Nigeria: Birthday Drivels And National Celebration Of Inanities

 By Alade Rotimi-John

The provocative and obscene celebration of birthdays by public personages is fast becoming a rude national pastime. The general Nigerian audience has bemusedly endured a siege of insults for quite some time now respecting the intolerable mischief of a lewd and soulless parade of stunts. There is a total extinction of all taste even as the celebrants are vulgar, gross and illiberal.

*Mrs. Tinubu, Akpabio and his wife at Akpabio's 61st Birthday Bash

Aside from the moral contamination incident on the celebrations, their lessons are morbidly and intellectually degrading as they generally present a distorted or superficial view of the sordid Nigerian condition. Many of the ceremonies have laid bare the social insensitivity of the celebrants who are reputedly of high estate. Even as their object is to covet general praise and admiration, they have ironically received in large measure a backlash in contempt and in a free-flowing gnashing imprecations from their fellow men and women.

Lagos, Our Lagos!

 By Alade Rotimi-John

There is on-going, an uneasy fearful sensation regarding a noticeable change in the demographics and in the property ownership profile of Lagos. Many reasoned and unscientific or irrational excuses are being conversely bandied as reasons for the happening of what ordinarily should be explained as an unstoppable sociological dynamics of a rapidly-growing sub-national entity.

Many commentaries about the place of the indigenous population of Lagos are mischievously choreographed in sneers and jeers as if to suggest that claimants to Lagos indigenship are interlopers or, at best, pretenders to the crown of Pontifex.

The contest for the governorship seat of Lagos this season has unfortunately rejuvenated the contrived animosity in the subject matter of the status of Lagos and of the natural or ordained claim to its ownership. Truly, there are people whose heritage is Lagos; whose entitlement is geo-social and steeped in the demographic history of Lagos.

Afenifere: There Is No Killing The Beetle

 By Alade Rotimi-John

Perhaps, no socio-political plank in Nigeria has impinged on our consciousness or has excited our admiration for the values of dedication to cherished ideals and goals more than Afenifere – the pan-Yoruba socio-political platform. In a society where shifting compromises and mutually-conflicting philosophies are lumped together just to score some cheap debating or political point, Afenifere has stood out as a genuine re-creation of a sincere search for solution to the myriad of problems besetting Nigeria. 

*Pa Adebanjo 

Founded in 1951 as an open window for brandishing the proud bearing and venting the considered expression of the people of its constituency, its enduring nature contrasts starkly with a general foreground of aborted, still-born or short-lived organisations.

For 70 years on, Afenifere has adhered firmly to her foundational strategy in precise observation, discipline and clarity of vision. She has thereby positioned herself as the ruling socio-political ethic in Yorubaland – its primary constituency. Other groups espousing similar or identical values like her are dimly outlined against the towering stature of Afenifere.

Youth And Audacity Of Noble Rage

 By Alade Rotimi-John

Youth by nature believe they are naturally endowed to take over from the generation preceding theirs. Their impassioned attacks for change often put them on a collision course with their elders even as they tend to oppose all forms of paternalism.

Many of them visibly participate in affairs and events of the moment, applauding what they consider to be right and denouncing what they perceive as wrong. They are immensely appreciative of the pedagogical value of their alter ego teachers or instructors. They imagine that the real authority for their consciousness is located in the unyielding principles imparted to them by their bolus magista who often give them a fund of unclassified and, sometimes, unrelated knowledge for projected ideological combat.

Nigeria: Muslim-Muslim Ticket: Slight To Diversity

 By Alade Rotimi-John

Under the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 particularly its section 14 (3), the Nigerian state is under an unwavering duty to ensure that:

“The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried on in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity and also to command national loyalty thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in the Government or any of its agencies”.

*Tinubu and Shettima 

Even though we have witnessed a glaring, unabashed abuse of this article of faith by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari these seven odd years, it will amount to complacent insensitivity for any person or group of persons aspiring to succeed it to self-gratifyingly propose a continuation of a befuddling Buhari “legacy in government”.

Nigeria: Worn Nation, Worn Destiny

By Alade Rotimi-John

Writing about Nigeria in these days of a menacing or threatened enactment of a Hate Speech law can be irksome. The writer may be unable to properly delineate the terrain of a possible infraction of the law even as he attempts to give rein to free speech or truthful exposition. There is also the difficulty of plotting the graph between transcendental truths and the fraying of irritable nerves or temper of persons in authority.

An accustomed tendency to be infatuated or be deprived of judgement regarding the passion to speak the truth about the actual state of affairs in the country is thereby unfortunately hampered or put on hold.

Nigeria: Lying As Cornerstone Of Govt Policy And Programme

By Alade Rotimi-John

In local Nigerian parlance, stratagem or the plan for deceiving otherwise trustful people is rendered euphoniously and even metaphorically as “lie, lie” or “connie, connie” (both of them amusing and melodious phraseology for graphically depicting the foible of cunningness, craftiness or guile). The Nigerian political or governmental practice has been largely characterised, particularly these four or so years, by an observable trend in posturing or cunningness by officials of state. These ones have perfected the art of refusing to take personal responsibility for their bumbling, blundering trajectory even as they lament or heap their failures on some extraneous or exogenous circumstance, situation or personage. 

