UN-JOS-TIFIABLE

Jos. Still on my mind.

Just today, the Police has finally been able to draw up a list of 162 people to prosecute for the massacres in Jos. What I find most interesting are the offenses for which the suspects are being 'prosecuted'.

- 41 suspects are to be charged with terrorism and culpable homicide, punishable by death'

- 82 would be charged with unlawful possession of firearms, rioting and "mischief by fire"

Terrorism? Culpable homicide ? Pray, how many will be charged with 'Murder'? None.

'Mischief by fire'; is that the same as arson? Maybe not.

No wonder nobody seems interested in the trials, if ever they actually take place. From the onset, we have refused to call a crime by its name; we glorify criminals and call them 'muslims' or 'christians'.

I am not sure if we have learned anything from all these killings and a people who would not learn from their history, are bound to repeat.

Will we ever forget what happened in Jos? Unfortunately, yes. Sooner than later, we will.

Did we not forget Ife/Modakeke? Aguleri/Umuleri? and the many wars of the Ijaw/Itsekiri/Urhobo?

Cunning Man Die ...

For Nigeria and Nigerians, these are very interesting times.

With a president who has been AWOL for almost 80 days and a clique of hangers-on who have decided NOT to do the right things even when the right things are as simple as writing a letter (or a communication) to the Senate President. Things had got so heated up that people were afraid of a breakdown of law and order and probably a breakup of Nigeria.

It is true that we take Nigeria's resilience for granted and we subject her to all kinds of pummeling but then if such be the path of our nation-building, then so be it. We are still a country trying to become a nation. Nigeria will definitely outlive all of us. In fact, I am not afraid for Nigeria, it is Nigerians I pity.

I have come to know enough of Nigeria to know that it will take more than Turai Yar'adua and her band of hangers-on to bring this country to her knees. Their game was so obvious even to a child right from the onset, what remained to be seen was how Nigerians would react to it.

We were not voted the happiest people on earth for nothing. We have learned the art of meeting our challenges with humor. The latest one was even very funny. It was like a game of draughts. For most of January the clique reacted to every single act of the Nigerian people:

- Every time Nigerians vowed to go to Court: Aondoakaa went to Court. The same court, mind you and gets the same judgment over and over again in such record time.

- When newspapers reported that Yar'adua was either dead or brain damaged, the next day, he gave an interview to the BBC Hausa Service in English.

Now, that interview has become their undoing. I remember that when he asked why the President would give an interview in English to an Hausa station, Aondoakaa said the transmission was meant for all Nigerians and not just Hausa speakers.

I agree that what we have is a political resolution and may not be the actual end of this logjam as it presents its own challenges. For instance, by this resolution - if we accept it for arguments sake - Nigeria now has two Presidents -though one is acting. Yar'adua never left power and Goodluck should be very careful what actions he takes. If he tries to remove Aondoakaa, Kaase will go to Court. Remember he was the one who got the spurious judgments from Abutu in the first place. All the same it is a step forward.

Now that the National House of Assembly has adopted the BBC interview as direct transmission by the President to it, I wonder how Aondoakaa will wiggle out of this.

Some lawyers have contended that an interview in which the President clearly declared that he was not well and fit enough to carry out his duties was not equal to a letter written to the Senate President.

1. That the interview was not authored by the President but rather by the BBC which is not even a Nigerian medium.
2. That the mode of transmission was not directly to the Senate President but rather a broadcast to the whole world.
3. That the Constitution (s. 145) clearly states that the transmission must be written because it says 'writes' and besides, it was not signed by Yar'adua.
   

These might be true, but the Senate (and some other lawyers) responded that:

1. We all know that Presidents don't usually write or type letters; they get some Secretary to do it and if they feel strongly enough they may actually dictate the letter to the Secretary who transcribes the dictation and it is the final transcript that is transmitted to the Senate President. We all know that the paper (medium) on which the letter is written is not likely be made in Nigeria.
2. The Senate president is part of the whole world and has decided to accept the interview as a direct transmission to himself. The messenger is not important, as long as he gets the message abi?
3. The BBC interview has been transcribed and published on the BBC website with the express permission of the President who has not come out to deny any part of the publication besides, the Constitution did not require any signature on the document.
   

We can even go further to say that the President's voice signature was all over the transmission, unless of course, Aondoakaa can prove that it was not the President's voice on BBC.

That will take us back to square one.

See? Cunning man die, cunning man bury am.

The Code Of Silence

The silence surrounding the state of being of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is deafening.

Nobody seems to know exactly what is happening with/to him right now.

Well, they know but nobody wants to get the 'Baba Gana Kingibe' Treatment.

Remember the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the circumstance of his sack? He had announced the demise of his principal, only for the man to miraculously wake up a few hours later (after some serious prayers) and sack him - some say with the promptings of the First lady. Understandably.

So here we are again at the same pass. And yet again, we expect a miracle.

But this time, there is a code of silence in force. From the VP, to the Ministers, to the cleaners in Aso rock, the answer to every question is: Let us pray for the President to recover quickly.

Let us believe the best.

Happy Married Life!

“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.”
-Rodney Dangerfield

I was at a recently married friend's place over the weekend and they were obviously still in their post-honeymoon daze. Everywhere in the house was littered with photographs, cards and gifts -opened and unopened. Since most of the gifts were wall-clocks anyway, the couple decided to stop opening until probably later.

I also noticed so many cards, many wishing them a happy married life.

How would you describe a Happy Married Life? Is there really anything like a happy married life?

Or is it as my good friend Abadingo said, that the words 'happy' and 'married' cannot exist in the same sentence? You are either happy or you are married. They are mutually exclusive.

I told about an uncle who recently celebrated his fortieth wedding anniversary. I went to see him during the week. I looked at their wedding picture again, he was a young man of 23, recently graduated from university and just got a job. She was a wide eyed, very pregnant woman of 20, recently qualified as a teacher.

