By Dele Sobowale
“How can productivity work in a
place where you have ten people clustering an office, no electricity, trek to
about 11-storey building. Labour punches the button to work no matter what.”
– Dr Tommy Okon, Trade Union Congress, TUC
By Tonnie Iredia
There is nothing new about elections in Nigeria. Except for the annulled June 12 election, we have never had a free, fair and credible process because our politicians know that voters don’t believe in them. It is worse that it is the ruling party which uses all organs of government to ensure the right candidate does not win.
The new system in which voting is open but collation is manipulated dates back to 1999 when former American President Jimmy Carter led the international election monitoring group. Carter told reporters that the number of voters on the voting queue was different from the results that were announced. In other words, the mischief that needs to be cured in Nigerian elections is the collation process. Everything is usually changed during the process to overturn the correct results with the strong telling the weak to go to court.
Renowned Nigerian poet and academic, Professor Niyi Osundare, has been named the 2024 recipient of the prestigious “Golden Key of Smederevo” award. This decision was made by the Awards Committee of the 56th International Poetry Festival “Smederevo Poets Autumn” at a meeting held on July 15, 2024. The award will be presented at the festival, which takes place from October 15 to 17, 2024, in Smederevo, Serbia.
By Olu Fasan
Every nation that secured independence from its colonial rulers celebrates the freedom annually, as Nigeria did recently on its 64th Independence anniversary. However, such events transcend the symbolism. The real worth of an independence anniversary lies in whether a nation is better off today than it was at independence.
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By Ikechukwu Amaechi
As a journalist, I admire cartoonists, the visual artists who draw and create engaging captions, for their genius. They are not only creative and original, but also investigative, often incorporating humour, wit and satire in their works. When they are in their element, they graphically capture the imagination of the audience, as the trending cartoon in the BUSINESSDAY newspaper showing President Bola Tinubu having his day in the sun with his four ‘dogs’ – agbero, judiciary, INEC, police – has done.
“I will not be running in 2027
election… I can walk comfortably,” Tinubu crowed. It was simply ingenious, such
that a senior journalist who forwarded it to me gushed: “I have never seen a
more meaningful cartoon.”
It aptly illustrated the phenomenon of “state capture,” and why many Nigerians believe that 2027 is already a done deal for Tinubu. The cartoon also illustrates what it means to have capacity in Nigerian politics, a euphemism for political brigandage.
By Charles Okoh
Nigeria was 64 last Tuesday. On that day in 1960, expectations were high and the country’s founding fathers had lofty dreams about a nation that was destined for the top with all the resources, both natural and human. However, 64 years later, it has been a dashed dream thus far.
In 64 years, leadership has completely failed the nation. Myopia and greed have left us in the middle of nowhere like a ship in the sea with incompetent crew and no compass.
By Ayo Baje
“To fight against untruth and falsehood.
To fight for our memory; of
what things were like. That is the task of the artist.
A people who no longer
remembers
has lost its history and
its soul”
– Alekzander Solzhentsyn
The recent wave of opposition against the proposed re-introduction of regional government, stirred by some senators – mostly from the northern geo-political zone of the country is both paradoxical and unjustifiable.
By Casmir Igbokwe
From today, we will most
likely begin to behold Nigeria’s national flag and colours, green-white-green,
in many public places. This is in commemoration of Nigeria’s independence anniversary.
On Tuesday, many of us will clink glasses and chant, ‘Happy Independence,
Nigeria’. Our President will probably make a national broadcast to mark the
day. Every October 1, we celebrate our independence from British colonial rule.
But the question is, are we truly independent?
By Casmir Igbokwe
Soon after President Bola Tinubu made a futile attempt to raise the hope of Nigerians in his Independence Day broadcast on October 1, 2024, he jetted out to London on a ‘two-week vacation’. A statement by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, indicated that it’s a working vacation and a retreat to reflect on his administration’s economic reforms. Really!
Nigerians are used to governance by deceit. Not a few citizens doubted this story about vacationing to reflect on economic reforms. They wondered why the President should travel to London to do that simple task. Are the air conditioners in Aso Villa not cooling his brain well enough? Well, we have to believe because we have no choice. If you protest, security agents could arrest you and slam terrorism charges against you.
