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If
a stranger were to go by the reporting in Nigeria’s dailies on the
run-up to next year’s general election, she might just conclude that
the most important issue facing the country is the ethnic origin of the
next president and that the Peoples Democratic Party is the only party
in country able to provide this individual.

She would not be far from the truth. The national
discourse has indeed revolved around the issues of zoning the
presidency and what the constitution of the PDP says about this
obviously important matter.

Various opposition groups and individuals have,
of course, shouted their indignation about this state of things. They
have pointed out that the Nigerian Constitution does not have any
clause that endorses zoning the presidency and that the PDP is not the
only party capable of producing a candidate for this post. They have
even done more, by helpfully analysing the limitations of the PDP,
which include its inability to make a significant positive impact on
the nation despite the fact that it has been in government since the
return of democracy in 1998.

But very few people have paid attention to these
opposition groups mostly because they are not considered a match for
the behemoth they seek to upstage. To all intents and purposes, the
country resembles a one-party state and a lot more needs to be done by
the opposition to show Nigerians they represent viable alternatives to
the party that prides itself as the largest on the African continent.
Clearly size has not meant an ability to govern effectively.

The first two elections (held in 1998 and 2003)
within this fourth republic were relatively competitive, with two other
parties – the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Action Congress
(or its earlier incarnation as Alliance for Democracy) – presenting a
bold challenge to the PDP. Why, they even teamed up to present a joint
presidential candidate to challenge the PDP! By the last election in
2007, the PDP had truly become the only giant in a community of dwarfs
and it hasn’t looked back since. The ANPP has hemorrhaged badly as some
of its state governors – in Bauchi and Zamfara – have defected to the
PDP. The Progressive Peoples Alliance has similarly lost its two state
executives and the situation is not different at the national and state
assemblies.

Since 2007, no fewer than 13 senators and 15
members of the House of Representatives have decamped to the PDP –
reducing the meaning of opposition in the National Assembly to little
more than a joke. Of particular interest was an opposition senator from
Anambra State who spent the better part of three years fighting a legal
battle to reclaim his election victory from a PDP usurper. When he
finally made his way into the Senate, the politician promptly dumped
his party for the one that had tormented him for years.

Defection is part of politics – although in some
countries this is punished as a way of helping politicians to put party
loyalty above personal interest. The PDP controlled National Assembly
has refused to do so, apparently content in the belief that it will
always continue to be a beneficiary of the system. But the opposition
parties are also to blame.

Many of them do not promote any ideology beyond
being anti-PDP. They are disorganised, poorly funded and are usually
beholden to an individual. Their members sometimes do not have much
confidence in their lasting capability. But the future of Nigeria’s
democracy and the development of the country depend on their ability to
survive.

It is to be hoped that a cleaner electoral
process will ensure that the big party cannot easily manoeuvre its
members into political office to the detriment of smaller ones. A more
democratically driven process should also empower real politicians and
professionals to move into the smaller parties and strengthen them
enough to contest for and win elections.

If only they knew it; no party stays in power
forever – as countries from Mexico to Uruguay and Japan have shown. The
electorate is bound to search for viable alternatives. But these would
have to be parties that show a real capacity for governing even if only
slightly better than the ruling party. The future belongs to opposition
politicians, but only those of them who have prepared for it. The time
for making those preparations is about now.

The
lights are going out all over America – literally. Colorado Springs has
made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off
a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or
being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno.

Meanwhile, a country that once amazed the world
with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal
to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving
itself: In a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads
they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.

And a nation that once prized education – that was
among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children – is now
cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programmes are being
canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically
shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead.

We’re told that we have no choice, that basic
government functions – essential services that have been provided for
generations – are no longer affordable. And it’s true that state and
local governments, hit hard by the recession, are cash-strapped. But
they wouldn’t be quite as cash-strapped if their politicians were
willing to consider at least some tax increases.

And the federal government, which can sell
inflation-protected long-term bonds at an interest rate of only 1.04
percent, isn’t cash-strapped at all. It could and should be offering
aid to local governments, to protect the future of our infrastructure
and our children.

But Washington is providing only a trickle of
help, and even that grudgingly. We must place priority on reducing the
deficit, say Republicans and “centrist” Democrats. And then, virtually
in the next breath, they declare that we must preserve tax cuts for the
very affluent, at a budget cost of $700 billion over the next decade.

In effect, a large part of our political class is
showing its priorities: Given the choice between asking the richest 2
percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid
during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation’s foundations to
crumble – literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of
education – they’re choosing the latter.

It’s a disastrous choice in both the short run and the long run.

In the short run, those state and local cutbacks are a major drag on the economy, perpetuating devastatingly high unemployment.

