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Question: Since
democracy through the electoral process is so clearly not going to be
the engine to the progress that we seek, at least in the short term,
should we pin our hopes on a technocracy and just leave the scoundrels
to fight it out? Could it work? Could you have a civil service and
agencies to regulate healthcare, power supply, oil revenue, security
and infrastructure, all the bodies required to manage and administer a
country, functioning on their own insulated from our undisciplined
political process, thus ensuring that worthy servants would be
fortified against the virus that has corrupted the political class?

It might even work
if we got ourselves a savvy president, who had a goal, was committed to
improving the country and enough gumption to realise that leadership
requires strategy and thinking and with the wisdom to surround himself
with those with the smarts to transform his vision into reality.

There’s a whole
tanker load of ifs there. Looking at it more carefully I can see it is
an overloaded tanker, very much like the one I saw two months ago,
sprawled helplessly on its side, giant wheels sticking in the air,
halfway across the Ibadan highway. Too big for man or machine to set to
rights it had caused the mother of all traffic jams on a Saturday
evening.

It was the
explanation for why hordes of people clad in aso ebi, families eager to
get home to start the evening meal were picking their way in between
the stalled cars. Clogging up the nonexistent sidewalks, bumping into
the cramped street hawkers, they wrestled their way through the motor
park touts, drivers, conductors and okadas in a vain effort to beat the
darkness and get home.

It took five hours
to travel a stretch of road that would have taken less than fifteen
minutes. There were gallant individuals, not state traffic officers or
policemen, none of those who you would have thought had direct
responsibility to do something about the situation, who came out of
their cars and attempted to assert some order in the chaos.

Whosai? The grid
was locked and I imagined it to be so all the way up that single feeder
for the fuel caravans going south to north. In simple English that
constitutes a security matter, not so? An accident occurs on the road
that is the vital link for crucial supplies of food and fuel across the
country.

Convoys of tankers
pull to the side of the road, I use this term euphemistically, drivers
lock up and go to find themselves some food and shelter because they
know from experience it is going to be a long wait. Their fellow
Nigerians simply regird their loins because there is no one to call, no
future in waiting for help and life must go on.

There was no
fussing or fighting, yes some cursing and raised voices, but nobody
went crazy with frustration and anger because their day had been
destroyed, a precious weekend of rest ruined, meetings abandoned, hard
earned money down the drain. Women tightened their wrappers, gripped
children harder; men rolled their sokotos and hit the road, walking
where they could find a foothold.

Hence this ramble, wondering what possible interim solution can be found to the Nigerian enigma because we really deserve one.

I remember an
expression of my grandmother’s about being faced with problems. It
went: you have two issues; one is always bigger and more important than
the other. Choices, priorities, action; that is the message.

This week Parry
Osayande, a former deputy inspector general of police and current
chairman of the Police Service Commission announced some changes in
promotion policy in the Force. He said seniority; merit and
availability of vacancies would now be critera for promotion in the
force. Candidates would be tested through written exams on the
responsibilities of modern day policing.

Those who failed
the first time would have just one more chance. Then Osayande said
something even more telling. “There is extra judicial killing in the
Nigeria police. We are involved and engaged in extra judicial killings,
even rape, and other forms of corruption. We use our power unlawfully.
We are brutal. We are involved in torture and intimidation of members
of the public. We are involved in illegal roadblock activities.

“These are the
things we have noticed, and everyday people are laughing at us. How
would your children feel if other children are discussing the corrupt
activities of their parents? We are now talking to ourselves, in order
to change. Before we can change, we have to know what is wrong with
us.”

This is a major
indictment of the police force coming from one who has served at the
very top of it. It paints a picture of a force very much like that
helpless problematic tanker causing mayhem and chaos in people’s lives;
murderers in uniform.

It is a remarkable admission and hopefully heralds the dawn of a new
day Mr. Osayande has seized on the bigger problem and has resolved, if
he is to be believed, on a way to tackle it. More power to him in
putting his words into action.

It is exactly over
familiarity with the dog that in my case breeds my utter contempt for
the idea of eating dog meat.How I am possibly expected to eat some
domesticable constantly salivating animal that smells like a dank rug,
eats its own fecal matter, licks its privates and has the capacity to
exercise an uncanny intrinsic intuition, is beyond my culinary
comprehension.
It just does not
feel right to eat dog.

It does not therefore follow that I am one of
those people who would sleep in the same bed with a dog, play chess
with the dog and then take it to the South of France on holiday.
I have absolutely no desire for dog companionship. I have not yet even perfected my fellowship with human beings. If there is
something hypocritical about attempting to determine which animal to
eat or not to eat by the animal’s intelligence, affability to human
beings, hygiene and other unpredictable parameters then let it be so.
And by the way, I have the utmost respect for the moral courage or
self-righteousness or strength of conviction or whatever, that it takes
for the vegetarian/vegan to say an unshakable “No” to placing himself at
the apex of the food chain and eating everything beneath him.
Until further
notice I am a meat eater, not a liberal one, but nonetheless one.

My
sensibilities are easily offended and I still constantly wonder whether
since one is not eating dog, one should also not eat pork since pigs
are said to be the most intelligent “domestic” animals in the world,
and since George Orwell’s allegorical Animal Farm considers them so
intelligent to be worthy representatives of our domineering and
presumptuous humanity.

