The Africa You Don't Hear About?

This post was initially an email sent to us from Nnamdi Awa-Kalu (thanks Nnamdi!) but we decided to share it on the Beat because of the interesting issues it raised. Is it OK to promote the general picture of "the suffering Africans" in order to garner sympathy and aid from the West? Are they (we) essentially "pimping" us (ourselves) to the most sympathetic "bidder"? Does it matter as long as some good ($$) comes out of it?

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A friend of mine recently told me about a facebook group that was opposed to
what it's creator termed "development pornography" which refers to the pseudo-voyeuristic tendencies of those in the better-off world to display pictures of "suffering" and afflicted Africans to the world to earn their sympathy. Her argument was that the inundation of the world with these pictures- constantly depicting Africa's poorest and illest in the most visually- unbearable poses- will desensitize an already ignorant West to the problems of that part of the world.

I did not completely agree with Wendy (my friend). And our argument went on to cover several grounds of pet hatred which we young, vibrant students in diaspora (who are relatively free of "suffering") have to contend with day after day. These included the general portrayal of Africa as a single body, which is the single biggest mistake anyone can make seeing as our proud but tired continent is the embodiment of cultural proliferation and multiple ethnic identities. I generally agree that poverty should not be attached as an emblem to Africa nor should the West continue to be fixated on the immediate impact of horror stories but I definitely feel that Africa is not at a stage where it can debate such issues primarily because it is so dependent...on aid which is solicited by means of sympathetic stories. And nothing is so persuasive as "a picture of a shorty armless," as put so poetically by Kanye West in "Diamonds from Sierra Leone". With regards to the issue of Africa frequently referred to as a sum of its parts, we are unfortunate that we have to band together to summon as much bargaining power as most western nations can command individually. Chronic economic and political instability can tend to that. But that is not the subject of my writing.

I was overjoyed to see that two Nigerians had received literary awards in the last week. Chinua Achebe received international recognition with a Man Booker Award for "literary profundity" over the course of his career and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was rewarded with the Orange Prize for fiction for her excellent Biafran examination "Half of a Yellow Sun". And the title of the article by Rosie Millard: " This is the Africa you don't hear about "encapsulates my viewpoint. It is important for Africa to find it's voice and allow it to ring loud and strong. It was once said that poets (and writers in general) are the "unacknowledged legislators of the world" and these literary geniuses, with their continued brilliance could deflect attention from the struggling underbelly of Africa so that there is at least a balanced presentation of Africa and its numerous peoples. They could and should become a reflection of Africa's own artistic gifts which will compare favourably with anything and everything in the West, and take their rightful position as African leaders.

Not that this hasn't been happening, but it is important that it happens with
this kind of regularity. Achebe beat off competition from the likes of Margaret
Atwood whose work is a personal favourite and Chimamanda's work was standout favourite for the Orange prize and will probably go on to win a Booker. For her own part, Adichie intoned that: “On TV you never see Africans involved in helping Africa. It’s always some kind westerner. If I got my information only from American TV, I would think Africans were a bunch of stupid idiots...The Africa that you see on TV here is not the Africa I know. Africans don’t sit down, filled with despair, at least the ones I know don’t. They move on with life. Even in the poorest areas of Africa there are people who are showing initiative. There are other stories to tell.”

And it is our artists and writers, our talented performers in growing entertainment industries that will tell these stories in the right context, with the right sentiments and in a succesful light. Let's toast to more of this sort of coverage.

Caloo

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Thanks again, Nnamdi...look out for a piece on either Chimamanda or some more up-and-coming artists/writers in the near future! Also, for more "positive" portrayals of Africa, check out the award-winning documentary, "Africa Open For Business" which seeks to dispel the myths about business in Africa by showcasing ten entrepreneurs on the continent who tell in their own words their path to success.

SPEAK OUT!!

This BBC News article brought a rarely-discussed issue to mind...why don't African leaders speak out against the misdeeds of their fellow leaders? Why is it that seasoned Presidents like OBJ, Ghana's Kuffour, SA's Mbeki don't have the guts to openly criticize Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, or Sudan's President Bashir, for their crimes against their countrymen? Some argue that because the West is constantly criticizing African leadership, these leaders believe that it's unproductive to go about criticizing each other. Others say they would be "disrespecting their elders". Do you think that this "quiet diplomacy" is imperative for African Unity or will it lead to the gradual collapse of the continent if it persists?

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ZIMBABWE 'COLLAPSE IN SIX MONTHS'

Zimbabwe will collapse within six months, possibly leading to a state of emergency, says a leaked briefing report for aid workers in the country. Rampant inflation will mean shops and services can no longer function and people would resort to barter, it said. "The memorandum is talking about a situation where there is no functioning government or a total breakdown," an unnamed aid worker told the UK Times.

Zimbabwe's inflation is already 3,714% - the highest rate in the world. Some firms were already partly paying their workers in food, rather than money, [the report] said. Shops were doubling their prices twice a month, so they could purchase replacement goods. If this continues, "doubling the current inflation for each of the seven remaining months of 2007 gives 512,000% thus the economic collapse is expected before the end of 2007," said the report, according to the AP news agency.