It’s crucial to keep state and local government in
mind when you hear people ranting about runaway government spending
under President Barack Obama. Yes, the federal government is spending
more,

although not as much as you might think. But state
and local governments are cutting back. And if you add them together,
it turns out that the only big spending increases have been in
safety-net programmes like unemployment insurance, which have soared in
cost thanks to the severity of the slump.

That is, for all the talk of a failed stimulus, if
you look at government spending as a whole you see hardly any stimulus
at all. And with federal spending now trailing off, while big state and
local cutbacks continue, we’re going into reverse.

But isn’t keeping taxes for the affluent low also
a form of stimulus? Not so you’d notice. When we save a schoolteacher’s
job, that unambiguously aids employment; when we give millionaires more
money instead, there’s a good chance that most of that money will just
sit idle.

And what about the economy’s future?

Everything we know about economic growth says that
a well-educated population and high-quality infrastructure are crucial.
Emerging nations are making huge efforts to upgrade their roads, their
ports and their schools. Yet in America we’re going backward.

How did we get to this point? It’s the logical
consequence of three decades of anti-government rhetoric, rhetoric that
has convinced many voters that a dollar collected in taxes is always a
dollar wasted, that the public sector can’t do anything right.

The anti-government campaign has always been
phrased in terms of opposition to waste and fraud – to checks sent to
welfare queens driving Cadillacs, to vast armies of bureaucrats
uselessly pushing paper around. But those were myths, of course; there
was never remotely as much waste and fraud as the right claimed. And
now that the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing what was
actually in the firing line: services that everyone except the very
rich need, services that government must provide or nobody will, like
lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as
a whole.

So the end result of the long campaign against
government is that we’ve taken a disastrously wrong turn. America is
now on the unlit, unpaved road to nowhere.

© 2010 New York Times News Service

Who
has heard that one about how parents of newborns name their children in
Calabar? A tin plate is flung against the bare floor at the naming, and
whatever sound it makes is the child’s name. It’s an appalling joke,
but at least it registers the non-indigene’s bewilderment at the
intonations, and tricks on the ear that the Efik and Ibibio languages
play.

I must admit that I
am near giving up on ever successfully speaking either language. But
because I am the glutton that I am, every syllable of every word that
concerns food falls on my ears like the sound of a running stream. This
week it is the turn of Ekoki made from fresh maize or Ukpo Oka as the
Igbo and Anioma call it. My husband calls it a tongue twisting Ekoki
Ibikpot (cue in more infantile jokes about the similarities between
Efik and Chinese).

I think of Ekoki as
the queen of delicacies because it is perfect only at this time of the
year when maize is unambiguously fresh.

It is an
interesting season. Between last week and now, the price of yam has
doubled along with the condescension of market women selling it. Eating
yam is literally like eating gold. One either pays the price or bears
the bitter taste and melting texture of new yam. And perhaps it is only
psychological, but as the mind registers the value of old yam, its
taste significantly improves. It is really sweet, texturally and
otherwise like gold. As a sign of the times, each yam is marked boldly
in the market; identified so that there is no question of whom it
belongs to.

Fresh corn is on
its way out. And with it those women who roast cobs over coals in
basins, in the shade of trees on every street corner. They are not yet
gone and I am already nostalgic. The season has passed all too quickly.

I was given seven
cobs of white maize. It felt reassuring to peel layers and layers of
leaves, and detach the heads of silk to reveal the unique shape of each
ear. I had not done these things since I was a child, and considered it
a chore. It was pure joy to have my senses awakened by the smell of
freshness.

I then
painstakingly pried out each seed, much to the annoyance of members of
my household who passed and observed what they considered wasted
diligence. Someone suggested that I use a knife, another that I use a
grater, which is what was traditionally used in the preparation of
Ekoki. I self-righteously declined. The first would only retrieve half
of the seed, the other too much of the cob. I did not want to waste the
maize, nor did I want the grittiness of the cob. Sore thumbs and the
passage of time were a small price to pay.

I blended my seeds
of maize with water, garlic, ginger, salt, leeks, onion and fresh
pepper. I found that no matter how long I blended the maize, the
consistency remained grainy. The blended maize was so fresh; it looked
and smelled like milk. I must make a note that I did use parts of the
cob, near the head where it was youngest.

To the medley, I
added blended smoked fish and a generous amount of palm oil. This was
no ordinary palm oil. It was the first time in my life, that I had seen
palm oil that resembled red wine. Like the maize, it was a gift from
Ogoja, presented in a small recycled Ragolis water bottle. Unlike the
palm oil that I am used to, the top of the oil was beautifully
transparent; obviously the very first grade of oil which the Yoruba
call “Ogere”. City slickers like myself may never encounter this grade
of oil in their lifetime.

Another revelation
was the moin moin leaves (ewe eran). In Lagos, these leaves are sold to
us with the greatest condescension in the market. There, the market
women make you buy both the small and large leaves as a package. You
are not allowed to pick and choose. Here in Calabar, the leaves are as
broad as you like, and for N50, you have enough to roof a house.