The reality is that
Nigerians eat dog, and to the degree of “well well”. In the same manner
that we eat monkey and horse and camel and deer, and goat and beef,
whatever meat presents itself and appeals to us. It is probably more
psychologically honest and healthy to admit this than to say one eats
one meat and not another.
We Nigerians generally tend to have a nonjudgmental straightforward relationship to our meat.
We have the capacity to view the slaughtering of the animal and still eat its meat without any iota of remorse.
As harrowing as it
may be for someone from another culture to be presented a dish called
Isi-Ewu with eyeballs, brains, tongue and parts of the skull of a goat
so brazenly tossed with vegetables, to us it is completely commonplace,
and completely delicious.

I believe that
people like myself who have urban dwellers’ hang-ups about eating dog
are in the context of Nigeria, a minority. Dog meat is being consumed
in Plateau and Gombe, in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Abuja and in Ondo, and
these are only the states that are consistently documented.
In Cross River
State, dog meat is affectionately referred to as 404, where it is a
serious delicacy. Sit-outs on Hawkins Street in Calabar South, and in
an area called Adiabo are renowned for their dog meat prepared in
special sauces. Dog is not cooked in stews, since like Isi-Ewu, or
Suya, it is the not an accompaniment to a meal, rather a delicacy
deserving of all the attention worthy to be paid a main course. People
who go to the mentioned joints often do so specifically to eat dog.

Why 404? I asked
Nsor Nyambi, whose witty exposes on Calabar and Cross River have helped
me navigate the culture as well as have a good laugh. “…Because dogs
run with speed like the 404” he said.

The 404 is of
course the Peugeot sedan (“pijo” in Nigerian lingua franca and “piyot”,
soft “t” in CrossRiverian articulation) that my generation caught a
passing glimpse of before the more enduring 504. At the time, the 404
sedan was considered very fast indeed, and when Crossriverians were
searching for a worthy comparison for the speed of a running dog, 404
was the exaggerated equivalent. And I suppose there is some wicked
irony in terming a type of meat running meat; running as fast as a car,
yet not outrunning the eater.

As to whether
Nigerians who eat dog are 100% comfortable with the idea, I wonder why
if it is so, that no one I have asked if they eat dog has ever given me
a straightforward “yes”.
It is always “those Akwa Ibom people” or “those Ondo town people”.
And those rare people who admit to eating it don’t do so without
looking mischievous, and they never just eat because they enjoy doing
so. They eat it because it is a cure for malaria, or it wards off Juju
or it improves your sex drive…

In the midst of a
wave of post-election political violence in Zimbabwe in 2008, Brian
James, a white farmer who had been evicted from his property years
earlier during President Robert Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned lands,
found himself surrounded by a throng of black Zimbabweans in downtown
Mutare, my hometown. The 50-strong crowd danced, sang and chanted
political slogans for more than 20 minutes before James was finally
able to raise his hand, thank them for their support and announce that
he was honored to have been elected mayor of the country’s
third-largest city.

Today is the 30th
anniversary of Zimbabwe’s independence from white rule and Mugabe’s
rise to power. Back then, Mugabe was hailed as a liberator and
conciliator. “If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, today you have
become a friend,” he told nervous whites at the time. For a long while
he was true to his word. By the mid-1990s, Zimbabwe had become one of
the most stable and prosperous countries in Africa.

But in 2000, within
weeks of losing a constitutional referendum to entrench his power,
Mugabe began the catastrophic land invasions that resulted in the
eviction of almost all the country’s 4,500 white farmers and the ruin
of what was once a model post-colonial African country. Ever since, the
narrative of Zimbabwe has been one of race. Rare is the speech in which
Mugabe does not rail against whites, colonialists, imperialists or the
West. Members of his ZANU-PF party have spoken of a “Rwandan solution”
for Zimbabwe’s whites.

Westerners have
simply accepted this narrative of blacks and whites pitted against one
another. But, in doing so, they have missed the inspiring story of what
has actually been happening in Zimbabwe over the past decade. After
years of mass unemployment, mutant inflation, chronic shortages and
state violence, Zimbabweans simply don’t care about skin color. In
fact, Mugabe has managed to achieve the exact opposite of what he set
out to do in 2000: the forging of a post racial state.

Brian James’ story,
taken in full, stands as proof of Mugabe’s unwitting accomplishment.
James was barely interested in politics before losing his land in 2003
– “I just wanted to farm and play cricket on weekends” – but afterward
he joined the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic
Change, quickly rose through the ranks and was elected mayor by a
virtually all-black constituency. And James is not a singular example.
One of the most popular politicians in the country is Roy Bennett,
another former farmer, known to his legion of black supporters as
Pachedu, “one of us.” When Bennett was arrested on trumped-up treason
charges last year, hundreds of black Zimbabweans surrounded the prison
so that intelligence agents would not be able to smuggle him out to a
more remote location where it was feared he might be tortured.

Then there is the
inspiring sight of white farmers, who have been contesting the legality
of the land expropriations in a regional human rights tribunal,
marching into court arm in arm with their black lawyers, often dynamic
women who know the laws and Constitution of the land better than those
sitting in judgment. This belies Mugabe’s image of a country divided by
race.