I couldn't help but ask him if he had thought about what they would be doing in forty years time. He did not. Remember that this was in the middle of the Nigerian Civil war. They were afraid but they lived everyday as it came.

So I asked him: Has he had a happy married life?

He answered emphatically in the affirmative. I wonder can he be for real?

What do you think?

Maybe Nkrumah Was Right

I had wanted to post this on Nigeria's independence day but somehow work got in the way and I could not.

Monday 21st September 2009 marked the centenary of the birth of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and the government of the Republic of Ghana actually declared a year-long celebration culminating on the anniversary of the birthday of its first Prime Minister and President.

The more I read about this remarkable African, the more I appreciated why Ghanaians celebrated him thus.

I got an audio copy of Nkrumah's 'Africa Must Unite' speech at the founding of the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa 1963 and I could not but marvel at the profundity of his vision. His vision, as expounded at the summit was obviously very far ahead of his time. Also, his speech at the United Nations in 1960 was a masterpiece in all respects and must have been seen as a sort of 'bring-it-on' by the Western powers at that time.

As a Pan Africanist and leader of an independent Ghana - Africa's first independent nation - Nkrumah's major preoccupation was to encourage the other African countries to continue to demand for independence and he did this with a swagger that was infuriating to the colonial powers, particularly France which did not seem to have had any plans to leave its African colonies - even till today.

Nkrumah looked to Nigeria even at that time to become an African regional power given its sheer size and resource wealth but the Nigerian leaders at that time were very suspicious of his intentions and also of themselves.

Zik, his fellow Lincoln University alumnus and Pan-Africanist, had found himself in the position of a ceremonial President that was powerless and limiting while Awolowo appeared content just playing his politics locally.

As far as the pan-africanist agenda was concerned, Nigeria was of no use. Of all his seminal speeches however, the singular statement that Nkrumah made that was of significance to the Nigerian government of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and most Nigerians of that time was the one about Nigeria being ' ... big for nothing ..'

Domestically, Nkrumah ran a unitary government in Ghana in spite of it being composed of up to fifty different ethnic nationalities. He believed more in a federal Africa with the countries as the federating units than in a country with federating units. He practically forced Ghanaians to inter-marry and live outside their native environments.

Achievements were purely on merit. The whole of Ghana competed with itself. No 'local champions'. No 'catchment area'. No 'quota system'. His style of government is credited in part for the unity among Ghanaians till today.

Comparing all these with Nigeria, I just could not help but wonder where we got it wrong.

I could not help but think; Maybe this federalism is just over-hyped after all.

Maybe Nkrumah was right after all.

Maybe Nigeria is just big for nothing.

Ponmo, My Foot!

I was in Abuja recently and happened to walk behind a couple who were obviously not residents. Like all visitors, we were just going round the shops looking for somethings to buy as a memento of our visit to the nation's capital. From their conversations, I reckioned they were Yoruba.

After some time, we chanced upon a leather shop with all kinds of leather sandals, shoes, wallets and something that looked like thongs. Faced with such an array of choice of leather ware, the woman could not but exclaim, in Yoruba.

'Ha! Awon Hausa yi ma ni bata orisirisi o!

(These Hausa people have so many types of shoes o)

To which the husband replied sarcastically and rather self derisively:

'Eyin Yoruba o ni bata. Nigba'to je pe gbogbo awo yin le ti je tan ni ponmo. E wa ma wo roba kiri abi ke ma wa Italian leda l'Aba'

(You Yoruba people cannot have shoes, when you have eaten all your leather as ponmo. That's why you wear rubber sandals about and look for 'Italian' leather in Aba).

Ouch!

I couldn't help but laugh particularly as the man with his bald head and full tribal marks was really putting on a show to everybody's delight.

With the number of cows, rams and goats slaughtered daily in Lagos alone, the hides and skin industry should be booming seriously. In fact we should be exporting leather but unfortunately, we eat more than 95% of all the hides generated. Given that ponmo actually contains little or no nutritional value known to man, it is a mystery why Lagosians (not just Yorubas) savor it so much. It is like a Lagosian's meal is not complete without some ponmo on top.

Did you hear about the Yoruba man who was invited to Buckingham Palace as a guest of the Queen for whatever. After the dinner in his honour, my country man was asked to give a vote of thanks. he thanksed the Queen profusely for the honour done him and went ahead to comment on the meal itself. He said:

'It would have been a sumptuous meal but unfortunately there was no ponmo!'

What exactly makes ponmo a delicacy? Anybody knows?

Inchoate Minini?

I believe that the judgments and pronouncements of the Supreme Court and indeed all the courts in Nigeria should be translated into as many local languages as requested by the litigants and other members of the public who are interested in or affected by the pronouncements as is done in India and some other countries.

While this will generate employment for the numerous graduates of Edo, Fulfulde, Gwari, Yoruba and Ijaw that we have, it will also help in clearing up any ambiguities that may be present in the said pronouncements before it becomes a big problem.

It also appears to me that their SC Lordships deliberately want to cause confusion with the kind of big grammar they use to describe rather simple cases. They use big words where simple words could suffice and refuse to simplify sentences so that whoever wants can choose whichever of the words apply to him since they mean the same thing anyway.

I am not a lawyer but the case(s) cited below are open and shut and straight forward to me, sans the contentious grammar.

The wahala between The Federal Government and the Lagos State Government ref AG LAGOS STATE vs AG FEDERATION (2004) can be summarized to be over the literary or judicial meaning of the word inchoate as used by the Supreme Court Lordships.

To the LASG, inchoate means valid but incomplete; i.e. its creation of 37 Local Governments was valid but subject to ratification by the National Assembly. They had even likened it to a baby that was born but not yet registered by the Registrar of Births. A baby just awaiting a 'naming ceremony'.