My Ekoki was gently
divided among folded moin moin leaves, deveined fresh prawns added, and
steamed for about 45 minutes in a steamer. In the first five minutes of
cooking, the smell of steaming leaves completely ravaged the house.

Perfectly cooked
Ekoki bounces when tapped with the fingers. It retains its grainy maize
texture. The smoked fish gives it maximum flavour without fishiness.
The prawns, protected from direct heat, yet steamed perfectly add
personality to it. There is no Asian dim sum that can stand in the
presence of my Ekoki.

It is unbearable to think I must wait till next year to eat it again.

She said, she said, and she said; but the real question is what HE did.

More people have
been focused on the trial going on at the Special Court for Sierra
Leone (SCSL) sitting at The Hague this last week all because of the
presence of a beautiful super model called Naomi Campbell and little to
do with the enormity of the crimes for which Mr. Charles Taylor, former
president of Liberia is being tried.

The war that took
place in Sierra Leone for which atrocities the prosecution is trying to
prove Taylor culpable turned that country into a hell hole, truly a
heart of darkness: amputated limbs, child sex slaves, drugged out boy
soldiers, blood chilling brutality.

Ms Campbell lucky
for her inhabits a vastly different world of glamour, designer clothes,
klieg lights and glossy magazines, as far away as you can possibly be
from the amputated survivors of Sierra Leone.

She was apparently
oblivious too to the blood and horror of war torn Liberia, from which
two Nigerian journalists, Krees Imodibie of The Guardian and Tayo
Awotusin from Daily Champion then, never returned alive. They were
killed there, executed, in August 1991, nineteen years ago.

But such is life is
it not? The difference is as wide as that between the raw dirt
encrusted stones and the sparkling luminous end products that grace the
necks and fingers of the rich and celebrated and hang at the bottom of
the prosecution’s case against Taylor. One half of the world is gushing
about the latest designer bags; the other is silently being buried
alive.

You do not even
need to go that far as we well know: in Lagos the difference can be
between the families on one end of a street and another.

Many are familiar
with the effect fashion models have: an instantaneous loosening of the
faculties, a melting sensation that we used to refer to as going gaga.

Their celebrity status is indicative of how facile the values of contemporary society can be.

Ms Campbell has had
remarkable staying power in a profession where careers are notoriously
short, being dependent primarily on youthful beauty and physical
appearance. Hers is a world of fashion, ever changing and yet
perambulating the same circles. Floods in Pakistan, mudslides in China,
but fashion week in New York, Milan and Paris, must stay on schedule.
That collection has to be out and in the shops for work on the next one
to begin. It is business.

To be fair Campbell
and others in her profession have used their status to raise funds for
and bring awareness to the causes that affect the lives of many less
fortunate people around the world. Campbell’s association with the
Nelson Mandela Foundation and her affectionate relationship with Nelson
Mandela, a different kind of melting moment, is a case in point.

The man to whom
Campbell said she handed said diamonds gave them over to the police in
South Africa last week. But spokesperson or campaigner for any long
term cause she is not (nor should she be) and one does not have to go
into her brief flirtation with animal rights organisation PETA (People
for Ethical Treatment of Animals), to see that.

The more disturbing
issue is the investigative competence of the prosecution at the Special
Court for Sierra Leone and why it looks as if they are having a
difficult time getting their case against Taylor together. One would
have thought there would be ample evidence of his alleged atrocities.
So what if he gave Campbell a bag of diamonds in South Africa? How on
earth does that prove that he sold diamonds to procure weapons? So he
brought raw diamonds into South Africa illegally, according to South
African law. What then?

If you were a
beautiful super model, seated next to Nelson Mandela with a wide range
of rich and celebrated men from all corners of the globe, melting at
your feet, why would a dinner table “flirtation” or tête-à-tête with
Charles Taylor, as described by Campbell’s rather dour detractors, be
particularly remarkable, such that you would recall every detail of it
13 years later?

This is a major
case for Nigeria, ECOMOG, and Africa. We give little attention to the
high price we pay just to survive and therefore do not learn the
important lessons for the future. The Naomi Campbell saga has brought
the atrocities and mistakes of the Sierra Leone war back to world
attention, and maybe that is the extent of what we may have gained from
this soap opera.

Our leaders have
trampled over our rights with mind-numbing impunity and bungled their
way through crises at murderous cost to the populace. Setting a
precedent that justice can be done on this continent and that
accountability in governance can begin to count is critical. One hopes
that the SCSL has more serious arsenal in its task to seek justice and
redemption for the victims of the 11 year war in Sierra Leone and help
us to pave the way to avoiding future tragedies.

Last week Governor Adams Oshiomhole had a busy time firing
engineers and contractors. First it was two engineers who he accused of
collaborating with contractors to deliver substandard roads. . Yahaya Afekhai,
before he unceremoniously lost his job, was an engineer with the Edo State
Ministry of Works, while Austin Edeki, also an engineer was hired as the
consultant to supervise the construction work on the Ihevbe/Ikao/Otuo Road.

