Nigeria: What Does ‘Independence’ Mean?

By Hope Eghagha

The years between 1957 and 1963 were very crucial to African countries within the context of gaining independence from colonial powers. Great Britain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and the United States (in the Philippines) were at different times, colonial powers.

The scramble and partition of Africa from 1883 to 1900 benefited the imperial powers. Through force of superior power and masterful cunning, whole nations were subjugated under colonial rule in order to compel the ‘conquered’ nations to part with their resources at little or no cost to the colonial power.

When States (Nations) Fail

By Hope Eghagha

The high command of Nigeria Army and Nigeria Police must be or should be in deep embarrassment about the whole incident. The Federal Government also ought to be worried by the incident because it is one too many in our recent history. No credible steps have been taken so far to reassure the nation of order across.

There is an increased disrespect for law, order, codes of social behaviour and engagement. Perhaps the government and its institutions are overwhelmed by the depth and scope of atrophy which the nation currently battles with. Which itself is frightening. Whether by default or design there is a script for doomsday being acted out. Are the actors aware of the enormity of the challenge that we face? Is the nation going for broke?

When Courts Replace The People

By Hope Eghagha

The theory and principle of democracy effectively removed the power of elevating officials into the ruling class from the hands of potentates and transferred same to the people. In practice there had always been interference from strong economic and political forces in the democratic process.

These seek to undermine or influence and manipulate the electoral process to favour a point of view, an ideology, a selfish interest or some candidates. This has happened in all democracies; it is indeed a human trait. What has differed is the degree and for what ends. As a result, democracy or the principle of it has not always had its way. The checks and balances are in the hands of men; not angels or saints! It is this crack; the crack of human element and weaknesses that often times transfers the final pronouncement from the hands of the people to a select few.  

What Does Atiku Abubakar Want?

By Hope Eghagha   

Early in 2018 when Mallam Atiku Abubakar began to reference restructuring the nation’s polity as one of his cardinal goals, I thought I should take him seriously. As a man from the Niger Delta whose region has been fundamentally shortchanged by the current quasi-federal arrangement I naturally took interest in this core northern leader who had decided to make restructuring a campaign issue. 

*Atiku Abubakar 

Middle of last year I tried through some of his aides to reach him. No luck. He was either too busy or the aides I reached did not have the clout to arrange a meeting. So I let it rest. Once Atiku Abubakar secured the PDP’s nomination as presidential candidate I thought I should use this medium to broach some of the issues I would have presented to him.

The Menace Of Summer Schools

By Hope Eghagha   

Summer school within the context of this essay refers to academic or semi-academic sessions which most private schools in Nigeria organise for crèche, primary school pupils and secondary school students during the long vacation. Outside its contextual reference are the JAMB preparatory schools or institutes organised for special topics during the long holidays between July and September every year when the new session starts.

My query is on the abuse of the concept by some school proprietors to the detriment of the health of kids, the overall well-being of teachers and the abdication of parental responsibilities. There is a great deal of economic exploitation, ignorance, vanity and outright irresponsibility. It further promotes the poor bonding between parents and their kids in their growing up years. As a parent I have never sent any of my kids to the so-called summer coaching. And by God’s providence they have all gone through university!  

Celebrating The Literary World Of JP Clark

By Hope Eghagha

It is within the context of a poignant, profound and perhaps arcane ritual imagination that we encounter John Pepper Clark in his literary world as evidenced by the evocative power of his primal poetic and dramatic compositions. Especially so are some of the early works such as Song of a Goat through Ozidi, the ‘middle’ The Boat, The Return Home, Full Circle, Casualties and the later Remains of a Tide.

*JP Clark 

His only known work of prose the semi-autobiographical and bitingly sarcastic America their America, at once immediate in content and prophetic in thematic concern exists outside this ontology of ritual and the mythic imagination. Almost to the letter (or depth) of contemporary effusions from Trumpian America, this work captures the supercilious arrogance of white America and victims of racial disharmony narrated after a personal encounter with the programmed academy of American culture, capitalism and sociology which our young and bristling JP had found condescending and utterly restrictive. 

Nigeria: APC And PDP In Governance: What Difference?

