Libya; Why Not Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Today, France, Britain and the United States began a process which will culminate in the overthrow of Moamar Gadaffi, the dictator and tyrant who has dominated Libya’s political stage for far too long!
In attacking Libya, western nations led by France, have argued that Moamar Gadaffi already has or is at the verge of massacring “his-own-people” as he repelled or took counter measures against legitimate uprising, rebellion and revolution against his more than 40 years dictatorships, tyranny and repression against the people of Libya.
The truth is, the world is witnessing the onset of the invasion and occupation of Libya for her sweet crude oil. This is Iraq all over again, in which Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMD was used as smokescreen or camouflage and cotton-wool over the eyes of the gullible, in the lead up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Libya is being attacked, Libya will be invaded and occupied with a regime change, under the guise of protecting Libyan people. It is false pretense. A dangerous and terrible precedent is being set, a slippery slope will ensue.
Libya is at cusp of experiencing a regime change, engineered by western nations under some banal pretexts. Western nations have hated and loathed Moamar Gaddaffi forever, as a real and phantom or imagined enemy. Gaddaffi’s preachment and stance as anti colonialist, anti imperialist and anti apartheid endeared him to me in my youth and college days.
Gaddaffi’s contradictions and inconsistencies were revealed to me, through an anti African migrant agreement which he entered with Italy and other European nations, in which Libya would be paid, to act as the gatekeeper for Europe against African citizens desperate to migrate to Europe through Libya, and other nations of North Africa.
Secondly, Gaddaffi’s virulent anti African stance was proven to me beyond doubt, when he publicly suggested that Nigeria should be split into several component parts as separate nations, and along regional, ethnic or cultural and linguistic lines! All believers in the unity in diversity and indivisible plural one Nigeria, as I am were irked by Gaddaffi’s petulance and impertinence.
Let it be known therefore, that my opinion is not anchored on defending Gaddaffi and his sons, as they are clearly indefensible, in equal measure as they are brutal, violent, repressive! Gaddaffi epitomized the worst form of dictatorship and tyranny in the world today.
There is staggering hypocrisy and screeching-loud double standards in the actions of these western nations, particularly in the face of the massacre of more than 40 peaceful protesters in Yemen yesterday by the government of Yemen and it’s paramilitary or militia.
Hypocrisies by western nations is legendary and even brazen now, in view of the fact that the were scores of deaths in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc, all of which have witnesses protests and demonstrations and violence to varying degrees in these North African, Arabian and Middle Eastern nations since onset of these political upheaval in January
On the African continent, we witnessed and are still witnessing instances of rebellions and reprisals against rebels. Somalia is the worst example. Somalia is an anarchic nation state, a disintegrated and failed nation state which have not had a steady government since 1991. And yet, western nations have not intervened to save the lives of innocent civilians. If only Somalia had crude oil!?
Somalia has since 1991 garnered the attention of western nations intermittently, only when pirates on Somalis waters, the Somali flank of the India Ocean, interferes briefly, with western commerce and merchandizing with ocean going vessels, have we noticed ad hoc reactions or seeming recognition of the existence of human life in Somalia. Western nations have had this episodic reactions to the humanitarian crises in Somalia which is the root cause of the Somali pirate phenomenon
In 1994, there were massacres in Rwanda of almost a million persons, a monumental disaster which was later adjudged to have been motivated by hatred and ethnic cleansing, and therefore, genocidal horrors, which arose in schism and chasm between Hutu and Tutsi. Western nations folded their hands, despite the presence of the United Nations troops!
Since then, there have other genocidal horrors in Darfur Sudan, in which millions of Darfurians Sudanese met their untimely death, based primarily on their religion, race and southern origins in the Sudan. President Bashir’s government in Khartoum received criticisms, but there were not interventions, and Sudanese oil flowed even while the International Criminal Court indicted Bashir and Khartoum government. Libya is being attacked and invaded and Gaddaffi slated for overthrow and regime change, but Bashir is not!
There have been frequent reports from the Congo, reports which suggests that civilians noncombatants have been massacred, raped and abused, with resultant dislocations and no interventions has been suggested.
Liberia and Sierra Leone had their own shares of conflicts, gratuitous violence and dislocations visited upon innocent civilians, but for ECOWAS led by Nigeria, during which Nigeria spent billions of dollars on peace keeping and stability, there were not murmur or hints of intervention on humanitarian grounds, to secure, protect and preserve innocent civilians in Liberia and Sierra Leone, perhaps because Liberia, and Sierra Leone, quite unlike Iraq and Libya, do not have hydrocarbon or fossil fuel oils?
In recent times, France has corralled efforts and world opinion against Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent President of Ivory Coast; Ivory Coast suffered an election impasse or deadlock. President Gbago petitioned the highest court of that nation, which resolved the petition upon adjudication in his favor.
But the candidate preferred by France and other western nations, Alsance Qoutarra is being promoted as the winner of the November 28, 2010 elections. There are plans hatched outside Africa, to invade the Ivory Coast in order to install Alsance Qoutarra as stooge, this invasion would use Africans as tools, Nigeria being the arrow head or the apex of such military intervention in Ivory Coast.
As oppose to the extreme measure which is what military intervention-invasion is, how about a recount of the ballots? Alternatively, why wasn't a repeat and a redo of the elections in Ivory Coast considered? Why the haste and what are the reasons for foreclosing these options in favor of the extreme measure of military invasion over election stalemate?
How about the humanitarian crises and refugees and destabilization of the entire West African sub-region which will probably result from the planned military invasion? A repeat election is more cost effective and better for all parties concerned. Military invasion comes with unintended consequences, even when such invasion had any justification... there are the known and unknowable of wars!
Libya, Iraq before it, and perhaps Ivory Coast is next, are supposed to be politically independent, sovereign nations with territorial integrity, inviolate and sacrosanct. And only extraordinary circumstances ought to trigger external intervention and interference in the internal affairs of a particular nation by another or by several other nations. This affront and breach of international law, conventions and protocols are particularly offensive in view of the fact that it is deployed and used selectively.
Even most egregious examples and apt illustration of western nations’ staggering and jaw dropping hypocrisy and double standards is the fact that the attack against Libya and the Gaddaffi clan, is predicated, ostensibly, on the protection of “innocent-civilians” as Gaddaffi and his sons, the undeclared royal family and unconstitutional monarchy of Libya, have during the past several weeks engaged in violence and massacres directed at Kaddafi’s “own-people”
The glaring contradictions and inconsistencies by western governments in these matters are legendary! Yemen’s political leadership have through it’s militia and paramilitary massacred peaceful protesters and their “own-people” even as recent as yesterday, when over 40 Yemeni citizens were murdered by agents of the government of Yemen. But no planned intervention, invasion, and occupation of Yemen by western nations.
After all, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange enlightened us as to how the American government compelled the government of Yemen to deceive it’s own people, by being the fall guy for American military operations inside Yemen, which have led to scores of deaths in Yemen. All this, not in pursuit of Yemen’s national or strategic interests. Yemen is a client nation state, eager to serve interests of western nations, so, no intervention in Yemen, no invasion and occupation or regime change for Yemen.
In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Algeria and Tunisia and Egypt before that, there were peaceful public demonstrations, and protests, in these nations, which have been stereotyped populaces, culture and region with blood-lusts, where folks are liable to and prone to engage in mindless violence without logic or reason.
Meanwhile, peacefulness have been the key word, and catchphrase in these protests which began in Tunisia, then Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, etc. Peacefulness have been exemplified in the tidal wave of revolutions, political upheaval and demands for individual rights, freedoms and a further demand for democracy, the rule of law and an end to political repressions. Mindless murderers and Political Islam which is dreaded by western nations never capitalized on these peaceful protest. And those who are supposed to be mindless murderers for pleasure in the in Islamic-Arab World, and North Africa, were nowhere to be found!
Peacefulness or no peacefulness, it is the case that citizens who have engaged in legitimate demand for economic, political and constitutional reforms in the aforementioned North African, Middle Eastern-Arab and Persian nations, have subjected to brutal attack, extremely draconian and murderous attacks by the various dictatorships and tyrannies in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and more particularly so, in Yemen.
Western nations’ military armada are now engaged in direct intervention, invasion and occupation of Libya, predicated on the propaganda, neatly packaged, which insists that Moamar Gaddaffi and his sons are engaging in massacres of “their-own-people” innocent civilians and all! But, it must be pointed out, and these pretentious western nations should be reminded that the innocent civilians in Libya, those engaged in uprising and revolution or rebellion in Libya are not different in the plights, predicaments and fates when compared to equally beleaguered peaceful protesters and demonstrators in other North African Arab and Middle Eastern nations already mentioned above. What exactly is the criteria for selecting Libya? And how can western nations sustain reasonable argument which would convince anyone as to the difference between Libya, and most of the North African and Middle Eastern nations with similar uprisings? Why cherry pick Libya, as opposed to Yemen etc?
Why is it that western nations are splendidly disinterested in economic and political reforms, or the establishment and promotion-advancement of democracy in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, etc? These are nations where single individuals and or families have dominated and colonized political space for decades, with winks and nods and active encouragements by and from western nations which are only interested in free flow of oil and the protections and preservation of their parochial and myopic interests.
Western nations have historically and perennially mouthed so-called western ideals a la democracy, due process, the rule of law and human rights etc, and yet, when the chips are down, and when it is time for these same western nations to put their monies where their mouths are, they have always preferred to undermine, subvert and rather truncate democracy and good governance in the hot pursuit of their national and strategic interests, based on expediencies and exigent and ad hoc worldview. This repeated concave and shortsightedness have often backfired historically. Think Cuba, Chile, Iran, Afghanistan etc
This shortsightedness, this myopia, this parochial worldview, measured only by fleeting and fluid western interest is root causes of all the troubles in the world. This invasion, occupation and regime change in Libya is again motivated by land grab and the new scramble for resources, particularly oil in the Middle East, Arabia, Persia, and in the case of Libya, you could say, North Africa, perhaps it is time to raise our collective alert to the fact that there is a new scramble for Africa and her resources, and Libya is the first step, and the first salvo was fired today, led by the French, Britain and America, albeit, with tacit and arguably feeble support from the Arab League and the African Union.
It is extremely shameful to see how often expedient western interests trumps and trounces so-called ideals
All things considered and particularly in view of the situations in the various North African and Middle Eastern nations which are already referenced and outlined above, many are curious to know, why there are no plans to similarly intervene directly, invade, occupy and do regime changes in all the nations which are currently undergoing tidal waves of political upheaval by way of peaceful demonstrations and protests. Especially, as in Yemen where peaceful protesters have been murdered and massacred in large numbers!
The question which should be on everyone’s lips, therefore, is, why Libya? If Libya, why not Somalia, Sudan, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc? I hold all dictators and tyrants in equal contempt and disdain, and it is irrelevant whether such dictatorships or tyrannies are theocratic, monarchical or military
Libya possesses the highly valued crude oil, a particularly less sulfuric version, known as the sweet crude, a West Texas Intermediate sibling or equivalent.
And only a fool and a communist would believe that crude oil in Libya has anything to do with western nations’ attacks, intervention, and planned invasion, occupation and regime change in Libya.
Only a floozy conspiracy theorist, would as fathom the silly idea, that Libya’s resources and strategic geographic location, makes Libya a launching pad for the new scramble for resource on the African continent and Middle East region by western nations!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Igbo, Marginalized, Relegated & Bashed Endlessly!
Igbo, Marginalized, Relegated & Bashed Endlessly!
Written Paul I. Adujie
Nigeria is actively undergoing electioneering campaigns for a general elections schedule for April 2011
This general election season has turned out to be an open season of attack, bigotries, prejudices and hatreds directed at Igbo by too many Nigerians.
Igbos are repeatedly attacked and denigrated, even when such attacks and denigrations are clearly unwarranted. These increased spate of vitriol directed at Igbos should make any reasonable person to ask questions.
Why is it, that so many Nigerians, too many Nigerians in fact, are so comfortable in talking down, patronizingly and condescendingly to, and about Igbos?
Why is it, that a majority of those commenting on national issues, with references to Igbos, are always denigrating fellow Nigerians, just because these Nigerians of Igbo extraction?
It is the case that most commentaries about Igbos are so insensitive, and so reckless and extremely inflammatory and careless. These caustic, corrosive and sour attitudes towards Igbos, clearly illustrate persisting ill will towards Igbos. These negative attitudes towards Igbos, are emblematic of bigotries, prejudices and hatreds which have been visited upon Igbos historically and unfortunately, the frequency of these anti Igbo pronouncements in Nigeria is on the upsurge. Too many recent comments against and about Igbos, are just shockingly disgusting!
Nigerians of earlier and older generations have poor excuses for exhibiting clannish attitudes towards other Nigerians of different ethnic or linguistic groups, religious and regional groups in our multicultural and very diverse nation. But how does anyone explain recent barrages of attacks, unwarranted attacks and badgering against Igos? How does anyone explain the fact that very educated, extensively traveled and worldly wise Nigerians continue to exhibit extremely negative and primordial attitude against Igbos?
It is recognized and conceded, that plural society are rather competitive. Competition for resources which are not limitless. Competition for economic and political control, including the competition for the control and or allocation of resources.
What is unacceptable, and what should be condemned by all Nigerians, and reasonable persons everywhere, is the frequency and regularity of occurrence of Igbo bashing and unwarranted attacks against Igbos by fellow Nigerians.
This is the first week of March 2011. Nigeria is in the throes of extreme politicking. It is public knowledge that a momentous general election in Nigeria is upon Nigeria, scheduled for April 2011.
Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora should or ought to be actively engaged in debates of our national issues and challenges. Nigerians ought to eliciting and engendering debates between political candidates and the various political parties regarding their stances and positions on public policies and programs
Nigerians across the spectrum ought to focus on how the current crop of political candidates and their parties may create or bring about better life for all Nigerians all over Nigeria. But instead, too many Nigerians are focused how to keep Igbos marginalized, relegated, even as Igbos are bashed ceaselessly and endlessly.
