Showing posts with label Obi Nwakanma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obi Nwakanma. Show all posts

Monday, February 26, 2024

Silence In The East

 By Obi Nwakanma

A terrible time has fallen on Nigeria. There is no hiding it. Hunger is not just rampant; it is now an epidemic. There is a food crisis, and it is inevitably leading towards massive national food riots. However, a few weeks ago, a minister in the current government said that there was no scarcity of food in Nigeria. 

Well, I’m not quite certain about this minister, since most of Tinubu’s cabinet is made up of second rate, mediocre, provincial types – but elementary economics theory of scarcity connects with a price theory which is determined by the dynamics of supply and demand. Equilibrium occurs when the rise in supply meets the rise in demand. But disequilibrium happens too. This, when the demand for the resource outstrips the supply, and it leads both to exclusion, and to scarcity.

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

The Terror Of Being Nigerian

 By Obi Nwakanma

Last year my son made plans to buy a ticket and fly down on his own to Nigeria, and spend the summer with his uncle in Abuja and in the village, East of Nigeria. He was twenty, young, and raring to go. He wanted to explore Nigeria on his own.

It was I that stopped him from traveling to Nigeria, much to his chagrin. I had to beg him to stop. News coming out of Nigeria scared the bejesus out of me. Still does. Kidnappings. Assassinations. Disappearances. The sheer terror of being Nigerian today is so overwhelming that just thinking about it gives one a headache. My son, needless to say, was very disappointed.

Monday, November 20, 2023

One For Zik….

 By Obi Nwakanma

Today, let us celebrate worthy men. This past Thursday, November 16, was the birthday of a giant of history; a man whom the colorful Ozuomba Mbadiwe could have called “a Caterpillar,” who showed the light, so that Africans may see the way. Incidentally, that was the motto of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s newspaper, the West African Pilot: “Show the Light, and the People will find their way.

*Zik

It was the message at the core of his anti-colonial nationalist organizing. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe – “Zik of Africa,” as he was very fondly called – was the leader of the African anti-colonial Nationalist Movement, from 1937 to 1957, culminating in decolonization, with the independence of Ghana, that year, and home rule for the regions in Nigeria also that year, and full national independence subsequently in 1960. 

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Nigeria: The Lost Hope!

 By Obi Nwakanma

In the last three weeks, I have suffered from a very devastating writer’s block. I could not move my mind. It felt stiff and unyielding – unwilling to grasp, or grapple with any kind of ideas, relating particularly to Nigeria. I have felt completely drained; as though there was no more gas left in my tank. I have felt like there is nothing left to be said about Nigeria.

We have imagined the impossible. We have become the impossible. I just felt cynical. In these last few months, I have also thought long and hard about fully and completely giving up my Nigerian citizenship. I mean, what is left of this country, really? What is Nigeria to me? I have asked these questions, rolled it in my mind; weighed it. And I very nearly made the move of officially renouncing any more affiliations with Nigeria, and thereafter, stay quiet, and stop worrying about this very tragic and demonic country.

Monday, October 16, 2023

The British Broadcasting Confusion (BBC)

 By Obi Nwakanma

I still do remember growing up, my father waking, and shaving with the BBC. Against a background of the bleep-bleep-bleep signal of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s World Service, he would do his private chores, and prepare for work. The BBC Foreign Service having fortified his appetite for “real news,” he would then switch to the Local Radio for Morning News.

This was unwavering ritual. For that generation, there was some naïve sense that the BBC carried real news and was committed to pietist truth. I did too for many years. Until I began to see the underbelly of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The small chinks in its armour which became in large part, wide cracks that left me both puzzled and annoyed. 

Monday, September 18, 2023

Nigeria: A Tribunal From Hell

 By Obi Nwakanma

I watched with extreme difficulty, and not insubstantial pain, the interview in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in which the poet, playwright and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, very painfully, tried to subvert the truth about the Nigerian election, by claiming that the Labour Party “came third” and knew that they “did not win the election.” That the Labour Party had become a regional movement. That Peter Obi and the party leaders were trying to push young people into the streets to protest. 

Here, let us reproduce Soyinka in full: “One party took over the Labour Movement and then it became a regional party…my own organization has a monitoring unit, and so I could say categorically that Peter Obi’s Party came third, not even second! And that the leadership knew it. But they wanted to do what we call in Yoruba, ‘Gba Jue!’

