Are We Indecisive Or What?

Okay so after that dramatic move to a different server, we're back on good old blogger.

All posts below have been copied from the old server here. So so sorry if you left a prize-worthy comment on a post and its now been lost.

Xxx

You Decide

The 'official' INEC view of the elections - INEC - www.inecnigeria.org

The Transition Montioring Group's view - www.tmgnigeria.org

The European Union's 'Election Observation Mission' - www.eueom-ng.org

The Human Rights Watch report - www.hrw.org

The International Crisis Group report - www.crisisgroup.org

On some level, we should be flattered by all the media attention :-)

Forced To Vote

A member of the BBC News website's Nigerian voter
panel, student Donaman Atezan, 25, in Gboko in central Nigeria tells
how thugs forced him to vote for the ruling People's Democratic Party's
presidential candidate.

Less than an hour after I spoke to the BBC News
website on Saturday, relating how I had been unable to vote, my
situation changed.

I was just heading home from a friend's place when I saw
very few people (predominantly the electoral officers and thugs)
cluster around my polling unit in Adikpo.

I hurriedly rushed to the place to satisfy my curiosity
and discovered that, the said late hour election was nothing but mere
eye service as most eligible voters were not even aware of the presence
of the electoral material at this time.

The few that were aware were scared to come near since it was already dark and there was no source of light around.

The thugs were then left alone to vote and each one of
them voted over and over as many times as there were ballot papers
available.

While this was going on, I presented my voters ID card so I could too receive ballot papers.

As an unfamiliar face, the electoral officer reluctantly gave me only two of the ballot papers instead of three.

One was for the presidency and the other for the federal house of representatives.

But that of the Senate for the Zone A senatorial district of Benue was completely absent.

'Two big guys'

As I got to the ballot box with the two ballot papers to
cast my vote, two rugged-looking guys suddenly stood beside me
anxiously watching to see who I was voting for... even though the
election was said to be a secret ballot.

I had voted for an opposition party and immediately the two big guys seized it and said I shouldn't cast my vote.

One of them removed my ballot paper which was already
thumb printed and just made a bigger print in the space for the ruling
People's Democratic Party (PDP) thus rendering my ballot invalid.

Out of fear and intimidation, I asked them which party presidential candidate I should vote for.

The other guy said: "Vote the PDP, don't you want to eat?"

So was I forced to cast my vote for the PDP against my wish to escape their wrath.

This is the plight the Nigerian youth is in, no job, no
food on the table, no light, no water, no accessible roads, insecurity
and even our civic rights; we are denied from carrying out.

I only wish I had the opportunity and privilege to leave Nigeria after my graduation later this year.

I want to go to the West so as to hustle there and start a better life.

Here we, the Nigerian youth, have a very slim hope or none at all.

Election Blues

The Musings of an Awakened 'Fro

Misan:

"A member of The Beat told me yesterday in conversation, how it was UNREALISTIC to expect that politics/elections in Nigeria could hold without rigging on all sides, so go ahead and call me UNREALISTIC and A DREAMER for holding a mirror to what occurred this past weekend and calling FOUL!

Foul at INEC for squandering Lord knows how many billions in Election preparation, only to leave us with shams for "voting centres" (underneath trees), where (in Victoria Island) cement blocks had to substitute for tables, BIRO (Bic) Ink had to substitute for fingerprint ink (yes, my mama told me all this!…of course this endeavour failed and so, a voter had to go to her house to get some!); and so on.

FOUL at the political parties who sent out thugs to intimidate voters and steal ballot boxes in BROAD DAYLIGHT (I pray for a democracy where such dirty dealings at least take place in secret). Just a few accounts from PM News "Situation Report Across the Country" (full article accessible here):

Shagamu: Reports say a voter was shot in the process of casting his ballot in Shagamu.

Ekiti : The on-going election has proven to be a charade at Ife-Ekiti, where mobile policemen stormed with a stalwart of PDP. They wanted to snatch a ballot box but were resisted. The person who resisted them was shot dead. The mobile policemen and PDP agents snatched all the boxes available.

Ada, OsunState: Two AC agents were abducted while PDP agents were just thumb printing all the booklets. It was reported that this was done with the support of INEC officials because only one INEC official was posted to the booth. This female INEC staff and the only police officer there were threatened with machetes by thugs if they tried to stop them.

FOUL at the International observer mission for only being able to muster the term, "worrisome" as a description of the voting irregularities.

And FOUL at me for being able to do absolutely nothing but vent in writing.

By the end of our almost hour-long conversation, I came to see his point that democracy and fair elections can't happen in one day (or in our case, 47-years); it's a gradual process that we're going to have to stumble through a couple more times till we (hopefully) finally get it right. For now, we should be thankful that the elections (at least the first leg) took place and that we have "results". The likes of Pat Utomi, Jimi Agbaje (I don't know many politicians but I know these 2) have shown us that politics can be done in a clean manner (they might not/did not win but they've started something). Even if the next four years bring more thievery and corruption, we hope that they will also finally bring milestones that will affect the common man, and improve his quality of life. At this point, ANY change is good change."

As always, comments welcome!

The Clouds Are Gathering

The article below is quite a chilling forecast from a great literary poet, which has received all kinds of responses so far - from "what has Chinua Achebe ever done for Nigeria, other than talk/write" to "why his support for Ngige".

Rather than exhausting his energies on forcing his favourite candidates on the citizens of this country (as 'do or die' affairs), the President should have been ensuring that all necessary preparations for these elections were made, through the relevant agencies of course. Now we find ourselves 2 days to the gubernatorial elections and having public holidays forced on us so that people can travel home to vote!! We only wonder how sustainable this system is. How long before something in this delicate imbalance snaps?

As always, thoughts welcome.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Clouds Are Gathering - by Chinua Achebe

President Olusegun Obasanjo has taken Nigeria as low as she has ever gone. This will surprise foreign "friends" of Nigeria who may believe the myth that Obasanjo has been fighting to end corruption in the country and to bring democracy to its citizens. Nigerians know better. I am one of those too young/too ignorant to google or ask my elders what OBJ did during his first regime other than hand over power to  a civilian government, but I can't feign the same ignorance for what he's done (and events that have occured) over the past 8 years.  The  run-up to the elections has been such a mess that I have to ask how a president who has  been able to achieve oh-so-much under his regime could have failed to ensure that the past 18 months were spent on preparing for the most important elections the country has seen

President Obasanjo has had the opportunity to rule Nigeria for three years (1976-79) as an unelected military dictator and later for two terms of eight years as a retired general/civilian (1999-2007). People don't exactly remember what Obasanjo did in his first civilian incarnation. His second coming, however, was a different matter. He unfolded a gigantic scheme for staying in power beyond his tenure. He set up agencies with long titles like the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent National Electoral Commission. It soon became clear, however, that these devices were not intended to curb the crimes they enumerated but to go after people who disagree with the President, especially on his desire to extend his tenure.

Perhaps the strangest of these events took place in my own state, Anambra, where a governor was kidnapped by a criminal gang who claimed that they had "fixed" the election and earned the right to receive the state budgetary allocation. Whatever the merit of this bizarre story the governor refused to turn over the allocation to these thieves and began to spend it on building roads and bridges which nobody had done in decades. He began to pay pension to retired civil servants who had not been paid in years. Anambra state was transformed overnight. No where else in Nigeria had such a change happened. Governor Ngige became the people's governor.

 One would have thought that our anti-corruption president, Chief Obasanjo, would have embraced Governor Ngige as a fellow fighter against corruption. But no. The fellows demanding the state revenue were Obasanjo's friends who in anger set about burning down and destroying state property while the Police stood at a distance, watching.

 I have told this story again although we all know it. I am retelling it because as it goes with Anambra, so will it go with Nigeria....

 I must congratulate the Judiciary on the tough battle many of its members are waging for the soul of Nigeria. The Senate came ever so close to snatching Nigeria out of the fire, and then…  That was a historic moment lost. What a pity!

Introducing...

Nneka

Making huge waves in Europe with her soulful music (often of a political nature).

For more, visit her space on myspace.

We. The People.

Twenty years ago, Dele Olojede was in Nigeria, a reporter for the independent national Concord newspaper, whose editor spent two weeks in detention without explanation from the government. He became one of the founding writers at Newswatch magazine, whose editor, Dele Giwa, was killed by a pipe bomb in 1986—"by military intelligence".

In April 2005, Olojede, by this time a former editor of Newsday, was named
co-winner of the Pulitzer prize for international reporting, becoming the first African to win journalism's highest honour.

In October 2005, he spoke at the NLNG Grand Award Night, in Lagos...