Igbos are continually blamed for every and all of Nigeria’s afflictions, including political, constitutional and economic underdevelopment. A cursory examination of Nigeria’s past clearly indicates Igbos as victims of sundry circumstances in Nigeria. But revisionists in Nigeria are constantly engaging in extremely offensive revisionism in which Igbos are blamed for the marginalization, relegation and bashing to which Igbo have been subjected for decades.
A case in point is the unwarranted vitriolic attacks from many commentators at a Nigeria related website known as www.Nigeriavillagesquare.com; There was news that the Lagos state branch of Ohaneze, an Igbo sociocultural organization, had issued a public statement, demanding political inclusion and adequate reflection in Lagos state affairs. Too many Nigerians are too often engaged in selective memory and blissful amnesia.
A majority of those commenting or responding to the news, commented as though they felt compelled to excoriate and demean Igbos. The comments against Igbos were so outrageous and outlandish, you would think the word Igbo refers to a foreign nation outside of Nigeria with which Nigerians and Nigeria understandably directed hostilities and venom!
On ground in Nigeria, the sour attitude directed at Igbo is not much better. Many high profile political figures in Nigeria, have recently engaged in uncouth, insensitive and inflammatory pronouncements directed at Igbo citizens of Nigeria.
It is quite ironical and even oxymoronic, that many Nigerians who celebrated and went agog, (perhaps rightfully and proudly so), over President Obama’s appointment of a Nigerian physician, cancer expert, Dr. Olufunmilayo Falusi Olopade, Member, National Cancer Advisory Board of the United States; are the same Nigerians who are now, after or within a few days, surprisingly-shockingly disgustingly expressing offense, over possible appointments of Igbos by Lagos state government.
Dr. Olopade is Nigerian who received her medical degree from the great University of Ibadan, Nigeria and a Chicago “transplant“, by way of Nigeria, even with her stellar academic and professional overachiever,with so many accomplishments under her lab-coat and medical overall, would an undeserving non-indigene, “foreigner” and usurper “settler” in the warped-twisted logic of some Nigerians!
Some Nigerians, too many Nigerians across the world, it seems, appear to think Dr. Olopade were she an Igo lady in Lagos or Kano should not aspire or be appointed, despite her pedigrees? It bears restating here for the record, that this ethnic, regional and religious chauvinism, bigotries and prejudices borne of hatreds or mutual suspicions, are not special or unique to particular ethnic groups or regions in Nigeria. Inequality, discrimination and devaluation of citizenship is an equal opportunity offenses of which too many Nigerians are guilty.
I am not advocating that a blind Igbo person should be hired by Lagos state government to drive school buses, in the name of diversity or representation of Igbos in employment by Lagos state government. But Igbos who make Lagos home, like other fellow Nigerians, with qualifications, requisite experience and antecedents and pedigrees should have equal opportunities and representation in the scheme of things in Lagos.
My argument is identical for ALL Nigerians of other ethnic groups, regional and religious affiliations.
Non-Igbo Nigerians in this current electioneering campaign in the lead up to the general elections in April 2011, have arrogantly and adamantly announced to Igbos where Igbos belong and what political turn Igbos may expect. These offensive pronouncements about and against Igbos are frequently made with consultation and reference to Igbos. And what is worse, these pronouncements are made by non-Igbos about Igbos and without regard to the feelings and aspirations of Igbos.
Loud pronouncements about the place of Igbos in Nigeria’s political future have been made by some high profile Nigerians in recent times. These pronouncements have bordered around and encompassed unrestrained arrogant vituperation of Igbos. No adult should tell another adult what to do or what the future holds, but, unfortunately, some Nigerians are arrogant and pigheaded in the extreme, when they presumptuously announce the future for over 40 million Igbos in Nigeria!
Some Nigerians are so insensitive to the feelings of Igbo Nigerians or perhaps it is that some Nigerians take perverse joy in dehumanizing and degrading Igbo Nigerians? Our national security and national strategic interests are better in foreign hands than in the hands of Igbos?
The truth is governments in Nigeria currently employ Americans, Europeans, Indians, Chinese etc. Why the fear and loathing for the prospects of Igbos in employment within the same circles of governments in Nigeria?
A few days ago, I read the opinion of the Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Mohammed Abba-Aji which contained yet, another gloomy, if impossible political forecasts of the future for Igbos in 2015. Professor Omo Omoruyi engaged in similar forecasts several days before, both men, with iron clad view of Igbo Nigerian as occupying the presidency of Nigeria in 2015. Both men were an inch close to and hair-thin short of, predicting that Aso Rock door will remain shut against Igbo man or woman in 2015.
Ibrahim Badmass Babangida it was who, loudly announced to Igbos to await the future, perhaps 2015 and to forget 2011. Babangida made this announcement while supporting and participating in the Adamu Ciroma so-called consensus candidature for the presidency of Nigeria, an effort, which insisted on zoning and rotational presidency by PDP, which is supposed to favor geographic northern Nigeria in 2011 elections.
Everyone often talk down to and about Igbos. Everyone makes matter-of-fact pronouncements about Igbo’s political prospects in Nigeria, and Igbos are supposed to and expected to take all of these and as fait accompli and smile? Igbos like other Nigerians have a stake in Nigeria’s outcome. Igbos should feel at home throughout Nigeria, even despite checkered and painful historical experiences of violence against Igbos across Nigeria. Non-Igbos are keenly aware of Igbos industriousness, superb intellect and business acumen and enterprise. These attributes and qualities are appreciated across Nigeria with Igbo’s industry and presence is felt in the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, bar none!
Some states in Nigeria, including Lagos, in recognition and appreciation, have appointed Nigerians, Igbos, to prominent public state offices, even though such Nigerians are from ethnic groups, other than the catchments area dominant ethnic group.
As when Lagos appoints an Igbo person to public office because such persons are Nigerians and are qualified, and further, to give the appearance of representing and reflecting the demographic components of such states, in this instance, Lagos state.
All Nigerians and lovers of democracy should advocate and promote this practice, in which our government at various levels, accurately reflects our local, state and national population of Nigerian citizens. Lagos and its surrounding or neighboring states are comprised ethnic Yoruba Nigerians. Igbos are the second largest Nigerian ethnic group apart from
Yoruba. It is therefore not extraordinary for Lagos to aspire to reflect this in elective and appointive public offices. Ohaneze is reportedly articulating and advocating inclusion into the political scheme of things in Lagos and Ohaneze have been accused of impoliteness or worse, threatening, usurping and blackmailing Lagos state. Ohaneze is an umbrella Igbo organization and it is duty bound to advocate Igbo’s cause. But Ohaneze is being accused of being bad “guests” for making legitimate demands.
In the United States, immigrants and their children are sometimes elected or appointed to political offices. President Obama is the son of Kenyan immigrant, President Obama is an American by birth, he is nonetheless a first generation American. But Nigerians motivated by bigotry, hatred and prejudice against the “otherness” in fellow Nigerians, in this instance, Igbos, would argue that a third or fourth generation Igbo person in Lagos should not be elected or appointed to political offices in Lagos, on the ground, solely, that such person is of Igbo great grand parents and in effect, of Igbo heritage, even if such person is as versed and as comfortable in Yoruba culture as Abiola or Komolafe or even Omoluabi
President Obama’s father came to the United States less than 50 years ago and his son is president. And yet, too many Nigerians insist adamantly, that children and grandchildren of fellow Nigerians who “migrated” from various parts of Nigeria to different parts of same Nigeria, should remain as “illegal-immigrants” in our country Nigeria? Going by the present illogic in Nigeria, President Obama could not be employed outside of state of Hawaii, never mind becoming a US senator from Illinois or US president.
Mrs. Hilary Rodham Clinton , the Secretary of State for United States is originally from the state of Illinois, married President Bill Clinton from the state of Arkansas, before becoming Secretary of State, she was the elected US senator from New York State.
And how about the storied astronomical rise of former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of the state of California, the fifth largest economy in the world, and the most populous state in the United States with a population of over 35 million Californians, he was born in Austria, lived in New York City as a body builder, then a film star, and voila, governor of California! Why, in view of all these, are Nigerian focused on devaluing Nigerian citizenship of fellow Nigerians within Nigeria, just because the some Nigerians have exercised fundamental rights such as freedom of movement and right to travel or relocate and live in any locality within Nigeria?
Nigeria is replete and Nigeria in fact is being consumed by this singular illogicality. The settler-indigene dichotomies or fleeting and fluid distinctions which are inflicted on Nigerian citizens, devalues our citizenship as full fledged citizens of Nigeria with equal rights, duties and obligations. Nigerians in Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Maiduguri and Lagos etc are deathly afraid of domination by Igbos, instead of abject poverty and squalor and the absence of steady electricity and clean water?
Again, in the United States, particularly here in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and mayors before him, have always recognized the immense contributions made by immigrants to the development of New York City. Immigrants currently constitute 36% of the population of New York City, while contributing 37% to New York City’s economic development.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg in recognition of this, created and appointed a woman of Palestinian descent as New York City Commissioner for Immigrant Affairs! Imagine the irony of the presence of a Nigerian immigrant being more respected and appreciated in New York City, compared with the devaluation and degrading treatment such Nigerian may receive in various parts of Nigeria where she-he was born, just because she-he has a heritage with origins, other than, her-his chosen state of residence in Nigeria.
So that an Hausa Nigerian, Igbo Nigerian, Yoruba Nigerian, Esan or Ijaw Nigerian have their beloved Nigerian citizenship degraded and devalued because they chose a particular part of Nigeria to make their home and life? What a shame indeed! Why should it be the case that, just because my great grand parents were born in Maiduguri, and even though I have chosen Nnewi as my preferred part of Nigeria to create health, wealth and happiness, fellow Nigerians would not let me be? Whereas, Mayor Bloomberg says I am OK in New York City, so long as I am all about creating health, wealth and multiplying human happiness?
This writer is on record as a fervently passionate about one Nigeria forever, about the benefits of Nigeria’s unity in diversity and the perils of disintegration. This writer is on record as chastising those of my brethren who continue to espouse beliefs and aspirations in Biafra or any national aspirations outside Nigeria as presently constituted. Nevertheless, it cannot be the case and it is not logical, for any Nigerian to think it acceptable, a national arrangement, where a particular group is historically and persistently marginalized, relegated to the background and frequently bashed as Igbos are in Nigeria.
But who wants to be marginalized, relegated and bashed so often and persistently? Nigeria’ greatest challenge is the allocation and management of resources with which to tackle and eliminate poverty from Nigeria. Undermining a large segment of our population is similar to deploying two thirds of our resources whilst neglecting the deployment of a sizable chunk, as large as one thirds.
Same way some nations neglect to develop their national human capital, by neglecting gender equality for women who are in fact a majority of national populations worldwide. No normal pilot flies large jet airplanes with one engine, ordinarily.
Igbos’ genuine desires and aspirations as full citizens of Nigeria, have been neglected and ignored for far too long. It is gross and extreme injustice for any reasonable person to expect Igbos to remain happy campers in stagnation for so long. All fair minded Nigerians only need to put themselves in the unacceptable position and circumstances which have been imposed on fellow Nigerians of Igbo heritage.
All Nigerians need to and must vigorously discuss Nigeria and the events which led to the ignominious Nigerian Civil War. All Nigerians need to similarly discuss the economic and political developments and occurrences in the aftermath of the Nigeria-Biafra War.
Nigeria need truth, sincere reconciliation and national healing. Constantly blaming Igbos, who are arguably the recipients of the roughest end of the Civil War stick, is a national disservice and disgrace! It takes two sides to fight any war. Blaming one side to a thirty month long war is unreasonable, particularly so, after these 40 long years after the war.
Democracy in Nigeria and across the world is messy and in fact, quite imperfect, this is even more so, in relatively younger democracies such as our in Nigeria. This messes and imperfection become even more complex in multicultural, plural, and secular nations such as ours. Democracies, even in plural societies in which the most qualified persons with passion, commitment and dedication to best public policies for national common good are certainly preferred.
Nigeria’s young democracy, nascent, so-called, is still susceptible to negative common denominators of ethnic, regional, religious differences big and small, real and imagined. And so, the concerns and fears of marginalization and relegation are tenaciously held deeply felt. All Nigerians should recognize these basic facts and therefore do unto Igbos as the rest of Nigerians outside Igboland would expect unto themselves!
All things considered, Igbo Nigerians have be patient and levelheaded even in the face egregious provocations imbued in offensively laced pronouncements regarding Igbos genuine desires and aspirations within the nation of Nigeria. All Nigerians should become more conversant with the fact that the sun also rises in Igboland.
There are millions of competent women and men, who are eminently qualified to occupy the highest political office in the land, and to assume and exercise presidential powers and duties in Nigeria.
Google Search:
1. 2007 Presidential Elections In Nigeria And Ndigbo's Genuine Aspirations. circa 2005
2. What Do Ndiigbo Want? From Biafra To MASSOB. circa 2004
3. Biafra Is Dead, Buried & No More! circa 2005
Written Paul I. Adujie
Nigeria is actively undergoing electioneering campaigns for a general elections schedule for April 2011
This general election season has turned out to be an open season of attack, bigotries, prejudices and hatreds directed at Igbo by too many Nigerians.
Igbos are repeatedly attacked and denigrated, even when such attacks and denigrations are clearly unwarranted. These increased spate of vitriol directed at Igbos should make any reasonable person to ask questions.
Why is it, that so many Nigerians, too many Nigerians in fact, are so comfortable in talking down, patronizingly and condescendingly to, and about Igbos?
Why is it, that a majority of those commenting on national issues, with references to Igbos, are always denigrating fellow Nigerians, just because these Nigerians of Igbo extraction?
It is the case that most commentaries about Igbos are so insensitive, and so reckless and extremely inflammatory and careless. These caustic, corrosive and sour attitudes towards Igbos, clearly illustrate persisting ill will towards Igbos. These negative attitudes towards Igbos, are emblematic of bigotries, prejudices and hatreds which have been visited upon Igbos historically and unfortunately, the frequency of these anti Igbo pronouncements in Nigeria is on the upsurge. Too many recent comments against and about Igbos, are just shockingly disgusting!