The contracting firm, Boroni Proni, an Italian construction
company, admitted to subletting part of the roadwork to some local contractors
who used poor and substandard materials for the culvert and side drains of the
roads.

The site engineer, who refused to disclose his name to this
paper’s reporter, said he succumbed to pressure from the locals and sublet the
contract to them.

It is one vicious cycle of corruption begetting corruption,
shoddy work producing bad roads which contribute to accidents, deaths, delays,
late delivery of produce, an unhealthy business climate and staggering poverty.
When corruption has spread so deep that it blinds the locals to what is in
their own interest then it is easy to conclude that we are near the point of no
return.

It has become the norm to expect shoddy work and substandard
quality from government.

Projects embarked upon by government and its agencies in Nigeria
don’t last, and no one seems to care or listen. Political appointees and office
holders don’t see an opportunity to serve but a license to dole out largesse to
party faithful and other hangers on. This is why contracts to construct roads
are given to carpenters rather than road engineers while those for building
houses are awarded to tailors.

Mr. Oshiomhole described civil servants like Messrs Afekayi and
Edeki as liabilities to government and vowed that anyone found to be defrauding
government wound not be spared.

This kind of corruption and dereliction of duty should not be
dismissed with scolding and a slap on the wrist. What the two engineers have
done is totally reprehensible and should be condemned by all. By allowing the
contractor to construct substandard culverts they have compromised their
positions and endangered the lives of those who would have used those
facilities had the governor not detected the substandard work.

Yahaya Afekhai and Austin Edeki who were fired by the governor
should not be left to go scot-free. Mr. Afekhai, a state employee should be
made to forfeit all his entitlements while Mr. Edeki, a consultant should be
blacklisted from working as an engineer. The construction firm that sublet the
contract also has a case to answer.

As much as we believe that local contractors should have equal
opportunity to vie for government jobs the question of standards should never
be compromised.

This brings us to the issue of quality control and inspection. A
look across the country shows that there are many loopholes that need to be
covered. Recently, the LASU-Iba road, which cost billions of naira to
construct, collapsed barely a year after it was commissioned. Up till today
there is no evidence that the contractor or those who supervised the project
have been prosecuted for this colossal failure.

The same is applicable to several other roads and projects that
have failed shortly after being commissioned. There is need to bring back to
public life integrity and professional discipline that were the hallmarks of
our nation in years past.

In expressing his displeasure Mr. Oshiomhole said: “My anger is
really not with the contractor. But if we have engineers who are being paid to
supervise the job and they do nothing, then they are part of the problem. They
are the reason why government job never lasts. We still appreciate the work
done by the Ogbemudia government because then, we had committed civil servants
who take their job seriously.” It is true that today many roads constructed
during the First Republic are still standing while those done after them have
long disappeared.

We agree with Mr. Oshiomhole that civil servants must wake up to
their responsibilities and not connive with contractors to deliver shoddy jobs
for which they will later blame the politicians.

Nigerians
may not have invented cars, but they have demonstrated the fact that
they are geniuses in the semiotics of renaming cars made in other parts
of the world.

Just as names
given to vehicles by their producers go beyond mere identification to
become rhetorical means of marketing them, nicknames given to such
vehicles by the public also speak subtly about the products and those
that use them.

In relation to how
cars signify social status, the Volkswagen Beetle car is for instance
referred to as “Boosu Nwamgbei (A bus for the poor),” an Igbo parody on
“Volkswagen” that narrates how the vehicle represents or belongs to the
poor person in society, even when many poor Nigerians could not afford
to purchase it. The car was also renamed “Azubuike” in recognition of
the unusual location of its engine at the rear where other car types
usually have their luggage compartments. “Azubuike” literally suggests
that its strength is at its behind, which is humorously related to the
idea of one’s strength being in having a successor (in the offspring,
usually the male child).

Deriving from this
same tradition is the identification of the 2008 model of Toyota Camry
car as “Big for Nothing”. Borrowed from the discourse of abuse in which
individuals are called derogatory names, this particular case refers to
the bearer’s abilities not matching their advertized or physical image.
“Big for Nothing” figuratively represents a Nigerian perception of how
the actual capacity of the car does not justify its reinvented big
size. In spite of the fact that the renaming of the car reveals an
awareness in the Nigerian consumer world about how frequent
reinventions of car shapes and sizes do not necessarily translate to
higher performance of the product, many Nigerians still have their eyes
on the car for the simple reason that its “bigness” is appropriate to
their own sense of what it means to be a “big man” in the society.