"A debilitating lack of self-confidence, I think, characterizes today’s Nigerian, having seen his country go down the tubes whilst in the custody of rapacious rulers, and with his own active connivance or apathy. This condition sometimes manifests itself in a prickly defensiveness. I often have friends of mine lapse into such grand statements as, “that’s because you don’t live here,” as an all-purpose dismissal of an argument whose uncomfortable truths they cannot logically avoid. It is manifested in the irrational xenophobia exhibited by many against, for example, South Africans doing business successfully in Nigeria.

But this defensiveness cannot conceal the facts of Nigeria’s condition today. By all objective measures, the country is far poorer-- $350 billion in oil revenues later—than it was 40 years ago. Its moral foundations have cracked wide open, a society whose core values matter far less today than they did four decades ago. Its schools and hospitals 40 years ago were far superior to its schools and hospitals today. Its bureaucracy was more meritorious and far more efficient than it is today. Its elite was far more self-sacrificing, certainly, than today’s elite, whose behavioral patterns bear striking resemblance, if I may be direct, to a swarm of locusts. Nigeria in 1960, as we all know by now, was ahead on the development curve than Singapore or Malaysia or the Philippines or South Korea. Nigeria’s life expectancy has fallen—FALLEN!!— a full decade since the early 1970s, to just 43 years, according to the latest edition of the United Nations Human Development Index, which measures these things. What this means is that I have already lived longer at my age than the average citizen of this nation can fairly be expected to live. The average Nigerian now lives only half as long as the average Chinese or Japanese. We have become a poster child worldwide for fraud and corruption. We are clearly traveling down an escalator that is going up...

.... The necessity of creating a true Commonwealth in our country cannot be overstated. And its legitimacy is conditional on the citizens having come together to devise the rules of engagement. We can already see one of the most appalling consequences of an imposed constitution, one that places a class of politicians above the law of the land and basically grants them blanket immunity, even when they brazenly steal the family silver. To place anyone above the law is to debase the law itself, and invite the creation of a locust culture, where the swarm of the political elite is engaged only in plundering as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and for as long as possible...

... The good society [which we seek] will be built, as it has been built elsewhere, by men and women who act, who take it upon themselves to sacrifice a little bit of their individual pursuits for the common good. The new society will be built by teachers who teach, doctors who actually treat, lawyers who fight for justice and the rule of law, bureaucrats who manage efficiently the commonwealth all the while resisting the lure of the easy money, leaders who actually lead, and do not expect that a criminal is worthy of being protected from the law by some perverted notion of executive immunity. And yes, this good society will in large part be built by citizens who understand and accept the responsibilities of citizenship...

... After years of corrosive military dictatorships and their attendant caprice, as well as the general dissolution and greed of a thieving political class, the Nigerian today feels so battered and bruised that he appears to have lost all sense of how to be a citizen. I have been following with some interest a simple but important exercise by the Ministry of Finance, which uncharacteristically for a Nigerian government agency actually is promoting transparency. The ministry periodically publishes in the newspapers a complete list of revenues allotted from the federation account to every single state and local government throughout the country. So if you live in, say, Isukwato-Okigwe local government area of Abia State, you can tell from the newspapers that your local government received 500 million naira last month for the administration of its affairs. The question that faces us is, how many residents actually take the trouble to demand that their councilors account for how the money was spent? Did it go toward fixing the broken windows in local schools? Or paving the rutted neighborhood roads? Or reactivating a long dormant waterworks? Or purchasing supplies for the local health dispensary? My guess is that many citizens do not bother, thus signaling their leaders that they do not have to be accountable at all.

The same is true in virtually every important respect. Most parents do not get involved in their children’s schools or hold teachers and school administrators accountable for the proper education of their children. They ask not why our highways are death traps. They witness fellow citizens illegally expropriating public property for private use and they consider it normal, or at least acceptable. They appear to believe, in fact, that rulers have an entirely free hand to do anything whatever, including commit grievous crimes and recognize no difference between public funds and their private spending. The rulers—we must of necessity avoid the term leader, which connotes purpose and service—have naturally taken as much liberty as the citizens are willing to give them, and then some.

The citizen has become praise singer and court jester, obsequious, slavish, bowing only to wealth and position. We have become Fela’s parody of the “government chicken boy.” Our praise singing culture has reached new depths of perversion, with music extolling the supremacy of anyone with money no matter how accumulated, with newspapers and magazines dedicated only to the chronicling of the comings and goings of the elite, with our so-called kings and paramount chiefs bestowing chieftaincy titles on anyone ready to pay-- with such feverish abandon, in fact, that one of our big men apparently has more than 600 of them! The age of Simply Mr., which The Guardian newspaper so valiantly sought to champion more than 20 years ago, has passed into oblivion. We forget that the number of chieftaincy titles we acquire does not in any way equate living the good and useful life. To quote Aristotle, “honor seems to depend on those who confer it rather than on him who receives it, whereas our guess is that the good is a man’s own possession
which cannot easily be taken away from him.”

We are ruled no longer by poorly educated men with guns, but the Nigerian remains wary of his freedom. To paraphrase Rousseau, freedom is like a lovely meal of pounded yam and edikai-ekong, but very difficult to digest. That the citizen in Nigeria today lives in relative freedom does not mean he knows what to do with it. In fact, one often gets the impression that many Nigerians would rather not be free, scared as they are of freedom’s responsibilities. They grumble and complain about the flagrant inequities and outright robbery that unfold daily in full view, and they shrug and hope for some divine intervention, and fail to act to shape their own destiny.

I have been looking out of the window in hopes of catching sight of this divine intervention, but perhaps my sight is poor. There is no cavalry out there riding to our rescue, ladies and gentlemen. We must face the cold hard fact that the world owes us nothing, and those who are not prepared to function in it will fall farther behind and become slaves to other races of men. It is neither fair nor unfair; it is just the way it is. As the line goes in the Merchant of Venice, “I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano…”

The task before us, then, is not only simply to reform our political system, but fundamentally to learn how to be citizens all over again...

...The Americans have this wonderful preamble to their constitution, a statement of their ambitions as a nation. Its phrasing is elegant and soaring. It rallies the citizens around a common purpose. “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” That’s right, a more perfect union, a recognition that the task of improvement is never concluded, that a society must constantly strive towards the goal of insuring the common good.

Are we the people here gathered, pledged to end the culture of greed and avarice that we have allowed to grow, like cancer, on our nation’s soul?

Are we the people here assembled ready to take charge of our own destiny, set our shoulders against that boulder, and start the hard tasking of rolling it uphill?

We the people, are we pledged to forsake purely personal advantage and hedonism, and seek ye first the common good?

We the people, are we prepared to work tirelessly for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Are we, the people, willing to set ourselves high standards, rather than constantly seeking the lowest common denominator? Are we willing to create the republic of ambition?"

------------------------------------------------------------

The full article is attached below. It touches on everything - the loss of our ancient society premised on honour, the absence of trust, the impact of an illegitimate government, the misuse of religious faith, the erasure of the past and all its lessons, poverty and its destructive characteristics. If you're unable to download the attachment, you can click here.

The Black Rock

Monday, Dec. 05, 1960 - Time Magazine Cover Story

At five minutes before nine the warning bell clanged, and the chattering parliamentarians in the lobby began to file into the House to take their seats. Precisely on the hour, a voice raised the traditional cry "Mistah Speakah," and the legislators froze as a bemedaled attendant solemnly descended the nine red-carpeted steps into the well of the House and laid a golden mace on the table separating the government front benches from those of the opposition. After a prayer calling down God's protection on the nation and Queen Elizabeth II, the Speaker, in his English-accented English, called "Odah, odah," and the debate began. Scarcely had it got into full swing when a proud, ascetic figure strolled slowly toward the government bench and all eyes converged on the ebony face of Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, O.B.E., K.B.E., C.B.E., LL.D., Prime Minister of Nigeria.


Along with its echoes of Britain's Westminster, the legislature over which Sir Abubakar presided last week had some of the flavor of a Pan-African Congress. On its benches tall, haughty Hausas, splendidly robed in green and scarlet, sat amongst volatile Ibos draped in white and azure gowns. Across the aisle were Yoruba tribesmen wrapped in gold, yellow and orange with little porkpie beanies on their heads. Between them, they constituted one of the world's noisiest


Parliaments. Each speaker was greeted with cries of "Heah, heah" from his friends and derisory shouts of "Sit down, you wretched fool" from his foes; from the rostrum came the perennial plea for "Odah, odah!" But somehow, through the din, the nation's problems got discussed and decided.


In the hurly-burly of 1960's African avalanche of freedom, Nigeria's impressive demonstration of democracy's workability in Africa is too often overlooked. Next-to-newest of the 18 nations to win independence this year, Nigeria entered the world community without noisy birthpangs or ominous warnings of its determination to avenge ancient wrongs. Since moderation and common sense are not the stuff that headlines are made of, the world's eyes


slid past Nigeria to focus worriedly on the imperialistic elbowings of Ghana's Nkrumah, on the heedless plunge into Marxism taken by Guinea's Sékou Touré and above all, on the bloody chaos in the Congo.