My parents, owners
of a backpacker resort, are part of this new Zimbabwe. Like most
whites, they once steered clear of politics. But in 2002, when their
home came under siege, my father joined the M.D.C. By 2005, their lodge
had become a meeting place for black political dissidents who would
disguise themselves as priests to avoid detection by Mugabe’s militia.

In 2008, the lodge
became a safe house for three black activists, Pishai Muchauraya,
Prosper Mutseyami and Misheck Kagurabadza, who had won seats in Mugabe
strongholds and were now on the run from government death squads. My
mother, as tough-as-nails a white African as any, still gets emotional
when she talks of the courage of her three “fugitives,” all of whom are
now friends and in Parliament, part of the fractious national unity
government set up between Mugabe and the M.D.C. in 2009.

Mugabe knows
exactly what he is doing in constantly invoking race-based rhetoric. By
framing the crisis in Zimbabwe as a struggle against the West – against
the white world – he escapes censure from other postcolonial African
leaders who understand their own countries’ histories in the same way.
And when the West allows Mugabe’s narrative to go unchallenged, it
plays right into his hands.

Overlooked in the
racial invective are some basic and important facts. Mugabe has accused
white farmers of being colonial-era “settlers,” but about 70 percent of
them actually purchased their land after independence, with signed
permission from Mugabe himself. And far from owning 70 percent of the
land in the country, as was widely believed, those white farmers owned
only half of our commercial land – just 14 percent of Zimbabwe’s total
land. With that land, however, they used to produce more than 60
percent of all agricultural crops, and 50 percent of all foreign
earnings. One only has to look at the decline in food production and
collapse of the economy since 2000 to appreciate how vital white
farmers were to the well being of the nation.

All but ignored was
the other major target of the land grabs: black farm workers. Some
300,000 blacks were employed on white farms up until 2000 – 2 million
people, if one counts their dependents – and they overwhelmingly
supported the M.D.C. By destroying white farms, Mugabe wiped out a
major base of black opposition. It is hardly surprising, then, that
black workers often stood with white employers to resist Mugabe’s
violent invaders. When has that ever happened in post-colonial Africa?

Friends in the
United States often ask me if there is any hope for Zimbabwe, and I
always answer yes. Then I tell them a story about a funeral.

Not long before he
was elected mayor, Brian James lost his wife, Sheelagh, in a car crash
in Mutare. Her funeral was held on the lawns of the local golf club and
300 mourners turned up, among them white farmers, black friends and an
M.D.C. choir. The day before the funeral, my father was with Pishai
Muchauraya, the former M.D.C. fugitive and soon-to-be member of
Parliament, when he received a phone call from the leader of the choir.
They had a problem, they told Muchauraya: They had never been to the
funeral of a white woman before and did not know what to sing.

“What’s that got to
do with it?” Muchauraya snapped. “Mrs. James was an African just like
you. Sing what you normally sing.” When he turned to apologise for the
interruption, he saw my father had tears in his eyes.

Douglas Rogers is the author of “The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe.”

© 2010 The New York Time

Recently I watched
an agreeable bit of apocalyptic entertainment called 2012, which dealt
with the end of the world. As is common with such films, it involved
plans to save at least part of humanity from the coming Armageddon.
These centred around the G8 countries and naturally, the citizens and
artifacts that the leaders of those countries thought most important
were chosen for survival.

What was remarkable
was that there was no mention of Africa, even though one of the leading
actors in the film, Chiwetel Ejiofor, is also a Nigerian. That is, no
mention until right at the end when, with the new post-disaster
alignment of continents, the southern part of Africa was found to have
risen several thousand metres and thus was now seen to be suitable for
settlement by the survivors. It was implied that the place was empty.
(The historically alert will have noticed that we have heard this
theory of an ‘empty southern Africa’ before.)

One shouldn’t
complain of course: South America appeared in the film only so that the
collapse of Rio de Janeiro’s famous statue of Christ the Redeemer could
be shown. But at least people were shown there!

In most disaster
movie blockbusters, the fact that the only time you see a black face is
when the President of the United States is (fashionably)
African-American, is just one of the signs of how marginalised Africa
is. Perhaps we should even be glad that the notorious ‘District 9’ at
least juxtaposed the idea of Africa and Science Fiction in global
consciousness.

But if filmmakers
forget about Africa because for them, we are on the margin of their own
consciousness; what do we say about ourselves?

More specifically
what do we say about our own government which says that Africa “is the
centrepiece of our foreign policy”, and even mendaciously claims that
Africa will continue to be the centrepiece of our foreign policy!

It was not without
reason that the United States of America’s former ambassador to
Nigeria, John Campbell recently deflated our claim to be big and
important. We had not, he observed, been able to settle even the
problems erupting on our own doorstep in Niger Republic, or our
backyard in Guinea (Conakry), let alone play any meaningful role in
solving other crises on the continent, such as Darfur or Somalia.

One might, with
reason, ask how we ever could have? Our last Minister of Foreign
Affairs may have been famous (or is that notorious?) for the number of
trips he made to the US, but he only made his first official trip to
any African country in January this year when he visited some ECOWAS
countries. A further trip to Southern Africa in February hardly
suggests that there was any seriousness in the Yar’Adua administration
about Nigeria’s “concentric circles” approach to foreign policy.

According to this
policy, our foreign affairs priorities should start with our neighbours
in the inner circle, ECOWAS in the next, then Africa and last, the rest
of the world. But despite inverting these priorities and putting the US
and Britain first, Maduekwe achieved as little in those countries as
those eve-of-his-removal trips achieved in Africa.