It seems that being
a “big man” is something that has to be demonstrated in material terms,
as seen not only in Nigeria but also in other parts of the world. The
longish Rolls Royce cars of America, the early generation of Chevrolet
cars, and the Cherokee Chief, all narrate a similar use of car size to
dominate, not just the road, but also the space of power and influence
in society. Space constraints and change in values of course have
forced cars users in the Western world to appreciate smaller cars.

But within this
discourse on space and power in Nigeria, one also finds humour.
Nigerians are indeed good at laughing at and with the other, whatever
their social and economic conditions. Such humour is found in almost
all the nicknames they have for automobiles. The Golf 2 was once a
dream car for many Nigerians, but with the massive importation of
various “tokunbo” (used) vehicles in Nigeria, coupled with a remarkable
improvement in monthly income in the country, the car became common on
Nigerian roads and consequently fell in prestige. It fell to the level
of taxicabs in a society where taxis are seen as low-grade vehicles.
Many taxi drivers also prefer it for its low fuel consumption and
maintenance cost. Thus, because the car has become “common” to many
Nigerians for whom uniqueness is part of the construction of class
superiority, it has come to be nicknamed “Pure Water,” a name derived
from “sachet water” which is again common in Nigeria as a result of the
crisis in public water supply.

I particularly like the Igbo nickname for pick-up vans – Azuanuuka (A turned back listens to no gossip).

Understood within
the context of aggressive and unfriendly driving on Nigerian roads, the
nickname recalls the I-don’t-care posture of drivers of the pick-up
vans who, shielded away in the front compartment of the vehicles,
present a deaf ear to the invectives directed to them by drivers of
other vehicles whose road rights have been violated. Indeed, vehicle
users who are inconsiderate of other road users tend to take advantage
of some protective features built onto their vehicles.

Drivers of
articulated vehicles like trucks are inclined to frighten away drivers
of other fragile vehicles, sometimes causing accidents that involve
mass deaths. Thus in popular Igbo discourse on road transport, the
trailer or tanker is referred to as “Achaghi akuo” (Ready for
collision, if not avoided).

Such humour may
also be linked to an acknowledgement of a similar quality in the
automobile. For instance, the nickname of the 1984 model of Mercedes
Benz car “German Mistake” ironically conveys the recognition of its
superior durability, compared to other car models, or even other
Mercedes Benz cars.

It is considered a
“mistake” in a changing automobile world where the survival of the
automobile company may depend on how high their sales figures rise and
not how many decades a customer enjoys the product before considering
whether to change the spark plugs!

A talking public is
very useful to business, and the Nigerian vehicle nickname geniuses are
doing a good job in semiotically reinventing the vehicles for the
overflooded Nigerian automobile market.

The World Cup ended a month ago, but Kaka and Arjen Robben still
bear the pain.

A Belgian specialist who performed surgery on Kaka’s knee last
week said he jeopardised his career by playing for Brazil.

And according to Bayern Munich’s club doctor, Robben’s thigh
injury was so bad he should never have played for the Netherlands (Robben wound
up helping the Dutch reach the World Cup final).

We have been down this road before. The image of Zinedine Zidane
attempting to represent France at the 2002 World Cup despite having a thigh so
heavily bandaged he could barely walk was warning enough of the futility of it
all. The world moves on, but the consequences of stretching star players to the
breaking point between club and country is nowhere near being resolved.

At the start of this World Cup, Dr. Michel D’Hooghe, the chairman
of the medical committee for FIFA, soccer’s governing body, called on doctors
responsible for each of the 32 teams to respect their oath in terms of doping,
injury prevention and care. D’Hooghe also urged the referees to be vigilant
against particularly aggressive fouls.

After the final, during which the English referee Howard Webb
failed to send off Nigel de Jong of the Netherlands for kicking Xabi Alonso of
Spain in the ribs,

FIFA took three weeks to respond. Last Tuesday, it fined the
Dutch football association $14,480 because eight of its players received yellow
cards and one a red in that game. Spain, which had five players receive
yellows, was fined $9,650.

Those fines had all the effect of whacking a rhinoceros’s
backside with a feather.

Spain took home $30 million for winning the World Cup, the
Netherlands $24 million for finishing second, and each Spanish player walked,
or limped, away with a $750,000 bonus.

It is not money alone that drives players, most already rich, in
the World Cup. It is glory, achievement, fulfillment. And for those reasons,
players need to be protected from themselves.

Kaka and Robben went to the World Cup knowing all was not right
physically. Kaka’s club president at Real Madrid had insinuated last March that
Kaka was exaggerating his injury to save himself for the World Cup.

The president, Florentino Perez, had paid AC Milan $90 million
for Kaka, and the time he missed because of his injury represented a poor
return on the investment. Yet Madrid knew it had been sold a battered player;
Kaka had often played through ailments for Milan. His groin-muscle injury was
longstanding, and a knee strain then developed after he joined Madrid.