By Hope Eghagha

It was the late Nigerian playwright Ola Rotimi who first tickled my poetic imagination on objects, parts or things that look alike or seem different but indeed are the same. This came in form of a wise saying, that linguistic form which the African skill for imaginative communication had perfected along with proverbs and aphorisms before ‘Westernisms’ caught up with us. I had just been introduced to the play The Gods are not to Blame as a sophomore at the University of Jos. A character posed the question to the unfortunate King Odewale and his wife Ojuola: what is the difference between the right ear of a horse and the left one? No difference, I dare say. They are similarly shaped and perform the same auditory functions even though they are located on two different sides of the face. 

However, this aphoristic question cannot be applied to dogs and monkeys. For, in spite of the fact that both are animals they are different types of animals. Okot p’Bitek the Ugandan poet wrote in Song of Lawino that the ‘graceful giraffe cannot become a monkey.’ Furthermore, we cannot ask, whether figuratively or otherwise ‘what is the difference between a Rolls Royce and a Beetle car;’ they are both cars but cars in different categories, in terms of pricing, prestige and general construction. If you arrive at Dangote’s office or Mike Adenuga’s residence in a ‘Tortoise car’, the security men would not bother to entertain enquiries from you. Just drive home and return in a Mercedes 600 car and watch the difference! I remember once when a young man asserted ‘all women are the same’ and another man countered ‘all women are not the same; my mother is not a prostitute.’ Hehehehehe!

Nigeria: Who Are Fulani Herdsmen?

By Hope Eghagha

Bala: What is this big noise and cry over herdsmen?

Ankpa: Have you been sleeping Bala? Don’t you know the terrorists, the bloody murderers, masquerading as herdsmen?

Bala: How can cattle-rearers be killers? Their business is cattle-rearing, not killing people.

Ankpa: That’s what we thought until we found some going about with AK 47 guns!

Bala: Are you sure the Boko Haram scoundrels, those anti-Islam elements have not infiltrated the herdsmen group?
Ankpa: that is left for the State to fish out. 

Kidnappers And Ritual Killers In Lagos

By Hope Eghagha 

Kidnapping and ritual killing seem to be on the increase in Lagos and around the country. Another way to express this is that there are more reports of abductions for ritual killings these days than we used to have them. Red Cross says that it has received reports of 10,480 missing persons in Nigeria. Every other week or even day, we read reports about ‘ritualists den’ in Nigeria. Two channels, social media and personal testimonies do a better job reporting the incidents than mainstream media. 

While mainstream outlets can be controlled not to report the incidents (to give a good albeit false image of security) no one can really control reports in social media. The latter presents gory pictures of dismembered bodies. The most recent was that of a 200 level undergraduate at the University of Port Harcourt who butchered a neighbour’s seven year old daughter for ritual, removed parts of her body and attempted to dispose of the body in a garbage heap. Shocking! Horrifying!

What Do Niger Deltans Want?

By Hope Eghagha 

In the wake of the Acting President’s recent media-advertised visits to the Niger Delta, a highly-placed Nigerian posed a question to me as a suffering indigene of the exploited and oppressed zone of the Nigerian State: What do Niger Deltans want? Put differently, the question could be: What should the Nigerian State do for the Niger Delta? The question popped up in exasperation, I suppose. To ask this question some 60 odd years after the Oloibiri discovery shows we haven’t come to terms with the tragic circumstances of the Niger Delta.

If we want to play on words, these questions could be posed in different ways. The first proposition is that what the people want is different from what they have been given. Another flip is that they have been given enough and should just shut up and get on with life. It could also mean that citizens from other parts of the country genuinely want to know what people of the region want. Whatever meaning we give to the question, the plight of the Niger Delta is a sore point in the history of our country.

The question got me thinking though. Is it true that the corridors of power do not know what is good for the region? Have Deltans articulated their wants in the Nigerian polity? What about the tonnes of literature that led to the creation of the NDDC, and the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs dating from the 1950s? If the Niger Delta had a son of theirs for five full years in charge of the Nigerian Presidency, do we still as Niger Deltans have the right to complain? In other words, if in five years a Nigerian President of Niger Delta extraction could not chart the course to national transformation, who else can? If past governors of the states in the region did not use funds allocated to them judiciously, how are we sure that resource control would yield anything different? 

I will summarise my submission with an anecdote: Communities which live in abject poverty in spite of billions of dollars that have been sucked from their soil and which still hold billions of dollars in gas reserves are in dire straits. Simply put, the Niger Delta needs a transformation of the environment and infrastructure of the land that has given so much wealth to the Nigerian federation. Either by design or default, we have not been able to achieve this. This is sad, tragic and alarming.