The security forces who have remained loyal to President Robert Mugabe were also feeling the effects. The report said an ordinary police officer earned less than aid workers paid their domestic staff. It said power and water suppliers were already near collapse. Electricity was last month rationed to just four hours a day to save power for farmers. Just one adult in five is believed to have a regular job. Some 4m Zimbabweans - a third of the population - will need food aid this year, according to the UN World Food Programme.

Mr Mugabe denies responsibility for Zimbabwe's economic problems, blaming a western plot to bring down his government because of his policy of seizing white-owned land.

Remarks of Bill Gates

Just thought we could encourage you in your daily struggles by sharing this powerful and remarkable speech by Bill Gates at Harvard University's commencement yesterday. For the full text, please email us at info@theafrobeat.com and we'll send it to you.

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What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege – and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

But taking a serious look back … I do have one big regret.

I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.

But humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

...[Melinda & I] were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren't being delivered.

If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: "This can't be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving."

...So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: "How could the world let these children die?"

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.

But you and I have both.

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities...If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.

If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.

Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks "How can I help?," then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.

Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have — whether it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.

The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.

Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit.

The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.

You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating millions more children. You have to be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.

But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work – so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.

You can't get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact. And how you do that – is a complex question.

Still, I'm optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever. They are new – they can help us make the most of our caring – and that's why the future can be different from the past.

The defining and ongoing innovations of this age – biotechnology, the computer, the Internet – give us a chance we've never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.

When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.

In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue – a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don't have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.

Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

...You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort. You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer.

Knowing what you know, how could you not?

And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world's deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

And you thought we were done...

One last shameless plug for the plight of Nigerian higher education... Here's part of an email from a Psychology professor at Enugu State University of Science & Tech. I had asked her a while ago what her views were on the constant strikes by lecturers, etc. and here's what she had to say:

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The strike actions are unfortunate because time is wasted, both for students and staff. Yet the lecturers have no other way of getting the attention of the authorities to the plight of academics in the Universities. Things are appalling, my dear. There is so much corruption and students are cashing in on it. Anybody can get away with a University degree now without working for it. The good ones are so frustrated that some throw in the towel and derail. Look at the world ratings of Universities and see that Nigerian Unversities , (the best 3) rank from 5,600 or 6,000! And yet nobody cares.

Grades are sold by lecturers who are underpaid. There are no libraries. Staff have no access to journals. people are promoted to professorial positions without publications. There are often absentee lecturers who sublet their courses to unathaurized and unqualified lecturers! Tell me why shouldn't the Universities be closed. Meanwhile Government functionaries, (including the immediate past President) get to establish private Universities which are not within the reach of most youth.

So there, that's my opinion. The strikes are in order. But the authorities
don't care.

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OBJ said in a recent interview, "there is no basis for the striking lecturers to go on strike in view of the giant stride of the present administration at improving the take home pay of the nation's lecturers." Are these strikes the only way to get the authorities to increase teacher salaries and work conditions? For more information on the recent ASUU strikes, check out this article.

The Afro Beat takes on Nigerian Universities

Following up Kome's comment on the "Who Needs an Education" post last week and given that the state of tertiary education in Nigeria is a topic we're particularly interested in, we thought it would be nice to discuss this further (you can vote on this through your participation in this discussion but we hope you deem it a worthy cause too). In case you weren't convinced by the afore-mentioned post, we thought this Guardian Newspaper article put it in another perspective.

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Nigerian universities and world ranking

THE latest worldwide universities' ranking shows that Nigerian universities have dropped out of reckoning because of the poor quality and scope of research conducted by indigenous academics. No Nigerian university featured on the world best 500 universities list. Indeed from the African continent, only the University of Cape Town, South Africa made the list. More embarrassing was the fact that even among the contending universities in Africa, the best Nigerian university was ranked number 44, trailing behind some universities in Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana.

Last year, five Nigerian universities were among the first 100 universities in Africa. This time, only four...their ascribed positions were embarrassing. While OAU came in a distant 44th position, UI, Nigeria's premier was #65, and Uniben #79. Unilag made an embarrassing 90th position. [No other universities featured.]

This should be bad news to the Nigerian government and educationists. It should also be bad news to Nigerian academics who, under the aegis of ASUU, are currently on strike over working conditions. The verdict of the ranking system speaks for itself. If Nigerian universities cannot feature among the best 500 in the world and are ranked from Position 44 downwards in Africa, then there is something fundamentally deficient in the system. What is the quality of research that goes on in the universities? Are there research opportunities and facilities in the universities? If there are, are these research findings published in reputable journals across the world? Does this not re-echo the call of our nation's eggheads that the universities need resuscitation through a massive injection of funds?

Numerous problems beset Nigerian universities. Inadequate funding, lack of commitment, poor or unavailable infrastructure, epileptic power supply, and paucity of funds to attend international conferences are some of the challenges which the average academic has to contend with. In the universities that are well ranked, funds are routinely available for scholars to attend conferences where their findings and contributions to knowledge are presented and discussed. Also, because of the sound quality of research their essays are accepted and published in international reputable journals.

The Nigerian academic is not so lucky. He is entitled to attend international conferences about once in two years. If he must attend other conferences, he is required to look for funding from other sources.