Certainly the
visits failed to even begin to address the erosion of Nigeria’s
position and prestige in the Economic Community of West African States,
or on the continent.

While Maduekwe was
indulging himself in far-flung gallivanting, Niger Republic commenced
the construction of a dam across the River Niger that could reduce the
flow of water into Kainji Dam by as much as 70%! And despite this open
disregard for our interests, Nigeria not only watched helplessly as
President Mahmadou Tandja subverted his country’s constitution, but
when he was called to order and removed with no input from us, could
only join a chorus of demands that Niger conduct elections within six
months without any apparent concern about the posture that a
newly-elected Nigerién President might adopt towards us.

There will be those
who try to convince themselves that Acting President Goodluck
Jonathan’s trip to the US last week has done Nigeria some good; as if
Jonathan has not heard from his fellow-citizens that he needs to tackle
electoral reform and punish corruption, or as though he was there to do
much more than make up the numbers when US President Barack Obama met
him in a group of ten (!) to discuss the control and safeguarding of
nuclear materials.

But in our own
neighbourhood, a measure of our inconsequence was epitomized by the
remarks of Libya’s Muammar Ghadaffi who, whatever peace he may have
made with the West still feels free to stir up mischief in Africa (of
which he seems to see himself as some kind of uncrowned king) about
breaking up Nigeria. He even cheekily suggested that ex-President
Olusegun Obasanjo should oversee the process of creating the ‘Christian
South’ without any response from Obasanjo!

It would be a good idea for us to realise that nobody is going to
pull our African chestnuts out of the fire for us, even if we are to
abandon the concentric circles approach. And however much we intend to
outsource to the US, we are still going to have to get our own foreign
policy.

I have spent the
week in Kenya reading the active media debate on constitutional reform
as the country prepares for the referendum on a new constitution that
will take place in three months. Kenya, like Nigeria has suffered from
a long history of corruption and ethno-regional divisions within its
ruling elite. Under President Kenyatta, the Kikuyu elite reigned
supreme. When the first Vice-president Oginga Odinga, a Luo, tried to
organise an opposition party against Kenyatta in 1966, the Kenya
People’s Union (KPU), it was banned immediately and most of its MPs
were detained. It was at that time that Kenyan politics was bifurcated
between the Kikuyu and Luo and their affiliates.

The system of
patronage established by Kenyatta led to the creation of a massive
Kikuyu power elite that owed their position to the increasingly
authoritarian president. Following the death of Kenyatta in August
1978, his long time deputy, Daniel Arap Moi took over and ruled the
country for 24 years during which it became the time for the Kelenjins
from his Rift Valley constituency to enjoy economic favours.

Moi used the
opportunity of an attempted coup in 1982 to wipe out the Kikuyu elite
that had been his earlier allies. He extended despotic rule, human
rights violations and corruption in the country. As he became more and
more unpopular, state violence was organised to ensure his victory in
the 1992, 1997 and 2002 elections following the restoration of
multiparty democracy.

He however resisted
the temptation to change the Constitution to give himself a third term
in office in 2002. He backed the candidacy of Uhuru Kenyatta, son of
the previous president but his candidate was thoroughly beaten by Mwai
Kibaki, also a Kikuyu. In 2005, Kibaki orchestrated a constitutional
revision process aimed largely at enhancing his own powers. The symbol
for those in favour of the Constitution was the banana while those
opposed voted for the orange. The opposition won with 58% of the people
rejecting the Constitution and the Orange Democratic Movement was born.

The 2005 referendum
was the occasion for the revival of the Kikuyu/Luo rivalry and
politicians from both sides incited people with hate speech and not
surprisingly, the level of violence was very high.

The country went to
the polls on 27th December 2007 with Raila Odinga leading the Orange
Democratic Movement and Mwai Kibaki hoping to retain his mandate.
Following early victories by Odinga’s party, a sudden shift occurred
and the Electoral Commission announced Kibaki had won with 46.4% to
Odinga’s 44.1%. Raila and his supporters believed that they had won and
their mandate had been stolen. The result was massive violence leading
to over 1,000 people killed and 600,000 displaced from their homes.

The final outcome
is history – the invention of the power sharing agreement later adopted
by Zimbabwe in which the incumbent president remains in office and the
opposition is offered the post of prime minister as compensation. In
both cases, the international community, which negotiated the
settlements never clarified whether, it was compensation for a stolen
mandate or an inducement to keep the peace. Nonetheless, it was a
turning point for the franchise in Africa because election results were
no longer the sole basis for exercising power.

Since 2008,
negotiations for a new constitution have been on going and the draft is
finally ready. It is strongly supported by both President Kibaki and
Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The issues in the new constitution have
however been obliterated from public debate by the massive entry of
Kenyan Churches into the fray.

Under the
leadership of Rev. Peter Karanga, general-secretary of the National
Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), Christian advocates have condemned
the draft constitution for allegedly introducing Sharia law into the
country through the kadhi court system. They argue that this alleged
introduction has elevated Islam over other religions in Kenya.

All the experts I
spoke to told me this is not strictly true. Article 170 (5) of the new
constitution says that the jurisdiction of the Kadhi courts shall be
limited to personal status, marriage, divorce or inheritance in cases
where all parties are Muslims. Indeed, the fact of the matter is that
the Kadhi courts have been in the constitution since independence. They
were part of the Lancaster House compromise under which the coastal
strip governed by the Sultan of Zanzibar became a part of Kenya in 1963.