By Ugoji Egbujo
In the middle of the road, the van was parked. People gathered. It was Independence Day. The country was 64. The van was laden with bread. The hungry, young and old, filled the streets, panting. Soldiers were everywhere, as if the van was carrying bullion. Old women jostled and shuffled stoically. Nobody looked shamefaced. Their faces told the story of their helplessness. The people who brought the bread came with cameras. Perhaps they would love to be called Renewed Hope Missionaries. One by one, lucky adults were handed a loaf each. One by one, they left. The crowd throbbed.
By Owei Lakemfa
I am excited. After about two months in police cells and the Kuje Maximum Prison, three #EndBadGovernance protesters: Michael Lenin Adaramoye, Mosiu Sodiq and Opaluwa Eleojo, are back home. They are on bail. They join the trio of Loveth Angel, Nuradeen Khamis and Abayomi Adeyemi, earlier let out on bail.
Incredibly, they face treason charges. Not because they were anywhere near where violent protests erupted, but a sort of vicarious liability. They are resident in Abuja but the authorities are holding them liable for the violent protests in other parts of the country.
By Sunny Awhefeada
I must begin by confessing that the title of the present discourse is not my invention. It was what I thought was an innocent question from Isio, my eight-year-old daughter. The day was Monday, the eve of this year’s Independence Day anniversary and the time was morning just before seven o’clock. As has been the norm since 2008, I already had the key to the car in my hands waiting as my wife dressed Isio up for school so I could take her on school runs when she shot the question, “Mummy, what is the meaning of independence?”
Thinking it was an innocuous question from a child who wanted
to know what independence was or is all about, my wife began to explain to her.
Isio retorted saying, “I know what independence is” and gave a brief overview
of the subject matter before going on to do an expose on what provoked the
question. She took on a rhetoric note saying, “I am asking the question because
what is the meaning of independence when people are not happy. People are
suffering. People are hungry.
People are afraid because of insecurity. People are dying. There
are no good roads. There is no regular electricity. Fuel is very costly. That
is why I asked, what is the meaning of independence?” Obviously she has been
reading newspapers and watching the news like her older siblings. I usually
compel them to read newspapers during weekends and make them watch the news. My
wife and I exchanged uneasy glances and heaved when our daughter was done
talking. We were both disturbed. I glanced at her again and again through the
rear mirror imagining what was going on in her mind that morning as I drove
her on the seven and a half kilometers journey to school.
My fear that morning, and even till now as I write, derives from
my concern for Isio and her generation and also for Nigeria our beloved
country that is being laid waste as a result of bad leadership and complicity
of the led. If a child that is less than ten years old and in primary school
could be so intensely aware of the sordid and sorry condition of our country
then things must have gone bad if not “worse and worst” for too long. My recall
of my earliest critical engagement with Nigeria should be around 1986 when I
had attained teenage.
That was the decade of the nation’s economic downturn when
families had to starve or invent strategies that earned them survival. It was
around that period that the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was foisted
on the nation to sap the citizens. Our childhood consciousness was assailed by
hunger and we knew that something was giving way. The other indices that
presently buffet us were then unknown or incipient and of unfelt consequences.
Therefore, at that level of teenage awareness my critical engagement with
Nigeria was not as intense, deeply conscious and heavily indicting as that of
my eight-year-old daughter in the present era.
The question, “what is the meaning of independence?” is not really Isio’s question alone, it is the question of the children of her generation and Nigeria owes them answers. Nigeria is the space in which that generation, just like mine, found itself so whatever contradictions that have made life unlivable and unbearable for them must be tackled and resolved by Nigeria, and by Nigeria I mean those of us who sired the generation. But are we ready to address and redress the situation? I doubt and strongly so. The “trouble with Nigeria”, apologies to Chinua Achebe, has become infectious and almost incurable.