Universities need to be proactive in the areas of management and resource mobilization. Some Vice Chancellors are so parochial that they simply see the position as a reward for many years of service. They then fail to rise to the challenges of the office. Some Governing Councils also fall into the same trap. Endowment funds and donations from wealthy patrons apart from government subvention are other sources of income for universities. For example, it should be possible for corporate organisations to provide seed money, invested in bonds, securities and real property in form of endowments on behalf of the universities. This was part of the intention behind the Education Tax Fund. Sadly, this has become another bureaucratic waste pipe.

The world ranking of Nigerian universities ought to be a wake-up call to all stakeholders, including the State and Federal Ministries of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the universities.

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So how can we solve the problem? I know this is highly hypothetical, seeing as the first thing that needs to be done is a due diligence on the state of Nigerian tertiary education. But given what we know, what are some practical steps that you would recommend be taken by the administrators of these universities, given that they cannot obtain an increase in funds from the FG anytime soon? We're interested in "little ideas" about how (1) we, (2)the universities, and (3)the government, can most efficiently improve Nigeria's universities.

The Two Sides of Nigeria

Click here for the TIME Photo Story

The Nigerian Proclamation

IN RECENT HISTORY, NIGERIANS HAVE BEEN OVERWHELMINGLY BETRAYED BY THOSE CHARGED WITH ADDRESSING THEIR NEEDS. INSTEAD OF SERVING THE PEOPLE, PUBLIC SERVANTS HAVE SERVED THEMSELVES TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE MASSES. THE RESULT IS A NATION LACKING ADEQUATE INFRASTRUCTURE, ORGANIZATION AND SECURITY.

THE INEFFECTIVENESS OF NIGERIAN LEADERS INDICATES A LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE CONSTITUENTS. NIGERIANS ARE NO LONGER RELEVANT TO THE LEADERS, THUS, LEADERS DO NOT FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO THEM.

THE RECENT FAILURE TO CONDUCT A FREE AND FAIR ELECTORAL PROCESS WAS YET ANOTHER ILLUSTRATION THAT THE NEEDS OF THE MANY ARE SECONDARY TO THE WANTS OF THE IMPORTANT FEW.

FROM THIS DAY, ALL NIGERIANS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FUTURE OF THIS GREAT & POWERFUL COUNTRY. CONSEQUENTLY, ALL NIGERIANS MUST COMMIT THEMSELVES TO THE FOLLOWING:


1. WE MUST DEMAND THAT ELECTED OFFICIALS BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS AND IN-ACTIONS.
2. WE MUST EXPECT DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES TO BE HONORED, RESPECTED AND MAINTAINED.
3. WE MUST BELIEVE THAT ALL NIGERIANS ARE EQUAL UNDER THE LAW AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH.
4. WE MUST APPLY OURSELVES TO IMPROVING THE LOT OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL NIGERIAN REGARDLESS OF GENDER, RELIGION, TRIBE OR SOCIAL STATUS.
5. WE MUST STRIVE TO MAINTAIN A UNITED REPUBLIC DESPITE OUR DIFFERENCES.

ONLY UPON ACHIEVING THESE PRINCIPLES CAN WE AS A PEOPLE FULLY LIVE UP TO OUR POTENTIAL AS A LAND OF GREATNESS. FOR OURS IS A COUNTRY RENOWNED FOR ITS ILLUSTRIOUS PEOPLE, AMPLE RESOURCES AND SHEER PHYSICAL BEAUTY.

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This has been put up as part of Solomonsydelle's movement to show that Nigerian and other interested bloggers are unified in our disappointment with recent and ongoing political events. By using the same document with the same title on May 29th, we hope to attract some attention by making The Nigerian Proclamation 'rise' to attention on Google and various other search engines when anyone uses 'Nigeria' as a search term. Let the world know that Nigeria's people too are far from impressed.

Who needs an education?

Although New York Times article doesn't focus specifically on the Nigerian higher education system, the similarities across African countries in this regard are striking...overpopulated classrooms, decrepit facilities, underpaid staff, jaded students, and so on. We know the scale of the problem but what can we start to do about it? What should we be demanding of our governors in order to revamp state universities? Is the way forward simply pumping $$ into private universities and maybe establishing systems of subsidizing tuition for those who can't afford it? What about soliciting foreign funding? What role can alumni of these universities play? Let's get talking people....

Intro from my African Studies Professor:

Of interest is a report on higher education in Africa...While the comparison with the past is somewhat misplaced (yes, a system designed to enable a very small African elite to reach higher education could allocate more resources per student, but that is not relevant to the current situation) and the critique of the World Bank and IMF is understated (they not only had other priorities but actively sought to reduce allocations to higher education), the overall presentation is informative. The consequences of the deterioration of higher education institutions in most African countries are likely to burden Africa for many years.

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Africa's Storied Colleges, Jammed and Crumbling - Lydia Polgreen

DAKAR, Senegal, May 19 Thiany Dior usually rises before dawn, tiptoeing carefully among thin foam mats laid out on the floor as she leaves the cramped dormitory room she shares with half a dozen other women. It was built for two.

In the vast auditorium at the law school at Cheikh Anta Diop University, she secures a seat two rows from the front, two hours before class. If she sat too far back, she would not hear the professors lecture over the two tinny speakers, and would be more likely to join the 70 percent who fail their first- or second-year exams at the university.