The second issue
Christian advocates have focused on is that of abortion. They contend
that the draft constitution allows for abortion on demand which is a
recipe for killing unborn babies. What is provided for in Article 26(4)
of the new constitution however is that abortion is not permitted
unless the health or the life of the mother is in danger or there is
need for emergency treatment as may be permitted by law.

Meanwhile, the central issues of presidential powers, electoral
reform, human rights, the land question and delegation of powers to
districts have been relegated to the background as the religious
advocates redefine the debate.

If I say, “by their
names we shall know them” I am only repeating a popular catch phrase
such as “sho mi yo frend ah go tel yu hu yu bi or ah go tel yu wie yu
FO kom” and in a society as ethnicity conscious as ours, this is a
truism.

If you say names
like Kapoks and Fee, are popular in the old Bender now Edo & Delta
States, then you are dead on target. Similarly, names like Chung,
Dalyop, Plangnan, Goyol, Ritmwa, Yop, Goyol, Pam, Gwong, are uniquely
from Plateau. Should you then hear names like Hyginus, Collinus,
Romanus, Linus, Livinus, Paulinus, Istifanus, the best place to take
your mind to would be the Eastern parts of Nigeria.

This is because
while growing up, most of my friends were Igbos and bore such names,
consequently for a long time I held a mistaken belief that names that
end with “nus” were traditional to the Igbos. I was completely wrong
because I have since realised that they were Christian names made
popular by the Catholics.

This article is not
about tracing people’s origins by their names neither is it a preview
of a football match between two new club sides as the essay’s title
might suggest, far from it.

There’s no doubting
the fact that as a people, we have only adopted the English language as
a lingua franca out of compulsion. Over the years, we have held
strongly to this language as our official means of communication
without developing Pidgin as Nigeria’s natural lingua franca.

While our
traditional languages are dying we, painfully so, have many in our
midst who are still struggling to be more Catholic than the Pope. I
sympathise with them because di oyibo man de laf dem. Happily, there
are a few that truly appreciate the fact se oyibo man na oyibo man, an
no hau we wi go fit bi oyibo pas oyibo. I doff my hat to them.

Aside the
aforementioned people, there’s another silent hard working group who
have taken it as a challenge to bring dignity to Pidgin as a viable
means of communication in this country via its promotion and subsequent
development for its eventual adoption as Nigeria’s home grown official
lingua franca. I belong here.

I had just arrived
at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja from Lagos. As I
walked towards the arrival lounge, two ladies were few paces ahead of
me chattering away happily:

Sista A: I don’t know why he is behaving in a very uncooperative manner. (ah no no wai e de du sme sme)

Sista B: What did you just say (Yu se wetin?)

Sista A: You heard me right. (Yu hie mi wel )

Sista B: It’s gridiness that is worrying him (Na gridiness de wori am).

Immediately I heard
gridiness, mai maind shek and I turned to look at them without a
comment. I was worried about the word because I have always known greed
and greedy not gridines. From di smol oyibo we ah len, ah no tink se
eni wod laik greediness de. Therefore, na Pidgin.

If gridines is
Pidgin and it is commonly used as if it’s good English, it is a plus
for Pidgin. But do people who use gridiness in place of greed know the
difference?

A stingy person is
anyone who spends or gives unwillingly. In Pidgin, we simply say di
pesin de sabi du eko or he/she is selfishly economical with money.
However, in extreme cases, we say di pesin na Stinjinus. If we have
Stinjinus, why not gridinus?

Stinjinus vasos
gridinus is a battle of survival between English language and Nigerian
Pidgin and by extension Nigerian English. Therefore, to speak English
language the Nigerian way helps in Nigerianising the language thus
bringing it to awa levul. But to speak Pidgin is the real deal, no mago
mago, no beni beni.

An American named
Rudi Gaudio is a scholar currently researching into the extent to which
Nigerian Pidgin is truly helping in unifying Nigerians in Abuja, the
nation’s centre of unity. From regular discussions with him and other
whites I have found the average white man feels bad whenever a black
man de wahala imsef de won spik laik dem. It is only when you speak the
English language as a Nigerian that you will earn the respect of the
owners of the language. I once heard of how a Nigerian failed an
interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and lost the
opportunity of working with the international radio station bikos e de
spik laik oyibo. Yeye man!

Stijinus and
gridinus means stingy and greedy. If you want to speak oyibo spik koret
oyibo. If yu wont to spik pidgin spik di won we don wel wel. If yu won
mix am go ahed. What is important is that you should be conscious of
when to mix, switch or mix.

No spik pidgin tink
se na oyibo or spik oyibo an no no wen yu don put pidgin. Stinjinus an
gridinus na im bi awa problem fo Naija.

God help us!

Dear Mr. Adoke (SAN),

Please accept my congratulations on your recent appointment as
the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

As AGF, it is your responsibility to ensure that the government
complies with its obligation under section 172 of the 1999 Constitution to
“abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power” and with similar obligations
in international law. It is against this background that I bring to your
attention the matter of James Ibori, which provides you with a perfect
opportunity to put into action your recent declaration that “there would be no
sacred cows” in the all important fight against corruption.