Nigerians of earlier and older generations have poor excuses for exhibiting clannish attitudes towards other Nigerians of different ethnic or linguistic groups, religious and regional groups in our multicultural and very diverse nation. But how does anyone explain recent barrages of attacks, unwarranted attacks and badgering against Igos? How does anyone explain the fact that very educated, extensively traveled and worldly wise Nigerians continue to exhibit extremely negative and primordial attitude against Igbos?
It is recognized and conceded, that plural society are rather competitive. Competition for resources which are not limitless. Competition for economic and political control, including the competition for the control and or allocation of resources.
What is unacceptable, and what should be condemned by all Nigerians, and reasonable persons everywhere, is the frequency and regularity of occurrence of Igbo bashing and unwarranted attacks against Igbos by fellow Nigerians.
This is the first week of March 2011. Nigeria is in the throes of extreme politicking. It is public knowledge that a momentous general election in Nigeria is upon Nigeria, scheduled for April 2011.
Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora should or ought to be actively engaged in debates of our national issues and challenges. Nigerians ought to eliciting and engendering debates between political candidates and the various political parties regarding their stances and positions on public policies and programs
Nigerians across the spectrum ought to focus on how the current crop of political candidates and their parties may create or bring about better life for all Nigerians all over Nigeria. But instead, too many Nigerians are focused how to keep Igbos marginalized, relegated, even as Igbos are bashed ceaselessly and endlessly.
Igbos are continually blamed for every and all of Nigeria’s afflictions, including political, constitutional and economic underdevelopment. A cursory examination of Nigeria’s past clearly indicates Igbos as victims of sundry circumstances in Nigeria. But revisionists in Nigeria are constantly engaging in extremely offensive revisionism in which Igbos are blamed for the marginalization, relegation and bashing to which Igbo have been subjected for decades.
A case in point is the unwarranted vitriolic attacks from many commentators at a Nigeria related website known as www.Nigeriavillagesquare.com; There was news that the Lagos state branch of Ohaneze, an Igbo sociocultural organization, had issued a public statement, demanding political inclusion and adequate reflection in Lagos state affairs. Too many Nigerians are too often engaged in selective memory and blissful amnesia.
A majority of those commenting or responding to the news, commented as though they felt compelled to excoriate and demean Igbos. The comments against Igbos were so outrageous and outlandish, you would think the word Igbo refers to a foreign nation outside of Nigeria with which Nigerians and Nigeria understandably directed hostilities and venom!
On ground in Nigeria, the sour attitude directed at Igbo is not much better. Many high profile political figures in Nigeria, have recently engaged in uncouth, insensitive and inflammatory pronouncements directed at Igbo citizens of Nigeria.
It is quite ironical and even oxymoronic, that many Nigerians who celebrated and went agog, (perhaps rightfully and proudly so), over President Obama’s appointment of a Nigerian physician, cancer expert, Dr. Olufunmilayo Falusi Olopade, Member, National Cancer Advisory Board of the United States; are the same Nigerians who are now, after or within a few days, surprisingly-shockingly disgustingly expressing offense, over possible appointments of Igbos by Lagos state government.
Dr. Olopade is Nigerian who received her medical degree from the great University of Ibadan, Nigeria and a Chicago “transplant“, by way of Nigeria, even with her stellar academic and professional overachiever,with so many accomplishments under her lab-coat and medical overall, would an undeserving non-indigene, “foreigner” and usurper “settler” in the warped-twisted logic of some Nigerians!
Some Nigerians, too many Nigerians across the world, it seems, appear to think Dr. Olopade were she an Igo lady in Lagos or Kano should not aspire or be appointed, despite her pedigrees? It bears restating here for the record, that this ethnic, regional and religious chauvinism, bigotries and prejudices borne of hatreds or mutual suspicions, are not special or unique to particular ethnic groups or regions in Nigeria. Inequality, discrimination and devaluation of citizenship is an equal opportunity offenses of which too many Nigerians are guilty.
I am not advocating that a blind Igbo person should be hired by Lagos state government to drive school buses, in the name of diversity or representation of Igbos in employment by Lagos state government. But Igbos who make Lagos home, like other fellow Nigerians, with qualifications, requisite experience and antecedents and pedigrees should have equal opportunities and representation in the scheme of things in Lagos.
My argument is identical for ALL Nigerians of other ethnic groups, regional and religious affiliations.
Non-Igbo Nigerians in this current electioneering campaign in the lead up to the general elections in April 2011, have arrogantly and adamantly announced to Igbos where Igbos belong and what political turn Igbos may expect. These offensive pronouncements about and against Igbos are frequently made with consultation and reference to Igbos. And what is worse, these pronouncements are made by non-Igbos about Igbos and without regard to the feelings and aspirations of Igbos.
Loud pronouncements about the place of Igbos in Nigeria’s political future have been made by some high profile Nigerians in recent times. These pronouncements have bordered around and encompassed unrestrained arrogant vituperation of Igbos. No adult should tell another adult what to do or what the future holds, but, unfortunately, some Nigerians are arrogant and pigheaded in the extreme, when they presumptuously announce the future for over 40 million Igbos in Nigeria!
Some Nigerians are so insensitive to the feelings of Igbo Nigerians or perhaps it is that some Nigerians take perverse joy in dehumanizing and degrading Igbo Nigerians? Our national security and national strategic interests are better in foreign hands than in the hands of Igbos?
The truth is governments in Nigeria currently employ Americans, Europeans, Indians, Chinese etc. Why the fear and loathing for the prospects of Igbos in employment within the same circles of governments in Nigeria?
A few days ago, I read the opinion of the Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Mohammed Abba-Aji which contained yet, another gloomy, if impossible political forecasts of the future for Igbos in 2015. Professor Omo Omoruyi engaged in similar forecasts several days before, both men, with iron clad view of Igbo Nigerian as occupying the presidency of Nigeria in 2015. Both men were an inch close to and hair-thin short of, predicting that Aso Rock door will remain shut against Igbo man or woman in 2015.
Ibrahim Badmass Babangida it was who, loudly announced to Igbos to await the future, perhaps 2015 and to forget 2011. Babangida made this announcement while supporting and participating in the Adamu Ciroma so-called consensus candidature for the presidency of Nigeria, an effort, which insisted on zoning and rotational presidency by PDP, which is supposed to favor geographic northern Nigeria in 2011 elections.
Everyone often talk down to and about Igbos. Everyone makes matter-of-fact pronouncements about Igbo’s political prospects in Nigeria, and Igbos are supposed to and expected to take all of these and as fait accompli and smile? Igbos like other Nigerians have a stake in Nigeria’s outcome. Igbos should feel at home throughout Nigeria, even despite checkered and painful historical experiences of violence against Igbos across Nigeria. Non-Igbos are keenly aware of Igbos industriousness, superb intellect and business acumen and enterprise. These attributes and qualities are appreciated across Nigeria with Igbo’s industry and presence is felt in the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, bar none!
Some states in Nigeria, including Lagos, in recognition and appreciation, have appointed Nigerians, Igbos, to prominent public state offices, even though such Nigerians are from ethnic groups, other than the catchments area dominant ethnic group.
As when Lagos appoints an Igbo person to public office because such persons are Nigerians and are qualified, and further, to give the appearance of representing and reflecting the demographic components of such states, in this instance, Lagos state.
All Nigerians and lovers of democracy should advocate and promote this practice, in which our government at various levels, accurately reflects our local, state and national population of Nigerian citizens. Lagos and its surrounding or neighboring states are comprised ethnic Yoruba Nigerians. Igbos are the second largest Nigerian ethnic group apart from
Yoruba. It is therefore not extraordinary for Lagos to aspire to reflect this in elective and appointive public offices. Ohaneze is reportedly articulating and advocating inclusion into the political scheme of things in Lagos and Ohaneze have been accused of impoliteness or worse, threatening, usurping and blackmailing Lagos state. Ohaneze is an umbrella Igbo organization and it is duty bound to advocate Igbo’s cause. But Ohaneze is being accused of being bad “guests” for making legitimate demands.
In the United States, immigrants and their children are sometimes elected or appointed to political offices. President Obama is the son of Kenyan immigrant, President Obama is an American by birth, he is nonetheless a first generation American. But Nigerians motivated by bigotry, hatred and prejudice against the “otherness” in fellow Nigerians, in this instance, Igbos, would argue that a third or fourth generation Igbo person in Lagos should not be elected or appointed to political offices in Lagos, on the ground, solely, that such person is of Igbo great grand parents and in effect, of Igbo heritage, even if such person is as versed and as comfortable in Yoruba culture as Abiola or Komolafe or even Omoluabi
President Obama’s father came to the United States less than 50 years ago and his son is president. And yet, too many Nigerians insist adamantly, that children and grandchildren of fellow Nigerians who “migrated” from various parts of Nigeria to different parts of same Nigeria, should remain as “illegal-immigrants” in our country Nigeria? Going by the present illogic in Nigeria, President Obama could not be employed outside of state of Hawaii, never mind becoming a US senator from Illinois or US president.
Mrs. Hilary Rodham Clinton , the Secretary of State for United States is originally from the state of Illinois, married President Bill Clinton from the state of Arkansas, before becoming Secretary of State, she was the elected US senator from New York State.
And how about the storied astronomical rise of former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of the state of California, the fifth largest economy in the world, and the most populous state in the United States with a population of over 35 million Californians, he was born in Austria, lived in New York City as a body builder, then a film star, and voila, governor of California! Why, in view of all these, are Nigerian focused on devaluing Nigerian citizenship of fellow Nigerians within Nigeria, just because the some Nigerians have exercised fundamental rights such as freedom of movement and right to travel or relocate and live in any locality within Nigeria?
Nigeria is replete and Nigeria in fact is being consumed by this singular illogicality. The settler-indigene dichotomies or fleeting and fluid distinctions which are inflicted on Nigerian citizens, devalues our citizenship as full fledged citizens of Nigeria with equal rights, duties and obligations. Nigerians in Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Maiduguri and Lagos etc are deathly afraid of domination by Igbos, instead of abject poverty and squalor and the absence of steady electricity and clean water?
Again, in the United States, particularly here in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and mayors before him, have always recognized the immense contributions made by immigrants to the development of New York City. Immigrants currently constitute 36% of the population of New York City, while contributing 37% to New York City’s economic development.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg in recognition of this, created and appointed a woman of Palestinian descent as New York City Commissioner for Immigrant Affairs! Imagine the irony of the presence of a Nigerian immigrant being more respected and appreciated in New York City, compared with the devaluation and degrading treatment such Nigerian may receive in various parts of Nigeria where she-he was born, just because she-he has a heritage with origins, other than, her-his chosen state of residence in Nigeria.
So that an Hausa Nigerian, Igbo Nigerian, Yoruba Nigerian, Esan or Ijaw Nigerian have their beloved Nigerian citizenship degraded and devalued because they chose a particular part of Nigeria to make their home and life? What a shame indeed! Why should it be the case that, just because my great grand parents were born in Maiduguri, and even though I have chosen Nnewi as my preferred part of Nigeria to create health, wealth and happiness, fellow Nigerians would not let me be? Whereas, Mayor Bloomberg says I am OK in New York City, so long as I am all about creating health, wealth and multiplying human happiness?
This writer is on record as a fervently passionate about one Nigeria forever, about the benefits of Nigeria’s unity in diversity and the perils of disintegration. This writer is on record as chastising those of my brethren who continue to espouse beliefs and aspirations in Biafra or any national aspirations outside Nigeria as presently constituted. Nevertheless, it cannot be the case and it is not logical, for any Nigerian to think it acceptable, a national arrangement, where a particular group is historically and persistently marginalized, relegated to the background and frequently bashed as Igbos are in Nigeria.
But who wants to be marginalized, relegated and bashed so often and persistently? Nigeria’ greatest challenge is the allocation and management of resources with which to tackle and eliminate poverty from Nigeria. Undermining a large segment of our population is similar to deploying two thirds of our resources whilst neglecting the deployment of a sizable chunk, as large as one thirds.
Same way some nations neglect to develop their national human capital, by neglecting gender equality for women who are in fact a majority of national populations worldwide. No normal pilot flies large jet airplanes with one engine, ordinarily.
Igbos’ genuine desires and aspirations as full citizens of Nigeria, have been neglected and ignored for far too long. It is gross and extreme injustice for any reasonable person to expect Igbos to remain happy campers in stagnation for so long. All fair minded Nigerians only need to put themselves in the unacceptable position and circumstances which have been imposed on fellow Nigerians of Igbo heritage.
All Nigerians need to and must vigorously discuss Nigeria and the events which led to the ignominious Nigerian Civil War. All Nigerians need to similarly discuss the economic and political developments and occurrences in the aftermath of the Nigeria-Biafra War.
Nigeria need truth, sincere reconciliation and national healing. Constantly blaming Igbos, who are arguably the recipients of the roughest end of the Civil War stick, is a national disservice and disgrace! It takes two sides to fight any war. Blaming one side to a thirty month long war is unreasonable, particularly so, after these 40 long years after the war.
Democracy in Nigeria and across the world is messy and in fact, quite imperfect, this is even more so, in relatively younger democracies such as our in Nigeria. This messes and imperfection become even more complex in multicultural, plural, and secular nations such as ours. Democracies, even in plural societies in which the most qualified persons with passion, commitment and dedication to best public policies for national common good are certainly preferred.
Nigeria’s young democracy, nascent, so-called, is still susceptible to negative common denominators of ethnic, regional, religious differences big and small, real and imagined. And so, the concerns and fears of marginalization and relegation are tenaciously held deeply felt. All Nigerians should recognize these basic facts and therefore do unto Igbos as the rest of Nigerians outside Igboland would expect unto themselves!
All things considered, Igbo Nigerians have be patient and levelheaded even in the face egregious provocations imbued in offensively laced pronouncements regarding Igbos genuine desires and aspirations within the nation of Nigeria. All Nigerians should become more conversant with the fact that the sun also rises in Igboland.