Monday, August 14, 2023

Asari Dokubo’s Army

 By Obi Nwakanma

The five governors of the South East of Nigeria met in Enugu last week to deliberate on the security situation of the region. The impact of the now infamous “Sit-at-Home” forced on the South East has taken its toll, and the chickens have come home to roost. The economic and social life of the South East has taken such a hit and has been damaged almost irretrievably. 

*Dokubo

Against the background of the South East governors meeting are videos emerging of Asari Dokubo’s claims and counter claims, in interviews granted to television stations, the recent being with Channel TV’s Seun Okinbaloye, in which he plainly accepted that he owned and ran a private Army which had been contracted by the Federal Government to engage in Black Ops for the government. 

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Goodbye, Nigeria?

 By Obi Nwakanma

The Federal Republic of Nigeria is now, to all intents and purpose, like a patient etherized on life support in hospice care. It is suffering multiple organ failure. There is just very little hope of a rebound. Anytime soon, it is bound to code. The hawks are circling. The grave diggers are ready. The obituary writers in the world’s great Metropolitan Centers are waiting in the wings. A great elephant is finally about to take its last breath. The thing is, there are no winners in this outcome. Even the separatists will soon discover that this country which we have all managed to kick in the groin was “the black man’s last hope.” 

With the death of Nigeria, much of Africa will be rendered orphans. A light will leave the eyes of this continent. Nigeria, until it began to thaw, held West Africa in its firm grips. Analysts have predicted that the death of Nigeria as a sovereign state (even so, it is that only in name currently) will throw sub-Saharan Africa into 100-year turmoil, and unleash a demographic movement that might disrupt the social fabric of the continent. 

Sunday, April 30, 2023

You Cannot Swear-In A President Twice

 By Obi Nwakanma

“If you do not know where to put your hand, rest it on the knee” – Igbo proverb.

The inauguration of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria into office is a pretty serious constitutional event. It transfers power definitively to an individual who is then expected to embody the moral, philosophical, visionary, and constitutional ideals of the nation, and direct the executive function of state. The Constitution establishes the power of Nigeria in three institutions of state: the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and the President. The National Assembly makes the laws.

The Supreme Court interprets those laws, including the permanent laws established by the Constitution. The President, as the Head of the executive branch of the three arms, executes the laws. These three powers together make up the Federal Government. They operate separately, and each is granted the power to oversee the other in order to create a balance of power, and prevent the misuse of authority. For instance, the National Assembly, which is actually the most powerful institution of state in a democratic republic, controls the Treasury of Nigeria, by law. Not the President.

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Nigeria: The Righetousness Of Dissent

 By Obi Nwakanma

“No one tells the deaf that there is a stampede in the market” – Igbo proverb
On May 29, a handover ceremony should take place, with a parade at the Eagles Square, to inaugurate a new, elected President of Nigeria. That date would end the eight disastrous years of Mr. Muhammadu Buhari as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I do emphasize the word “disastrous.” Buhari is a very tragic figure of Nigerian history.

History beckoned twice to him to govern. First as a military Head of State. Second as a Civilian President of Nigeria. In both instances, he was a failure. In the unfolding annals of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari will be recorded as the worst leader ever to rise to leadership, at least so far. Whatever else happens, he would be recorded among the worst plagues to befall Nigeria. Should Nigeria manage to survive and hang together as a nation, the story would be told of a Muhammadu Buhari who was offered the opportunity for greatness but squandered it over pettiness, ignorance, provincialism, and the corruption of the institution of state.

Monday, April 10, 2023

Peter Obi And Treason

 By Obi Nwakanma

Political developments of last week have left many a Nigerian askance, wondering about what might be the endgame for this regime. The current party in government, the APC, is pushing its current agenda of “state capture” with the kind of brazenness and open defiance of public will, never recorded before in Nigeria; not even during military dictatorship. 

*Peter Obi

It would seem to most history-minded people that this generation of Nigerian politicians and political actors learnt nothing, therefore, from the past; specifically from the crisis that led to the 1966 coups and the devastating civil war from which Nigeria is actually yet to recover, 53 years after the shooting phase of the war ended.