In the long run, the most important and enduring face of Africa might well prove to be that presented by Nigeria. Where so many of its neighbors have shaken off colonialism only to sink into strongman rule. Nigeria not only preaches but practices the dignity of the individual. And where such other islands of order in Africa as Liberia. Togo and the former French Congo lack the size and power to overbalance thrusting Ghana and Guinea (combined population:


8,665,000), the Federation of Nigeria stands a giant among Lilliputians; last October, when Nigeria's 40 million people got their independence, the free population of Black Africa jumped 50%. Backed by such numbers, Nigeria's sober voice urging the steady, cautious way to prosperity and national greatness seems destined to exert ever-rising influence in emergent Africa.


------------------------------------------------------

The article goes on to discuss the backgrounds of some of the key players at the time – Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe etc. The rest of it can be found here. It is worth reading in full as it provides brilliant insight into the context of our independence and the attitudes and aspirations of the ‘60s.

Do we still have the potential to get to "prosperity and national greatness"? Or is it much too late now? What do we think?

Suffering and Smiling

The music of Fela Anikulapo Kuti is rarely heard on the radio in Nigeria. Everyone is in a possession of a CD or two of his, but to listen to his music, you've got to go out of your way to look for it.

Suffering and Smiling is a documentary about the movement started by Fela, and continued by Femi. Its about the passion of a gifted family for the betterment of a country that refuses to give them access to its radio waves, and is literally falling to pieces around them. On stage, they are alive, fearless and awe-inspiring. Off stage, they are persecuted, at times taken for granted, but nonetheless fiercely dedicated.

In Suffering and Smiling, we see with alarming clarity, how dire the situation in Nigeria is, and just how consuming the depression that stems from the hopelessness of it all, can be. Desperation was the common thread uniting our country’s people. In churches they cried out, screamed and begged God for change. In the Shrine, they got high, drunk and violent, clutching like animals at the fleeting opportunity for an escape from their despair. In the Niger Delta, they spoke with the bitterness of decades of lost livelihoods and unbearable impoverishment.

We knew Fela had a message (many messages in fact). We knew the powers that be had refused to listen to that message, and had ultimately regarded it as contrary to national security. We knew his mother was thrown out of a window, and that he was arrested and tortured repeatedly. What we didn’t know, was the instrumental role played by our current (and hopefully outgoing) President in the relentless vendetta against him. Neither did we know how unreceptive the Nigerians many of us interact with were to the message he intended for their benefit.

When Misan and I started The Afro Beat, Jeremy was very quick to send us an email of encouragement. In his mini eulogy on the greatness of Fela, he touched on something that we had honestly never noticed. For many Nigerians, Fela was, and still is, an embarrassment, a no-go area. It doesn’t matter to them that his music touched and gave hope to the man on the street. And it certainly doesn’t matter to them that his passion for his beliefs was greater than his concerns for his life and his safety. These are the very people that the commentators we've featured on The Afro Beat blog so far, have spoken out against - the passive observers who see Nigeria as a disgrace, a failed experiment not worth salvaging. These are the people who don’t challenge wrongdoing when they see it, but instead focus all their energy on simply getting from A to B. These are the people who are so worn out and despondent, that they turn a blind eye to the extreme poverty and inhumane conditions in which so many of their countrymen are condemned to fester and rot.

The Afro Beat admittedly hasn’t gone very far towards achieving much at the moment. Like everyone else, Misan and I have so much going on in our lives that sometimes it can be incredibly easy to forget to log on to The Afro Beat. Trying to cater to the interests of such a diverse audience, and at the same time stay true to the core of The Afro Beat, has indeed been very difficult. Trying to do this, especially when it has become clear that interest in the project is waning, has been even more difficult.

Motivated by Suffering and Smiling, and its depiction of true dedication in the face of extreme oppression and opposition, we’ve decided to open up The Afro Beat. It is no longer a movement that will require membership of any sort, simply because such a requirement is a barrier to progress. At the same time, obviously we’ve got to be careful about unpatriotic or separatist input over which we would have no control, and which could potentially get us into a lot of trouble. But it’s a risk worth taking if only to spark a few fires in the minds of others like ourselves who want to work out a role for The Afro Beat, its members and this generation in the alleviation of Nigeria’s unending crisis.

-------------------------------------

Suffering and Smiling is showing next on Wednesday 28th March at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, London, as part of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. Click here for more information. The footage shown at the start of this post is an independent video from YouTube and is not part of the Suffering and Smiling film.

"A Rumour that shook the nation" by Reuben Abati

Ok, so with April only a few weeks away, this (extracted) article is ever-so-relevant and raises a couple of issues: Why is Yar'Adua (and more importantly, OBJ) so desperately trying to downplay his health problems? Should the health of a (THE) presidential candidate be a deciding factor on whether he should win the presidency? Why has OBJ made his campaign a "do or die affair"? Reading this article made me wonder why our politicians are allowed to utter such silly (for lack of a better polite word) statements/untruths...is it that they think we're stupid, or because they know we don't have the guts to call them out on their ignorance? I really wonder...

-------

NIGERIA is surely an interesting country. Wednesday, March 7 would go down in history as a very important moment in Nigeria's preparations for the April 2007 elections and for a rather curious reason. It was the day when a rumour, taken off the wings of what seemed like a truthful report in the news media assumed a life of its own, and was soon stretched most imaginatively by the Nigerian public, into something dramatic, nationalistic, and for the moment, demonstrating the power of the spoken word, and also, the people's anxieties about the character of Nigerian politics.

The health of the PDP Presidential candidate, Umar Yar'Adua, the outgoing Governor of Katsina State, Obasanjo's anointed successor, was the issue of the day. The newspapers had reported, on page one, that the gentleman whose health had been a subject of much speculation and analysis had slumped suddenly on Tuesday and had to be rushed into an air ambulance to Germany. There was a kind of death-wish in nearly all the reports, both spoken and written. The Nation newspaper went a step further by asking the question: "If...who steps in?" You can fill in the gaps.

One of the major ironies of the 2007 electoral process has been the decision of the PDP to choose as its Presidential flagbearer, a man with a record of ill-health, problematic kidneys and what Alhaji Muhammad Balarabe is quoted as having described as "some ailments". The PDP leadership, President Obasanjo and Yar'Adua himself have been in a state of denial about Yar'Adua's health but what transpired on Wednesday clearly indicated that his medical state is bound to affect the fortunes of the PDP in the coming elections and if he emerges as President, in spite of the people's fears, Nigeria may end up in a long or short season of doubt and anxiety.

It is important to underline the reactions of Nigerian to the news of Yar'Adua's sudden collapse. Before noon, the country had been littered with all kinds of experts on the nature of the human kidney, instant medical doctors who offered free opinion about how delicate the kidneys are. There were different versions of how the man slumped and how he was rushed out of the country. He sneezed. He inhaled dust. He could not breathe properly. Only Ojo Maduekwe, the Secretary of the PDP insisted that the man had only travelled for a "routine medical check up". But how routine?

By noon, the word started going round: "Yar'Adua is dead".

"You see what Obasanjo has done to Nigeria", a friend declared.

"What has Obasanjo got to do with this? I had said defensively, out of mischief of course.

"Everything", the other fellow said. "He knows that Yar'Adua is not medically fit and yet he wants to impose him as President. This is the third term agenda through the back door."

"How?"

"Can't you see? There is a clause in the Electoral Act which allows government to postpone the elections indefinitely in the event of the death of any of the Presidential candidates."

"But that is not as straightforward as it seems. The 1999 Constitution is superior to the Electoral Act. Under the Constitution, President Obasanjo and other elected representatives have a four-year tenure. That tenure expires on May 29."

"The Constitution can be amended"

"And who will do that?"

"The National Assembly"

"They wouldn't dare. We, the people will resist such a move."

The Yar'Adua incident brought out a part of the Nigerian character: our love of rumour, our imaginativeness, and the malicious character of Nigerian politics. Any attempt to preach that people should be cautious and not kill a man before he really dies was met with the retort that "in this country there is no smoke without fire". When the evening papers hit the streets, they added more fuel to the speculations. Breaking News, published by the Daily Independent, announced that Adamu Muazu and Babangida were already being considered as replacement for Yar'Adua.

Why is Yar'Adua's health so important to Nigerians? I think there was first a feeling of disappointment, a sudden realisation that both the President and Yar'Adua himself might have been lying to Nigerians. When questions were first raised about Yar'Adua's health, the President had played the role of a medical doctor by certifying him fit for the job. "I know all about Umar's ailment" he said "and it has disappeared since 2001. It was a miracle. So those calling him a sick man are the ones who are sick. After all, only God can tell who is sick or not. I wonder how somebody can open his mouth and say that a human being created by God is a sick man." In the light of current revelations, the President has to come up with new explanations. At least we now know that medical doctors can tell when a man is sick and that a sick man is simply a sick man. This is not a matter for politicking.