You will be aware of the ongoing trials of Mr. Ibori’s associates
for conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering at the Southwark
Crown, London. The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (‘MLAT’) between Nigeria and
the United Kingdom requires both countries toafford each other, upon request,
mutual assistance in criminal matters, including obtaining evidence and
extraditing suspects. Similar obligations also arise under the United Nations
Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), which was ratified by Nigeria and the UK
in 2004 and 2006 respectively.

Despite these obligations, Mr. Aondoakaa refused a request by the
UK government under the MLAT to extradite Mr. Ibori to the UK to take part in
the ongoing prosecutions of his associates. He was quoted in Vanguard newspaper
of November 21, 2007 as defending his decision not to extradite Ibori on the
grounds that “a trial in any other jurisdiction other than Nigeria would
inevitably tarnish the image of Nigeria as a nationand send the message that
the integrity of its criminal justice system cannot be relied upon.”

Mr. Aondoakaa’s decision on these purported grounds is at best
ignorant and at worst dishonest. It is unclear whether he considered the damage
that violations of international obligations would have on Nigeria’s image. In
the event, the dismissal of the charges against Ibori purportedly for lack of
evidence by Justice Marcel Awokulehin of the Asaba High Court has damaged the
integrity of Nigeria’s criminal justice system.

Under the circumstances, extraditing Mr. Ibori to the UK as a
matter of urgency to participate in the criminal proceedings that are primarily
against him will send the right signals both to Nigerians and the international
community about the Acting President’s stated zero tolerance policy on
corruption.

You will also be aware that Mr. Aondoakaa also refused to
authorise the use of evidence obtained from the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) by officers of the Metropolitan Police who had travelled to
Nigeria for that purpose.

This considerable body of evidence was obtained pursuant to two
letters of request under the MLAT. The first, dated 23 August 2006, was issued
when Mr. Bayo Ojo was Attorney-General of the Federation. The second, dated
August 2007, was issued under Mr. Aondoakaa’s watch.

At the preparatory hearing at the Southwark Crown Court in
October 2008 to consider the admissibility of this evidence Judge Rivlin
confirmed that “there has been no communication from the former
Attorney-General Mr. Bayo Ojo in relation to the first letter of request in
2006”. Consequently, he held that there was “nothing to suggest that the
material so gained should not be used in a criminal trial in this country.”
However, in relation to the evidence obtained following the second letter of
request, he ruled that Mr. Aondoakaa never agreed that it should be handed over
to the UK authorities for use in criminal proceedings. Accordingly, the judge
ruled, with “considerable reluctance”, that this evidence would be inadmissible
in UK courts without Mr. Aondoakaa’s approval.

Consequently, eleven boxes containing copies of this evidence
were delivered to Mr. Aondoakaa by the UK authorities in late 2008 for his
approval but Mr. Aondoakaa refused to approve the use of this vital evidence.

As a result, although the evidence obtained following the first
letter of request, which Mr. Bayo Ojo did not object to, was allowed to the Crown
for use in the ongoing trials of Mr. Ibori’s associates, the eleven boxes of
evidence obtained following the second letter of request are not being used in
these proceedings because Mr. Aondoakaa refused to authorise their use.
Consequently, should James Ibori be extradited, this significant body of
evidence will also not be available to the Crown in his prosecution, unless you
authorise its use.

As the decision to approve this evidence now falls to you as the
central authority under the MLAT, I am confident you will fulfil the Nigerian
people’s expectations and follow the good example of Bayo Ojo by approving the
use of this evidence.

Yours sincerely

Osita Mba

The latest development in men’s trousers in the United States is
a cut that shapes the male hip. In an article titled New Angle on Trousers by
David Coleman in the New York Times of February 26, last year the author
explains that American men in the past were “terrified’ of wearing pants that
looked tight.

But a new wave of fitness and body consciousness has changed
that and led to a couple of manufacturers adjusting to meet the demand for
pants cut to “flatter not flatten.” All of which takes one back to the queen of
soul, Ms Aretha Franklin and that resurgent album of hers with the song Freeway
of love, and makes you wonder who was her muse?

“Knew you’d be a vision in white How d’you get those pants so
tight ” Of course down here in the tropics we might say, “it’s not the cut of
the pants ma bru!” When I was 11, my father explained to me the science behind
the agbada, long, flowing robes that allowed the air to move around your body.
Loose, breathable cotton surrounding you, made into boubous, bubas, gbariyes
and wrappas, provided a barrier against the direct heat of the sun, protecting
the skin and absorbing the sweat. Call it African sense, as opposed to a
Western concept of cool being wearing as little as possible as tight as
possible.

It turns out that what was ‘missing” in American style pants was
what is known as European cut, closer to the body and more precise fit in
pattern drafting and construction.

One man who knew about fit was the late jazz musician Miles
Davis. In a memorable piece published in September of 2001 Elvis Mitchell wrote
about Davis’ attention to detail in the cut, cloth, look and feel of his
clothes. When Davis met Joe Eula, he was struck by the way he dressed. Eula
designed his own clothes with the help of his tailor Joe Emsley.

When Emsley subsequently fulfilled Davis’ request that he make
him a suit he could wear on stage, the jacket had to be constructed so that
when Davis bent his arms to play the shirtsleeve would be exposed, one inch and
no more, to show off his custom made shirt and cuff links. Likewise, the pants
had to brush the tips of his handmade shoes.