As is normal with the nature and manner of a facile or convenient resort to lie-telling, every excuse or reason for the happening of one event or another, embarrassingly conflicts with an earlier expressed position taken on the same subject matter. Two or three clear indications are visibly discernible. The actors are not unanimous in their explanation of the occurrence of the event for which they speak for the same principal; they operate at cross purposes; and they betray their lack of co-ordination in a situation where coherence is key. For them, to begin to take personal responsibility is also to begin to recognise or admit that Nigeria is on the verge of a self-annihilating precipice even as they are in charge. Courage is up-turned as integrity no longer counts and little store is set for accuracy. 

Obasanjo: Ambushing The Emergence Of The Proper Third Force

By Alade Rotimi-John

General Olusegun Obasanjo’s Coalition for Nigeria Movement has been expressed as the former President’s projected avant garde prescription for taking beleaguered Nigeria out of the political woods into which it had been marooned by successive visionless administrations. Fiercely patriotic, Obasanjo is touted as the embodiment of the values for the preservation or continuing corporate existence of the Nigerian contraption.

*Obasanjo 

For good measure, he is an inflexible defender of the status quo. He has after all, been a major beneficiary of the system. Even as the general mood of the nation is in favour of the political restructuring of the country and of charting a proper course around the issues of good governance, equity, justice, etc. the Obasanjo intervention contained in his letter to President Muhammadu Buhari is cleverly positioned to divert attention therefrom and guide the national narrative in the direction of a prepared script.

Nigeria: The Fulani Herdsmen Militia Siege

By Alade Rotimi-John

There is an urgent requirement to investigate the circumstances, strategy, tactics and ultimate objective of the post – Pax Britannica oligarchy drawn primarily from among the descendants or heirs of the 1804 Uthman dan Fodio jihadist movement. It is necessary to identify their motives among which may be reasonably presumed the foisting of the movement’s ideology on all the constituent parts of modern Nigeria. To the extent that the mindless attacks of the Fulani herdsmen militia are targeted at communities that share dissimilar religio-ethnic views with theirs; also to the extent of the attacks’ deeply primordial nature our investigation becomes all the more important. A disinterested outcome of our investigation is likely to reveal or locate the truth of our search in the interstices of history.

The indigenous people of Nigeria never had to engage the kind of hostile or condescending external forces which the Fulani jihadists unleashed on them in the 19th century. The people’s social conduct had been deeply marked by the historical context of their livelihood.

The Avengers As Nemesis Of A Nation’s Hubris

By Alade Rotimi-John  

These are testy times for the Nigerian nation state. She is variously buffeted on all sides by the scourge of insurgency in her North-East geo-political zone, the murderous ogre of Fulani herdsmen in the north–central axis and in the southern states of Enugu, Ekiti, Oyo and Delta, the brimming militancy in the South-South exemplifying itself in incessant bombings of oil and gas pipelines in the Niger Delta, the revamped agitation for self-determination by restive youths in the South-East, an all-time low crude oil price, the irritable upsurge in price level, the plummeting exchange value of the national currency, unbridled unemployment and the abysmal failure or non-functioning of public infrastructure e.g. electricity, etc.

Of all Nigeria’s contemporary difficulties, however, the Boko Haram attempt to take control of the country by force to foist on her its own brand of rabid or unconventional Islamism and the Niger Delta militancy directed at the nation’s economic jugular have understandably taken the centre stage. Both militant agitations must be understood as natural human responses to a perceived unfair or unjust political or social order even as they are a stark reflection of how remiss successive administrations have been regarding the requirement to resolve the contradictions inherent in the Nigerian pastiche. Only half-hearted attempts have been made to interrogate the Nigerian national question.

The socio-economic injustice in the Niger Delta finds unrefreshing or disturbing parallel in the criminal neglect of the fortunes of children and young persons in many parts of Northern Nigeria. Generally, the Nigerian state manifests smug indifference to the plight of her people even as the people are consequently provoked to question the legitimacy or appropriateness of those who have been put in authority over them to resolve the crisis of the status of their stake-holding.

Self-help is resorted to as government marshals state security and military resources to combat the “audacity” of the aggrieved people. For instance, the hubris or overweening pride of the state often displayed by her power wielders defines the response of the state to the people’s protestation of the environmental degradation or ecological scandal that is the plight of the residents of the Niger Delta. Troops are promptly mobilised and deployed just to put out or “crush” any protest. 

The people may be quietened but the rumbles remain loud. The Adaka Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa memorabilia fore-shadowing today’s restive agitations in the Niger Delta region offer a ruminative opportunity for the present occupiers of state offices. The impending battle in Oporoza is the a la carte or regular response of government: make no distinction between the culpable and the innocent, the young or aged; lump all together for violent punishment or mauling as they have not been able to restrain their children or wards from becoming threats to the national economy. Afterall, “All have sinned…”