Those who arrive later perch on cinderblocks in the aisles, or strain to hear from the gallery above. By the time class starts, 2,000 young bodies crowd the room in a muffled din of shuffling paper, throat clearing and jostling. Outside, dozens of students, early arrivals for the next class, mill about noisily.

I cannot say really we are all learning, but we are trying,said Ms. Dior. We are too many students.

Africas best universities, the grand institutions that educated a revolutionary generation of nation builders and statesmen, doctors and engineers, writers and intellectuals, are collapsing. It is partly a self-inflicted crisis of mismanagement and neglect, but it is also a result of international development policies that for decades have favored basic education over higher learning even as a population explosion propels more young people than ever toward the already strained institutions.

The decrepitude is forcing the best and brightest from countries across Africa to seek their education and fortunes abroad and depriving dozens of nations of the homegrown expertise that could lift millions out of poverty.

The Commission for Africa, said in a 2005 report that African universities were in a state of crisis and were failing to produce the professionals desperately needed to develop the poorest continent. Far from being a tool of social mobility, the repository of a nation's hopes for the future, Africa's universities have instead become warehouses for a generation of young people for whom society has little use and who can expect to be just as poor as their uneducated parents.

As a result, universities across Africa have become hotbeds of discontent, occupying a dangerous place at the intersection of politics and crime. In Ivory Coast, student union leaders played a large role in stirring up xenophobia that led to civil war. In Nigeria, elite schools have been overrun by violent criminal gangs. Those gangs have hired themselves out to politicians, contributing to the deterioration of the electoral process there.

In the early days, postcolonial Africa had few institutions as venerable and fully developed as its universities. The University of Ibadan in southwest Nigeria, the intellectual home of the Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka, was regarded in 1960 as one of the best universities in the British Commonwealth. Makerere University in Uganda was considered the Harvard of Africa, and it trained a whole generation of postcolonial leaders, including Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.

The disarray of Africas universities did not happen by chance. In the 1960s, universities were seen as the incubator of the vanguard that would drive development in the young nations of newly liberated Africa, and postcolonial governments spent lavishly on campuses, research facilities, scholarships and salaries for academics.

But corruption and mismanagement led to the economic collapses that swept much of Africa in the 1970s, and universities were among the first institutions to suffer. As idealistic postcolonial governments gave way to more cynical and authoritarian ones, universities, with their academic freedoms, democratic tendencies and elitist airs, became a nuisance.

When the World Bank and International Monetary Fund came to bail out African governments with their economic reforms a bitter cocktail that included currency devaluation, opening of markets and privatization higher education was usually low on the list of priorities. Fighting poverty required basic skills and literacy, not doctoral students. In the mid-1980s nearly a fifth of World Banks education spending worldwide went to higher education. A decade later, it had dwindled to just 7 percent.

Meanwhile, welcome money flooded into primary and secondary education. But it set up a time bomb: as more young people got a basic education, more wanted to go to college. In 1984, just half of Senegal's children went to primary school, but 20 years later more than 90 percent do.

And more of those children have gone on to high school: Africa has the world's highest growth rate of high school attendance...

Even those lucky enough to graduate will have difficulty finding a job in their struggling economies. As few as one third of African university graduates find work, according to the Association of African Universities.

Governments and donors in some countries are starting to spend more on higher education...

Fatou Kiné Camara, a law professor, said she felt the frustration of her students as she struggled to teach a class of thousands. When the students cannot hear her over the loudspeaker, they hurl vulgar insults, a taboo in a society that prides itself on decorum and respect for elders.

They are angry, and I cannot blame them, she said. The country has nothing to offer them, and their education is worthless. It doesnt prepare them for anything.

Attempts to reduce the student population by admitting fewer students are seen as political suicide, student unions play a big role in elections, and the countrys leaders are fearful of widespread discontent among the educated youth. Senegal has created new universities in provincial capitals like Saint Louis, but few students want to attend them because they are new and untested, and the government has not forced the issue.

They fear us because we are the young, and the future belongs to us,said Babacar Sohkna, a student union leader. But where is our future? We are just waiting here for poverty.

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New York Times correspondent Lydia Polgreen is the winner of the George Polk Award for foreign reporting.

WALK THE TALK...

The idea to put up this article came in response to Pseudo-Independent's comment about hoping that the incoming administration will enforce the Public Procurement Bill. It's a great initiative in writing but will our incoming government walk the talk that the outgoing OBJ administration has been talking for the last 8 years? Reflecting on the past 8 years, do you think that the OBJ regime has put a lot more effort into lip service than actual implementation, when it comes to corruption and good governance? On the other hand, is that effort well placed in that he has at least set up the platform for the next administration to actually DO more?

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Eurasia Group Note - NIGERIA: Obasanjo's fire sale of state assets continue

Mocking its own previous sermons about corruption and good governance, Nigeria's outgoing regime late on 17 May agreed to sell a majority stake in the country's largest oil refinery, the 200,000 bpd Port Harcourt Refinery, for $561mn to a newly created company controlled by some of the ruling party's largest campaign donors. The sale comes barely a week after the government organized a hasty sale of over 40 oil blocks to similar interests. The new owners of the refinery include a company, Dangote, best known for its flour and sugar operations, another, Zenon Oil, which is a major importer of refined products, and a third, Transcorp, which is essentially insolvent and in which outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo has previously conceded that his family held some equity interests. Nigeria which consumes almost 350,000 barrels of refined product a day is unlikely curb its imports anytime soon. Nigeria's top domestic banks helped to underwrite the deal.