Mr. Davis was something of a showman. Everything had to be tight
literally and musically. At his tailor’s, Miles would assume the position he
would on stage with his instrument so that the measurements would be exact, the
effect precise. The suit designed by Emsley was the basis of the linear drawing
of Miles with his trumpet for the album Sketches of Spain.

Just as an exercise I googled Asian Cut and found references to
an edition of the American television cop show, Miami Vice and a complaint from
a gentleman irritated by the fact that black and white barbers did not learn
how to cut Asian hair.

African Cut yielded a slew of websites on the South African
diamond industry and Chinese companies selling something called African Cut
Lace to you can guess whom.

Looking to hone down my search I typed African Cut Clothes and
discovered that in 2002 the value of second hand American clothes exported to
Africa was $ 59.3 million according to the International Trade Commission. Out
of this total, Ugandans bought $2.3 millions worth, which was 81% of clothes
purchased in that country. The manufacturers complained that this was killing
the Ugandan clothes industry.

The response of an official from US Trade was, “the reason this
market is so huge is because most people live on a dollar a day”. You could
describe this as a case of different measurements for different worlds.

There is an African cut to pants even if Google has no access to
it and there are variations and styles that combine different elements in
length, width, pocket placement and style. The shape of the “African” hip,
which is key here, is multidimensional in men and women, necessitating a fuller
cut and deeper rise.

There are tailors who make masterfully cut African style men’s
clothes and have learnt to handle a variety of suiting fabrics. By and large
there are fewer examples of “Aba” cut men’s pants with that highflying crotch
and asymmetrically leaning hems that look as if a carpenter had a go at them.
These are trousers that aped the medium rise construction of European Cut for
bodies that had nothing to do with Europe.

But no more, it’s time to come home, even in America, change is
taking all kinds of shapes.

In my father’s stories of his posting to Karazau, a remote
location in Northern Nigeria, during his job as a station master with the
Nigerian Railways in the 1950s, was an account of how Fulani herdsmen would
emerge from the bush and the villages asking for ‘sweet water’.

“Esh Em, a bamu ruwa mai dadi” (S.M., please give us some of
that your sweet water). They were referring to clear, boiled water, free of
harmful bacteria, guinea worm and other parasites that my mother drew from the
well, treated and stored in their quarters situated between the train station
and the village. My parents’ home was the only source of clean water for miles
around.

Ironically, 60 years on, the search for ‘sweet water’ continues.
At home, the Water Corporation bills us monthly for mains water supply, yet we
have been buying our supply from private water tankers for over six months.

Most of my neighbours have boreholes. Yet, the cost of sinking
and maintaining one is so high. Securing water for our uses costs a LOT of
money.

At the recent Commonwealth Regional Law Conference in Abuja, one
of the speakers asked whether water is the new oil; not just for us, but for
the world. We are contending with a natural resource that is being consumed at
a greater rate than it can renew itself; communities migrating across
international boundaries to follow shrinking lakes; declining rainfall that
most rural population rely on, urban spread and struggling water utilities.

Do we realise how much drinking water costs? Think about it. One
litre of bottled water costs more than a litre of petrol! How many of us, like
me, pay the Water Corporation monthly not to supply water? How many, like me,
have bought new water pumps and paid for new lines to be laid, with no results?
We should prioritise water security above the elusive 6,000 kilowatts that the
Ministry of Power has been promising us. We are buying both water and diesel,
and while our industry and businesses will become moribund without reliable and
cheaper power supply, our health and bodies will become impaired without
reliable and cleaner water supply.

More importantly in comparing oil and water, people have died in
fights over access to water. Access to water continues to be a matter of life
and death between farmers and herders.

Aah! Sweet water! In the developed world, drinkable water is
truly sweet. It is available everywhere for free – at water fountains on the
streets and from taps in restaurants, offices and homes. For more discerning
palates, there is a selection of waters. What strikes your fancy? Still water
from the French Alps? Sparkling water from Scottish highlands? Water that
tastes sterile, or slightly salty. Don’t like the taste of plain water?

You can opt for a variety of flavoured waters – lemon or
strawberry perhaps? Feeling weak? Go for vitamin-infused water, or water with
an energy boost. Need a bottle that is pleasing to the eye and decorative for
your table? Go for the designer bottles in cones and cylinders, or water
presented like wine.

A natural refreshment

And where do we find ourselves on this continuum between no
potable water, abundance, and designer water? Day after day, the poor still
trek for miles to fetch water. Each day, the mass of our urban citizens get
their drinking water from ‘pure water sachet’ sellers by the roadside. The bulk
of office workers get their drinking water from water dispenser suppliers. The
majority of homes have supplementary water storage facilities that they pay
private contractors to fill up. Cart pushers plying our roads with six to
twelve 25kg kegs of water are common sights.

Bottling companies that used to make their money from bottling
imported spirits and wines for the local market, are now largely bottling
water! Our own Nigerian Bottling Company, the makers of Coca Cola went so far
as creating their own brand of water – leveraging their existing distribution
networks for sales.

The developed world has moved on from water purely as a
necessity to water as also a desirable and fashionable consumable and
accessory. Water resources for basic needs are managed, conserved, and
rationed. More sophisticated technology to desalinate water is being developed.