To the FG, inchoate means illegal and therefore invalid until approved by the National Assembly. Likened to a pregnancy carried beyond the term of 9 months and the said child cannot be named until it is born or at worst could be likened to a stillbirth with His Lordships as the morbid midwives.

We all know that it is partisan politics at play but the extent some people would go to just make a point is frightening. Some PDP stalwarts have even gone as far as to say that inchoate means non-existent, ultra vires, null and void.

Don't blame them. If only the SC declaration were translated into Yoruba.

Our ever hardworking Attorney General - and Defender of the Powerful - has been threatening to enforce the orders of the Supreme Court citing section 287 of the Constitution but curiously has not been able to pinpoint one single decision (order) made by the SC in that case. This is so because both parties in the matter ONLY sought and obtained declaratory reliefs. The FG got three out of nine while the LASG got four out of four.

A Declaratory Judgment only proclaims or declares what is the law, right and the existence of a legal relationship. It does not contain an order to be enforced against a Defendant which in this case was even the FG.

Besides, our AG must not be aware that a Bakassi Local Government was excised out of Nigeria recently but the said Bakassi LGA is still listed in the Constitution as one of the 774 LGAs in Nigeria even after the handover of Bakassi to Cameroun by the President on the orders of the ICJ . The National Assembly has not ratified/approved this dismemberment of the Federation and thus the action remains inchoate until this is done. Yet the AG does not deem it necessary to enforce this yet.

But of course, we know that as far as Yar a'dua is concerned, Aondoakaa is the law.

Another serious matter arising out of a SC judgment is that of Nnamdi 'Andy' Uba and his purported election as the Governor of Anambra state.

The SC had ruled that the election in which Andy Uba was purportedly elected as Governor of Anambra state was illegal since the office was not vacant as at the time of the elections. The said elections are considered null and void and never even took place in the eyes of the law.

Curiously, Andy and his supporters have taken this issue to ludicrous extents with some of his lawyers pronouncing that the SC judgment's legal effect evaporates on March 17, 2010 at the expiration of the present tenure of the Governor Peter Obi. he has since gone back to a High Court to declare him Governor from that date.

He has gone around calling himself His Excellency and his wife, Her Excellency because he was Governor illegally for how long? 20 days? What should Dr. Chris Ngige, who was Governor of the same state illegally for three years call himself? His Greatness?

His case is like that of a man who after sleeping with a married woman starts claiming husbandship. See why they needed to have translated that judgment into Igbo?

Naija Till I Die!

N-A-I-J-I-R-I-A.

That's how its spelt in Ibibio, Idoma, Ijaw, Hausa, Urhobo, Itsekiri, Yoruba, Igbo, Fufulde, Gwari, Edo, Efik and the thousand other languages and dialects within the geographical space called Nigeria.

You wonder why an intelligent person like Reuben Abati just don't get it.

And it is not a recent phenomenon. It's a process that has been on since the end of our civil war. We have consistently made spirited efforts as a nation to find the things that unite us and define us as a people. Be it something as simple as the spelling of a name.

When Nigeria wanted to change its currency from the Pound/ Shilling regime in 1971, it reverted to the spellings of its name in the then three major languages and they all agreed that the name is N-A-I-J-I-R-I-A. That was where the name of our currency came from and since then we have been spending the Naira and Kobo. 'Kobo' is the Hausa name for copper - from which the coins were made - since the other two languages did not have a different word for it.

I remember that in 1985, prelude to celebrating our nations 25th Independence anniversary, an idea was mooted for a change of name of the country and several suggestions were put forward -from the ridiculous to the sublime - but the one I found most intriguing was the suggestion by somebody that we should just change the name to its local version such that any person who calls and write the name in any language would know what it means.

In the Yoruba worldview, names are very important and it is believed that a person's name actually affects the fulfillment of his destiny on earth. And that a person who does not know the meaning of his name may never actually fulfill his destiny.

The then military government of General Babangida did not go ahead with the renaming citing among other excuses, the volume of documentary changes that would need to be made. Besides, what would the people be called - Omo Naijiria? Ndi Naijiria? Umu Naijiria? Dan Naijiria? Naijirians? Nah, sounded 'too local'.

Instructively, around the same time, a group of young soldiers in a country then called Upper Volta (meaning?) took over the government of their country and renamed it Burkina Faso - Land of Dignity. The people now call themselves Burkinabes. Its been over twenty years now.

It is actually the word NIGERIA that is meaningless to us. We are not Latin or English. When we think, we think Naijiria but when we have to write, we write Nigeria otherwise we would fail the exams that were usually set in English. Since we cannot find Naijiria on the world map, we settle for the closest in spelling - Nigeria.

Jude Fashagba actually said it .. 'I love my counry but I hate its symbols'. Most of the times, the symbols that are used to depict Nigeria do not even remotely resemble its essence. They are just makeshift respresentations. 'Let's just put something make e no be like say we no do am'. That is why the recent re-branding exercise is such a disappointment.

The name Naijiria had somehow remained in our national consciousness in one form or the other for the last forty years, surfacing every ten years or so until its most recent incarnation as Naija. We are Naija people from Nigeria. How difficult is that?

I had written some time ago on this blog about the resurgence of patriotism in this generation of Naija people. A patriotism defined not by governments but by the youths themselves both at home and in the Diaspora. Seemingly without any formal synthetic arrangement but by a somewhat osmotic process. It is just seeping through the fabric of our national psyche without the usual baggages of tribalism, ethnic jingoism and all the other negative isms that have characterized all our previous efforts at nation building.

Naija youth is creating an identity for itself and for Nigeria. Rejecting the negative conotations that the world has tried to pin on it for years and rebranding itself creatively in sports, academics, movies, arts and music (yeah, and militancy too) so forcefully that the world took notice. Naija youth has given a new lease of life to this country. Saving it from the edge of the precipice and pushing it back to the top, where it rightfully belongs.