On another note, the sale of the Port Harcourt Refinery to the Dangote-led consortium and the previous sale of Nigeria's state-owned fixed line telephone company NITEL to Transcorp, another entity in which Obasanjo admitted to having owned significant equity, as well as the questionable sale of the country's largest hotel, Abuja Niccon Hilton, to Transcorp both raise questions about the sincerity of the country's
anti-corruption efforts. The fact that all these deals were underwritten by the country's largest banks also calls into question the business and good governance credentials of some of Nigeria's leading financial institutions.

Whether President-elect Umaru Yar'Adua takes action to reverse some of these controversial and opaque financial transactions remains to be seen. But unless he does, it is unlikely that any political settlement between him and his major political opponents, who have been completely cut out of all these deals, can't happen. On the other hand, if the supposedly stern and ethically devout Yar'Adua reverses some of these sales, he will run into political problems not only with Obasanjo, but with the country's top banks, almost all of which are exposed to these deals and could see their bad loan books affected.

All in all, these questionable financial transactions in the final days of the Obasanjo administration are a sign that the introduction of "democracy" into sub-Saharan Africa will not decrease corruption in the short term. Indeed, corruption is likely to increase in the short-term as new political parties on the continent need funds from oligarchs to run victorious campaigns, and fire sales of state-owned assets to major campaign donors is likely the only rational consequence, since
most ordinary voters on the continent are too poor to contribute to political parties.

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Eurasia Group is the world's leading global political risk advisory and consulting firm. They cover political, social, security and economic developments worldwide and their impact on business and financial markets on a daily basis.

What about Lagos??

This article lauds the long-overdue commencement of the Abuja Light Railway project. The writer is of the opinion that because the Lagos public transportation system is such a disaster, we need to prevent Abuja from becoming another Lagos, hence the light railway.

Ok, we're not tryin to spark any Lagos-Abuja tension here, but this article hit a nerve...WHY IS THERE A MORE URGENT NEED (IN THE EYES OF OUR GOVERNMENT) FOR A LIGHT RAILWAY IN ABUJA THAN IN LAGOS? Even if we accept the grossly inaccurate census results, Lagos' population is by far greater than that of the FCT, and so does a light railway (if indeed that's where $841 million of our reserves should be going at this time) make more sense in Abuja than anywhere else (even Lagos!)? Thoughts pls?

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THE ABUJA LIGHT RAILWAY - This Day Online

Last week, President Olusegun Obasanjo laid the foundation of the light railway system in Abuja. If properly and promptly executed, the project will provide the nation's capital the much needed back-up to road transportation.
Coming three decades after the founding of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the project is long over due. Over that period Abuja's population, both human and vehicular, has out-grown projections. This has brought strains on the available infrastructure, which has in turn resulted in adverse environmental conditions associated with over-crowding. The situation would have been even worse but for the drastic measures embarked upon by this government to redress the abuses inflicted on the Abuja Master Plan.

Initiating the light rail project to ease the movement of people and goods in the federal capital, though late, is commendable. The comment by the FCT Minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, on the occasion puts succinctly the rationale for the scheme. His words: "The importance of this ceremony is better captured when we realise that the chaotic transportation system in Lagos was one of the reasons for the re-location of the seat of government from Lagos to Abuja by the visionary leadership of the Murtala/Obasanjo regime of 1976. In accordance with the Abuja Master Plan and globally accepted norms, cities with a population of over 1.5 million people should have integrated public transportation system of which the railway is a major component."

The minister's reference to Lagos should serve as a booster to the determination of government, the contractors, financiers and indeed Abuja residents to accord the plan the prime attention it deserves. Today, despite the shifting of government machinery from Lagos, the city remains a victim of over-population- occasioned largely by the search for the proverbial greener pasture- and a perennial traffic disorder. In that atmosphere, productivity is hampered and the value of life is diminished. Only bold steps like constructing the rail can steer the present capital away from the path of becoming another Lagos.

With a projected capital of $841 million and completion date of four years, the Abuja light rail system will not only enjoy adequate funding, but will also hopefully be accorded priority by the in-coming administration. Its scope is impressive, having been designed to cover strategic locations like Garki Area 10, Central Area, Wuse Neighbourhood Centre, Jabi, Life Camp, Karmo, Gwagwa, Kubwa, National Stadium, Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport among others. Given the huge volume of commuters and vehicles that emanates from these areas, access to the proposed railway would reduce pressure on the roads appreciably and impact positively on the city's well-being and aesthetics. Ultimately, the entire country and its people stand to gain from a decent and orderly federal capital.

The administration of Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua should, therefore, ensure that the terms of the contract are honoured and well guided to achieve the desired result.

HIV/AIDS and the African female - Godswill Odeku

This article from Today's Guardian Newspaper and talks about the HIV/AIDS plight of the African female (apparently, we're an endangered species). Do you think he's overstating the effects on the African female (for example, is the stigma of AIDS greater for women)? Should more be spent on HIV/AIDS programmes specifically for women? How should our government go about prioritizing funding for HIV/AIDS amidst other problems like education, public health, the Niger Delta, etc? Thoughts please...