When Achebe did a diagnosis of the country’s ailing
condition in 1983 in his insightful and refreshing monograph The Trouble with
Nigeria some people naively thought that the views expressed in that treatise
will light the nation’s path and lead it to some redemptive destination. For so
all-encompassing and thorough was that analysis that readers thought an
understanding of the thoughts shared in that pamphlet would constitute the
silver bullet for the eradication of our woes. Unfortunately, the problems
multiplied and became inveterate phenomena.
Looking back one is wistful to the point of tears in remembrance
of what inspired my generation. The stories our parents, especially our mothers
and grandmothers, told us about independence and the hope it held and the
untold joy its realization brought to them on that day in 1960 when the
green-white-green flag displaced the Union Jack thrilled us. Our social studies,
government and history textbooks contained the inspiring stories of the independence
movement and its eventual attainment.
Our teachers, great teachers that they were, also zestfully
taught us about the ideals and beauty of the activities that culminated in
independence. It was a frenzied moment that held the thrill arising from the
infinite possibilities of freedom. Ghana’s founding President, Osagyefo Kwame
Nkrumah, gave thought to the feeling generated by independence when he told his
countrymen to seek first the political kingdom and every other thing would be
added onto them.
Critical observers of the Nigerian and African condition should now reach the conclusion that the euphoria that greeted the anticipation and attainment of independence was misplaced. While the struggle for independence was ongoing there were Africans whose interests were largely selfish and they wasted no time in subverting the ideals of nationhood in new nations that they liberated from colonial bondage.
If historians and social scientists didn’t
see that cankerworm that gnawed at the body politick of the newly independent
nations, African writers from Nigeria, to Ghana, Kenya, Somalia, among others,
saw the pernicious trait and they aptly depicted it in their writings. Wole
Soyinka’s pessimism in A Dance of the Forest, Chinua Achebe’s corrosive A Man of
the People, Ayi Kwei Armah’s bleak The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Ngugi
wa Thiong’o’s indicting A Grain of Wheat, all point to the African writer’s
capacity to see beyond the frenzy and revelry that greeted independence. The
crises that have held us down have always been there incipient and unnoticed
for a long time except for the clairvoyant.
Nigeria didn’t and couldn’t celebrate her 64th independence
anniversary because the phenomenon no longer has meaning. It lost its
significance many years ago. Rather than celebrate and memorialize the day,
Nigerians held their breadth and were tensed up in anticipation of the unknown.
The nation was militarized as security forces poured onto the streets to
preempt protests calling for an end to bad governance and clamouring for good
governance.
The new wave of protest which began in August was intended to
end bad governance and all its attendant ills. It was not about regime change,
but a call for responsive and responsible leadership. The protest organizers,
patriots them all, insist on continuing the protest on 1st October, the day of
the nation’s freedom in 1960. Afraid of freedom and uncomfortable with good
governance, those holding the levers of power rolled out military tanks to put
unarmed civilians clamouring for good governance in check while bandits and
terrorists are enjoying a field day in many parts of the country.
Independence has truly lost its meaning to the extent that those
ruling Nigeria have become afraid of freedom from bad governance. Nigeria has
been dubbed a failed state. It has been named among the most unsafe places to
live in the world. It has been awarded the unflattering medal of the most
corrupt country in the world. It has also been described as enmeshed in
multi-dimensional poverty. These are real, scary and biting reality to the
point that a child could question the essence of our independence. May be we
should bring back the colonial masters. After all, did government not give us
the old national anthem when we asked to be governed right? Let the old
colonial masters return in the same token!
*
By Adekunle Adekoya
In the last few weeks, the
global news media and the internet have been awash with the exploits
of the state of Israel in the campaign against Hamas, Hezbollah and other real
and apparent threats. In sympathy, Iran launched at least 180 missiles into
Israel last Tuesday. Israel claimed most of the missiles were rendered
ineffective by her advanced air defence systems called the Iron Dome, David’s
Sling, and Arrow.
For information, the Iron Dome is the most well-known of Israel’s missile shields, and is designed to intercept short-range rockets, as well as shells and mortars, at ranges of between 4km and 70km from the missile launcher. David’s Sling is meant to destroy longer-range rockets, cruise missiles and medium-range or long-range ballistic missiles from a distance of up to 300km. The Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems defend against medium-range and long-range ballistic missiles when they are anywhere up to 2,400km away.