For Brazil, the importance of his passes, his intuitive awareness
of where Luis Fabiano or Robinho would move, could be sublime. But Kaka’s World
Cup was marred by his evident pain, and irritable moods.

Finally, as Kaka prepared to start Madrid’s preseason tour in Los
Angeles, the club sent him to Marc Martens, a knee specialist based in Antwerp,
Belgium, who had extended the careers of players like Ruud Gullit.

Martens told a Spanish newspaper: “As soon as I saw him, I could
tell it was serious. He started playing with some niggling injuries and ended
up with unbearable pain.” He added: “He pushed himself too hard against Holland
and Chile. It could have finished his career, destroyed him.” Kaka needs up to
four months to recuperate, but he should recover. Kaka said to reporters that
he had told the doctors in Madrid and Brazil that he felt pain in the knee, and
that they had suggested it was “just a muscle imbalance.” Jose Luiz Runco,
Brazil’s team doctor, said on a Brazilian sports channel: “Kaka did not risk
his career in any moment. He didn’t play in his normal state, but he showed
evident progress during the World Cup, which allowed him to be the outstanding
player in some matches.” Robben’s injured thigh muscle was known about before
the World Cup. Such was his value to Bayern Munich and the Netherlands, however
that he played for both at times when he was less than 100 percent physically.

His spectacular dribbles and goals took Munich to the Champions
League final in May. His latest hamstring pull came June 4, in a friendly
against Hungary.

Robben sat out the Netherlands’ first two games at the World Cup,
played 20 minutes as a substitute in the third, then started and scored against
Slovakia, Brazil and Uruguay, and was the Dutch team’s best player in the
final.

On his return to Munich last week, a magnetic resonance imaging
scan showed the thigh muscle was torn.

“It was irresponsible that it wasn’t properly diagnosed by the
Dutch,” said Bayern’s club physician, Hans-Wilhelm Mueller-Wohlfahrt. “He
should not have been allowed to play at the World Cup.” Karl-Heinz Rummenigge,
Bayern’s chief executive and chairman of the 191-member European Club
Association, is demanding reimbursement.

“Arjen will be missing for the important beginning to the
season,” he said. “Such an injury costs money. It would be fair if the Dutch
would bear these costs.” Rummenigge added: “We pay the players, but the
national teams injure them. FIFA values the players, but we value them five or
six times higher.

‘’Put it this way: If I rent a car, I must return it in a decent
condition. They have taken Arjen in good shape and returned him to the garage“
in awful shape.

© 2010 New York Times News
Service

One book that helped a lot in building the man
that I am today was Dennis Osadebe’s “Building A Nation”. The book started with
a historical perspective of Osadebe’s home town of Asaba, in modern day Delta
State, its founding by a chap named Nnebisi, through the centuries to the
struggle for Nigeria’s independence, onto Osadebe’s stewardship as the premier
of the Midwestern Region of Nigeria, and down to his service on the committee
that chose Abuja as our new capital.

I will never forget the passage about the funeral
of one of the greatest Nigerians ever, Herbert Macaulay. It rained on the day
of the funeral in 1946, and some people felt that the show should be stopped.
But four young Igbo boys braved the rain, and carried Macaulay’s coffin on
their shoulders to Ikoyi Cemetery with the cry, ‘he was our chief’.

Such a display of belief in the leadership of
someone from another ethnic group is rare in today’s Nigeria.

A few years ago, I listened with a bit of
disbelief as a friend of mine told me that she had no idea of who Herbert
Macaulay was. What was shocking to me then was that she was a first class
degree holder from a Nigerian university, and had grown up in my generation.
However at that point in time, I did not find her lack of knowledge horrifying.

Move the clock forward a few years, and I’m now
older and wiser. Thus it was that I listened in horror this Saturday past when
a young lady who just finished from secondary school and is awaiting her school
leaving results told me the same thing. As a matter of fact, this young lady
has no idea of who the following people are: Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa,
Mazi Alvan Ikoku, General Murtala Ramat Mohammed, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji
Sir Ahmadu Bello and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. To be fair and honest, she recognises
their names from the Naira notes that she wields each day, but that is all. She
has no idea of what Biafra really was, but at least knows that Emeka Ojukwu was
involved in the Biafra story. What his role was, she had no idea.

In shock, I attempted to guide her mind towards
contemporary Nigerian politics, and asked her who her state governor was. She
replied, “Nnamdi Ohakim”. At least she got the surname right. When pressed
about who is predecessor was, her response, “Goodluck Jonathan!”

I did what I considered to be the humane thing
and give her a crash course on our nation’s history. What I found most
frustrating was her almost absolute lack of interest in what I was saying!

What I find again most frustrating is the
question of who or what to channel my anger at.

The young lady (whom I must point out is
exceedingly respectful) is a stunning example of the rot in our country. And
nowhere is this rot exemplified more than in our educational system.

The importance of History as a course can NEVER
be understated, and in the opinion of this writer, it should be made compulsory
through primary, secondary and at least the first year of tertiary education.