There are millions of competent women and men, who are eminently qualified to occupy the highest political office in the land, and to assume and exercise presidential powers and duties in Nigeria.
Google Search:
1. 2007 Presidential Elections In Nigeria And Ndigbo's Genuine Aspirations. circa 2005
2. What Do Ndiigbo Want? From Biafra To MASSOB. circa 2004
3. Biafra Is Dead, Buried & No More! circa 2005
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Emilia George & The Value of Nigerian Citizenship
Emilia George & The Value of Nigerian Citizenship
Written by Paul I. Adujie
I have just read about the desperately sad, and extremely dire plights and predicaments of a fellow Nigerian citizen; Her name is Emilia George and she was featured in a story on the online pages of The Guardian Newspapers of Nigeria. In an article written by one Ms. Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu, it recounted how Emilia George became a victim of tragedy at multiple levels.
First she was involved in a collision between a motorcycle and vehicle, a tipper truck. While unconscious, she became a patient of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital or UBTH, and then, she soon became a pawn in the hands of many.
Emilia George’s tales of woes are reminders to all of us, of our socially stratified society with such pungent stench and decadence at seemingly all levels. Emilia George’s suffering, hardship and extreme desperation is revelatory of the wanton neglect by the leaderships of our political and economic systems, the extreme neglect to which a majority of our citizens are unfortunately subjected, as fact of life.
The extent and quality of human refinement in Nigeria must be measured by how we treat the poor and the underprivileged amongst us. Emilia George's Nigerian citizenship and her fundamental rights are being subjected to a "means-test" Her detention over her inability to pay her medical bills, is an affront and it is tantamount to an abridgment and a wrongful devaluing of her Nigerian citizenship.
I did not know that it was legal and proper for any hospital in Nigeria or anywhere in the world, to hold patients against the patience’s will, as a result of the patient’s inability to pay bills arising from medical treatment and care. I did not know.
Even so, the hospital within which Emilia George is being held, is a hospital owned, funded and operated with taxpayers’ money. Anyone would think, reasonably, that a hospital owned and operated by the government would not do such.
A local, state and in this case, a federal government, hospital would not compel a Nigerian citizen to remain in hospitalized involuntarily, due to her inability to pay for medical care which was already provided. Even if, this egregious behavior was a common or rampant practice by private hospitals in the locality.
Emilia George’s case clearly illustrates, or exemplifies the extreme extent and magnitude of failures of basic structures in our society and nation. It is not uncommon in Nigeria to learn of how medical doctors, nurses and others in the healthcare system refusing or neglecting to provide even urgent medical care until cash payment is received.
Nigerian health workers are known to argue that their salaries have been unpaid and as a consequence, the sick become the pawn and the chip in the ping pong games or fights between ineffective uncaring political leaders and beleaguered healthcare workers whose lives are rendered unbearably hard through unpaid salaries and miserable working conditions
Ineptitude on the parts of various levels of government leadership now feeds off of the angst and disenchantment of workers of the health sub-sector.
All this makes anyone want to ask, whether democracy, due process and the rule of law means anything to anyone in Nigeria. How else does a Nigerian citizen get detained in a hospital as a prisoner? This is so, without police, law enforcement and judicial intervention, as a matter of process and procedure. How can our nation be so brutish and arbitrary?
Emilia George represents and encapsulates the story of every Nigerian. She rode a motorcycle as her mode of transportation in the absence of public policy on mass transit or any solid substitute form of public transportation. She is injured as a result of human errors on the part of either the motor cycle operator or the driver of the tipper truck or both motorists, and traffic police failed Emilia George.
Absence of a vehicular insurance policy which would have served as a buffer or cushion against calamities, ensured that Emilia George had no recourse.
Nigeria failed Emilia George at every level. What is the function of our government at every level? What is the use and purpose of our government, at least from the perspectives of Emilia George? No public transportation or mass transit. She then relies on what was available.
Upon being injured, the motorcyclist who was hired by Emilia George and the driver of the tipper involved in the tragic accident were not held accountable? Were the vehicular actors insured? Were government agencies and mechanisms for dealing roads and vehicular accidents activated? What were the actions of the various government agencies charge with the responsibilities of tackling issues such as have arisen.
Emilia George was involved in a vehicular accident on a public street or highway, were there any reports to the police? What were the outcomes of police investigations and actions? Nigeria operates mandatory insurance policy law for all motorists, were the insurance carriers of the motorists in question notified? What was the outcomes or responses by the insurance companies? Are insurance companies allowed to collect premiums from insured or policy holders, but never held responsible when insured events occurs?
Emilia George is a Nigerian citizen who deserves and should expect the protection and service from the government of Nigeria. This include the provision of good roads. Public transportation. Rules of the road including insurance and post vehicular accident policies which guides and protects all parties to vehicular accidents. Are Nigerians not entitled to the very basic functions from our government?
Emilia George did nothing wrong. She exercised her freedom of movement and right to travel, now she is amputated, she is traumatized and her ordeal is being exacerbated and prolonged, as she is detained by a major hospital which is owned and operated by Emilia George’s government
She was injured and there was no compensation and there were no consequences for those responsible for her injuries which led to the amputation of her hand. And, she is now being detained and further traumatized by a hospital, which is owned and operated by our federal government!
How can this be logical, or fair? There are so many things happening in Nigeria these days which I thought were unfathomable. But it Emilia George’s plights and predicaments are extremes. Nigeria is not Afghanistan, Iraq or Somalia, the infamous poster boys for failed nation states.
But why is it possible for Emilia George’s tragedy to be part of our national narratives?
What is exactly is the purpose of government?
There are 150 million tales by citizens of Nigeria who are confronted with devalued Naira and its consequences the multiplier effects on everything Nigerians use and we import virtually everything
Nigerians are confronted with the absence of clean water, steady electricity, absence of decent roads and bridges. Nigerians are confronted with abandoned, neglected and decayed public infrastructure across all sectors, including health, agriculture, education etc. And in the face of all these, candidates for the general elections are colluding and conniving and merely coasting toward the scheduled general elections in April!
Iraq, even after over 20 years internal and external violence and crises, still manage to generate and transmit more electricity than what obtains in Nigeria. How can Nigeria be worse than Iraq with reference to electricity and water? Nigeria as a matter of urgency, must allocated and manage resources in new and better ways. Ineptitude, selfishness and unbridled and unmitigated greed has created needless abject poverty in Nigeria.
These are the conditions and circumstances which makes this Emilia George type shameful stories possible in Nigeria. There is no reason why there should be such terrible poverty and desperation which is propelled by such poverty and squalor in Nigeria. How could this Emilia George’s national embarrassment and shame have arisen in Nigeria? This national shame and embarrassment is not unique to her and that makes it even more painful to contemplate and fathom!
Please help this fellow Nigerian citizen... she has suffered enough. Her story is truly sad and her circumstances remain dire. I am left to wonder about her sense of what is left of her person, Emilia George most probably feels devalued beyond redemption. If Emilia George or any other Nigerian was subjected to these injustices by another nation, I would have recommended repercussions against such nation!
But unfortunately, Emilia George’s situations were created by persisting circumstances in Nigeria. Her excruciating experiences have brought about by the human condition in Nigeria. She is entitled to ask, and rightly so, what is the value of her citizenship? How could human dignity mean anything to her after her ordeal? How can any society devalue her humanity so egregiously? Where is the outrage against these sorts of depravities?
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=39959%3Afree-emilia-cant-leave-hospital&catid=3%3Ametro&Itemid=558
http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/main-square/61319-free-emilia-can-t-leave-hospital.html
I am a Nigerian. I am proud of my citizenship. I am simultaneously embarrassed and thoroughly ashamed of what has happened to our fellow citizen Emilia George.
I do not understand how this could happen in Nigeria, my homeland. Nigeria is brimming with women and men with superb intellects. Nigeria is a nation filled with bountiful human and material resources.
Nigeria is a nation of abundance. But how can I convince Emilia George of the value of her citizenship? Emilia George is young, but she has seen the abyss. What can we, all Nigerians at home and abroad do to restore her faith in the value of her citizenship?
Emilia George has endured extreme agonies, prolonged sufferings and hardships, all, through no fault of hers. How can all this possibly be any reasonable person’s sense of justice?
Nigerians, friends of Nigeria and all reasonable persons should help secure freedom for Emilia George.
Written by Paul I. Adujie
I have just read about the desperately sad, and extremely dire plights and predicaments of a fellow Nigerian citizen; Her name is Emilia George and she was featured in a story on the online pages of The Guardian Newspapers of Nigeria. In an article written by one Ms. Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu, it recounted how Emilia George became a victim of tragedy at multiple levels.
First she was involved in a collision between a motorcycle and vehicle, a tipper truck. While unconscious, she became a patient of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital or UBTH, and then, she soon became a pawn in the hands of many.
Emilia George’s tales of woes are reminders to all of us, of our socially stratified society with such pungent stench and decadence at seemingly all levels. Emilia George’s suffering, hardship and extreme desperation is revelatory of the wanton neglect by the leaderships of our political and economic systems, the extreme neglect to which a majority of our citizens are unfortunately subjected, as fact of life.
The extent and quality of human refinement in Nigeria must be measured by how we treat the poor and the underprivileged amongst us. Emilia George's Nigerian citizenship and her fundamental rights are being subjected to a "means-test" Her detention over her inability to pay her medical bills, is an affront and it is tantamount to an abridgment and a wrongful devaluing of her Nigerian citizenship.
I did not know that it was legal and proper for any hospital in Nigeria or anywhere in the world, to hold patients against the patience’s will, as a result of the patient’s inability to pay bills arising from medical treatment and care. I did not know.
Even so, the hospital within which Emilia George is being held, is a hospital owned, funded and operated with taxpayers’ money. Anyone would think, reasonably, that a hospital owned and operated by the government would not do such.
A local, state and in this case, a federal government, hospital would not compel a Nigerian citizen to remain in hospitalized involuntarily, due to her inability to pay for medical care which was already provided. Even if, this egregious behavior was a common or rampant practice by private hospitals in the locality.
Emilia George’s case clearly illustrates, or exemplifies the extreme extent and magnitude of failures of basic structures in our society and nation. It is not uncommon in Nigeria to learn of how medical doctors, nurses and others in the healthcare system refusing or neglecting to provide even urgent medical care until cash payment is received.
Nigerian health workers are known to argue that their salaries have been unpaid and as a consequence, the sick become the pawn and the chip in the ping pong games or fights between ineffective uncaring political leaders and beleaguered healthcare workers whose lives are rendered unbearably hard through unpaid salaries and miserable working conditions
Ineptitude on the parts of various levels of government leadership now feeds off of the angst and disenchantment of workers of the health sub-sector.
All this makes anyone want to ask, whether democracy, due process and the rule of law means anything to anyone in Nigeria. How else does a Nigerian citizen get detained in a hospital as a prisoner? This is so, without police, law enforcement and judicial intervention, as a matter of process and procedure. How can our nation be so brutish and arbitrary?
Emilia George represents and encapsulates the story of every Nigerian. She rode a motorcycle as her mode of transportation in the absence of public policy on mass transit or any solid substitute form of public transportation. She is injured as a result of human errors on the part of either the motor cycle operator or the driver of the tipper truck or both motorists, and traffic police failed Emilia George.
Absence of a vehicular insurance policy which would have served as a buffer or cushion against calamities, ensured that Emilia George had no recourse.
Nigeria failed Emilia George at every level. What is the function of our government at every level? What is the use and purpose of our government, at least from the perspectives of Emilia George? No public transportation or mass transit. She then relies on what was available.
Upon being injured, the motorcyclist who was hired by Emilia George and the driver of the tipper involved in the tragic accident were not held accountable? Were the vehicular actors insured? Were government agencies and mechanisms for dealing roads and vehicular accidents activated? What were the actions of the various government agencies charge with the responsibilities of tackling issues such as have arisen.
Emilia George was involved in a vehicular accident on a public street or highway, were there any reports to the police? What were the outcomes of police investigations and actions? Nigeria operates mandatory insurance policy law for all motorists, were the insurance carriers of the motorists in question notified? What was the outcomes or responses by the insurance companies? Are insurance companies allowed to collect premiums from insured or policy holders, but never held responsible when insured events occurs?
Emilia George is a Nigerian citizen who deserves and should expect the protection and service from the government of Nigeria. This include the provision of good roads. Public transportation. Rules of the road including insurance and post vehicular accident policies which guides and protects all parties to vehicular accidents. Are Nigerians not entitled to the very basic functions from our government?
Emilia George did nothing wrong. She exercised her freedom of movement and right to travel, now she is amputated, she is traumatized and her ordeal is being exacerbated and prolonged, as she is detained by a major hospital which is owned and operated by Emilia George’s government
She was injured and there was no compensation and there were no consequences for those responsible for her injuries which led to the amputation of her hand. And, she is now being detained and further traumatized by a hospital, which is owned and operated by our federal government!
How can this be logical, or fair? There are so many things happening in Nigeria these days which I thought were unfathomable. But it Emilia George’s plights and predicaments are extremes. Nigeria is not Afghanistan, Iraq or Somalia, the infamous poster boys for failed nation states.
But why is it possible for Emilia George’s tragedy to be part of our national narratives?
What is exactly is the purpose of government?
There are 150 million tales by citizens of Nigeria who are confronted with devalued Naira and its consequences the multiplier effects on everything Nigerians use and we import virtually everything
Nigerians are confronted with the absence of clean water, steady electricity, absence of decent roads and bridges. Nigerians are confronted with abandoned, neglected and decayed public infrastructure across all sectors, including health, agriculture, education etc. And in the face of all these, candidates for the general elections are colluding and conniving and merely coasting toward the scheduled general elections in April!
Iraq, even after over 20 years internal and external violence and crises, still manage to generate and transmit more electricity than what obtains in Nigeria. How can Nigeria be worse than Iraq with reference to electricity and water? Nigeria as a matter of urgency, must allocated and manage resources in new and better ways. Ineptitude, selfishness and unbridled and unmitigated greed has created needless abject poverty in Nigeria.