And it is succeeding, that is why people like Reuben Abati have noticed.

I think it is people like Dr. Abati, with their British mentality and orientations that miss the point. If we want to dance to our own national anthem, who can stop us? What exactly is wrong with that? Let's start it and see how many other countries will copy us.

I do not believe that this generation suffers from a crisis of identity. Rather, it is a generation that has found its identity among its peers in the world. It has chosen to bear its name and thus define itself as seperate from the confused illogisms that was its past.

It is a generation that is finally ready to meet and fulfill its destiny.

If only the ghosts of the past will let it.

If You Can't Beat Them, Forgive Them ...

You have probably read/heard about the Nigerian Federal Governement's Proclamation of Amnesty to the militants in the Niger Delta. What we do not know is if this amnesty extends to kidnappers and militants in other parts of the country -like Jos for instance but if I know Nigerian politics well enough, we will be hearing something about that very soon.

I am not usually this cynical but seriously, I will want to wait and see how effective this pardon will be. Nobody has said anything about addressing even the remote causes of the militancy in the first place. We are still expecting the Niger Delta 'Marshal Plan' that had been promised for so long and now we have an Amnesty. I just love this country.

Listening to the President proclaiming the Amnesty, something rang insincere in the words. A kind of bravado to mask a helplessness. What I will call 'ogboju of the highest order'. I believe even Yar'adua did not believe what he was reading. MKO Abiola would have called it 'clapping with one hand'. A resounding silence.

Some respected voices in the Niger Delta have suggested that that there should have been an Armistice before the Amnesty. Instructively, the MEND struck Shell again a little while after Yar'adua read the Amnesty Proclamation.

Some others have began to define who is a militant and who is a criminal in the context of the Amnesty. This has already set the stage for all manner of creatures to come crawling out of the rotten woodwork of the Niger Delta -bearing all kinds of rusty flintlocks and dysfunctional dane guns and machetes - calling themselves militants. It is boon for the criminals.

According to my extremely learned friend, Abadingo Abadanga ESQ of the illustrious firm of Abadingo, Abednego and Co, this simply buttresses his time-honored maxim of 'Ist nolle prosequi im ceteris paribus'.

That is to say, 'If you wan commit offense, e better make you commit de one wey be say when dem carry you reach court, the Judge sef go just look your case free you ; because your matter don pass the Law or in other words, your case is Over-the-Bar'.

Some other sources say that there is more to this than meets the eye. That is, knowing the family politics of the Niger Delta, it is possible that someone, somewhere may not want to be seen as aiding and supporting militancy in the Niger Delta particularly if it is close in the family.

No be my mouth dem go hear say Oga brother na criminal - sorry, militant.

Abadingo also told me that not all criminals are outlaws, some are in-laws.

Honour Among Thieves

It was perhaps the greatest heist in the history of 419. At $750 million for 51% of a company valued at $260 million, it must have been a bargain. But wait o. 419 is about advanced fees. Nobody knows exactly how much was paid in advance. Do you? Maybe we will call it 'Reverse 419'.

When the Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc (Transcorp) was launched on July 21st 2005 as "a Nigerian world-class mega-corporation managed by Nigerians and wholly owned by Nigerians" at the Presidential Villa, Abuja by Obasanjo - who owns 200 million shares of the company, the company had no operating office.

When it launched an IPO in 2006, it had no product or track record or histroy to analyse. The prospectus was full of typographical and design errors. Obviously even the directors did not see it before it got out. Its share pricing was based on projections. Yet the Nigerian Stock Exchange allowed it to go to market and Nigerians bought it. Of course, Madam Do Good also chairs the Transcorp board.

Transcorp was supposed to be the Nigerian equivalent of the Daewoos, Chaebols, Misubishis, Sumitomos, Toyotas, Toshibas and the other mega-corporations that raised the economies of the Asian countries. Its a strange analogy as these companies did not start out as mega-corporations, but rather as started as SMEs. Talk about leapfrogging.

Strange things started happening. Third term whispers and all that.

Obasanjo tried to stifle possible competition to Transcorp (he is the major shareholder). Ask the Ibetos how long a shipment of cement can stay in port. The Bull became a refugee in Ghana and that usually astute wheeler-dealer, Jimoh Ibrahim, almost lost his fortune but for GOD and his mother's head.

Gen-gen! they bought NITEL.

Gen-gen! they bought the NICON NOGA Hilton.

We siddon dey look, action dey go.

It was like a man who has a confirmed gold mine in his backyard but decides to plant ugwu on the land instead. With all due respect to Tom Iseghohi and his band of technocrats -with their much touted pedigrees (as if they were dogs), they did not know what they were doing in Transcorp.

Buying NITEL is like marrying a king's widow. You don't complain about her tastes in food, clothes and jewelry, you simply gird your loins and work harder to provider for her. Managing NITEL required more than Harvard MBAs or experience working in the safe corporate environments of the mutlinationals, you need a lot of street smarts. Unfortunately, the Transcorp board lacked that.

When Transcorp took over NITEL there was a deafening silence from the major telecoms industry players. It was like there was a conspiracy afoot. Indeed there was a conspiracy. A conspiracy of silence. Transcorp should have been worried but they probably felt they had won. If they could run The Bull out of town, who dem be?.

After all, how many refugees could Ghana take?

They forgot that there may be a day when Obasanjo would not be in power. They forgot that the same people you pushed off the ladder on your way up, you will meet again on your way down.

They forgot that kaka ki eku ma je sese, a a fi sh'awadanu ni. Mice may not eat salt, but they can waste it by making it unpalatable.

They forgot that there is honour, even among thieves.

The New Polygamy

How important are children to a marriage?

When I was much younger, I had this girlfriend with whom I had agreed not to have children if we got married. We had this belief that marriage was for companionship and not necessarily for children. We decided that kids would be a distraction for us. Not letting us live our lives to fullness.