Our technology is ramshackle water tankers creaking, rattling,
and leaking their way between their depots and private deliveries to the water
storage tanks of homes and offices. The streak of darkened wet tarmac marks the
trail of their passage on our roads.

The criminals have also gotten in on the act. While the
government and civil society are fighting to ensure the availability of basic
potable water, the established bottled water brands and distributors are
combating ‘pirates’ who refill used bottles with untreated water, recreate the
seal, and resell them as genuine.

More than one glass of red wine a day is injurious to the health. Other
alcohol clouds our minds. Packaged fruit juices, minerals and sodas are
fattening. The caffeine in tea and coffee over-stimulates our hearts. It is
best to go the natural route. Drink clean, odourless, sweet water!

One thing is now clear from Acting President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent trip to the United States: Nigeria desperately needs a re-articulation of its foreign policy. In the last few years the news that has more often than not emerged from the Foreign Ministry has had to do with tardy diplomats or gross under funding or a mismanagement of funds.

Speaking earlier in the week at a discussion organised by the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Mr. Jonathan noted that Africa has always been the centrepiece of Nigeria’s foreign policy, and hinted of plans to continue to focus Nigeria’s foreign policy on the continent.
“So our main focus now is to see that at least within the continent of Africa, we have true democracies. We want a system where people will elect their leaders.”

Manifestations of independent Nigeria’s foreign policy ambitions date back to the 1960s when the country contributed troops to the United Nations peace keeping forces in the Congo and Tanganyika.

Speaking in Lagos at an event to mark the 2005 Black History Month , former Minister of External Affairs Bolaji Akinyemi noted: “Even before the independence of Nigeria, there had grown up within the domestic political intellectual class and the international foreign policy elite a belief in the manifest
destiny of Nigeria to play a mega role in world
affairs…

The physical size of Nigeria, the state of her economy and the size of her population vis-à-vis other countries in Africa have bred an expectation of a leadership and activist role for Nigeria in the global system, a state with a manifest destiny to become a Black Power.”

Nigeria’s leadership and activist role arguably reached its zenith during the Murtala Mohammed /Olusegun Obasanjo years, when the country played a significant role in the anti-apartheid struggle, and in the support of the Southern African Liberation struggle.

It was also during this time that the country hosted the World Black and African Festival
of Arts and Culture (FESTAC). As Foreign Affairs Minister (during the Babangida years) Mr. Akinyemi famously announced that “some of us dream of Nigeria being to blacks in the Diaspora what Jerusalem is to
Jews in the Diaspora.”

He also advocated the development by Nigeria of a “Black bomb”, arguing, “Nigeria has a sacred responsibility to challenge the racial monopoly of nuclear weapons.”

More than two decades later, that dream of a powerful global player remains unfulfilled, deferred by failures in key sectors. Nigeria remains country unable to produce basic technology – whether for civilian or military use.

In the last few years we have paid the Russians and the Chinese to help us launch satellites. At the moment Nigeria has no nuclear power generating plant (South Africahas two), only one nuclear research centre, and negligible nuclear power capabilities.

Against this backdrop the question might arise: “What exactly was Nigeria’s role at the Nuclear Security Summit? This only goes to confirm one fact: that foreign policy cannot be divorced from domestic policy. Domestic indices – transparency of elections, human rights record, security and good governance, and poverty alleviation – will always speak louder than foreign policy.

A country without a nuclear power plant, and without a serious commitment to exploiting the possibilities of nuclear energy (for peaceful purposes) cannot exert any meaningful influence in
a Nuclear Energy Summit, or in any global platform in the 21st century.

There is however no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria’s foreign standing suffered greatly under President Yar’Adua. The President’s fragile health meant that the bulk of his trips abroad were medical,
and mainly to Saudi Arabia. Nigeria had no serious representation at key international gatherings because of the President’s absence, and his refusal to delegate his deputy to attend.

Prior to Mr. Jonathan’s visit the last time a Nigerian leader visited the United States was well over two years ago. There is no doubt that Mr. Jonathan’s recent trip has done Nigeria’s image a great deal of good. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Odein Ajumogobia acknowledged this when he said, on the Acting President’s return to Abuja, “there is a lot of goodwill, enormous goodwill for Nigeria and I think that we are back to try and take advantage of that goodwill, for the betterment of Nigeria.”

We urge Mr. Jonathan to do everything within his power to avoid frittering away this goodwill. He must as a matter of urgency overhaul Nigeria’s Foreign Service apparatus.

During the Yar’Adua era the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ojo Maduekwe was involved in an embarrassing spat with the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States. Such shameful incidents should never recur.

In the 12 months or so that this administration
has ahead of it, Mr. Jonathan should strive to
articulate a coherent foreign policy objective for Nigeria. His superficial answers to questions about Nigeria’s foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations briefing last week left much to be desired.

We urge him to strive to re-invigorate the Technical Aids Corps Scheme, ensure proper funding of Nigerian foreign missions, and demand rigorous accountability from them
in return.

We also demand an urgent reconsideration of the promise Mr. Jonathan to the Nigerian community in Washington to create a “Diaspora Commission.” That plan should be jettisoned immediately. As we argued in our April 8 editorial (“A Diaspora Commission”) it is a project of doubtful utility, and one that
will only further complicate the Foreign Service bureaucracy. Nigeria has far more pressing diplomatic requirements.