Sunday, April 2, 2023

Attacks On The Igbo In Lagos

 By Obi Nwakanma

A massive wave of discontent has trailed the results of the 2023 general elections. A vast majority of Nigerians believe, and have clear evidence that the results were brazenly stolen by the ruling party, and that this heist is a dare to Nigerians to go do their worse. This is one election result in which not a single sense of jubilation has been witnessed in any part of Nigeria, North South, East or West.

There is no sense of an achievement, or of hope. There is instead, something of a bated breath, a deadly sense of something brewing in the firmament, like a stifled sneeze. The parties have gone to court. Nigerians do not trust the courts. But they seem also to just hold out hope, for one more chance, that judging with the evidence before them, the court of justice would do its duty to Nigeria and restore the mandate of the people based on the truth before them.

Sunday, March 5, 2023

Nigeria: INEC’s Shit-Show

 By Obi Nwakanma

The governing All Progressives Congress (APC) had no sterling records on which to run and return to power in the federation of Nigeria in this election. The facts were stark. Compared to February 2015 when the party, an alliance of the discontented, fielded the ex-military dictator, Mr. Muhammadu Buhari, a former Major-General and at that time serial contestant for the office of the president of Nigeria, the mood had swung so heavily against the APC nation-wide in 2023. 

*Prof Yakubu, INEC Chair

Nigerians were measuring the time of the PDP, from 1999 to the time of the APC, from 2015 to the current year. As a Nigerian engineer told me, “you could say anything about the PDP, but what you could never say was that they put Nigerians through hunger. Under the PDP Nigerians took for granted that you could put food on the table without much hassle. But since the APC, all those things you took for granted – just food – including ordinary cereal and milk for kids have become unbearably exorbitant and impossible to buy.” 

Monday, January 30, 2023

Book Review: The Promise Of A New Era

 By Angela Agoawike

The use of biographies for election campaigns date back decades. 

Sometimes written in a hurry, a campaign biography gives highlights of the candidate’s life, introduces him to the voting public and so doing, gives an insight into his aspiration to the highest office in the land. 

The importance of a presidential campaign ‘biography’ is underlined by among others, the setting up of libraries to look for such books and store them for posterity, just like the Clarke Library of the Central Michigan University in the USA has done since the early 1960s. 

Many politicians, such as former American President Jimmy Carter released campaign biographies. As a little-known governor of the American State of Georgia, Why Not The Best? was published in 1976, during his quest for the American presidency. It was his introduction to Americans beyond Georgia. 

Monday, October 17, 2022

Stealing Nigeria!

 By Obi Nwakanma

All things bright and beautiful; all creations great and small; all things bright and wonderful, Nigeria ruins them all. This is a twist on the song many of us sang in the Nursery and Primary Schools of yore. But the last twist was first made to it by the late eminent historian, and one-time Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor Tekena Tamuno, during his convocation address at the University of Ibadan in the late 1970s.

What he saw sitting down, many of us had not then seen standing up. But the auguries were there. Nigerians could recognize the handwritings on the wall. In the decades that I grew up and have experienced Nigeria, and I’m just rounding the first half of my fifth decade on this beautiful earth, Nigeria has always presented a challenge. 

Monday, August 29, 2022

On This ASUU Matter

 By Obi Nwakanma

I was at the University of Nigeria in February to give the keynote to a conference jointly organized by Nsukka’s Institute of African Studies and the Harris Center of the University of Chicago. I remember the gaunt listlessness of the campus, because I arrived there the very day the ASUU strike began. But there was something else beneath the palimpsest of dust that covered the campus of Nsukka. It was decay that felt like a settled crust on the campus of Nigeria’s premier university. 

*ASUU leaders in a meeting 

I felt an out of body experience because I am a product of the Nigerian universities of the 1980s. The University of Jos of the 1980s, for instance, still had its Country-Club atmosphere in those years. It was what you might call a “party school.” But serious business went on there. The students were competitively selected for admissions; it was a very diverse group of students, including the presence of international students. Its faculty was equally diverse and international. Conduct and activities on campus was still cultured and mannered. University faculty still had their dignity, and carried themselves with dignified purpose.