These are the conditions and circumstances which makes this Emilia George type shameful stories possible in Nigeria. There is no reason why there should be such terrible poverty and desperation which is propelled by such poverty and squalor in Nigeria. How could this Emilia George’s national embarrassment and shame have arisen in Nigeria? This national shame and embarrassment is not unique to her and that makes it even more painful to contemplate and fathom!
Please help this fellow Nigerian citizen... she has suffered enough. Her story is truly sad and her circumstances remain dire. I am left to wonder about her sense of what is left of her person, Emilia George most probably feels devalued beyond redemption. If Emilia George or any other Nigerian was subjected to these injustices by another nation, I would have recommended repercussions against such nation!
But unfortunately, Emilia George’s situations were created by persisting circumstances in Nigeria. Her excruciating experiences have brought about by the human condition in Nigeria. She is entitled to ask, and rightly so, what is the value of her citizenship? How could human dignity mean anything to her after her ordeal? How can any society devalue her humanity so egregiously? Where is the outrage against these sorts of depravities?
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=39959%3Afree-emilia-cant-leave-hospital&catid=3%3Ametro&Itemid=558
http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/main-square/61319-free-emilia-can-t-leave-hospital.html
I am a Nigerian. I am proud of my citizenship. I am simultaneously embarrassed and thoroughly ashamed of what has happened to our fellow citizen Emilia George.
I do not understand how this could happen in Nigeria, my homeland. Nigeria is brimming with women and men with superb intellects. Nigeria is a nation filled with bountiful human and material resources.
Nigeria is a nation of abundance. But how can I convince Emilia George of the value of her citizenship? Emilia George is young, but she has seen the abyss. What can we, all Nigerians at home and abroad do to restore her faith in the value of her citizenship?
Emilia George has endured extreme agonies, prolonged sufferings and hardships, all, through no fault of hers. How can all this possibly be any reasonable person’s sense of justice?
Nigerians, friends of Nigeria and all reasonable persons should help secure freedom for Emilia George.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Revolution? Nigeria Is Ripe & Ready You Can Say That Again!
Revolution? Nigeria Is Ripe & Ready You Can Say That Again!
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Democracy does not begin and end on election day. Democracy is not periodic-episodic actions. Democracy and elections have consequences. Democracy in Nigeria must not mean motions without movement.
Democracy must have bearing upon and must have positive impact on public policies. Due Process and The Rule of Law are key elements which forms the essential core democracies. Democratic process must promote and advance, due process and the rule of law
Nigeria in the 51st year post political independence operates a parlous national economy, in which steady electricity is still a promise, a dream and a fantasy. Nigeria after 50 years of flag independence from Britain is still in fits and starts. Nigeria is still a nation in which the majority cannot enjoy clean water supply. Too many Nigerians still die from avoidable, preventable and curable diseases, including malaria
Nigeria remains a nation in which public officials, private sector operators and sundry members of the richest one percent, must travel abroad for basic medical care, even as Nigerian hospitals and health-care systems are under-staffed, under equipped and under-funded. Resources are misallocated and mismanaged
Nigeria, after 50 of cessation of colonial rule by Britain, Nigeria remains unwilling to ensure the safety and security of persons and properties within our borders Democracy in Nigeria should confer meaningful benefits or rewards to our citizens. Political apathy arises when a plurality of citizens believe that they have been taken for granted and that improvements would not come, regardless of citizens’ efforts and actions
Nigeria’s judiciary, which ought to be the last hope of the average citizen is mired in scandals. The Nigerian Judiciary, the third most important arm of our democratic government, is currently bedeviled by allegations and counter accusations of perversions of justice. These allegations are being traded by and between the highest echelons of the Nigerian Judiciary.
It is now an open secret that Justice Isa Ayo Salami, the President of Nigeria Court of Appeals have pointedly accused Justice Aloysicious Katsina Alu, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, of inappropriate, unethical and illegal contact with the former, with a view to affecting the outcome of a gubernatorial or governorship petition from Sokoto state which was pending before Justice Salami’s Court of Appeals
The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Alu and Justice Salami have since then engaged in public spat, including a law suit filed and then withdrawn, as well as a series of administrative queries emanating from and originated by, the Chief Justice of Nigeria and directed at the President of the Court of Appeal. All these run counter and are inconsistent with the standard of utmost integrity, good faith, trust and decorum, for which the legal profession is known, particularly at such apex levels of the CJN and PCA respectively.
Smack in the middle of this house, Nigeria, so divided against herself, or put alternatively, Nigeria, our home is metaphorically, figuratively and literally on fire, while the presidential candidates and their political parties prefer to engage in window-dressing, and electioneering farce, in which the candidates and their various political parties appear to have zoned various offices to themselves and their political parties. And as a consequence, there are no Issues Driven Debates.
There no electioneering campaigns in the true sense of the term. The candidates, the aspirants, the flag bearers and their various political parties are merely talking over the heads of the Nigerian electorate, the Nigerian public and press. The political actors remain splendidly uninterested in debate of public policies and sundry national challenges, whereby various candidates and their political parties may stake their position on national issues ranging from the economy, national science and technology policy and innovation, including the fate of our national currency which have been over devalued since 1986
It is public knowledge and even trite, to restate the obvious regarding the neglected and decrepit state of our health-care system which is exemplified by the fact that our former president, the late Umaru YarAdua was hospitalized in Saudi Arabia for 93 days for medical treatment. Why did this monumental embarrassment occur? The laughable idea that our president, the symbol of our nation, national security and all, have to seek surgery and dialysis outside Nigeria? Many a Nigerian politician, private sector operator and or public figure, now as matter of course, resort to seeking medical treatment or care outside the shores of Nigeria as Chief Odumegu Ojukwu is currently doing in Britain
Oba of Benin admonished the Federal Government of Nigeria as reported by Nigerian newspapers on Saturday February 26, 2011. The Oba was angered and expressed his displeasure of the abandonment, neglect and unwarranted delays to a major highway, expressway which links Lagos to Benin, South -South and South East. The Oba who was visited by the Works Minister of State, expressed public displeasure at failure by the federal government regarding the Lagos-Benin-Ore highway. This major roadway and artery, has since become a national burden and a drain. A burden on all travelers for commerce or pleasure. The ineffectiveness, the inefficiency and ineptitude regarding Lagos-Benin-Ore highway, certainly cannot be a demonstration of problem -solving acumen on the part of the current central government.
Nigerians know that Nigeria is no longer under a totalitarian and despotic military dictatorship or tyranny
Nigerians at home and abroad are keenly aware that peaceful transfer of civilian to civilian political power have transpired in Nigeria relatively peacefully during the preceding several years, particularly, since 2007. The world knows therefore, that Nigeria is not identical to or with the one man dictatorships in Tunisia or Egypt or Libya which have existed for decades, two, three and four decades respectively. Even so, the point must be made that true democracy is a yet to take roots in Nigeria. Due Process and The Rule of Law are yet to be second-nature to political and private sector operator. Democratic structures are taking roots, but we cannot as yet, with a straight face, say that there is true and institutionalized democracy in Nigeria. We do have democracy, which remains extremely imperfect, and a work in progress.
There is high rate of unemployment in Nigeria, including high rate of unemployment among the college educated segment of our population, including some with advanced university degrees! There is heightening state of insecurity, including kidnapping and sundry antisocial behaviors traceable and correlative with the Nigerian national economy comatose state for far too long now.
Nigeria continue to fund the education and agriculture sectors most inadequately. There are glaring and repeated cases of misallocation and mismanagement of national resources. A majority of Nigerian citizens continue to wallow in abject poverty and in most squalid of human conditions. Why should Nigerians endure terrible suffering, hardship and desperation in the face Nigeria’s abundance in human and material resources? And yet, the current political class are unable to articulate public policy position, policies and programs which they will bring about to address and redress our national issues, national concerns and sundry national challenges?
This is after all an election season, why then are the presidential candidates not marketing themselves, canvassing or begging convincingly for votes and asking the electorate in forthright requests for support from voters? Why are the absence or paucity of manifestos and ideology and Issued Driven Debates
Why are the opposition political parties not variously comparing and contrasting themselves, individually and separately, with the current political party which controls the central or federal government, issue by issue, policy by policy and letting the press and public, the electorate know their public policy stance in comparison with the current federal government? Such contradistinctions, by the various candidates and their political parties, well articulated, will provide the predicate for a free and fair, credible elections outcome, free of rancor, irregularities or frauds which usually elicit violent resistance from political opponents.
It is sadly the case, that the current crop of Nigeria’s political leadership, are not deploying essential machinery and tools of democracy through meaningful interactions with the press, public and particularly the Nigerian electorate. There currently no vibrant and vigorous electioneering campaigns which are motivated by Nigerian National Issues. The various political parties and their numerous candidates are merely coasting toward the general elections in April 2011. Nigerians and Nigeria are therefore, in essence, sleepwalking towards an election impasse, and election stalemate and an election deadlock. We must wake up. We must cease and desist from sleepwalking towards the precipice of disaster and fulfilling prophecies of anarchy and disintegration foretold
Retired General Muhamadu Buhari believes that the continuing abject poverty which have been endured for too long by a plurality of Nigerians and the egregious neglect by the current crop of Nigeria political elite to even pretend to address these dire circumstances could be where fertilizer meet fertile ground in what would be Nigeria’s version of political revolution, revolt and upheaval similar to what the world is witnessing, including the political situation which began in Tunisia, then rolled through Egypt and it is now lingering in Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen and probably Saudi Arabia the bastion of theocracy and impervious to economic and political changes and reforms
The Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi of the Central Bank of Nigeria, along with many others, are right in their accurate assessment of the human condition which currently permeates and pervades Nigeria. Governor Sanusi and others are right in adding and raising their voices to address dire and precarious situation in Nigeria, situations which afflict the majority of Nigerian citizens. A responsive government and or a political system would measure the public pulse respond or seek to create ameliorative responses.
The Nigerian political class in power and the opposition parties and their candidates are identical in their lack of ideology. They are identical in ways in which they are arrogantly taking the public and the electorate for granted. The candidates and their political parties have created an art form out of their notorious contempt, utter contempt for the voter. The voters are contemptuously discounted from the process!
The candidates and their various political parties seem to so presumptuously ready to discuss self-assured predictable elections outcomes without suasion of the voting public. There are plenty talks which matter-of-fact conclusive outcomes for election which are yet to be had in April. The Nigerian political class are now behaving as if they outcomes are forgone conclusions, so for them, there is no need to haggle with the voters about ideology and social contract? No need to canvass duty, obligation, responsibility? No need for call and response or push and pull of true democratic process?
Nigeria is a democracy, a pseudo and imperfect democracy perhaps. Nigeria is certainly not a military dictatorship in the modes of Egypt pre, during and post Hosni Mubarak. Nigeria is not Libya in which Moammar Kaddafi a military dictator has held sway for four decades, but, the abject poverty, the suffering and desperation in the midst of bountiful abundance and plenty; the fact of thirst in the midst of the ocean of plentiful; it is in these realms in which Nigeria is same, similar, identical and worse than Tunisia, Egypt and Libya put together.
There are steady generation and transmission of electricity in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya compared to Nigeria. There are social safety nets in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya quite unlike Nigeria. And currently, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain etc, have peremptorily, increased allowances palliatives and extended social safety nets to their citizens in efforts to placate and mollify. Nigerians have no such luck emanating from our self-absorbed, self-interested, constipated and complacent inept crass political class
Too many in the present Nigerian political class are too distant and too oblivious of the hassles, the sufferings, the hardships which have induced and inflicted extreme desperation Nigerians across the spectrum and nationwide. Nigeria is ripe and ready for a revolution. In view of loots, pillage, plunder and impunity which have occurred in past several years and the failure to tackle these public scourges, it is utter provocation in the most wanton of ways, for many, within the current Nigerian political class, to continue to arrogantly insist that Nigeria is not amenable to citizens’ revolts.
The preconditions for revolution is have been met and the conditions are actually worsening as none of the candidates and their parties are addressing citizens’ legitimate and reasonable concerns, such as safety and security, unemployment, Naira value, state of public infrastructure, national unity in diversity without relegation and marginalization of individuals and groups etc
The human condition in Nigeria is dire, terrible and desperate and the political leadership live in a fool’s paradise, with their heads buried in the sands, so much so, that they won’t even know what hit them as they are consumed by a probable revolution, an uprising, or a revolt by the long-suffering citizens of Nigeria.
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Democracy does not begin and end on election day. Democracy is not periodic-episodic actions. Democracy and elections have consequences. Democracy in Nigeria must not mean motions without movement.
Democracy must have bearing upon and must have positive impact on public policies. Due Process and The Rule of Law are key elements which forms the essential core democracies. Democratic process must promote and advance, due process and the rule of law
Nigeria in the 51st year post political independence operates a parlous national economy, in which steady electricity is still a promise, a dream and a fantasy. Nigeria after 50 years of flag independence from Britain is still in fits and starts. Nigeria is still a nation in which the majority cannot enjoy clean water supply. Too many Nigerians still die from avoidable, preventable and curable diseases, including malaria
Nigeria remains a nation in which public officials, private sector operators and sundry members of the richest one percent, must travel abroad for basic medical care, even as Nigerian hospitals and health-care systems are under-staffed, under equipped and under-funded. Resources are misallocated and mismanaged
Nigeria, after 50 of cessation of colonial rule by Britain, Nigeria remains unwilling to ensure the safety and security of persons and properties within our borders Democracy in Nigeria should confer meaningful benefits or rewards to our citizens. Political apathy arises when a plurality of citizens believe that they have been taken for granted and that improvements would not come, regardless of citizens’ efforts and actions
Nigeria’s judiciary, which ought to be the last hope of the average citizen is mired in scandals. The Nigerian Judiciary, the third most important arm of our democratic government, is currently bedeviled by allegations and counter accusations of perversions of justice. These allegations are being traded by and between the highest echelons of the Nigerian Judiciary.