The second leg of the politics of Yar'Adua's illness is the Obasanjo factor; no one seems to understand why President Obasanjo is so passionate about a man who is widely regarded as medically unfit for the job. Questions: what does Obasanjo want? Why would he insist on giving Nigerians a President with health problems? It is not the people that are playing God, it is the President. He has been the chief campaigner for Yar'Adua's candidacy. He allows him to use the Presidential jet, and he says making Yar'Adua President is a "do or die affair" But when will the President draw the line between friendship/loyalty and the nation's interest? The only saving grace is that the people have a choice in this matter. In the April elections, the Nigerian people have a duty to look at every candidate dispassionately and make an informed choice. Do they want a President who can stand stress or a President whose kidney is a subject of close monitoring by German doctors?

President Obasanjo had tried to save the situation by Wednesday evening. He was at a political rally and he put a call through to Umar Yar'Adua in Germany.

"Umar, how are you? What is your message for Nigerians?"

"I am alive and well. It is a false alarm", Yar'Adua declared.

It was a farcical show. The President may have allayed our fears about the life of the Presidential aspirant, but he again confirmed the people's worst fears: that the PDP Presidential candidate is not the best of health. Is he now campaigning from Germany? The PDP must bring its season of denial about the health of its flagbearer to an end. The obsession with Yar'Adua's ill-health is becoming an irritable distraction. We should be discussing Yar'Adua's ideas about national development. We are not doing that, we are talking about his kidney and skin. We want to know what he and the PDP are planning to do about power supply, education, the health sector and so on, but what are we discussing (?): whether Yar Adua can breathe properly or not. This is not fair.

It is however sad and a comment on the status of healthcare in Nigeria, that the Presidential candidate of the ruling party had to be rushed to Germany before he could be sure of quality medical attention. If our hospitals were better equipped, if all the money voted for the health sector in the past eight years had been well spent, there would be no need for Nigerian leaders to seek help in other countries.

-----
Reuben Abati is Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Guardian Newspaper. Since 1999 he has written two weekly columns in The Guardian and is now one of the most prolific and respected newspaper columnists in Nigeria today.

The full article can be found at The Nigerian Village Square

"What is an Afropolitan?" by Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu

The writer charts the rise of the "Afropolitan" - internationally mobile, young people of African descent, making their mark on the world. In her mind, we are not citizens, but rather "Africans of the world". Having just returned from a spectacular international conference in the Middle East where I met people from countries I barely knew existed, I am refreshingly aware of how crossed and blurred boundaries between geographies and cultures have become today. Where does the young African fit in all this? What is our new Legacy? Are we too busy "defining our identify" that we forget the motherland (i know tonnes of pp hate this term but i think it's appropriate in this context) and the problems that need solving?

An excellent read on what it means to be a new-generation transnational/ transatlantic African, which I'm sure most of us can relate to....ENJOY!!

-------------

It’s moments to midnight on Thursday night at Medicine Bar in London. Zak, boy-genius DJ, is spinning a Fela Kuti remix. The little downstairs dancefloor swells with smiling, sweating men and women fusing hip-hop dance moves with a funky sort of djembe. The women show off enormous afros, tiny t-shirts, gaps in teeth; the men those incredible torsos unique to and common on African coastlines. The whole scene speaks of the Cultural Hybrid: kente cloth worn over low-waisted jeans; ‘African Lady’ over Ludacris bass lines; London meets Lagos meets Durban meets Dakar. Even the DJ is an ethnic fusion: Nigerian and Romanian; fair, fearless leader; bobbing his head as the crowd reacts to a sample of ‘Sweet Mother’.

Were you to ask any of these beautiful, brown-skinned people that basic question – ‘where are you from?’ – you’d get no single answer from a single smiling dancer. This one lives in London but was raised in Toronto and born in Accra; that one works in Lagos but grew up in Houston, Texas. ‘Home’ for this lot is many things: where their parents are from; where they go for vacation; where they went to school; where they see old friends; where they live (or live this year). Like so many African young people working and living in cities around the globe, they belong to no single geography, but feel at home in many.


They (read: we) are Afropolitans – the newest generation of African emigrants, coming soon or collected already at a law firm/chem lab/jazz lounge near you. You’ll know us by our funny blend of London fashion, New York jargon, African ethics, and academic successes. Some of us are ethnic mixes, e.g. Ghanaian and Canadian, Nigerian and Swiss; others merely cultural mutts: American accent, European affect, African ethos. Most of us are multilingual: in addition to English and a Romantic or two, we understand some indigenous tongue and speak a few urban vernaculars. There is at least one place on The African Continent to which we tie our sense of self: be it a nation-state (Ethiopia), a city (Ibadan), or an auntie’s kitchen. Then there’s the G8 city or two (or three) that we know like the backs of our hands, and the various institutions that know us for our famed focus. We are Afropolitans: not citizens, but Africans of the world.

It isn’t hard to trace our genealogy. Starting in the 60’s, the young, gifted and broke left Africa in pursuit of higher education and happiness abroad. A study conducted in 1999 estimated that between 1960 and 1975 around 27,000 highly skilled Africans left the Continent for the West. Between 1975 and 1984, the number shot to 40,000 and then doubled again by 1987, representing about 30% of Africa’s highly skilled manpower. Unsurprisingly, the most popular destinations for these emigrants included Canada, Britain, and the United States; but Cold War politics produced unlikely scholarship opportunities in Eastern Bloc countries like Poland, as well.

Some three decades later this scattered tribe of pharmacists, physicists, physicians (and the odd polygamist) has set up camp around the globe. The caricatures are familiar. The Nigerian physics professor with faux-Coogi sweater; the Kenyan marathonist with long legs and rolled r’s; the heavyset Gambian braiding hair in a house that smells of burnt Kanekalon. Even those unacquainted with synthetic extensions can conjure an image of the African immigrant with only the slightest of pop culture promptings: Eddie Murphy’s ‘Hello, Barbar.’ But somewhere between the 1988 release of Coming to America and the 2001 crowning of a Nigerian Miss World, the general image of young Africans in the West transmorphed from goofy to gorgeous. Leaving off the painful question of cultural condescenscion in that beloved film, one wonders what happened in the years between Prince Akeem and Queen Agbani?

One answer is: adolescence. The Africans that left Africa between 1960 and 1975 had children, and most overseas. Some of us were bred on African shores then shipped to the West for higher education; others born in much colder climates and sent home for cultural re-indoctrination. Either way, we spent the 80’s chasing after accolades, eating fufu at family parties, and listening to adults argue politics. By the turn of the century (the recent one), we were matching our parents in number of degrees, and/or achieving things our ‘people’ in the grand sense only dreamed of. This new demographic – dispersed across Brixton, Bethesda, Boston, Berlin – has come of age in the 21st century, redefining what it means to be African. Where our parents sought safety in traditional professions like doctoring, lawyering, banking, engineering, we are branching into fields like media, politics, music, venture capital, design. Nor are we shy about expressing our African influences (such as they are) in our work. Artists such as Keziah Jones, novelist Chimamanda Achidie – all exemplify what Trace editor, Claude Gruzintsky, calls the ‘21st century African.’

What distinguishes this lot and its like (in the West and at home) is a willingness to complicate Africa – namely, to engage with, critique, and celebrate the parts of Africa that mean most to them. Perhaps what most typifies the Afropolitan consciousness is the refusal to oversimplify; the effort to understand what is ailing in Africa alongside the desire to honor what is wonderful, unique. Rather than essentialising the geographical entity, we seek to comprehend the cultural complexity; to honor the intellectual and spiritual legacy; and to sustain our parents’ cultures.

For us, being African must mean something. The media’s portrayals (war, hunger) won’t do. Neither will the New World trope of bumbling, blue-black doctor. Most of us grew up aware of ‘being from’ a blighted place, of having last names from countries which are linked to lack, corruption. Few of us escaped those nasty ‘booty-scratcher’ epithets, and fewer still that sense of shame when visting paternal villages. Whether we were ashamed of ourselves for not knowing more about our parents’ culture, or ashamed of that culture for not being more ‘advanced’ can be unclear. What is manifest is the extent to which the modern adolescent African is tasked to forge a sense of self from wildly disparate sources. You’d never know it looking at those dapper lawyers in global firms, but most were once supremely self-conscious of being so ‘in between’. Brown-skinned without a bedrock sense of ‘blackness,’ on the one hand; and often teased by African family members for ‘acting white’ on the other – the baby-Afropolitan can get what I call ‘lost in transnation’.