Back then, I personally could not understand why people would marry more than one wife or live polygamous lives just because of children. I had believed that polygamy was a problem of the old and uneducated folks and largely a generational problem that will pass away as more and more people become educated.

I was wrong.

In the last three months, I have experienced, at close quarters a seeming surge in polygamous tendencies amongst people who I will classify as young, educated and upwardly mobile in all senses of the word. In all these situations however is a common decimal. An inability to have a child.

Ade works in a bank while Toun, his wife of thirteen years works with a government agency in Lagos. I was at their wedding and I believe that both of them wanted children in the marriage so this was not a case of family planning. Besides, after thirteen years, the excuse of family planning becomes untenable.

Sometime in December 2008, I met Ade in the Isolo area of Lagos dressed to the nines in lace agbada and all that. He told me he had come for an engagement ceremony somewhere in the neighburhood. Toun was not with him.

In April, I was preparing a bid for which I needed some input from a bank and I called my friend to vet it for me. He was quite busy during the week and asked me to see him at home during the weekend so that we can go through it together before presenting it to the bank on Monday.

On Saturday, I called to confirm our meeting and he asked me to meet him at an address in Isolo. I know he lives in Ikeja with his wife but I drove down to Isolo and I met my friend very much at home with a young woman and a baby girl.

He said 'Nimmo, meet my daughter'. I could not hide my shock. My jaw almost hit the floor.

He explained that when I saw him in December he had come for an engagement alright. His engagement to his second wife, Dupe who was pregnant at that time.

'Does Toun know?'

'No she doesn't and I know you will not be the one to tell her.'

Wetin concern agbero with overload?

Kenneth is a lawyer and Tina, his wife works as an HR Consultant. They'd been married for ten years now without a child. To all intents and purposes, they are happily married. Kenneth is the quintessential husband and Tina is the dutiful wife. A perfect couple if there was one.

I have known Kenneth since our university days and he has always been a gentleman. You know the law student who was always in shirt and tie while you all wore jeans and t-shirt to classes. That was Kenneth.

On the fateful day I was in his office when he asked me to 'escort' him to a school in Ikeja GRA. To see the Headmaster who was a friend, he said. In the Headmaster's office, they kept talking about 'his son' and I was confused. Well, that was until I saw the boy in question. At about three years of age, he was a spitting image of my friend.

Does Tina know?

Yes.

My mouth shut up.

I have known Shade since like forever. My area girl to the core.

After getting her Diploma from the polytechnic, Shade got pregnant for and married to - or got married to and pregnant for (whichever came first) - a Camerounian guy, we will call Jules. They had a son but it was a turbulent marriage and after three years they seperated. Jules died shortly after. He had taken his son to live with his relatives in France.

Shade remarried about five years ago to Ahmed, who was married before but had no child from the previous marriage. Everything was good. Right?

A few months ago, we were at a function where Shade was introduced as Mrs. Kamala. Now this Kamala was known to be married with children.

Shade, how come?

Wo, Nimmo free my hand joo. I cannot continue to live with a man who cannot give me a child.

That was the long and short of her story.

But you are not divorced from him yet, and you're already living with another man. This is bigamy you know.

Biga kinni? Did he tell you that I married him in court? No be only traditional we do? In fact, the only person I was ever legally married to was Jules and I still have my marriage certificate.

What about Kamala? You're Mrs. Kamala now.

Kamala? Mschewwwww .. .. Abeg, Nimmo stop lawyering me, na pikin I dey find.

Words Of War

'Is Nigeria at war?'

No one seems to be able to answer Yes or No but effective midnight 23 September 2007, a group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) had 'declared war on the Nigerian state'.

In the light of what is happening presently in the Niger Delta region, with all the posturings, claims and counter claims emanating from the region and the vituperations of the major actors in this debacle, I feel compelled to ask the question again: Is Nigeria at war?

If the answer is Yes, who are the parties in this war? Nigeria and who? MEND?

If it is MEND, does MEND have the mandate of the people of the Nigeria Delta to prosecute a war on their behalf?

If the answer to this were Yes, and we agree that "a civil war is a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies ... and that one side of a civil war is the state.^[2]", then this would be a civil war, right?

According to Wikipedia "Scholars of war divide theories on the causes of civil war into either Greed vs Grievance. Roughly stated:

1. Are conflicts caused by who people are, (defined in terms of ethnicity, religion or other social affiliation) or
   
2. Do conflicts begin because it is in the economic best interests of individuals and groups to start them?
   

Scholarly analysis supports the conclusion that economic and structural factors are more important than those of identity in predicting occurrences of civil war."

If the answer to this were No, then who or what is MEND and what are they fighting for? As Alhaji Asari Dokubo stated in a 2007 interview 'MEND was created not as an organisation but a name for the purpose of issuing unified statements'.

If you are interested, there are several insightful academic works here and here on the Internet detailing the emergence and raison d'etre for MEND. Some even detail how to effectively combat it here.

One thing is obvious though, Yar Adua and his government do not have a clue as to how to handle this unfortunate situation. The latest misadventure by the government's Joint Task Force was an ingenious PR coup executed by MEND and one wonders how much more unthinking a government could be to fall for such an obvious trap.

What if we were really at war?

UPDATE

Unfortunately ..[t]here does not seem to be an easy solution to disrupting MEND or solving the problem of Niger Delta as whole. However the work was not entirely futile as we discovered that the government is a common denominator in each strategy – in a negative way.

The government or regime seems to be the biggest obstacle to successful counter strategy. The regime in petro-state could be imagined as an entity which floats over the society but has no links to it and is almost only concerned with revenues from oil extracting which puts it [at] odds with people of Niger Delta who in majority feel deprived from what they see as their right – oil revenues.

Conceptualizing And Countering The MEND

I was surprised to find such a detailed study on MEND on the internet. It even recommends different strategies to counter MEND and its activities in the delta. Instructively, the study does not endorse a military solution in its conclusions.