It is knowledge of what our forebears did,
especially with an emphasis on what they got right, that could well and truly
give us a sense of national pride.

So just who was Herbert Macaulay?

Herbert Macaulay was born in Lagos in 1864 to
Sierra Leonean parents. His mother’s father was Samuel Ajayi Crowther. In 1881
he joined the Public Works Department of the colonial administration of Lagos,
and was sent to England for three years in 1890. When he returned to Lagos
(there was no Nigeria at the time), he was appointed surveyor of crown lands
for the colony of Lagos. He resigned from that position in 1898.

Historical records indicate that his resignation
may not have been unconnected with the racism practiced by the Europeans in the
colonial civil service. What is certain is that Macaulay established a very
successful private survey practice in Lagos and over the years became a
spokesman for the people in their opposition to British rule in Lagos, and
after the amalgamation, Nigeria.

By 1922 when a new Nigerian constitution was
introduced, Macaulay organised the Nigerian National Democratic Party, which
sought for self-governance for Lagos, the introduction of institutions of
higher education in Nigeria, compulsory primary education for Nigerians,
non-discrimination in the development of private enterprise, and the
Africanisation of the civil service.

In 1944 he presided over the inaugural meeting of
the Nigerian Union of Students from which the National Council of Nigeria and
the Cameroons (Nigeria’s first political party) was born. He became the NCNC’s
president and began a nationwide tour in 1945. However, during the tour, he
fell ill in Kano and returned to Lagos. He died in 1946.

If anyone can lay claim to the title, Father of
Nigeria, this is the man. He was already opposing the British whilst Zik, Awo
and the Sardauna were still in their diapers. That we are allowing yet another
generation to grow without knowing who he was, is a terrible crime.

The
decision last week to remove both the Chairman and the Director-General
of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) was long overdue. I salute the
courage and decisiveness of my good friend Arunma Oteh, the boss of the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In all truth, the situation
had become intolerable.

During the
previous week former NSE chairman, Aliko Dangote had accused his
director-general, Ndi Okereke-Onyuike of financial misappropriation to
the tune of N11 billion. Apparently, the duo had been in a long-running
battle of power and control.

Since the spring of
2008, our economy has been crippled by gross insider abuses in the NSE.
Before then, our capital markets were unarguably the most attractive in
the world.

Returns on
investment of 100% were not uncommon, with bank stocks averaging 120%
before the bubble burst. The IPOs for the Dangote Group of Companies
were among the most successful. If you had invested in Dangote Cement
at the time they went to market, you could easily have made an
incredible 800% on your principal in less than a year. Dangote Sugar
was also the toast of the investment industry. We were all drunk with
the heady wine of a bullish bubble that we believed would always defy
the laws of gravity. People made loads and loads of dosh just by making
one or two phone calls to their stockbrokers.

And then the
chickens came home to roost. It started with a few whispering campaigns
and dirty little gossips in the gilded pavilions of Mammon. People
smelt blood when one prominent stockbroker declared that only an idiot
would invest in the Nigerian capital market. Foreign investors got the
cue and made for the border.

Within weeks, some US$16 billion of portfolio investments had left our shores.

Add to this a
ruinous banking crisis which predates Lamido Sanusi, and then you get a
fatal cocktail from which our capital markets have yet to recover.

The non-initiates
on these matters would be inclined to think the whole thing was
triggered by the global financial meltdown. Truth is, our capital
market crisis was largely home-made, in fact, occurring a good six
months prior to the sub-prime crisis that imploded at Wall Street in
September 2008.

Ndi Okereke-Onyuike
should have left the headship of the NSE as far back as 2007. Nobody
disputes her qualifications or professional standing in the industry.
It was her politics and greed that had compromised her.

As one of the
champions of so-called Corporate Nigeria, a gaggle of moneybags based
largely in Lagos, she had used her position in the dominant political
party to mobilise funds. It was unprofessional and illegal to compel
investors to cough out funds for politicians against their better
judgement or long-term interests.

Okereke-Onyiuke was
also Chairman of the Transcorp Group, a chaebol whose promotion by the
powers of the land would have made Russian oligarchs green with envy.
It was a blatant conflict of interest for her to double as Chairman of
the NSE while heading Transcorp. But she was the last to see the
absurdity of it all.

And then there was
the Obama campaign fund faux pas, which the Obama people were quick to
dismiss as 419. If Ms. Okereke-Onyuike had not been as blind as a bat
she would at least have seen the handwriting on the wall and made a
dignified exit before the curtain closed in on her.

I have met the Indlovukazi (Swazi for ‘she-elephant’).

In private she is
coquettish and shy — almost girlish. She once narrated the
serendipitous path that hauled her from obscurity to the summits of the
corporate world. Tears cascaded freely down her cheeks. I wish her a
restful retirement from the tumult that was largely of her own making.