Friday, August 26, 2022

Nigeria: Issues In The Campaigns

 By Obi Nwakanma

The election season geared towards electing a new president for Nigeria is now upon us. In about two weeks, according to the rules of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), the official bar on campaigns will be lifted, the whistle will then blow for the parties now currently on their marks, to take off. This campaign season is more a mile race than a dash. For those who do long distance races, they understand that they must pace themselves: know when to conserve energy, keep an even pace and stay in the race, do not lag, pick up speed towards the final laps, and end with a blinding finish.

No one runs the Mile race as though they were doing the 100 Meters dash. Sprinters, especially very experienced ones, learn very quickly, the strength of their opponents, their speech, and most importantly, how to bank against the direction of the wind, or sail with it.

The coming political campaigns remind me of Stanley Ngwaba, that elegant stallion on the tracks, do the 400 meters race on the “Lower Fields,” at the Government College Umuahia, to win the Victor Ludorum during the Inter House Sports Competition.

Monday, August 8, 2022

Sam Omatseye’s Death Wish

 By Obi Nwakanma

What was Sam Omatseye thinking? That he could traduce an entire Igbo, and get resounding applause for his hackery? Everyone knows that Sam Omatseye does a hack job in contemporary Nigerian politics, and since he could not fit in properly at the Denver Post, where he did the last bit of real journalism inside him, he went to the dark side.

*Peter Obi

He came home to Nigeria to roost, and he became what the ‘Mad Maxim’ – mad only because like his kinsman ‘Jadum’ celebrated in the poetry of Okigbo, he tells prescient truth – called a “Kept Man.” Reckon with that, dear reader: Sam Omatseye as a “Kept Man.” The image is so very apt, if indeed it means that a kept man is one in whom and through whom a pervert patron relieves and performs all kinds of pervert fantasies. I’m still trying to discern some reason inside Omatseye’s death wish – his distinct form of professional self-immolation.

Saturday, July 30, 2022

The Awomama Massacre And Matters Arising

 By Obi Nwakanma

Last week, dear reader, I felt too overwhelmed to write this column. It seemed pointless. Nigeria does this to you, yes. Events of such significance happen far too rapidly these days that it is no longer easy to respond to any without feeling a sense of despair.

*Gov Uzodinma of Imo State

Just like last week, there are too many things this week that dog our steps: the Tinubu choice of a Muslim-Muslim ticket certainly requires urgent interrogation; the spittle had not dried from the mouth of Nigerians when again from the Tinubu camp, in utter disregard of the feelings of the Christian community, the Tinubu-Shettima campaign caused another outrage: they went all out to hire all kinds of characters – mechanics, carpenters, a few others whom they found on the streets, gathered them, offered them cash, put cassocks on them, and declared them “Christian Bishops” at the ceremony “unveiling” of  Mr. Bola Tinubu’s APC running mate, Kashim Shettima.

It was a most insensitive disrespect of Christians, already feeling utterly dissed by the APC candidate. But there was also the inauguration, this week, of the new NNPC Ltd by President Buhari. Nothing good will come out of this. It is startling that the National Assembly brazenly passed a law that steals the Nigerian commonwealth from the Nigerian people.

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Shiroro Massacre: An Entire Battalion Wiped Out And Buhari Still Stays In Abuja!

 By Obi Nwakanma

On Wednesday, terrorists operating in Shiroro, Niger State, massacred numerous people, including about 42 Nigerian soldiers and policemen, and an unknown, unaccountable number of civilians at a mining site. Among those missing, according to certain media reports, are some Chinese. Just for context, the areas around the Shiroro Dam are where ISWAP fighters months ago mounted their flag, claiming them as their territory.

*Buhari

The story of this attack seems to have very plainly justified their assertion of sovereign control over that part of Niger State, or any other part of Nigeria, where security reports indicate, to all intents and purposes, that the Nigerian authorities seem to have lost control.

According to media reports, these attackers came heavily armed and started shooting in the Ajata-Aboki area where the mines are located. What they are mining with the Chinese, nobody knows. But the soldiers in the nearby town of Erena, not far from the scene of the massacre, were alerted, and deployed. They fell into an ambush. In the  firefight, about 32 soldiers were said to have lost their lives. Wrap your heads around this figure, dear reader, and it will slowly sink in: that what was destroyed is an entire battalion! How did this happen?