Ultimately, the Afropolitan must form an identity along at least three dimensions: national, racial, cultural – with subtle tensions in between. While our parents can claim one country as home, we must define our relationship to the places we live; how British or American we are (or act) is in part a matter of affect. Often unconsciously, and over time, we choose which bits of a national identity (from passport to pronunciation) we internalize as central to our personalities. So, too, the way we see our race – whether black or biracial or none of the above – is a question of politics, rather than pigment; not all of us claim to be black. Often this relates to the way we were raised, whether proximate to other brown people (e.g. black Americans) or removed.

Then there is that deep abyss of Culture, ill-defined at best. One must decide what comprises ‘African culture’ beyond pepper soup and filial piety. The project can be utterly baffling – whether one lives in an African country or not. But the process is enriching, in that it expands one’s basic perspective on nation and selfhood. If nothing else, the Afropolitan knows that nothing is neatly black or white; that to ‘be’ anything is a matter of being sure of who you are uniquely. To ‘be’ Nigerian is to belong to a passionate nation; to be Yoruba, to be heir to a spiritual depth; to be American, to ascribe to a cultural breadth; to be British, to pass customs quickly. That is, this is what it means for me – and that is the Afropolitan privilege. The acceptance of complexity common to most African cultures is not lost on her prodigals. Without that intrinsically multi-dimensional thinking, we could not make sense of ourselves.

And if it all sounds a little self-congratulatory, a little ‘aren’t-we-the-coolest-damn-people-on-earth?’ – I say: yes it is, necessarily. It is high time the African stood up. There is nothing perfect in this formulation; for all our Adjayes and Achidies, there is a brain drain back home. Most Afropolitans could serve Africa better in Africa than at Medicine Bar on Thursdays. To be fair, a fair number of African professionals are returning; and there is consciousness among the ones who remain, an acute awareness among this brood of too-cool-for-schools that there’s work to be done. There are those among us who wonder to the point of weeping: where next, Africa? When will the scattered tribes return? When will the talent repatriate? What lifestyles await young professionals at home? How to invest in Africa’s future? The prospects can seem grim at times. The answers aren’t forthcoming. But if there was ever a group who could figure it out, it is this one, unafraid of the questions.

This is Dr Alban by the way, remember "It's my Life!"

---------

Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu is a Nigerian-Ghanaian writer based in New York City. This article was written in 2005 for The LIP magazine.

The full article can be found at The LIP website.

Scarecrows and Slave Traders: BIAFRA

From what I've gathered, this video clip is of a group of Biafran Nationalists (MASSOB it seems) staging a very noisy protest, at an event chaired by the Nigerian Information Minister - Frank Nweke, against the arrest of some of its members.

Biola sent us the clip on his very first day as a member of The Afro Beat people! Thank you B-Eazy!! Lol... Sorry if I messed up your stage name :-P

I'd assumed that Biafran-ism died along with the disastrous Civil War. The video clip and the excerpts below, from the Voice of Biafra International (VOBI), addressed to the Women of Biafra in October 2002, suggest that that assumption was rather naive.

--------------------

Women of Biafra we salute you.

... We have been telling you that many of the so called Igbo, Ibibio, Ijaw, Ogoja, Ogoni, Annang, Ishan, Isoko, Tiv politicians, leaders, and traditional rulers are nothing but slave traders who are in the process of selling you and your children into slavery to Hausa/Fulani/Yoruba oligarchs. Some of you may have thought that it was a joke. But this document goes to show that our warning to you, the people of Biafra is not an exaggeration. Please take these warnings very seriously because we have been privileged to get information that you will never lay your hands on....

... We wish to restate once again that your salvation and the salvation of your children and your families are in your hands. Women of Biafra you have work to do. Your so-called leaders whether in Annang, Ibibio, Igbo, Tiv, Ijaw, Isoko, Ishan, Itsekiri, Ogoni or Ogoja are fake deceitful people. They don’t care about you. Once they collect their money, they will hand you over as slaves to the Hausa/Fulani/Yoruba feudalists. If you doubt it answer these questions. When Odi was sacked by Obasanjo and over 1000 people were killed how many of your leaders challenged Obasanjo? When more than 1000 people were roasted alive at Jesse and Abubakar insulted the memory of the dead by calling them criminals, what did your leaders say? When Umuechem was destroyed by Abacha, what did the leaders say? When Choba was attacked what did your leaders say? When Nigerian police and army killed several dozen members of MASSOB what did your leaders say? When Obasanjo ordered the killing of hundreds of people at Zaki Biam and other towns how many leaders opened their mouths? Now that Obasanjo is dismantling Bakassi, the security outfit that has made life livable in Abia and Anambra what have your leaders said? You see, they are really not leaders, they are slave traders....

.... The men must now formulate their own answer to the inhuman treatment we have been suffering at the hands of Hausa/Fulani/Yoruba oligarchs. The time to act is now not next year. May God bless you all and the Republic Of Biafra .

----------------------

How big a threat are these Biafran Nationalists to the continuity of a unified Nigeria? Does anyone even know what their grievance is? Or why they are being arrested and tortured as they claim?

Invisible Classics... In Nollywood? This Millenium?

I shamelessly stole this topic from Jeremy's Blog, but we can pretend he emailed the article to me as his first contribution to The Afro Beat :-)

The excerpts below are from an article by the BFI (which I presume is the British Film Institute? Correct me if I'm wrong J). The article exhalts the impressive and surprisingly long-running history of African cinema, and snubs (rightly I believe, but feel free to argue with me) Nigerian cinema completely.

Question: (its long, so please try not to get lost)

Nigeria is purportedly the base of the 3rd largest film industry in the world. Nollywood is despised by many, and adored by just as many, and its viewers extend beyond the cities of Nigeria to the country's hinterlands, its neighbours in Africa, other countries in the Caribbean, Asia etc. The Afro Beat so far has discussed the problems plaguing Nigeria, the roots of which, appear to lie in the mind-set/mentality/psyche of the Nigerian. Is it possible to argue that this mind-set manifests itself even in something as frivolous as our film industry, in which $$$ (i.e. quantity) seems to be the driver, rather than quality?

Does the new breed of movies like "Amazing Grace" (you know the one... Fred Amata and 3 white guys on the poster?) spell a wind of change for Nollywood? Will special effects and an actual plot or sense of direction become the norm in the future? Or will the majority of film producers continue to ignore the potential diamond-mine at their fingertips in favour of producing the trashy million-naira-making "home videos"?

--------------------

"African Cinema: Invisible Classics" by Mark Cousins
In this mental shadowland [Africa] lies a world of cinema: film-makers as significant as Martin Scorsese, as discrepant as Orson Welles; imagery as mythic as that of Sergei Paradjanov or Nicolas Roeg; life stories with the amplitude of Francis Ford Coppola's. These are films from a continent three times the size of the US, with more than 50 countries, over 1,000 languages, and nearly 300 film-makers in the Francophone territories alone. Many of us know something about Ousmane Sembène or Djibril Diop Mambéty...

Ousmane Sembène started as a bricklayer, became a Citroën factory worker and eventually a novelist... From 1966's La Noire de..., through the hilarious Xala in 1974, Sembène tackled gender. In Camp de Thiaroye (1988) he tracked the tirailleurs senegalais, the black African troops who fought for French colonial armies. Ceddo was ballsy in 1976, but consider its theme now: the arrival of Islam in 19th-century West Africa. Like Euro-Christianity, it brings violence and forces compliance; its advocates are fanatics, blind to cultural freedoms. The film ends with the local Wolof princess shooting an imam....

In Mauritania in 1970 Med Hondo had made Soleil O, the first, greatest, incandescent film about African immigrants. Safi Faye's feature debut, the first film by a black African woman, was the beautiful Letter from My Village (Senegal, 1975).

In the same year Algeria won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina's Chronicle of the Years of Embers, shot on 70mm. Still in 1975, Hailé Gerima's Godardian Harvest: 3,000 Years not only put Ethiopia on the film-making map but, with lines like "Is there anywhere in the world where there are no flies or Europeans?", turned African cinema white hot...

[We must not] leave out Senegalese man of the theatre-turned-director Djibril Diop Mambéty... At the age of 28 he made a caustic road movie, Touki Bouki (1973), Africa's equivalent of Easy Rider or A bout de souffle... Mambéty, like his polar-opposite Dakar visionary Sembène, was calling forth a here-and-nowness for Africa, a cubist, layered modernity, a filiation untouched by revenge but bustling with recovery...

[In the 1980s] Senegal was still a centre but Burkina Faso and Mali came to the fore. Their film-makers asked new questions: not ‘What do we do now that the colonisers have gone?' but ‘What were we like before they arrived?' The Maghreb film-makers of the north and the black African masters Sembène, Mambéty and Hondo were joined by three new directors of world class: Burkina Faso's Gaston Kaboré and Idrissa Ouédraogo, and Mali's Souleymane Cissé....