This is like an open book examination. Does it mean that NOBODY in the Nigerian government reads or what?

Blogging Bloggers Blog About Blogging About Bloggers

Doesn't make sense does it?

Its like saying 'Plantain planters planting plantain in plantain plantation'. But that makes sense. In a way.

This is about blogging. And bloggers. And bloggers blogging. [Or blogging bloggers]. And blogging about bloggers. [Or blogging bloggers blogging about blogging bloggers.]. Anyway, you get the point.

Besides, I needed to update my blog before Bumight comes to remind me again.

Sometime last week, I was in conversation with a friend over lunch and suddenly he switched our gist to blogging. My first thought was that I had been outed and I was thinking of just denying it. It turns out though that our friend did not know about this blog but his peeve was with the Naija bloggers in general. He had been going round blogs and he finds it disturbing that most of the Naija bloggers actually write negative stuff about Nigeria.

I reminded him about the right of anyone to write as he/she will, a right enshrined in the constitution and also of the right of 'Nigeria' to respond if she feels any write-up is not positively reflecting upon her. [NOTE: Re-brand Nigeria still does not have a website/ web-presence. Are those guys thinking at all?].

His response actually shocked me; they had been 'reliably' informed that these Naija bloggers are actually the children/ agents of former Nigerian politicians or rulers who have fallen out of favour with the 'government' and are using the Internet to spread negative reports about Nigeria and the government in a 'campaign of calumny'.
.
Sincerely, my jaw was on the ground. Na so I dey look am

He then launched into a tirade of expletives to describe in unsalutary terms, the 'unpatriotic' acts of these so-called Nigerian bloggers. He even gave some names of those he called 'discredited politicians and agents of destabilization'.

Now, I am not so naive. I am old enough to know enough that some people can put up blogs to push an agenda. I also know that some bloggers are children of or related to some Nigerian politicians or former military rulers but I do not think/ never thought that constituted any reason to deny them their right to write as they will.

I do not know if anyone else has got this info but I seriously wonder at its intentions. It may probably be to introduce a sort of paranoia among Naija bloggers. I just can imagine reading Afrobabe, Badderchic, Deolu Akinyemi, Baroque, Solomonsydelle, Bumight, Vera Ezimora, Jide Salu, Woomie O, Roc Naija, Chari & Buttercup and wondering how much of their posts are 'subversive'. It is a worrisome thought.

Maybe this will eventually shut us all up. I must tell you that since that conversation, I have been thinking about blogging and whether its worth it after all. Several times I had logged on to Blogger but was too 'afraid' to blog about anything. Not that anyone might 'catch' me or anything as I have done nothing to be ashamed of. I am rather proud of my blog and have directed not a few people to it. Surreptitiously though.

I believe that bloggers are readers and readers are leaders and I have expressed that severally. I believe that out of this crop of Naija bloggers will come a crop of leaders in this country. A blogger is affecting minds with his/her writing. Yea, including Afrobabe and her 'total fuckery'. If all Nigerian youth were bloggers, they won't have time to send yahoo mails. That is a fact.

When Obama started out as a community organizer, I doubt if anyone believed that he would someday become President of the US.

Blogging is like community organizing but though the community is largely invisible or virtual, real minds are being affected by our posts and stories. Our personal failings and triumphs as shared on our blogs are read by millions of our countrymen and women who share our pains and laugh at our foolishness.

It is also their story. That's why they keep coming back.

That is why we write.

Re-branding: A D-I-Y Guide

My Naija peeps,

Ever since the news broke on this Bernie Maddof's scam (Ponzi, Hedge - same difference), how many Americans have you called up to talk about America being a land of scammers and how afraid you are to even talk to them or counting your money near them?

What?

None?

Exactly. You don't go around calling people names and you know the difference between one person's greed and a people's aspirations. Your Mama taught you better than that.

I am so proud of you.

The next time some e.diot gets in your face and wants to talk about some 'Nigerian' scams or what not, just look at him from head to toe (you know how) and let out one of those famous long hisses or just pronounce him 'F-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-l' in your best Talab Abass voice.

Better still, you can just re-brand his face with a dirty slap.

[At your own risk sha]

Do You Know Your Brand?

If someobody calls your father a thief, what will you do?

I am usually appalled by the level of naivety displayed by Nigerians when this issue of Scam or 419 is mentioned. I will advise us all to do a search (Google/Yahoo/MSN etc) for the top 200 scammers in the world today and I can assure you there is not a single Nigerian in the lot. In fact, MSN brought out a list of scammers recently with their pictures and profiles and there was not a single Nigerian in the top 20! In fact, the top American in the list agreed to pay back taxes on his loot to avoid going to jail. There were Russians, Serbians, Turks -mostly Eastern Europeans on the list.

I will not try to absolve some of our countrymen who still indulge in this nefarious pastime (we are 140 million for God's sake) but with the efforts of the past and the level of awareness amongst the populace, it is a largely passing/passed fad. It is not as it used to be. Mugu don wise. Guyman sef don born again. We do know that most of those emails and letters still circulating on the web do not originate from Nigeria anymore. From the way the English is structured, you can guess where they are from.

Besides, anyone who still believes that there is a 'HRH Miriam Abacha' with a $20 billion stash looking for a foreign account to keep it must need serious help or might even be beyond help. Where have you been living for the past 15 years? Under a rock?

We need to understand that those who use the number '419' to describe fraud are usually Nigerians themselves. The number is actually the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that deals with Advanced Fee Fraud. Now, that law was meant to protect Nigerians from foreigners who were all over us particularly in the 70s during the Oil Boom when we had so much money, our problem was how to spend it.

When people -like Oprah- call Nigerians scammers or call Nigeria the land of scams, it is meant to be an insult! DO NOT CONDONE IT. Take it as an insult and deal with it as such. Demand an apology.