It is now an open secret that Justice Isa Ayo Salami, the President of Nigeria Court of Appeals have pointedly accused Justice Aloysicious Katsina Alu, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, of inappropriate, unethical and illegal contact with the former, with a view to affecting the outcome of a gubernatorial or governorship petition from Sokoto state which was pending before Justice Salami’s Court of Appeals
The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Alu and Justice Salami have since then engaged in public spat, including a law suit filed and then withdrawn, as well as a series of administrative queries emanating from and originated by, the Chief Justice of Nigeria and directed at the President of the Court of Appeal. All these run counter and are inconsistent with the standard of utmost integrity, good faith, trust and decorum, for which the legal profession is known, particularly at such apex levels of the CJN and PCA respectively.
Smack in the middle of this house, Nigeria, so divided against herself, or put alternatively, Nigeria, our home is metaphorically, figuratively and literally on fire, while the presidential candidates and their political parties prefer to engage in window-dressing, and electioneering farce, in which the candidates and their various political parties appear to have zoned various offices to themselves and their political parties. And as a consequence, there are no Issues Driven Debates.
There no electioneering campaigns in the true sense of the term. The candidates, the aspirants, the flag bearers and their various political parties are merely talking over the heads of the Nigerian electorate, the Nigerian public and press. The political actors remain splendidly uninterested in debate of public policies and sundry national challenges, whereby various candidates and their political parties may stake their position on national issues ranging from the economy, national science and technology policy and innovation, including the fate of our national currency which have been over devalued since 1986
It is public knowledge and even trite, to restate the obvious regarding the neglected and decrepit state of our health-care system which is exemplified by the fact that our former president, the late Umaru YarAdua was hospitalized in Saudi Arabia for 93 days for medical treatment. Why did this monumental embarrassment occur? The laughable idea that our president, the symbol of our nation, national security and all, have to seek surgery and dialysis outside Nigeria? Many a Nigerian politician, private sector operator and or public figure, now as matter of course, resort to seeking medical treatment or care outside the shores of Nigeria as Chief Odumegu Ojukwu is currently doing in Britain
Oba of Benin admonished the Federal Government of Nigeria as reported by Nigerian newspapers on Saturday February 26, 2011. The Oba was angered and expressed his displeasure of the abandonment, neglect and unwarranted delays to a major highway, expressway which links Lagos to Benin, South -South and South East. The Oba who was visited by the Works Minister of State, expressed public displeasure at failure by the federal government regarding the Lagos-Benin-Ore highway. This major roadway and artery, has since become a national burden and a drain. A burden on all travelers for commerce or pleasure. The ineffectiveness, the inefficiency and ineptitude regarding Lagos-Benin-Ore highway, certainly cannot be a demonstration of problem -solving acumen on the part of the current central government.
Nigerians know that Nigeria is no longer under a totalitarian and despotic military dictatorship or tyranny
Nigerians at home and abroad are keenly aware that peaceful transfer of civilian to civilian political power have transpired in Nigeria relatively peacefully during the preceding several years, particularly, since 2007. The world knows therefore, that Nigeria is not identical to or with the one man dictatorships in Tunisia or Egypt or Libya which have existed for decades, two, three and four decades respectively. Even so, the point must be made that true democracy is a yet to take roots in Nigeria. Due Process and The Rule of Law are yet to be second-nature to political and private sector operator. Democratic structures are taking roots, but we cannot as yet, with a straight face, say that there is true and institutionalized democracy in Nigeria. We do have democracy, which remains extremely imperfect, and a work in progress.
There is high rate of unemployment in Nigeria, including high rate of unemployment among the college educated segment of our population, including some with advanced university degrees! There is heightening state of insecurity, including kidnapping and sundry antisocial behaviors traceable and correlative with the Nigerian national economy comatose state for far too long now.
Nigeria continue to fund the education and agriculture sectors most inadequately. There are glaring and repeated cases of misallocation and mismanagement of national resources. A majority of Nigerian citizens continue to wallow in abject poverty and in most squalid of human conditions. Why should Nigerians endure terrible suffering, hardship and desperation in the face Nigeria’s abundance in human and material resources? And yet, the current political class are unable to articulate public policy position, policies and programs which they will bring about to address and redress our national issues, national concerns and sundry national challenges?
This is after all an election season, why then are the presidential candidates not marketing themselves, canvassing or begging convincingly for votes and asking the electorate in forthright requests for support from voters? Why are the absence or paucity of manifestos and ideology and Issued Driven Debates
Why are the opposition political parties not variously comparing and contrasting themselves, individually and separately, with the current political party which controls the central or federal government, issue by issue, policy by policy and letting the press and public, the electorate know their public policy stance in comparison with the current federal government? Such contradistinctions, by the various candidates and their political parties, well articulated, will provide the predicate for a free and fair, credible elections outcome, free of rancor, irregularities or frauds which usually elicit violent resistance from political opponents.
It is sadly the case, that the current crop of Nigeria’s political leadership, are not deploying essential machinery and tools of democracy through meaningful interactions with the press, public and particularly the Nigerian electorate. There currently no vibrant and vigorous electioneering campaigns which are motivated by Nigerian National Issues. The various political parties and their numerous candidates are merely coasting toward the general elections in April 2011. Nigerians and Nigeria are therefore, in essence, sleepwalking towards an election impasse, and election stalemate and an election deadlock. We must wake up. We must cease and desist from sleepwalking towards the precipice of disaster and fulfilling prophecies of anarchy and disintegration foretold
Retired General Muhamadu Buhari believes that the continuing abject poverty which have been endured for too long by a plurality of Nigerians and the egregious neglect by the current crop of Nigeria political elite to even pretend to address these dire circumstances could be where fertilizer meet fertile ground in what would be Nigeria’s version of political revolution, revolt and upheaval similar to what the world is witnessing, including the political situation which began in Tunisia, then rolled through Egypt and it is now lingering in Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen and probably Saudi Arabia the bastion of theocracy and impervious to economic and political changes and reforms
The Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi of the Central Bank of Nigeria, along with many others, are right in their accurate assessment of the human condition which currently permeates and pervades Nigeria. Governor Sanusi and others are right in adding and raising their voices to address dire and precarious situation in Nigeria, situations which afflict the majority of Nigerian citizens. A responsive government and or a political system would measure the public pulse respond or seek to create ameliorative responses.
The Nigerian political class in power and the opposition parties and their candidates are identical in their lack of ideology. They are identical in ways in which they are arrogantly taking the public and the electorate for granted. The candidates and their political parties have created an art form out of their notorious contempt, utter contempt for the voter. The voters are contemptuously discounted from the process!
The candidates and their various political parties seem to so presumptuously ready to discuss self-assured predictable elections outcomes without suasion of the voting public. There are plenty talks which matter-of-fact conclusive outcomes for election which are yet to be had in April. The Nigerian political class are now behaving as if they outcomes are forgone conclusions, so for them, there is no need to haggle with the voters about ideology and social contract? No need to canvass duty, obligation, responsibility? No need for call and response or push and pull of true democratic process?
Nigeria is a democracy, a pseudo and imperfect democracy perhaps. Nigeria is certainly not a military dictatorship in the modes of Egypt pre, during and post Hosni Mubarak. Nigeria is not Libya in which Moammar Kaddafi a military dictator has held sway for four decades, but, the abject poverty, the suffering and desperation in the midst of bountiful abundance and plenty; the fact of thirst in the midst of the ocean of plentiful; it is in these realms in which Nigeria is same, similar, identical and worse than Tunisia, Egypt and Libya put together.
There are steady generation and transmission of electricity in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya compared to Nigeria. There are social safety nets in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya quite unlike Nigeria. And currently, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain etc, have peremptorily, increased allowances palliatives and extended social safety nets to their citizens in efforts to placate and mollify. Nigerians have no such luck emanating from our self-absorbed, self-interested, constipated and complacent inept crass political class
Too many in the present Nigerian political class are too distant and too oblivious of the hassles, the sufferings, the hardships which have induced and inflicted extreme desperation Nigerians across the spectrum and nationwide. Nigeria is ripe and ready for a revolution. In view of loots, pillage, plunder and impunity which have occurred in past several years and the failure to tackle these public scourges, it is utter provocation in the most wanton of ways, for many, within the current Nigerian political class, to continue to arrogantly insist that Nigeria is not amenable to citizens’ revolts.
The preconditions for revolution is have been met and the conditions are actually worsening as none of the candidates and their parties are addressing citizens’ legitimate and reasonable concerns, such as safety and security, unemployment, Naira value, state of public infrastructure, national unity in diversity without relegation and marginalization of individuals and groups etc
The human condition in Nigeria is dire, terrible and desperate and the political leadership live in a fool’s paradise, with their heads buried in the sands, so much so, that they won’t even know what hit them as they are consumed by a probable revolution, an uprising, or a revolt by the long-suffering citizens of Nigeria.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Revolution, Is Impossible In Nigeria? Some Say NEVER! Says Who?
Revolution, Is Impossible In Nigeria? Some Say NEVER! Says Who?
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Since the political and constitutional upheaval in Tunisia, then followed by Egypt and now Libya, Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen and so on, some Nigerians have publicly commented that Nigerians can only dream of Egyptian and Tunisian style revolutions and political uprising. Some Nigerians have even gone to the unreasonable extent of actually saying such will not, and could NEVER happen in Nigeria! And we must ask, REALLY?
Dimeji Bankole, Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives drove the last nail into this revolution-is-impossible-in-Nigeria argument several days ago, through his address to parliamentarians from Germany who were visiting Nigeria. Speaker Bankole, whose only claim to fame, infamy, are series of scandalous dealings and revelations against him thinks Nigerians have no reasons to revolt?
One wonders what exactly gives Mr. Bankole these sorts of supreme confidence Mr. Bankole is a man, a Nigerian politician who is not known for driving a particular policy, law or ideology. He actually had the audacity and temerity to publicly proclaim that a revolution is impossible in Nigeria! Are Nigerians content and happy?
Who and what gave Dimeji Bankole such overconfidence or unmitigated arrogance? How can he and the House of Representatives and by extension the current crop of Nigerian political class which he represents, be so cocksure that Nigerians have nothing to complain about and we have no need to engage in any revolt, uprising and indeed, a revolution similar to and better than the world have seen recently in Tunisia, Egypt, Wisconsin and Belgium?
Dimeji Bankole and Nigeria’s current crop of political operators must not be allowed to take Nigerians, long suffering Nigerians for granted. He and his ilk must not be allowed to demonstrate their utter contempt and insensitivity to the plights and predicaments of millions of Nigerians.
What Nigerians Want? The Same Things, Simple Things which citizens of Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan wants!
Why are Nigerian politicians or political class denying Nigerians what Nigerians richly deserve?
What the average Nigerian want and needs are a tad simple, rather too simple! Nigerians are thirty in the middle the oceans of abundance and bountiful opportunities in Nigeria. Our political class have misallocated, mismanaged, and squandered our national resources at every opportunity after missed opportunities!
Instead of becoming tools in the hands of inept politicians who are liable to fan embers of ethnic, religious and regional violence, Nigerians across the spectrum should realize that we have abject poverty in common, we have unemployment in common, we have concerns for safety and security in common. All Nigerians in our daily lives confront a comatose economy, absence of public transportation. Nigerians continue to bear the burden of abandoned, decadent, neglected public infrastructure. Nigerians have understaffed, ill-equipped and decrepit hospital and healthcare system in common, while public officials and politicians junket to medical treatments overseas. 150 million Nigerians contend with our neglected education sector, while politicians send their children to Europe and America to be educated with public wealth stolen from Nigerians.
This is our time to engage in an uprising, a revolt and a revolution. The average Nigerian is poor and desperate regardless of ethnicity, region or religion. The economic conditions throughout Nigeria are identical and similar and it more about ineptitude, poverty of ideas within the leadership structure of Nigeria. Our number one national challenge is bankruptcy of ideas within the political and economic class in both private and public sectors. Nigerians have abject poverty and squalid conditions in common which defies fleeting and fluid differences based on ethnicity, religion, state and region of birth. We should not allow our poor selves to be manipulated for the benefits of the political class. The political class is identical nationwide, they have neglected the poor and what ought to be the Nigerian middleclass.
All Nigerians should confront our political and economic leaders instead of what we have now, in which poor, suffering, desperate people attack other poor, suffering, desperate people, attacking fellow Nigerians based on such Nigerians’ ethnic group, language group or religious affiliation or region and state of origins. Nigerians can, in this regard, learn from the Egyptians who, despite the differences, such as between Coptic Christians and the various sects of Islam and the mixes of Nubian and Arab races, the Egyptian revolution was peaceful and unified in their diversity.
The Egyptians revolution was bells and whistles, flags and nationalism well done! The Egyptians were organized and efficient, from medical treatments to picking up garbage or trash to the parade of flags! Nigerians should emulate this example, instead of being apathetic. We should not allow hunger and desperation to turn us into thugs for hire for the political class which intent on exploit our minor differences based on our ethnic, religious, state and regional diversity. We reap the benefits of our unity in diversity. We should cease and desist from letting our diversity become negative common denominators of which our inept politicians use to their own advantage and at the expense of our national purpose, cohesion and interests
It is clearly the case, that, Nigerians politicians, the fulcrum of more than sixty two registered political parties, are currently displaying constipated complacency over the abject poverty and the dire economic conditions in Nigeria which is now exemplified and symptomatic high crime rates and rising antisocial behaviors with consequent negative impact on the safety and security of lives and properties nationwide. Nigeria is now replete with increased spate of agitations, and clamor for separation between ethno, religious and cultural groups. There are even talks of secessions which could lead to increased violence, anarchy and even disintegration of Nigeria. And yet, Speaker Bankole does not see a problem or cause for revolt, uprising and revolution? Really, is this really the case?
