, with
Arthur’s likeness on the front. He has become the face on the T-shirt
when he should be at the Open, schmoozing with everybody. He’d be only
66. Allen is concerned that people are forgetting him.

“One young man
stopped at the booth, an African-American,” she said. “He didn’t know
Arthur Ashe was a real person.” Other people stop by and talk about
loved ones who died of AIDS, and Allen listens. One volunteer who is
HIV-positive returns to the booth every year and announces, “I am still
here.” One day, Camera Ashe, daughter of Arthur and Jeanne
Moutoussamy-Ashe, was volunteering at the booth and had turned her
badge backward, perhaps seeking anonymity. A man who works on the tour
stopped by to chat, telling her what a fine man Arthur Ashe was, not a
carouser. He had no idea he was talking to Ashe’s daughter.

Most people who
stop by do not know that Allen was the first black woman to win a
singles title in the Open era – Detroit in 1979. She grew up in
Cleveland and was introduced to the sport by her mother, Sarah, who had
“hundreds of trophies” from amateur tournaments. Allen hated tennis as
a child, she said, but her 5-foot-10 stature and the family enthusiasm
carried her to the tour. She reached the third round of the Open in
1979 and was ranked as high as 21st in the world.

Allen has held
several jobs in tennis, has her own foundation; runs an enrichment
programme in Charleston, S.C.; and sometimes escorts young people
around the tennis centre to show them the variety of jobs out there.
They stick out their hands, introduce themselves, ask questions. Arthur
would love it.

Allen’s status
around the tour allows her to chat up current players and collect their
autographs on tennis gear, to auction them at the booth or on the Web
site endowment.arthurashe.org. And when her daughter, Rachel Selmore,
needed a bone-marrow transplant as an infant, friends like Martina
Navratilova, Gigi Fernandez and Heinz Gunthardt (the first three names
off the top of Allen’s head) came by to be tested. Rachel is 15 now,
already 5-6, her growth notched annually on a vertical pillar of the
booth.

The Ashe booth is a
little community in the mad bazaar of the midway – the expensive food
stalls, the chichi tennis goods. Visitors have their photograph taken
with the logo of Arthur Ashe Stadium in the background. They don’t need
the Ashe booth as a photo backdrop anymore.

AIDS is not the
shocker it was 25 years ago. When Arthur died, there were two drugs to
combat AIDS; now there are a dozen or more, Allen said. Her friend’s
memory helps fight AIDS. But she would prefer he was around, organising
a run for soul food.

© 2010 New York Times

The fight between
the governors of Oyo and Osun State, Adebayo Alao-Akala and Olagunsoye
Oyinlola, over who has control of the Ladoke Akintola University of
Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, recently took a turn for the worse. The
two governors flexed muscles over the appointment of principal officers
for the institution as well as its funding.

A bit of background on the ownership of the institution is not out of place here.

The University of
Technology was established in 1990 by the defunct Oyo State government
with the main campus located in Ogbomoso and the Teaching Hospital in
Osogbo. In 1991 when Osun was carved out of the old Oyo State the two
states became joint owners of the institution. Under this arrangement,
students of medicine underwent their initial training in Ogbomoso and
attended clinicals at the Teaching Hospital in Osogbo. This arrangement
was kept in place until what belonged to one now became the property of
two.

In the ensuing
face off, other settled practices were also overturned including the
procedures for appointing the vice chancellor and other principal
officers as the power tussle came into the open, The Oyo State governor
decided to sack officers whom he suspected were loyal to his Osun
counterpart. Other staff were asked to leave because they had suddenly
become Osun State indigenes and vice versa.

It was this ugly drama that plunged the institution into crisis that threatened its academic future.

By the end of last
week the National Universities Commission (NUC) decided to put a stop
to the dangerous game that the two states were playing with the future
of the students of the institution. The NUC’s decision to take over the
running of the institution for a period of three months was its own way
of stopping the bleeding.

It is unfortunate
that the two governors have allowed their egos and lust for power to
jeopardise the education of the students of the institution. Whatever
the differences between them were, they should not have been allowed to
come into the open or to colour their judgment in and influence the
behaviour the tow executives have been displaying in the way it has in
the last few months.

Leadership is all
about maturity and the ability to manage crisis. In this instance,
Messrs Alao-Akala and Oyinlola have failed woefully. It is instructive
that the two men at the centre of this drama belong to the same
political party, Peoples Democratic Party. Despite this they couldn’t
settle their differences at party level until it blew out of proportion.

What would have happened if they belonged to rival political parties?

This brings us to our argument in an editorial on creation of
states. In that editorial, we argued that the exercise rather than
unite leads to disunity. There is no better example than this. Finally,
we call on the NUC to quickly find a lasting solution to this mess.