I have no apologies for being a Nigerian. It is difficult enough being one without you telling me how stupid you were to fall for an anonymous email. Do you want me to tell you how my Uncle was swindled in 1974 by a white boy who said he was the son of John F. Kennedy?

1974?

Exactly. Gerrout of my face!

Last time I checked, Bernie Maddoff is not a Nigerian.

Naija 4 Life!

NIGERIA: Good People, Great Nation

For the last few years, there had been a palpable positive movement in Nigeria's image indicators and it was not started by the Nigerian government. In fact the Nigerian government came into it and derailed the efforts with its infamous 'Heart of Africa' shtick.

I really dont know how it started or who started it (though some people credit JJC & the 419 Squad crew) but the 'NAIJA-4-LIFE' slogan was/is still the most successful effort at nation rebirth and national pride.

To me, it was so successful when my cousins who were born in Scotland and had never been to Nigeria before actually started calling themselves '9JA-4-LAIF'. They finally came to Lagos and in spite of all our deprivations, (NEPA, Water, Roads etc) they still enjoyed themselves and would not stop talking about Nigeria.

There were so many variations of the slogan but in all, there was this palpable pride in Nigeria and things Nigerian. Even on Blogville, more and more bloggers identified with Nigeria and were proud to share their stories, even the not-so-palatable ones. Yes, all the problems were still there but we ARE Nigerians and we WILL solve our problems. No be today yansh dey back.

Along the line, the Nigerian government tried to take over the driver's seat of the movement rather than just ride the wave. The result was the disaster called 'Heart of Africa'. I believe that in itself, the 'Heart of Africa' Project was a good idea but the moment it was passed to the clueless bootlickers at the MoI, it was doomed to failure.

Ironically, several African countries have successfully carried out some image laundering in the last few years in efforts that included Nigerians. Botswana, Rwanda, Kenya and South Africa have ran successful campaigns in the past and it even appears South Africa is on a perpetual campaign but its messages change depending on their challenges. You would probably have seen their 'This is my South Africa, tell me about yours' campaign featuring Yvone Chaka Chaka and others on CNN.

Their efforts are geared towards hosting a successful World Cup come 2010. I doubt if they are thinking of winning the cup. They know they can win in many more ways than on the field. They obviously know how to run a good campaign.

I am not one to predict doom but for this Akuyili's campaign, I am just wondering; how long will one million dollars last?

Look Yonder To Thailand!

Have you heard?

If you haven't, then read this. For those of you who won't bother following the link, here's the News-in-Brief.

The Constitutional Court in Thailand court dissolved Thailand's top three ruling parties for electoral fraud on Tuesday and temporarily banned the prime minister from politics.

"Former PM Somchai's People's Power Party, the Machima Thipatai party and the Chart Thai party were found guilty of committing fraud in the December 2007 elections that brought the coalition to power with a thumping majority.

The case stems from an earlier Supreme Court conviction of a PPP executive committee member, Yongyuth Tiyapairat, who was found guilty of buying votes. Under Thai law, an entire party can be disbanded if one executive member is found guilty of electoral fraud. Similar individual cases brought down the other parties."

Can you imagine that? Why can't we have such a law in our statute books?

Of course, a Nigerian court has declared a sitting government as a nullity before. (Remember Shonekan's Interim National Government?) but that was almost immediately supplanted by Abacha's military junta. In Thailand, the military has been neutral in this matter.

I have always proposed that any political party that is found to rig an election in Nigeria should not only be dissolved and banned but its leaders jailed for a minimum of ten years without an option of a fine. This effectively removes them from circulation and possible further interference in the electoral porcess. In addition, the Electoral Officers in charge of the election should go to jail and automatically lose their pensions to pay for the election re-runs ordered by the courts.

In Nigeria today, you steal an election, you enjoy it for as long as you can, stalling in the courts, with adjournments and postponements, SMS and threats. After about two years of appeals and counter-appeals, the courts finally declare you a thief. You go on TV and talk about 'nurturing our nascent democracy' and 'respecting the rule of law' and then you declare it as 'the will of God'. Then you go home to enjoy your loot and nothing happens.

That is, if you the court does not ask for a re-run of the elections which you will steal again; as a matter of course.

Of course, the INEC Chairman has told us that it is the Nigerian politicians that rig elections not INEC but we all know that it takes two to tango. According to Chief Zebrudaya Okoroigwe Nwogbo alias 4.30, 'If the theifer are not thievry, the buyer will not be boughtery'. A receiver of stolen goods is as guilty as the thief who stole the goods.

I think we should begin a process of including such provisions in our laws. What does it really take to ammend our electoral laws to reflect such? Rather than sitting down lamenting that the country is going to the dogs, we should be agitating to have those laws introduced.

For as long as there are no laws to check the politicians, there may be very little anyone can do to check the brigands.

In other news, can anybody please explain what religion has got to do with local government elections in Jos? Maybe Majek Fashek was right after all: Religion Is Politics. Or vice versa.

Less than 48 hours after 387 people were confirmed dead under his watch, the Plateau Governor Jonah Jang wants to go ahead and swear-in the 'elected' politicians into office.

How callous can you be?

Taking Over Nigeria

Please read this post by a young Nigerian who has a passion for things Nigerian. Even if you don't agree with him completely, you should be impressed with his 'Can Do' attitude.

Even to the Naysayers, we say it is possible.

There is a groundswell going round the country and the resolve is for us to take our country back.

The post is even written in most part in the past tense. It has already happened!

When your children ask you: 'Mummy, where were you when it happened?'

How will you answer?

Are you game?

A Song For The Canary

Born Stephen Oladipupo Olaore Owomoyela in Oshogbo in 1932 to a part-time musician father who never wanted him to become one based on his own sad experiences as a musician. The young Orlando did everything to please his father, including completing an eight-year apprenticeship in building construction but eventually went to Ilesha to earn his Standard Six certificate.