It is true that Nigeria is not Egypt or Tunisia or Libya. It is a fact that Nigerians have not have to endure one man despot and despotic, dictatorial and tyrannical domination continuously for 30 years as was Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and over 20 years as was Ben Ali in Tunisia. But, apart from those differences, there are some other differences, some glaring, while others are subtle. Nigerians would not tolerate a one man dictatorship or despot for 30 years! Nigerians do not have such patience or tolerance!
However, even so, it is simply the case that a majority of Nigerians have live in abject and squalid economic, social and political condition for over 30 years! A prime example is value of our national currency the Naira, which was dramatically devalued in September 1986 without benefit to Nigerians and Nigeria. The Naira has remained in downward spiral with increased spate of volatility for almost 30 years!
Nigerians and Nigeria have had a messy, imperfect democracy since 1999 inauguration of the so-called new democratic dispensation and our democracy have remains nascent with baby steps in the most literal sense, even after these 11 plus years!
Nigeria is in the throes of an all important general elections after 50 years of flag independence and still, Nigerians across the spectrum and across the nation, lack basic essentials of human life, food and shelter etc Not to mention, steady electricity supply, or basic amenities such as clean water supply etc. Nigeria’s agricultural and food production sectors remain comatose. Nigeria’s health and education sectors have become decrepit as a consequence of years of abandonments and thorough neglects by our political leadership, who are bereft of creative political solutions, those who are bankrupt of ideas and yet, they are quick to announce that political upheavals, uprisings and revolutions will NEVER occur in Nigeria?
Who indeed gave such assurances, surety and guarantees to Speaker Dimeji Bankole?
Elections are upon us in Nigeria in a matter of months, and yet, issues Driven electioneering campaign steady electricity, clean water, full employment, safety and security of lives and properties and better life for all Nigerians... more opportunities to create greater wealth, health and happiness in Nigeria.
But instead, Nigerians at home and abroad continue to read and hear the self interested, self absorbed, self serving and selfish chatters and confrontations between and amongst the political class about more power and hence more life of wealth and opulence for themselves, without ever sparing a thought for the majority of Nigerians who continue to live in biting abject poverty, extreme suffering, hardship and desperation! Everyday stories and news spread of how various Nigerians politicians are turning their sons, wives, daughters and friends into selected club of political leadership as if Nigeria is now a monarchy in which public office follows familial hereditary devolutions.
Several Nigerians journalists, public intellectuals and commentators have recently stated that Nigerians can only dream of Egypt or Tunisia type uprising or revolution and I completely disagree. Nigerians have in the past revolted and engaged in revolutions which such to the compelled, sudden and premature departures of military governments and brutal dictators and Nigerians successfully did these decades before Egyptians and Tunisian could.
Nigerians accomplished these revolutions without Facebook, Twitter or other Social and Independent Media or Independent Journalism of the new Digital Revolution of this new era. Nigerians succeeded then without this new Digital Age with which to facilitate, coordinate and choreograph these Nigerian efforts at political revolutions! A Nigerian revolution compelled military dictator General Ibrahim Babangida to yield power!
It is in fact the case that a revolution in Nigeria is even more possible in the absence brutal military governments which Nigerians had to confront in the past. A revolution is more possible with the new digital age and a more open and interconnectedness in our new world made smaller in a global village made even smaller by internet!
The pronouncements by Speaker Dimeji Bankole seem to be saying of Nigerians to the world, “Let them eat cake” He comes across as blissfully ignorant of the abject human conditions with which Nigerians contend on a daily basis! We are left to wonder whether his comments arose from pure arrogance and overconfidence on his part. Does this mean that the Nigerian political class does believe that the Nigerian public is satisfied? Or is it that they are taken for granted?
What does Mr. Dimeji Bankole statements say about Nigerians? That we are docile, complicit and complacent in our own suffering, misery and dire situation? Are these facts or fictions about our situation? Are his assertions true? Are these true or false about us? Or are his statements symptomatic of constipated complacency on the part of political leadership? Speaker Bankole and Nigerian political class are apparently ignorant of the hardships in Nigeria. 150 million Nigerians should not let this slide. We should confront Speaker Bankole, the National Assembly of Nigeria and our government at all levels
The general elections are very close. The elections are in fact in couple of months. There are Nigerians who insist that our singular focus should be the fight against corruption, avarice and greediness. But we certainly can do both. Yes, we can do both! We can walk and talk, we can chew gum and cross the road... we should have multiple pronged approach... we should make our political leadership and private sector operator more accountable and transparent... there is too much suffering in the land... there is too much desperation in our homeland, it is time, yes, it is time, it is time to make our political leadership listen to the Nigerian public and the electorate... it is time for them to articulate their position on public issues and our national challenges! We should let our leaders feel the urgency of now!
The forthcoming general elections portray identical approach by politicians and their political parties. They show complete disregard and extreme contempt for fellow Nigerians. The politicians and their parties are not debating each other and focused on relevant substantial and significant national issues or challenges. Nigerians should loudly demand Issues Driven electioneering campaigns...such as steady electricity, clean water, full employment, safety and security of lives and properties and better life for all Nigerians... more opportunities to create greater wealth, health and happiness in Nigeria. Nigerians should loudly demand manifestos from the candidates and their political parties!
It is time for our Egypt MOMENT!
It is time to stop our political leadership from taking all of us for granted... It is time to stop them from talking over our heads and it is time for us to hold them to account... they constantly exhibit utter contempt for our people and we now have a new opportunity to make our feelings known!
Why should we, 150 million Nigerians allow our political leadership to be deaf and impervious to our reasonable expectations, hopes, desires and aspirations? The political class is currently absent from the negotiating table. They are not canvassing for our votes through campaigns or public debates of our national issues and challenges. The politicians are not driven by any particular ideology. They have neglected to stake their position on myriad public policies. They have neglected and refused to announce their stances on what concerns Nigerians, the electorate and generality of our public
Why are they not addressing or debating the plight of our national currency?
This is a general elections season in Nigeria, and yet, the politicians are only interested in and are focused on whom amongst themselves will be selected for various offices in our nation.... they are splendidly uninterested in our concerns... the daily existential concerns for food and shelter of our citizens
Why are they not addressing our national challenges, our national issues, our national of funk?
Nigerians are 150 million STRONG.... When are we going to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?
Why should we, 150 million Nigerians allow our political leadership to be deaf and impervious to our reasonable expectations, hopes, desires and aspirations? What assurances do we, Nigerians have that it would not be business as usual after the forthcoming elections?
There are currently no indications whatsoever that anything will change or that the human condition of Nigerians will change... as it is, it is the case that the politicians are not even debating how they may improve our conditions! It is the case that Nigerians have had cause to engage in uprising an political revolutions in the past. It is the case that peaceful demonstrations and protests which began in Tunisia in North Africa has since spread far and wide, including to such unlikely places as Belgium in Europe, as well as the state of Wisconsin, here in the United States where the citizens are in an uprising, revolt and revolution against Governor Walker for attempting to stifle unionism and collective bargaining.
Nigerians knew and practiced peoples’ power, uprising, revolts and revolutions, well before the recent spates of demands for democracy, freedoms and the rule of law in Tunisia, then the extraordinarily peaceful and diverse protests for 18 days in Egypt, which have be followed and emulated in Jordan, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, etc.
Nigerians have been through this way before the Nigerian Labor Congress, NLC, the Nigerian Bar Association or NBA, the Nigerian Medical Association or NMA, then PRONACO, NADECO and Nigerians of diverse background have unified in the past, across economic, education, religious, social-cultural class etc united to oppose Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha.
Nigerians in unity and in diversity should unify again to oppose politicians who neglect our desires and aspirations. Nigerians rebelled against extreme draconian, repressive and brutal military dictatorships in the past; we surely can revolt against civilian administrations!
It is time for our Egypt MOMENT!
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Since the political and constitutional upheaval in Tunisia, then followed by Egypt and now Libya, Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen and so on, some Nigerians have publicly commented that Nigerians can only dream of Egyptian and Tunisian style revolutions and political uprising. Some Nigerians have even gone to the unreasonable extent of actually saying such will not, and could NEVER happen in Nigeria! And we must ask, REALLY?
Dimeji Bankole, Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives drove the last nail into this revolution-is-impossible-in-Nigeria argument several days ago, through his address to parliamentarians from Germany who were visiting Nigeria. Speaker Bankole, whose only claim to fame, infamy, are series of scandalous dealings and revelations against him thinks Nigerians have no reasons to revolt?
One wonders what exactly gives Mr. Bankole these sorts of supreme confidence Mr. Bankole is a man, a Nigerian politician who is not known for driving a particular policy, law or ideology. He actually had the audacity and temerity to publicly proclaim that a revolution is impossible in Nigeria! Are Nigerians content and happy?
Who and what gave Dimeji Bankole such overconfidence or unmitigated arrogance? How can he and the House of Representatives and by extension the current crop of Nigerian political class which he represents, be so cocksure that Nigerians have nothing to complain about and we have no need to engage in any revolt, uprising and indeed, a revolution similar to and better than the world have seen recently in Tunisia, Egypt, Wisconsin and Belgium?
Dimeji Bankole and Nigeria’s current crop of political operators must not be allowed to take Nigerians, long suffering Nigerians for granted. He and his ilk must not be allowed to demonstrate their utter contempt and insensitivity to the plights and predicaments of millions of Nigerians.
What Nigerians Want? The Same Things, Simple Things which citizens of Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan wants!
Why are Nigerian politicians or political class denying Nigerians what Nigerians richly deserve?
What the average Nigerian want and needs are a tad simple, rather too simple! Nigerians are thirty in the middle the oceans of abundance and bountiful opportunities in Nigeria. Our political class have misallocated, mismanaged, and squandered our national resources at every opportunity after missed opportunities!
Instead of becoming tools in the hands of inept politicians who are liable to fan embers of ethnic, religious and regional violence, Nigerians across the spectrum should realize that we have abject poverty in common, we have unemployment in common, we have concerns for safety and security in common. All Nigerians in our daily lives confront a comatose economy, absence of public transportation. Nigerians continue to bear the burden of abandoned, decadent, neglected public infrastructure. Nigerians have understaffed, ill-equipped and decrepit hospital and healthcare system in common, while public officials and politicians junket to medical treatments overseas. 150 million Nigerians contend with our neglected education sector, while politicians send their children to Europe and America to be educated with public wealth stolen from Nigerians.
This is our time to engage in an uprising, a revolt and a revolution. The average Nigerian is poor and desperate regardless of ethnicity, region or religion. The economic conditions throughout Nigeria are identical and similar and it more about ineptitude, poverty of ideas within the leadership structure of Nigeria. Our number one national challenge is bankruptcy of ideas within the political and economic class in both private and public sectors. Nigerians have abject poverty and squalid conditions in common which defies fleeting and fluid differences based on ethnicity, religion, state and region of birth. We should not allow our poor selves to be manipulated for the benefits of the political class. The political class is identical nationwide, they have neglected the poor and what ought to be the Nigerian middleclass.
All Nigerians should confront our political and economic leaders instead of what we have now, in which poor, suffering, desperate people attack other poor, suffering, desperate people, attacking fellow Nigerians based on such Nigerians’ ethnic group, language group or religious affiliation or region and state of origins. Nigerians can, in this regard, learn from the Egyptians who, despite the differences, such as between Coptic Christians and the various sects of Islam and the mixes of Nubian and Arab races, the Egyptian revolution was peaceful and unified in their diversity.
The Egyptians revolution was bells and whistles, flags and nationalism well done! The Egyptians were organized and efficient, from medical treatments to picking up garbage or trash to the parade of flags! Nigerians should emulate this example, instead of being apathetic. We should not allow hunger and desperation to turn us into thugs for hire for the political class which intent on exploit our minor differences based on our ethnic, religious, state and regional diversity. We reap the benefits of our unity in diversity. We should cease and desist from letting our diversity become negative common denominators of which our inept politicians use to their own advantage and at the expense of our national purpose, cohesion and interests
It is clearly the case, that, Nigerians politicians, the fulcrum of more than sixty two registered political parties, are currently displaying constipated complacency over the abject poverty and the dire economic conditions in Nigeria which is now exemplified and symptomatic high crime rates and rising antisocial behaviors with consequent negative impact on the safety and security of lives and properties nationwide. Nigeria is now replete with increased spate of agitations, and clamor for separation between ethno, religious and cultural groups. There are even talks of secessions which could lead to increased violence, anarchy and even disintegration of Nigeria. And yet, Speaker Bankole does not see a problem or cause for revolt, uprising and revolution? Really, is this really the case?
It is true that Nigeria is not Egypt or Tunisia or Libya. It is a fact that Nigerians have not have to endure one man despot and despotic, dictatorial and tyrannical domination continuously for 30 years as was Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and over 20 years as was Ben Ali in Tunisia. But, apart from those differences, there are some other differences, some glaring, while others are subtle. Nigerians would not tolerate a one man dictatorship or despot for 30 years! Nigerians do not have such patience or tolerance!
However, even so, it is simply the case that a majority of Nigerians have live in abject and squalid economic, social and political condition for over 30 years! A prime example is value of our national currency the Naira, which was dramatically devalued in September 1986 without benefit to Nigerians and Nigeria. The Naira has remained in downward spiral with increased spate of volatility for almost 30 years!
Nigerians and Nigeria have had a messy, imperfect democracy since 1999 inauguration of the so-called new democratic dispensation and our democracy have remains nascent with baby steps in the most literal sense, even after these 11 plus years!
Nigeria is in the throes of an all important general elections after 50 years of flag independence and still, Nigerians across the spectrum and across the nation, lack basic essentials of human life, food and shelter etc Not to mention, steady electricity supply, or basic amenities such as clean water supply etc. Nigeria’s agricultural and food production sectors remain comatose. Nigeria’s health and education sectors have become decrepit as a consequence of years of abandonments and thorough neglects by our political leadership, who are bereft of creative political solutions, those who are bankrupt of ideas and yet, they are quick to announce that political upheavals, uprisings and revolutions will NEVER occur in Nigeria?
Who indeed gave such assurances, surety and guarantees to Speaker Dimeji Bankole?