I watched my first African film, Yeelen, in 1990 and it changed my taste in cinema... I began to see what a feast African cinema in the 1990s was turning out to be. In the Maghreb, Morocco's Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi made the delightful comedy Looking for My Wife's Husband (1994). Tunisia fired out Férid Boughedir's Halfaouine (1990), about a 12-year-old boy negotiating the difference between female and male culture as he becomes a man; Moncef Dhouib's bleak semi-response to Boughedir's film, The Sultan of the City (1992); and Moufida Tlatli's The Silences of the Palace (1994). And from Algeria came Merzak Allouache's Bab El-Oued City (1994). These last five all challenge the reactionary elements of Islam."

-----------------

I counted well over 8 African countries in Cousins' article, with dates of movies stemming from as early as 1970. Nollywood, several decades behind, only began to make waves in the middle to late 1990s. Even so, has it yet challenged anything? Or ever made anyone contemplate anything beyond the realm of black magic, forbidden love, thuggery, or extreme misfortune and subsequent happiness after a dramatic conversion to Christianity?

Is Nollywood even trying to keep up with its remarkable African predecessors we've just learnt about in Cousins' article? Or (as I asked at the beginning) is it all just about raking in the $$$ right here and right now?
What is HE supposed to be? A medieval chief?

"The Politics of Nigerian Corruption" by Alex Last

This article talks about the EFCC and its fight against corruption. I'm sure most of you heard about the Graft List that was released a few weeks ago with the names of about 135 politicians considered too corrupt to be allowed to run in any elections.

Here was our (Lagosians that is) Governor Tinubu's response to his name's appearance on the list: "I don't know when I was investigated.
Nobody has questioned me. It is part of the political calculation of Mr President to fight, and intimidate his political enemies. He wants to create confusion. He does not want the election to hold. How can EFCC indict somebody who was never contacted, formally accused and formally investigated?... EFCC cannot be the investigator, the prosecutor and the court at the same time. It is full-blown dictatorship that we are having in the country...We know the president is putting pressure on INEC to disqualify the VP, the power INEC does not have. The President is after Atiku. EFCC put other people's names just to make the whole thing credible. We know our lives are in danger because of Atiku."

As I heard someone phrase it the other day: If person A is arrested for corruption while similarly-corrupt person B will never get arrested, does that make A any less guilty? Or is the problem here the hypocrisy (too strong a word?) of it all: that a body in charge of eliminating corruption appears to be not so void of "tampering" itself? Pray tell...

--------

Nigeria is ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Daily, low-level corruption is visible on the street; policeman extorting money from motorists to supplement their meagre wages.

But it is in the world of politics and government, where corruption has been most damaging. For decades the government has accrued huge oil revenues, yet the country suffers from a lack of basic infrastructure, and tens of millions live in poverty.
At the same time, some politicians and their business associates have amassed personal fortunes. Although accusations of graft have long been a feature of Nigerian politics, as elections approach early next year, the politics of corruption have taken on a new powerful role.

EFCC

For the past four years, the fight against corruption in Nigeria has been embodied in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) and its Chairman Nuhu Ribadu - a 46-year-old senior police officer.

The agency has had some successes, and Mr Ribadu has been praised both at home and abroad. The EFCC says in the past two years it has recovered more than $5bn and has successfully prosecuted 82 people. It has taken on internet crime and fraudsters. It has gone after a former chief of police, a government minister and an impeached state governor.

But despite highly publicised raids and investigations, when it comes to prosecutions, it is usually the lower level officials, businessmen and fraudsters who end up being convicted. In part that is because some political offices, such as state governors and the president, carry immunity from prosecution. But as election campaigns get under way, President Olusegun Obasanjo has declared that he will use all legal means to stop "criminals and crooks" from taking the reigns of power in Nigeria.

In a recent interview, Mr Ribadu pledged to stop corrupt politicians running for office. "Things are improving marginally now. But if you bring somebody who is a thief, they will feast on this money and take Nigeria to what it was before."

Raid

But the anti-corruption agency is persistently accused of only going after opponents of President Obasanjo, a charge Mr Ribadu denies.

As elections approach, new EFCC investigations and the accusations of political bias, are coming thick and fast. Perhaps in response, the agency recently raided the offices of the new Nigerian corporation, Transcorp, which has close links to the president. But one raid is unlikely to satisfy the critics.

Targets

Privately, supporters of Mr Ribadu say he is going after those he is allowed to, while building up dossiers on others who, for now, are "protected".

...More generally, a lot will depend on the government-appointed electoral commission, which has the responsibility of screening candidates and deciding if they are technically allowed to stand. If they decide to bar any of the big candidates from the race, either at the state or national level, there is the risk it would provoke violence. This would be particularly dangerous in a country, which after decades of military rule, is struggling to keep ethnic and religious divisions in check.

Clean-up

Talking to people on the street in Lagos, many are supportive, and wryly amused by the idea that the top politicians would disqualify themselves by accusing each other of corruption.

People are desperate to see Nigerian politics cleaned up and very few politicians are considered to be clean. Ultimately that is the real dilemma. In a country where corruption is seen as endemic, an anti-corruption campaign used selectively as a political weapon is likely to provoke a bitter fight amongst the political elite.
And that in turn, could impact on Nigeria's pre-election stability.

---------
Alex Last is a BBC News correspondent for Lagos. Lagos

1951

Nothing spectacular, as far as I know, happened in 1951. Margaret Jeffries, a British woman, lived in Nigeria for a year, wrote in her diary and took pictures of some of the things she saw. Her (sometimes genuinely amusing and other times not so amusing) observations shed light on the relationship between coloniser/colonised, the political oppression and aspiration, the racism, the British superiority complex, the Nigerian inferiority complex, the Black man's desire to please, and a host of other things.

Excerpts from her diary
(With random photographs interspersed...)

Large king lizards live in garden and on balcony... When they are angry their colours get brighter... Each has his own territory and chases away intruders. Sometimes they fight, knocking each other with their tails. Some people in Abeokuta had a tame lizard which would come when they called Freddy. But one day Freddy had a fight and got killed and the victorious lizard who usurped his territory is quite untameable.
----------
The men say the barman, Thompson, comes from a cannibal district and they wouldn't like to meet him in the Bush when he was hungry. Cannibalism is still practiced in remote districts.
----------
I also bought a man's embroidered cap. This was a cheap one... It is made of an old sugar bag embroidered in shiny green and orange rayon. Others... bore the words “Tate and Lyle” or “Fine Sugar” revealing their origin. This adds to their value and they fetch a higher price than unstamped ones... It is not only the proletariat who like an English trademark. We met a village headman, whose white robe was draped to display a large blue stamp “20 yards. Made in England”. He probably thought this added more distinction than the beautiful hand embroidery at neck and hem.
----------
Today I achieved a life-long ambition – to go to shop with a little black boy trotting behind to carry my purchases, a la elegant lady of Queen Anne's time.
----------
Lagos cinemas are all open to the sky. In the two-and-sixes you sit up on a balcony on wicker chairs, with an awning overhead. The groundlings in the ninepennies sit on hard forms and have no shelter from the rain. Their reactions were the same as their white counterparts in England. They warned the hero of impending peril and applauded when right triumphed over wrong.
----------
We drove out to Paiye where the District Chief, Dauda Paiye, a tall fine-looking man, received us ceremoniously. Where a European politely removes his hat, an African removes his shoes. We noticed Paiye was wearing embroidered heelless slippers. His servant removed these and he squatted down in front of us and touched the ground with his knuckles. After a few polite remarks had been exchanged he rose up, his servant put on his shoes, and he and his retinue conducted us to see the pond.
----------
The Malete policeman came and looked at my watch, set his own by it and then went to check the watches of his colleague of Elemere and the two chiefs. Having set the official time for two villages, I only hope my watch was right, but it wouldn't matter very much if it wasn't. Time is not of much account here. The opening lines of Walter de la Mare's new poem “Winged Chariot” might almost be an African's question to a European:- “Why this absurd concern with clocks my friend?"
----------
As well as the large pan of rice on her head nearly every woman coming to the mill carried a piccin strapped on her back. These little black babies with their woolly topknots are lovely, though to European eyes their beauty is marred by the barbarous habit of slashing their faces soon after birth in patterns according to the markings of their tribe. The little girl piccins, however tiny, wear jewellery, invariably ear rings, often necklaces and bracelets... On the arm of one small mite I noticed a man's wristwatch on a wide chromium strap. It was not only going, but told the correct time. Unlike their bigger brothers and sisters the babies seemed scared of us. I suppose it is quite natural for a white person to look like a bogey, to a black baby.
----------
I asked what it was and it turned out to be a song in praise of ZIK, Dr Azikiwi, the political leader, head of NCNC (National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons). He is an Ibo, like “the boys”, and a fierce nationalist. He wants a united Nigeria, combining all tribes, and is anti-European. The main opposition to his party comes from the ACTION GROUP of strong Yoruba influence, which is less anti-British and seems to advocate regional autonomy for Hausas, Yorubas, Ibos, and other main tribes.
----------
I can't help thinking that it is better for themselves and for Africa, if all people with a strong unshakeable colour prejudice were to keep out. Gratuitous rudeness on the part of white people, gives the rabid nationalist a legitimate grievance and may make otherwise reasonable types into rabid nationalists themselves, thus driving yet another nail into the coffin of the poor old British Empire.
----------
This was a great [football match] attended by the Governor's Deputy – the G being on leave – and the local Oba, in state. Immediately behind us sat the famous ZIK with wife, a girl friend, to whom he explained at length the finer points of the game all through the match. It was an exciting game. When the whistle went for time the score was even, 2 all. There was a twenty minute extension during which Railway scored the winning goal. Their victory was a well-deserved triumph of brains over brawn. The Plateau team were taller and heavier and looked quite a different type, possibly Pagans. Their supporters among whom we found ourselves, looked a real tough crowd, including mining types. The audience was orderly and good-humoured, though policemen with truncheons were there in force.
Do we think she was someone "important"?