His kind of music, which he called 'Toye' music has its roots in the local music of the riverine areas of the old Ondo and Bendel states. You would notice the common strain in his music with those of Sir Dr. Victor Uwaifo, Osayomore Joseph, the late Chief (Mrs.) Comfort Omoge and lately in the music of Daddy Showkey, Father U-Turn, African China and Stereoman.

As Western production electronics began to infiltrate the music of other bands, Owoh stuck to his low-tech approach; his music sounds distinctly rootsier than that of other highlife bands and strongly evokes the music's traditional base. He also generally remained true to the small guitar-band format of highlife rather than adapting his style to the huge, kinetic ensembles of the juju genre of King Sunny Ade and others. He sang mostly in Yoruba but recorded music in English on occasion.

On October 19th 1986, foremost Nigerian journalist, Dele Giwa, was killed by a parcel bomb sent to his home. The whole nation was shocked and Orlando in 1987 sang a tribute song to Dele Giwa; in the song 'Ofo to Se Naijiria' ('The Calamity That Befell Nigeria'), he lamented the security situation of the country and made several accusations which the government of General Ibrahim Babangida considered 'provocative'.

It was common knowledge that most musicians lived rather Bohemian lifestyles and encouraged anti-government rhetorics at their shows and concerts. The use of drugs - particularly marijuana- was common in these musicians enclaves. Until then, the 'provocations' of musicians like Orlando, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and others had been largely tolerated by the government but the newly formed National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) provided a new front to their cat-and-mouse relationship.

Orlando and Fela basically shared the same fate. They were the scapegoats of successive military regimes in their contrived fight against the drug trade. They were both jailed on the crime of 'possession'. He spent 8 months in the infamous Alagbon Close Detention Centre by the Narcotics Division of the Nigerian Police. If you know Alagbon, its a fate you will not wish on your worst enemy.

On his return from prison, he released what became a monster hit, though it was just released on a whim. It was called 'The Message': It was based along the lines of the hit of the same name by the Everly Brothers and for me the genius of this song was in the peculiar lyrics as compared with the Everly Brothers' original.

E j'ise mi fun Folashade mi Take my message to my Folashade
E ma so fun pe mo wa l'ewon o But don't tell her I'm in jail
E j'ise mi fun Folashade mi Take my message to my Folashade
E ma so fun pe mo wa l'Alagbon But don't tell her I'm in Alagbon
E so fun pe mo ti rin jina Tell her that I have gone very far
Mo to d'eja oju omi That I have become a fish in the ocean
Amo b'ori ba yo mi l'owo Narcotics But if I ever get out of the clutches of Narcotics
Ao pade 'ra pe l'ayo We shall meet again with joy

In 2006, Orlando Owoh suffered two strokes and also lost his wife within the same year. A couple of months ago, I read in the newspapers that he was admitted at the General Hospital, Agege for some ailments on the bill of the Lagos state government as directed by the Governor Tunde Fashola SAN.

On Friday night, I was at the annual 'Yinka Ayefele Night' at the Ikoyi Club 1938, when the musician started belting out some of Orlando's tunes, apparently in tribute. That was when I learned that the Canary has ceased to sing. He did not survive a third stroke on Wednesday night.

What do we do when the Canary ceases to sing?

We
We shall
We shall sing
We shall sing a
We shall sing a song
We shall sing a song for
We shall sing a song for the
We shall sing a song for the Canary.

My Father's Eyes

My father always loved debates.

He spoke with a stutter so he was not what you would consider an eloquent speaker or debater but he had a way of putting his points across so clearly such that unless you have superior arguments, you don't dispute his views. Back then, he usually has his friends come in for drinks usually at the weekends. He was not much of a drinker himself, but he always enjoyed the company.

Growing up, whenever I was home from boarding school or university, I was privileged to observe and later, to be part of these gatherings. These men were mainly UK trained and the gatherings could be as large as eight to ten men or as few as three. And you know what happens when men gather with drinks; they talk. They talked about women, sports and politics. What else do men talk about?

From these men I learned about history, particularly Nigerian history of which they were a part at one point or the other. Of course, I also learned about women. They were that experienced.

I remember one day, twenty years ago, in 1988, I think it was July/August. As a university student by then, I was allowed to make contributions to discussions once in a while. This time was during the presidential primaries of the US Democratic party and it was significant because a black American, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was a front runner in that race.

The debate was along the lines of the prospects of a black American winning the nomination of his party on one hand and then going on to win the Presidency of the United States of America. As with most African students back then, the candidacy of Jesse Jackson was an inspiration and we believed that he could go on to win the Presidency. I was the sole proponent of that position in that debate.

I remember my father saying that the chances of a black man becoming the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was brighter than that of a black man becoming the President of the United States. To him, the UK society was more racially integrated than that of the US and that the Americans were 'racists' while the Brits were 'racial'. In his words, the Brits would still tolerate a good man (black or white) as PM, but the Americans just plain 'hated' the black man.

By some alcohol-induced prophetic ability, they arrived at the magical figure of a minimum of 300 years after the death of Abraham Lincoln, who somehow was the most significant index for a black man to ascend the presidency of the US according to them. By 1988, that meant another 175 more years.

He was wrong. They were ALL wrong!

Just twenty years later, Barrack Hussein Obama, a black man IS elected to be the 44th President of the United States of America!

I wish my father were alive to witness today. Maybe he would have shed a tear or two. Maybe he would have bawled. Maybe he would have just looked on incredulously because you see, a black man is yet to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom!

He would have been 72 years old today (11/6). He would have popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate. He would have graciously conceded he was wrong and while it would not have dampened our celebrations, I am sure he would probably have looked for a reason why his prediction failed.

Of course, I would still have done my Obama Victory Dance in his face.