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WITH increasing and intense efforts at contemplating and executing interventions the world over with regards to checkmating the spread of HIV/AIDS and other pandemics such as tuberculosis, malaria, diabetes, and so on and so forth, it is becoming increasingly obvious that there exists a special group that could appropriately be referred to as an endangered species. This unique group is spread out across the African continent. You find them in all the countries that constitute the continent. They are the feminine gender represented here as the African female.

A survey of the African continent gives one a gory depiction of the tragedy the African female is subjected to by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Liberia, Sierra Leone, Darfur region in Sudan, Somalia, Congo, South Africa, Kenya and other Southern African countries are flashpoints as per the harrowing effects of this pandemic. Statistics reveal the no-win situation in which the feminine gender finds itself. Sero-prevalence rates in various countries indicate that women are more affected by HIV/AIDS.

The African female by virtue of her socio-economic situation finds herself more prone to be infected than the male. She is bothered for sex at the point of seeking employment. There is workplace sexual harassment. As a student, sex is demanded of her in the school for her to get her scores. Even in a normal heterosexual relationship, she is required to give vent to her professed love by mutual self-giving, which almost always translates into physical sexual acts. Socio-cultural practices such as female circumcision, tattooing, early marriages, and so on and so forth, expose her to infection. The above and the fact of the female genitalia being more or else a receptacle, and thus vulnerable, increases her chances of infection, including HIV/AIDS.

Infected females are hardly able to access care and support facilities and opportunities due to stigmatisation and other hiccups placed by society. On the other hand, antiretrovirals are costly and hoarded even when they are provided and subsidised by governments, international development agencies, NGOs, and so on and so forth. Illiteracy, poverty, political insensitivity, and sundry other factors coalesce to give away the African female with regards to HIV/AIDS.

Were we as a people to demonstrate some conscientiousness towards the checkmating of this pandemic, especially as it affects the women of Africa, there would be an orchestrated response in terms of providing funds for interventions, awareness creation and sensitisation, accessible care and support programmes, strategic capacity building initiatives for organisations working in this area, de-stigmatisation campaigns, enlightenment of both government officials, care-givers, NGOs and the general public. Added to this would be specialised funding for research work on unravelling a cure for this voracious pandemic.

The urgency of these conscientious interventions cannot be overflogged, as the tragedy engendered by this pandemic is critically obvious. The continent is awash with the diverse ramifications of its horrendous effects and it would imply hypocritical denial and criminal neglect of facts not to admit its reality and need for an urgent response. The response needs not be sporadic or unilateral...Corporate bodies, governments, development partners and private individuals all have a role to play to save the African female nay girl child from imminent annihilation courtesy of HIVAIDS.


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Odeku is Executive Director of Development Platform for Africa, a Port Harcourt-based non-governmental organisation working on HIV/AIDs interventions.

The Afro Beat Remembers... M.K.O.

"M.K.O. na him we want o!" A number of people have suggested MKO now, and even though we were reticent (for what we thought to be obvious reasons) to give in to their requests, we have decided to let the rest of The Afro Beat decide whether he is worth remembering and what he should be remembered for.

From Wikipedia...

Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola was a Yoruba businessman, publisher and politician, though he was an accountant by training. His early career was with ITT (ironic when you consider the Fela song), whereby he later rose to the position of vice-president, Africa and Middle-east.

In the presidential elections of June 12, 1993, Abiola was the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (his running mate was Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe) and overwhelmingly defeated his northern (Hausa) rival, Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention. However, the election was annulled by Ibrahim Babangida, and subsequent events led to General Sani Abacha seizing power later that year.

MKO is believed by many to have won Nigeria's freest and fairest (presidential) election ever held - June 12, 1993.

Abiola died in captivity of a heart attack on July 7, 1998. Some of his supporters claim that his death – immediately following that of his captor, Sani Abacha – was masterminded by western powers through the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) to level the political playing field in Nigeria.

Moshood Kashimawo Abiola is an icon of democracy in Nigeria. He was the first Southerner to cross the political bridge by aligning otherwise opposing political forces from the North and South to form a political coalition in 1993's election. Many Southerners had earlier attempted this but without much success.

From journalist, Reuben Abati...

The annulment of the Presidential election of June 12, 1993, which Abiola had won to all intents and purposes transfigured him into a national icon for the expression of grievances and rebellion against the excesses of the military elite, and even more importantly, the limitations and disconnections at the heart of the Nigerian state. M.K.O. Abiola became at that moment, the hero of the masses.
It was a task in retrospect, for which he was hardly prepared, but he found in the task a challenge which he willingly embraced. If Abiola had wished, he could have abandoned the struggle, but he had become hostage to the popular will, to the very mandate which he insisted upon and he found himself on a lonely road where every indicator pointed in only one direction. Herein lay the substance of his heroism: His resolve that is, to turn himself into a sacrificial lamb, and thereby atone for whatever may have been his own personal excesses.


From journalist, Seyi Oduyela...

I think the earlier we separate the person of Bashorun Abiola from the real issue of June 12 the better for us. June 12, to me is greater than any individual. It does not represent Bashorun Abiola, no it does not. It was a day Nigerians said SABENA- Such A Bitter Experience Never Again. But unfortunately, we have not come over it because we still mix sentiment with the truth.