The Photographs in order:
1 - 22 Cameron Road, Ikoyi
2 - Broad Street
3 - Marina
4 - The Creek from Obalende Bridge
5 - Victoria Beach
6 - Margaret Jeffries

"ABC, How Dare You?" by Oluseyi Sonaiya

Several members of The Afro Beat watched this documentary. We flinched at the derogatory comments, and were unsure how to respond or react, and so we did nothing. Unknowingly, we adopted the attitude spoken out against in Tuesday's post by Reuben Abati, who said, "if democracy must serve our purpose, the cynicism of the people must be brought to an end through due recognition of their relevance to the development process." Abati, as you may remember, also went on to ask the question - "Will this result from an evolutionary or a revolutionary intervention?"

Oluseyi Sonaiya lives in New York, and is a member of The Afro Beat. He sent the following letter to ABC's 20/20, the New York Times and a variety of Nigerian and pan-African news organizations.

----------------

In his recent report for ABC's 20/20 (Friday, December 8, 2006), Brian Ross carelessly characterizes the attitudes of Nigerians, suggesting that the advance fee fraud is, I quote, "so widely accepted that there is a hit song celebrating ..." the scam. In his report, Mr. Ross says that the scam "industry" involves thousands of mostly young men - this in a country with a population north of 150 million people - yet he sees it as "so widely accepted."

Particularly bothersome is his description of Lagos as a "corrupt, crime-ridden disgrace of a city." How dare you, Mr. Ross? A disgrace?! In what way is Lagos - which, incidentally, describes a state, in the context in which Mr. Ross uses it - any more corrupt than New York or Washington, D.C.? Like those two it is a highly populated center of industry, attracting newcomers from less industrialized areas of the country seeking gainful employment. Like those two it is overpopulated, taxing resources and infrastructure, meager as they are, beyond their limits. Consequently, like New York and Washington, D.C., there is a fair amount of crime, much of it born of poverty and desperation, though sustained by greed.

The true problems of Nigeria are hardly ever identified in these various "exposés" and "special reports." Instead Nigeria is painted as casually corrupt, as though avarice were a choice willingly made by the majority of Nigerians. The desperate poverty of the majority of the populace, thanks to decades of mismanagement by military dictatorships and veritable plundering by multinational corporations such as Shell Petroleum, who along with competitors Chevron and Mobil have collectively helped to devastate the traditional fishing waters of the Ogoni people in their search for crude oil, means that there is a shortage of opportunity for the bright, hardworking and industrious young people of Nigeria. Those who are not able to secure jobs then do what their kind have always done - they turn to crime.

We are asked to sympathize with gullible Americans who fell for second-grade quality schemes due to their own greed, but in the same breath, we are asked to vilify equally greedy Nigerians?

What is most embarrassing to an ostensible news gathering organization like ABC is that the local economy in Nigeria is tremendously improved. Communications infrastructure, in the form of cost effective GSM cellular telephones, is spreading like wildfire, while the relative stability of eight years of democratic rule and a hopeful forthcoming smooth transition are gradually restoring facilities. Nigeria is making its own way out of poverty through almost entirely internal means, but this doesn't register on the radar of the ABC News organization. Only scandal and disaster matter to them, and they will, at least in the form of Mr. Ross and his team, summarily dismiss the whole on the basis of the part.

That is the real "disgrace."

Oluseyi Sonaiya
Brooklyn, NY

----------

The following is a charge to Nigerians, Africans and black peoples universal by Oluseyi:

"Realize that this is neither a coincidence nor an error. In particular, it is NOT FUNNY. Too many Africans are so Eurocentric that they will laugh at their own being insulted, like the nerd desperate to hang out with the jocks who sees their abuse of himself as "just joking." The insidious attitude expressed in actions and words like these is the inherent inferiority, criminality and unworthiness of the African. The objective is to denigrate us, and by extension to denigrate all those of African descent. Reject it. Fight it. Do NOT tolerate it."

"Fact or Fiction" by Kome Ajegbo

Kome is a student at Stanford University, and she is a member of The Afro Beat. She sent us this link to a This Day newspaper article on Friday - Its really worth having a look at, if you can.

But for the lazy ones amongst us ;-P here is a snippet of MEND's response to the CNN documentary aired last week.

"On Monday January 22, 2007, we were approached by Mr. Jeff Koinange... He requested we stage some scenes for a very important CNN programme which was supposed to air in the first week of February. We stated clearly we would not be disposed to fit into his tight schedule. Our struggle is much more to us than parading before everyone willing to film fighters.... What CNN has presented as the truth to its unsuspecting viewers, is a collection of thugs, pirates and bunkerers put together by Jeff Koinange and CNN to meet up with the deadline given to Mr. Koinange by his editors in CNN. It is far from the truth. The band of criminals paraded by CNN as MEND have nothing to do with MEND... It is astonishing that a network of high repute such as CNN would descend this low in its search for a sensational story. We are reluctant to release our correspondence with Mr. Koinange but will circulate this if our claims are refuted."

We asked Kome to share her response to this turn of events, with The Afro Beat, and she kindly agreed to do so.

----------

Fact or Fiction

Whenever I hear of a crisis, disaster or anything with the title "breaking news", my knee jerk reaction is to tune into CNN or Sky News. Not because I have been told that they are the best, but because I believe that they are the best at what they do. Yes there is a difference between the two - the difference between telling a story first and articulately, versus telling the story a little later without having to make any revisions to it. CNN falls into the first category for me because I like facts as quickly as possible, but I often have to chew through the sometimes-outlandish opinions to decipher my own.

After watching the CNN documentary on the Niger-Delta last week, my reaction on hearing the analysis of the MEND solution, left me feeling rather dejected - not because Nigeria was once again warranting publicity (good or bad... this case is debatable), but because we as a country have left many of our citizens to lead such desperate and pathetic lives.

I didn’t for a second doubt the authenticity of the footage of the MEND militants or of the Niger-Delta region, but as usual I was very critical of the view points expressed.

Two days later, I read an article in This Day Newspapers, expressing disgust and dismay at the false portrayal of the MEND organization by CNN. The allegation that the footage was staged at the request of CNN boggles my mind, and has left me questioning not only CNN, but the indigenous Nigerians who were a part of this folly.

To what lengths will media corporations, or desperate Niger-Deltans go to get their message across? What matters more - the message or the messenger? I wish I had the energy to follow up on CNN and write complaints or demand some form of public apology, but although that's a great idea in principle, what about the real issue at hand?

While we spend time discussing the gravity of CNN's actions, are we to also question Thisday, MEND, the MEND imposters,etc; or are we to put this down in the books as a shameful act, and steer on towards solving a problem so great that it has led to such deception?

Trust in the media is something that I have come to realize is a very dangerous thing. The media should not be there to tell us what to think or, matter of factly, how to think. It is the responsibility of any journalist through its network to relay the facts, and this is where it often gets complicated. Relaying the facts is easy enough, but how one passes along this information is what sets aside NTA from AIT, or Sky from CNN. Sensational News is what keeps the media in business and the $$ rolling in. It is also what keeps us tuned in. So, WHO therefore is to blame when they go too far?

To be clear, there are two important issues that I would like The Afro Beat to discuss...

1. What is the role of the media, both locally and internationally, and where do your loyalties lie?

2. Does it matter that CNN had to fabricate such an encounter to get the message across that the people of the Niger-Delta are suffering, even if it is shining a brighter light on a great injustice?

----------

Thanks Kome!

A New Approach

"A whole neeew wooooorld"
Ekaaro, Bonjour, Kedu, Etcetera Etceteroo... Hope everyone had a good weekend?