By Obi Nwakanma
Twenty years ago, the alumni of the Government College Umuahia first met in the United States, and decided to take on the challenge of restoring their famous alma mater, the Government College Umuahia, and while at it, have some fun.
In that first convention that drew many of the “old boys” of the Government College Umuahia – “Umuahians,” as they are best known – for the first time to a national gathering in New Jersey, their distinguished “old boy,” the world famous novelist, the late Chinua Achebe, in wheelchair, tended lovingly all the way from Bard College, in the Catskills by his wife, Christie, reminded his fellow Umuahians, of what every generation of schoolmasters used to say to students at Umuahia: “to whom much is given, much is expected.” It was the basis of the “noblese oblige.”
By Tonnie Iredia
Anyone who followed the conduct of the September 21, 2024 governorship election in Edo State would not have found it difficult to identify several challenges which derogated substantially from what could easily have ended as a free, fair and credible electoral process. Must every Nigerian election be contentious and unduly controversial? Why is it so difficult to play the game of election by its rules in Nigeria?
By Ayo Oyoze Baje
The most immediate source of disconnect between Nigeria’s wealth and poverty is a failure of government at the federal, state and local levels” – Hillary Clinton (2009)
The poem titled, ‘Our Children’s Anthem’, was written by yours truly and published by the Nigerian Herald back in 1988, sincere concern was raised over the quality of life of the upcoming generations of Nigerians, if the political leadership did not get it right, as a t that time.
By Olu Fasan
Outrageous! How dare you say the United Nations should help run elections in Nigeria, a sovereign state? That’s how some will react to this intervention. But leaving aside the fact that countries often seek United Nations electoral assistance, what’s truly outrageous and utterly shameful is that Nigeria, so-called “Giant of Africa”, cannot conduct free, fair and credible elections, something less endowed African countries do routinely and successfully.
This week, on October 1, Nigeria turned 64 as an independent nation. Sadly, it’s 64 years of sham elections and hollow democracy. As John Campbell and Matthew Page said in their book, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, “massive election rigging has been characteristic of Nigeria since independence”.
By Luka Danboyi
The self-immolating tendency for people to be indifferent to situations in which they are not directly involved seems to be playing out in the debacle in Rivers State. Curiously, there are people who are enjoying the political drama between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor-cum-godfather, Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
There is no question that the vast majority of Nigerians are inured to the shenanigans of a disoriented political elite that hardly reckons with the plight of the people. Only such a situation would produce the present economic nightmare afflicting a country so richly endowed that, less than 50 years ago, other countries were visiting to understudy its impressive developmental effort and to borrow ‘seeds’ for their agricultural revolution.
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
When I came home on Saturday, August 31, 2024 to meet my wife, Chioma, lying on the bed with bloodshot eyes, I was alarmed. When I asked what the problem was, she retorted, “Check your phone.” She accuses me of bad telephone etiquette – not reading text messages and responding timeously – with a warning that if I don’t change, sooner than later, I would miss out on an information that needed urgent attention. From the tone of her voice, I had a hunch that foretold day may have come.
I quickly checked my phone and froze. “My mother is no more,” was her pithy message at exactly 4.01pm, more than five hours before I came back. I was shocked because we had spoken to the old woman the previous day and she was not only in high spirit but also, typically, prayed for everyone. There was no premonition whatsoever which explains why the news hit me like a thunderbolt, even when we all knew that at her age, she was at life’s departure lounge.
By Charles Okoh
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) may have with recent events, proven to those who never believed in its abilities to properly prosecute financial fraud offenders without bias, that it has outlived its usefulness. An anti-graft agency that seems only out to diligently hunt and prosecute small fries while bungling high-profile cases involving men and women of means certainly cannot provide the much desired check on economic and financial crimes that hold this nation hostage.
*Tinubu and Bello
At the outset of the agency, incidentally under Nuhu Ribadu, who is the current National Security Adviser to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there were at least some attempts to prosecute high-profile cases. Even though it was argued that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and succeeding presidents after him, have been using the agency to persecute political enemies but it was still not hopeless as it currently is.