(Please Note: the information presented in this section included unconfirmed allegations widely believed to be true among some Nigerians in journalism (Mr Oduyela included)...however, The Afro Beat does not claim these to be grounded in facts.

•In 1978 he was at the Constituent Assembly where he walked out because the likes of Baba Awolowo and others refused to include Sharia in the Nigerian constitution at the Federal level. It is on record that he did not sign the constitution of 1979 because of this.

•Unconfirmed reports speculate that MKO ALLEGEDLY financed and supported the coup that toppled President Shehu Shagari in 1983, as well as the bloody coup that brought Yoweri Museveni to power in Uganda.

•He became more visible during Ibrahim Babangida's 8 years of misrule. He was seen to be an astute defender of Babangida's policies until after the annulment of June 12, 1993 elections.


MKO's Legacy

In our opinion, the pivotal contribution MKO made to Nigeria was not only through his political career, but through the people he left behind.

Several of his wives and daughters are still on the scene, perpetuating his legacy through laudable humanitarian organisations.

His wife, Kudirat Abiola, was murdered during a demonstration for the release of her husband in 1996.

In her honour, his daughter Hafsat Abiola founded the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND) and became a democracy activist. KIND sponsors leadership programmes for young women leaders that it hopes will be the new generation of pro-democracy and people-centred development in Nigeria.

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M.K.O. Abiola lives in the hearts of millions of Nigerian men and women for various reasons, and today, The Afro Beat Remembers his legacy...and lets YOU DECIDE.

RESPONSI-KINI?

Below are excerpts from an allAfrica.com article this week. One wonders what process of consultation with the Nigerian populace took place before these decisions were made on our behalf. For those who don't know, the Federal Executive Council is made up of the President and his Ministers. They initiate policies and programs of the FG, but how do the Ministers "figure out" what the people want/need? And though it's all gravy at the Fed level, once the $$ is in the hands of the governors, they have full control over what to spend it on, and are accountable to noone. The Fiscal Responsibility Bill would make state and local governments more accountable to the FG and ultimately to their constituencies. But it's been vetoed by the governors on the grounds that it is unconstitutional since it tampers with the states' independence.

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Barely 21 days to the end of the lifespan of this administration, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) yesterday gave provisional approval for eight additional private universities, thus bringing the total number of private and public universities in the country to eighty nine.

It also approved N21.4 billion for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to improve its capacity building within a three-year period beginning from next year that would ensure more focus on economic diplomacy, better communication linkage with all foreign offices, relocation of the foreign Ministry to its permanent site and improvement of office accommodation infrastructure in Nigeria's foreign offices.

The Minister of Education who said the country needed more universities to take care of the critical mass of people who require such education, gave the names of the universities as Ogbong University, Akwa Ibom State; Caleb University, Ikosi, Lagos State; Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State; Tansian University, Umunya, Anambra State; Veritas University in the Federal Capital Territory, Wesley University of Science and Technology, Ondo State and Western University, Oghara, Delta State.

The FEC meeting that took place yesterday also approved N778.9 million contract for the supply and installation of hydrogene plant at the Egbin Power Plant in Lagos State and another N2.3 billion for the provision of inclusive education for the physically challenged and gifted children in primary and secondary schools in the country for which 5,000 teachers have been targeted and three schools at the primary, junior secondary and senior secondary levels have been selected in each State of the federation for the take-off of the programme.
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The following is taken from a research paper a friend is currently working on, (not yet available for distribution but once it is, we'll send it to you upon request).

Almost half of consolidated government spending in Nigeria, however, is carried out by sub-national governments, and accountability mechanisms at a state level are virtually non-existent. This represents the single biggest deficiency in the Nigerian value chain—huge percentages of the country’s resource revenue are transferred in lump sums to officials who spend them at will. State governors create budgets with no public or legislative oversight, and state officials spend with almost no restraints on their behavior, follow ad-hoc or nonexistent procurement regulations, and rarely report on their activities.

As the World Bank’s Lev Freinkman puts it, “The state budget process is usually a theoretical exercise.” The budget-making process is usually seen as an almost purely discretionary act by the governor. Virtually all of Nigeria’s states have legislatures controlled by the same party as the governor, who usually doubles as party chair. As such, the legislative approval process rarely represents anything more than a rubber stamp. States almost never make proposed or approved budgets publicly available, and public comment during formulation is rare. Recent federal government efforts to promote greater accountability in state-level expenditure appear unlikely to move forward, stalled by constitutional arguments that they violate Nigeria’s federal system.
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Since we cannot overhaul the process by which the FEC makes its decisions, how can we make sure our governors are spending these funds on what they are meant to? and who gets to decide what projects the $$ should go to? Should the National Assembly ammend the constitution to accomodate the Fiscal Responsibility Bill? Thoughts please...

Will Africa ever get it right? - The Economist

In the words of a fellow 'Fro, "they have shamed us o!"

The article below is from this week's edition of The Economist, and is a sort of chastisement of the African continent, using Nigeria as the scape goat. Fine, our elections were anything but "free and fair", but what do you think about this article? Is it too harsh... afterall, "democracy is a process," abi? Or is it right on the mark? And does it have the potential to 'shame' us or our leaders into action?