To all "silent revolutionaries" out there ;-P we wanted to thank you for participating thus far by accepting the invitation (not everyone we invited did, so thank you sooo much). We also wanted to say that we understand how time-consuming it can be to read long articles, and how daunting it can be to compose a response to be shared with others who seem to know a helluva lot more about a subject than you do.

We're working on a website at the moment which will allow more participation from all members, in terms of project ideas/articles/video clips you want to share, and all sorts of things. We feel The Afro Beat should be a community under the umbrella of which groups of you can get together to pursue one project or the other that you are passionate about. For example, you may be passionate about working with children or with health care or AIDS or alleviating poverty or education. We want you to be able to use The Afro Beat to link up with others with similar passions to yours, who may not even be in your part of the globe, but who will exchange ideas with you and encourage you to push on with your initiatives.

When the website is up, we will be able to provide you with the diversity you've demanded by (a) your silence on the Blog ;-P and (b) your private comments to us. But for now we ask that you pleeeease be patient with us, as working from a Blog has really restricted our plans for The Afro Beat. We have found ourselves having to cope with being nothing more than a talkshop, which was not at all the main aim of The Afro Beat.

To adjust to the fact that for the timebeing we will have to make do with being a talkshop, in its 2nd week (the best time to make changes ey?), The Afro Beat is taking on a slightly different approach. We've come up with what we hope is a more interesting way of diversifying the issues we put up for discussion every day. For the moment we're suggesting covering one of these areas per day of the week:

1 - A member's commentary on an issue (in the news currently, or otherwise)

(This week we're starting with Kome's perspective on MEND's disclaiming of the Koinange Interview. Bravo Kome for stepping up to the plate! Hehe!)

2 - An article (like the ones put up last week) that is either relevant to the 2007 Elections, or is a member's or journalist's reflection on the mistakes of the outgoing regime

3 - A profile on any dynamic individual in the music, literary or revolutionary fields

(Possibilites are Ken Saro Wiwa, Fela Kuti, Omotola Jalade [Did anyone know she was a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador??], Sefi Atta, Okonji-Iweala, Wole Soyinka, even randomers like Majek Fashek [where the *bleep* is HE now?])

4 - A critical event in Nigeria's past and its impact on Nigeria today

(Possible topics at the moment are June 12, The Biafran War [Its different phases - the Igbo coup, the Northern revolt, the war, the aftermath], Independence in 1960, The Slave Trade etc)

5 - Any other thing that comes our way (if it fits in with the general direction of The Afro Beat of course)

Please "Boo" or "Yaay" any of these ideas in the comments section. We really need to hear back from all of you so that we can get the direction of this Blog right (whilst we wait on our website). The Afro Beat will still be the place to come for constructive debate about ways to move Nigeria forward, but we just feel this needs to be done in a less intimidating and more diverse atmosphere. Let us know what you think about this new approach - ABEG leave a comment -------->

P.S. If you know a good/cheapish website designer ---> theafrobeat@gmail.com

"Playing With Fire" by Olusegun Adeniyi

Here is a profile on Asari-Dokubo (the subject of Olusegun Adeniyi's article) published by the BBC in 2004. Does the rationale of Adeniyi apply to MEND as it does to Asari-Dokubo? Are they viewed as being one and the same? And should they be viewed as being one and the same in light of the Koinange (CNN) vs. MEND transcript we published below? What does everyone think?

Many thanks to Nkemka for drawing this article to our attention. In it, a lot of mention is made of the role Obasanjo has played in this crisis, added to which is even more detail about what his role should in fact have been. On another dimension the article eludes elements of sympathy and understanding for the causes of Mujahid Asari Dokubo and other "terrorists" alike. It is unclear whether this sympathy extends to MEND. Is anyone able to offer up more insight into the issues underlying the Niger Delta crisis? What is the best peaceful avenue for tackling this problem? Through the Government? (Federal? Or State?) Or through the oil companies? Are the Niger Delta groups so overrun with corruption in themselves that one should dismiss them as being undeserving of cooperation?

Feel free to send an email to The Afro Beat inbox if you've formed an opinion on this issue that you would like other members of The Afro Beat to assess with you on the Blog and develop. Its very important that as a group we develop a set of cohesive ideas even though we can't avoid differences of opinion.

----------

Playing With Fire

... After my interactions with top guns in our oil and gas industry who operate in the dangerous terrain, I came away with the firm conclusion that the future of Nigeria depends on how we handle the Niger Delta tragedy. But what shocked me more was that oil workers, who are at the receiving end of the activities of the militants, seem to sympathise with the frustrations of Niger Delta youths...

[A top multi-national company] official, like many of his other colleagues, all senior oil men, said the [militants] have a genuine case to sell. "Just look at the Niger Delta and all you see is poverty and criminal neglect and you can check the 2007 budget, the proposed spending from the excess crude account and the miserly amount allocated to development in the zone.

In another contribution, a participant said: "The militants have not stopped taking hostages, in the process some are left dead while others are released on payment of a huge ransom." Coming from a senior official of a multinational company which operates in the region, that is a confirmation that huge sums of money now change hands between the oil companies and these militants before hostages are released and one can now see the real danger in that the more money in the hands of the militants, the more arms they also are able to procure while the vicious cycle continues.

While most of what goes on in the Niger Delta today in the name of militancy is actually criminality masquerading as agitation, government neglect has more or less given legitimacy to the activities of the growing army of mercenaries who live off illegal bunkering and now, kidnapping, for ransom. And it is that neglect which provides a fertile ground for the fire that would come if we are not careful. It is against this background that one considers it unfortunate that the Tuesday stakeholders meeting meant to deliberate on the insecurity of oil workers and vandalisation of oil pipelines failed to hold because President Olusegun Obasanjo could not attend “due to pressing state matters”.

According to the Labour Minister, the president was "unavoidably absent. But he is here with us in spirit. Insecurity in the Niger Delta is insecurity in Nigeria”. Just what does that mean, that the 'spirit' of the president is what we now need to resolve the fundamental problem in Niger Delta?

Reacting to Obasanjo’s absence at the stakeholders meeting, PENGASSAN president, Peter Esele, stated “we are very, very disappointed. This is not what we bargained for. This is not why we are here. When the President finishes with the other pressing state matters, we are here. The issues in the Niger Delta have assumed a political dimension which only the political muscle of the President can handle.” Fortunately, that meeting will hold this morning. Those expected to attend include the Governors of Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa States as well as the Ministers of Energy and Labour. Others are the NNPC Group Managing Director, Chief Executives of the major oil companies in the country, security chiefs and representatives of NUPENG and PENGASSAN.

The timing of the meeting could not be more auspicious for the president in view of the insinuation in town, and many were saying it yesterday in Port Harcourt, that he wants an explosion in the Niger Delta so he could stay on in power; a way of securing from the creeks what the National Assembly refused to offer him in Abuja. While that sort of conspiracy theory sounds far fetched, the recent allegation by Atiku, which has been denied by the military, of a $2 billion arms purchase to suppress people of the region, worsens his case. It does not sound credible but that such disclosure would come from the number two citizen has been unhelpful to put the situation mildly. Now, what we need are practical solutions that would help douse the tension.

As we have continued to argue, the Niger Delta needs massive federal government intervention while political, rather than military, solution is what is needed at this critical period. That, I suppose is the idea behind today's meeting. But if past efforts are any guide, the session would not achieve any meaningful result if the president continued with his hard-line posture. For instance, one of the issues that must be sorted out is the fate of Asari-Dokubo. The federal government must recognise that treason has always been a political charge and very difficult to prove while the continued attempts to perpetually keep the militant leader in detention will resolve nothing...

I do believe that [Asari-Dokubo] can still be tamed if the federal government is ready to listen to the voice of reason that keeping the militant leader in detention causes more harm than good. And that it is better to accommodate him in a negotiation in which he can be useful in ultimately disarming the militants. Of course, this can only happen after the government must have accepted to intervene positively to address the problems of neglect that have for decades been the bane of the region. The question now is: will president Obasanjo seize the moment or will he continue with his posture that will achieve no meaningful result?

Unfortunately, the last time a delegation of Ijaw Elders and Leaders Forum visited him in Abuja to seek Dokubo's release, Obasanjo could not seize the moment to extract some commitments from them while shunning their demand. That respected community leaders from the Niger Delta would go to Aso Rock to seek the release of Asari-Dokubo should have signaled to the president that in the region, the militant leader is not perceived as a criminal but a hero of sort hence their concerns about his travails.

Against the foregoing, today's meeting therefore offers another window of opportunity to come up with fundamental solutions to problems that would just not go away. I also hope it does not become another boring session with our president lecturing everybody on what they must do. But not what he should do.
Yet on this vexatious Niger Delta issue, the buck stops on the president's table.

----------

Olusegun Adeniyi is a columnist for This Day