As for the former
Chairman, Aliko Dangote, it was always odd that the richest man on our
continent should also double as Chief Rabbi of our synagogue of
capitalism. Lest I am misunderstood, I do not envy him his stupendous
wealth. And this is patently not a job application, in case the vacca
foeda who attacked me on this column is reading this.

Aliko Dangote had
no business chairing an institution in which he is the biggest single
investor. Italy has fallen below the league of civilised nations
because the country was hijacked by her richest mogul, Silvio
Berlusconi.

It would be
inappropriate to comment on Dangote’s dispute with Femi Otedola of
African Petroleum because the matter is still sub-judice.

Aliko is
surprisingly very smart. He has this astonishing capacity to rattle out
dizzying figures about profit margins, ROI and financial ratios. In
private, he is charming and humble — almost school-boyish. He has the
winsome face of Denzel Washington with the frightening eyes of
Caligula. Behind his back, his rivals refer to him as ‘Chemical Ali’.

Three lessons for
the future: first, never appoint anyone to manage the stock exchange
who is either avaricious or deliberately seeks to mix business with
politics; second,

the wealthiest
investors should be barred from managing the NSE; thirdly, we need an
anti-monopolies and anti-trust regulatory body to break the back of the
dangerous cartels that plague our economy. The market economy is indeed
the material foundation of a free society. But capitalism without laws
is like playing Hamlet without the Prince.

Let us zone poverty. Let us build it a tent and fasten it to the loose earth of the North West. Let us make the rest of the country poverty free and confine poverty to the North West alone. Have they not produced the most of our leaders since independence? They have enjoyed enough; it’s their turn to be poor. Poverty to the North West.

Let us buy hunger a new cloak and zone it to the South West. All those pot bellied men and women with oversized torsos need to slim down. It’s not even good for their health you know and liposuction is damn expensive. So let us do them a huge favour and slim them down for free. No more owambe parties and endless aso-ebi. It’s poverty to the South West for keeps.

Aha, these South East people, they are too wealthy, talking containers and consignments all the time. They don’t need all that money you know. Let us zone armed robbery to the South East. Let us get arms for the youth to help us reclaim some of the excess money. Perhaps we could add kidnapping to it. Yes, armed robbery and kidnapping go down well like beer and pepper soup. They will find a good home in the South East for sure. And yes, we must disarm the police and keep them underpaid.

The North Central, who are they sef? Sometimes they prefer to be called “Middle Belt” as if the word “North” is a curse. Well, we are not bothered by that. We will zone power outage to them. Let us declare darkness in their land. Let us import candles for them and banish Mikano and John Holt from Abuja. The toy “i-big-pass” generators must go as well. We shall establish a bush lamp factory to augment the candles. Black is beautiful they say. Black out is even more beautiful.

South South – the oil people; let us zone unemployment to them. What do they need jobs for? They already have oil. Let their youths lie about idle. Let them drink raw crude from the plentiful wells until they are drunk.

Perhaps they might decide to go fishing. That would be good. Time we freed our waters of sharks and whales. They don’t even have enough land for schools so we shouldn’t be bothered. The South South
must remain unemployed. Jobs shouldn’t be for everybody after all.

The North East would look good with bad roads, don’t you agree? Let us zone crater infested roads to the North East. Let us break the bridges and turn the expressways into single lanes. Let us remove the drainage canals, so that the roads will spoil faster. While doing that we must ensure we build across rail lines and make sure the airports are death traps. The North East will enjoy this I imagine. It would be good to see people staying at home more.

Perhaps when we are done with attempting to zone these conditions that plague us as a nation and find that they can not be zoned, we will end all this noise on zoning or not zoning the presidency. Our problems have no ethnic, tribal or religious identity; neither are they confined to one particular part of the country. The man in Maiduguri suffers bad roads as much as the man in Umuahia. There is kidnapping in Kano just as there is in Port Harcourt.

Unemployed youth are a legion in Lagos just as they also walk the streets of Abuja. And who in this country does not experience power outage? And yes, the hunger is nationwide and poverty is like a national identity.

When we go abroad do they ask what zone of Nigeria we come from before asking us to step aside as they poke fingers into our private areas just to be sure we are not smuggling drugs? After the Abdulmutallab incident, did they not put the whole of Nigeria on the terrorist list? When our name tops the chart of corrupt nations, is there a zoning of the ranking?

Since our problems cannot be zoned, there is no way zoning shall solve them. We waste time and energy bickering over the ethnic identity of our leaders as if when our ‘brother’ is in power any thing changes for us.

It irks even more when I listen to persons who suffer most from bad leadership we have had to endure all these years, stand around newspaper stands and in the public buses arguing about zoning. It doesn’t matter who is in the saddle. The language he speaks isn’t worth a thing.

What matters is, is he speaking the language of development? That should be our concern at this time.