April 26th 2007

Nigeria's latest shameful and rigged election does not mean that all of Africa is hopeless

IF NIGERIA, Africa's most populous country, is anything to go by, the sub-Saharan continent of some 800m people may be doomed to spend another generation or so in misery. Nigeria's recent bout of elections has been a fiasco (see article).

The country is rich in resources—the United States may soon be getting a tenth of its oil from it—but most of its 140m-odd people languish in poverty. And yet their rotten leaders presume they have some kind of right, by virtue of their country's size and natural wealth, to strut the global stage as leaders of the continent. How wrong they are. Nigeria's new president, Umaru Yar'Adua, is tainted from the start. The elections at all levels should be held again—but of course they won't be. Any notion that Nigeria should be taken seriously as a continental spokesman, let alone a model, should be laughed out of court. But is Nigeria typical of Africa? And does its dismal performance as a would-be democracy cast a blight across the rest of Africa? The answer to both questions is no. Nigeria is not Africa. Over the past decade or so, the rest of the continent has on the whole been taking modest, belated but encouraging steps towards greater prosperity, security and democracy.

To be sure, there is a very long way to go. The African backdrop is still fairly bleak. Many features of this latest Nigerian farce, namely corruption and mismanagement, still scar many other parts of Africa. The post-colonial continent has hitherto been a colossal flop. The killer comparison is with Asia, where many countries suffered from the same colonial humiliations and rapacity that independent Africa customarily blamed for its early failings. According to the World Bank, real income per head in the 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa between 1960 and 2005 rose on average by 25%, while it leapt 34 times faster in East Asia; countries like South Korea and Malaysia were once as poor as Ghana and Kenya. The excuse of colonialism wore out at least a generation ago—and Africans know it.

But many lessons have been learnt, even—believe it or not—in Nigeria, where the macroeconomic picture is actually not too bad. In politics, the once-predominant belief in a one-party system has faded, if not fizzled completely. Multi-party elections, though often very messy, have become far commoner.

This month the IMF's latest figures give further cause for hope. For the third year in a row, sub-Saharan African countries grew on average by around 6% and may soon hit the 7% mark predicated by the UN in its call to halve Africa's poverty rate by 2015. True, this comes on the back of high oil and other commodity prices. But non-oil African countries are recording similar rates of growth. Such figures are modest by Asian standards. But they are going the right way—and quite fast.

An abiding failure of Africa is the reluctance of relatively decent leaders to club together to shame the really bad ones out of office. Zimbabwe's case is the most egregious, disgracing the countries nearby, especially South Africa, whose leaders hide behind a misguided sense of past comradeship and racial solidarity. In Nigeria's case, the African Union should waste no time in denouncing the election as fraudulent—and freezing Nigeria's incoming government out of Africa's leading councils. Alas, that is unlikely to happen. Nigeria may seem too big, its peacekeepers too badly needed, for the rest of Africa to cold-shoulder it. How can the outside world help Africa? There is no easy answer. Western countries, vital donors of aid, should make it clear they will give more help to countries whose governments are relatively clean and efficient—and hold fair elections. The latest aid-givers' consensus is to identify “good” countries, still quite a small bunch, and let them spend the cash as they see fit. Yet time and again, good guys—most recently, Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni—slip back into old despotic ways, putting aid-givers into a quandary. By punishing governments, are they not hurting the innocent poor? In the end, Africa must help itself, just as Asia has. Then the outsiders will pile in, with investment that is better than aid at creating wealth. Even into Nigeria.

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Click on 'comments' below if you'd like to say something, anything!

Introducing "The Afro Beat Remembers..."

It is our opinion that one of the many reasons why Nigerians aren't as civic minded, or for lack of a better word -can't be bothered to stand up and fight for their rights- is that our heroes (those who have had the courage to stand up against/call out injustice and wrongdoing in the public sphere, and who most times lose their lives in the struggle (Kudirat Abiola, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Alfred Rewane, to name a few)) are all too quickly forgotten...Nigerians forget too easily, or maybe we just don't remember publicly (besides the casual naming of a road here and there).

Whatever the case, this is our way of making sure WE don't forget...

An older friend suggested recently that one way of combating Nigerians' chronic short-term memory is to take out an ad in the newspaper or on the radio, and celebrate a local/national/personal hero every so often. "Let others know what they did for Nigeria and why they should be remembered...teach the new generation." Well, seeing as we don't have the financial resources/access to do that right now, we'll start the easy way...on THE AFRO BEAT. We'll call it "The Afro Beat Remembers..."

Once a week (if we can keep our act together), we'll put the spotlight on a Nigerian who deserves recognition/"remembrance" for something progressive that they've done for Nigeria. Dead or Alive, we'll remember.

Please send us any names you might have, and better still, an article, or a few words about what this person has done. This will be a forum to appreciate/recognize their achievements (specifically those relevant to Nigeria's (or their community's) progress. In any case, let's celebrate our heroes people!

P.S, It could be your mama/papa/friend's mama/baby's mama :)/a social entrepreneur you've heard is doing amazing things, whoever ...let's just celebrate the positive that's going on in the midst of the confusion and harsh reality in the country.

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.

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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!