Elections are upon us in Nigeria in a matter of months, and yet, issues Driven electioneering campaign steady electricity, clean water, full employment, safety and security of lives and properties and better life for all Nigerians... more opportunities to create greater wealth, health and happiness in Nigeria.
But instead, Nigerians at home and abroad continue to read and hear the self interested, self absorbed, self serving and selfish chatters and confrontations between and amongst the political class about more power and hence more life of wealth and opulence for themselves, without ever sparing a thought for the majority of Nigerians who continue to live in biting abject poverty, extreme suffering, hardship and desperation! Everyday stories and news spread of how various Nigerians politicians are turning their sons, wives, daughters and friends into selected club of political leadership as if Nigeria is now a monarchy in which public office follows familial hereditary devolutions.
Several Nigerians journalists, public intellectuals and commentators have recently stated that Nigerians can only dream of Egypt or Tunisia type uprising or revolution and I completely disagree. Nigerians have in the past revolted and engaged in revolutions which such to the compelled, sudden and premature departures of military governments and brutal dictators and Nigerians successfully did these decades before Egyptians and Tunisian could.
Nigerians accomplished these revolutions without Facebook, Twitter or other Social and Independent Media or Independent Journalism of the new Digital Revolution of this new era. Nigerians succeeded then without this new Digital Age with which to facilitate, coordinate and choreograph these Nigerian efforts at political revolutions! A Nigerian revolution compelled military dictator General Ibrahim Babangida to yield power!
It is in fact the case that a revolution in Nigeria is even more possible in the absence brutal military governments which Nigerians had to confront in the past. A revolution is more possible with the new digital age and a more open and interconnectedness in our new world made smaller in a global village made even smaller by internet!
The pronouncements by Speaker Dimeji Bankole seem to be saying of Nigerians to the world, “Let them eat cake” He comes across as blissfully ignorant of the abject human conditions with which Nigerians contend on a daily basis! We are left to wonder whether his comments arose from pure arrogance and overconfidence on his part. Does this mean that the Nigerian political class does believe that the Nigerian public is satisfied? Or is it that they are taken for granted?
What does Mr. Dimeji Bankole statements say about Nigerians? That we are docile, complicit and complacent in our own suffering, misery and dire situation? Are these facts or fictions about our situation? Are his assertions true? Are these true or false about us? Or are his statements symptomatic of constipated complacency on the part of political leadership? Speaker Bankole and Nigerian political class are apparently ignorant of the hardships in Nigeria. 150 million Nigerians should not let this slide. We should confront Speaker Bankole, the National Assembly of Nigeria and our government at all levels
The general elections are very close. The elections are in fact in couple of months. There are Nigerians who insist that our singular focus should be the fight against corruption, avarice and greediness. But we certainly can do both. Yes, we can do both! We can walk and talk, we can chew gum and cross the road... we should have multiple pronged approach... we should make our political leadership and private sector operator more accountable and transparent... there is too much suffering in the land... there is too much desperation in our homeland, it is time, yes, it is time, it is time to make our political leadership listen to the Nigerian public and the electorate... it is time for them to articulate their position on public issues and our national challenges! We should let our leaders feel the urgency of now!
The forthcoming general elections portray identical approach by politicians and their political parties. They show complete disregard and extreme contempt for fellow Nigerians. The politicians and their parties are not debating each other and focused on relevant substantial and significant national issues or challenges. Nigerians should loudly demand Issues Driven electioneering campaigns...such as steady electricity, clean water, full employment, safety and security of lives and properties and better life for all Nigerians... more opportunities to create greater wealth, health and happiness in Nigeria. Nigerians should loudly demand manifestos from the candidates and their political parties!
It is time for our Egypt MOMENT!
It is time to stop our political leadership from taking all of us for granted... It is time to stop them from talking over our heads and it is time for us to hold them to account... they constantly exhibit utter contempt for our people and we now have a new opportunity to make our feelings known!
Why should we, 150 million Nigerians allow our political leadership to be deaf and impervious to our reasonable expectations, hopes, desires and aspirations? The political class is currently absent from the negotiating table. They are not canvassing for our votes through campaigns or public debates of our national issues and challenges. The politicians are not driven by any particular ideology. They have neglected to stake their position on myriad public policies. They have neglected and refused to announce their stances on what concerns Nigerians, the electorate and generality of our public
Why are they not addressing or debating the plight of our national currency?
This is a general elections season in Nigeria, and yet, the politicians are only interested in and are focused on whom amongst themselves will be selected for various offices in our nation.... they are splendidly uninterested in our concerns... the daily existential concerns for food and shelter of our citizens
Why are they not addressing our national challenges, our national issues, our national of funk?
Nigerians are 150 million STRONG.... When are we going to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?
Why should we, 150 million Nigerians allow our political leadership to be deaf and impervious to our reasonable expectations, hopes, desires and aspirations? What assurances do we, Nigerians have that it would not be business as usual after the forthcoming elections?
There are currently no indications whatsoever that anything will change or that the human condition of Nigerians will change... as it is, it is the case that the politicians are not even debating how they may improve our conditions! It is the case that Nigerians have had cause to engage in uprising an political revolutions in the past. It is the case that peaceful demonstrations and protests which began in Tunisia in North Africa has since spread far and wide, including to such unlikely places as Belgium in Europe, as well as the state of Wisconsin, here in the United States where the citizens are in an uprising, revolt and revolution against Governor Walker for attempting to stifle unionism and collective bargaining.
Nigerians knew and practiced peoples’ power, uprising, revolts and revolutions, well before the recent spates of demands for democracy, freedoms and the rule of law in Tunisia, then the extraordinarily peaceful and diverse protests for 18 days in Egypt, which have be followed and emulated in Jordan, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, etc.
Nigerians have been through this way before the Nigerian Labor Congress, NLC, the Nigerian Bar Association or NBA, the Nigerian Medical Association or NMA, then PRONACO, NADECO and Nigerians of diverse background have unified in the past, across economic, education, religious, social-cultural class etc united to oppose Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha.
Nigerians in unity and in diversity should unify again to oppose politicians who neglect our desires and aspirations. Nigerians rebelled against extreme draconian, repressive and brutal military dictatorships in the past; we surely can revolt against civilian administrations!
It is time for our Egypt MOMENT!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Why Are Igbos Kidnapping Other Igbos for Ransom Money? By Dr. Ozodi Osuji, A Response
Why Are Igbos Kidnapping Other Igbos for Ransom Money? By Dr. Ozodi Osuji, A Response
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Rising antisocial behaviors in Nigeria? It is desperation, stupid! Economic desperation!
I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but, I will be quick to tell you that there is nothing peculiarly pathological about the antisocial behaviors which are now common in Igboland as all of Nigerian nooks and crannies. Antisocial behaviors driven by poverty and economic desperation
Were it not the fact that Dr. Oz Osuji is of the Igbo ethnic stock in Nigeria, I would have rapidly labeled him as a bigot and man of biased and prejudiced thinking. We he not such a prolific writer and public intellectual, I would have called him a self loathing Igboman. Dr. Osuji seems to think that as an Igboman that he has poetic license to write critically of Igboland and even savage Ndiigbo in the process and doing so have subjected him to the appearance of being traitorous and treacherous regarding Ndiigbo at first glance
It quite difficult to be measured after reading Dr. Osuji’s most scandalous attack piece against Ndiigbo with the title above which implies or suggests something peculiar and unique about the Igbo character which makes us predisposed to negative individualism with genetic predisposition to antisocial behaviors, when in fact the average Igbo person is his brothers’ and sisters’ keeper
Dr. Osuji is probably unaware of the self-help culture of Igboland, where families, villages, age-grades and churches and sundry community unions and associations join together to ensure the education of Igbo youth up to highest education levels. Dr. Osuji fixation on individualism in Igboland, completely neglected to mention the collectivism and communal efforts in Igboland which have perennially ensured the success of projects in Igboland, large and small.
I think that in Dr. Osuji’s article we find the invaluable caveat to medical doctors which warns thus, “first, do no harm” kidnapping and other antisocial behaviors are on the rise in Igboland as in other parts of Nigeria. In discussing or writing about these social scourges, we have to be mindful not to do harm to our people with sweeping generalizations and painting Igboland with broad brushes of negative labels, there are already enough of these on our people
Additionally, Dr. Osuji also gives credence to the advice to surgeons and lawyers. Surgeons may not perform surgeries on family members or selves because of the familial emotions invested which may impact outcomes negatively, similarly, it is often said, that a lawyer engaged in representing self, has a fool for a client, again, because of the undetached emotions as in the surgeon trying to save a family member, say, mother or child, father etc
Dr. Osuji allowed his personal disappointed as a direct and indirect victim of a kidnapping crime to moderate and emotionally impact his writing or what ought to be an objective if dispassionate commentary on a national affliction, desperation driven by abject poverty! Why, we must ask, do some of our women, known to be usually morally and culturally upright and outstanding, now resort to prostitution in abroad, sometimes with winks and nods of approvals from husbands and other family members? Why, must ask, there is so much desperation in our homeland in the midst of abundance?
Dr. Osuji permitted his immediate and personal emotion to cloud what ought to be a public discourse of the state of human condition now permeating and pervasive in our homeland, Nigeria. He seem to have put pen to paper, as soon as he received the disturbing and disappointing news of the kidnappings and ransom demand, hence his very emotive rendition as conveyed in his scatological piece attacking, in which, he an Igbo person himself, has unwittingly put Ndiigbo under unfair scrutiny and microscopic examination as having some character trait, quite unlike other Nigerians or for that matter, as if Igbos are unlike other humans, and Igbos isolated from the rest of the world in individualism as a human foible
Upon reading a recent story in The Punch Newspaper in which one Dayo Modupe recounted an encounter with Nigerian Customs Service, I commented that it was actually a pleasant surprise that Nigerians are not more violent and going postal, despite the regularity in which some Nigerians seem to want to needlessly subject fellow Nigerians to miseries. The abject human conditions in Nigeria are liable to push sane persons to the outer limits of sanity. Good people change and may engage in anti social behavior due to poverty and the desperation which have become all too common. Symptoms of the extent of desperation are common all over Nigeria, whether in so-called ethno religious violence in Jos, Maiduguri and Bauchi or the MEND demand for resource control or the restive Boko Haram or the kidnappings in Igboland, these are all testaments to our abject condition, poverty of ideas, poverty of creative political solutions and bankruptcy of leadership.
Economic depression anywhere in the world is often followed by increased spate of higher incidents of crime or crime waves, anti social behavior etc. And it is almost irrelevant whether it is America, Jamaica, Haiti or Nigeria. Anyone who pays adequate, sufficient and enough attention to cyclical economic spirals would know should know. There is, in the majority of cases, a direct correlation between high crime rates or upsurge in antisocial behavior with economic downturns or downward spirals worldwide, this is not peculiar to Igboland, Nigeria or Africa!
No Igbo person and No Nigerian should internalize any anti social behavior or the negative effects of economic depression, abject poverty, capitalist individualism as peculiar to us. Self-preservation is a human trait, which in the extreme, can be perverse and twisted. Warped and perverse human reactions to circumstances are not peculiar to Igbos or Nigerians.
Nigerians have been told to believe that Nigerians invented fraudulence, until it was discovered that Bernie Madoff is not a Nigerian, neither is Jeff Skilling or Ken Lay of Enron. Igbos and Nigerians in general should cease and desist from internalizing, pretending to own, hold patent, trademarks and copyrights to perversities! Human conditions, development and circumstances are what motivates human responses to such, positive or negative responses, as such.
Dr. Osuji, with all due respect, you should stop poo-pooing Igboland... Dr. Osuji seems to see something for which Igbos should apologize, what he termed Igbo nationalism and Igbo nationalists! What exactly is wrong with being an Igbo nationalist? Should the Igbo race not take interest in self-preservation? Is it not even more particularly so, given the checkered history to which Igbos have been subjected in Nigeria from pogroms to civil war to marginalization and relegation? Dr. unnecessarily badgered Igbos in his feeble and woefully unsuccessful attempt to discuss kidnappings in Nigeria. We should discuss the cause and effect of the current human condition in Nigeria. All Nigerians ought to do a better business of putting the collective feet of our current crop of political leadership feet to the fire. And how about making Nigeria’s current parlous economic conditions and the upsurge of incidents of high crimes, including kidnappings, ethno-religious violence and resources mismanagement on the front burner as election issues? Why blame the abject human conditions on Ndiigbo, in fact, Dr. Osuji, why dump on Ndiibo?
Could Dr. Osuji show me or point to me, what other ethnic group, language group or region of Nigeria which has through self-help built an airport as was done in Owerri? Could Dr. Osuji show me other groups in Nigeria which more than exemplifies resilience? I will show Dr. Osuji Ndiigbo as survivors and triumphal and persistent strivers, despite the civil and despite efforts at arresting developments in Igboland, and despite utter neglect by our federal government, Igboland has not fared badly, in self-resuscitation in the aftermath of the civil war... Igboland is filled with indefatigable Nigerian citizens bar none!
Dr. Osuji ignores the plights and predicaments to which Igbos and Igbland have been subjected and he should know better! Too many Nigerians across the spectrum are willingly and blissfully, including Dr. Osuji, are ignorant or suffer voluntary self-imposed amnesia regarding Igbos and Igboland. Th writer and novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says it best, when she stated that Nigerians need to discuss our national history, with particular reference to the Nigerian Civil War and lasting consequences upon all of us, Igbos and non-Igbos ... our people need healing and true reconciliations ...
I write here, to inform Dr. Osui that I am tired of folks using Ndiigbo as scapegoat and Nigeria's whipping boy! I am so outraged by Dr. Osuji's article, hence the need to write this response or rejoinder in a hurry, such hurry! Dr. Osuji, I feel a sense of national duty to disagree with him as stridently and as vehemently, as I am personally affronted by his generalizations which does not take into account the desperation driven behaviors he so succinctly describes. A Nigerian at Nigeriavillagequare, only known as Abraxas assessments which I agree with, as he pointed out that there is nothing unique in the antisocial behaviors in Igboland different from other parts of Nigeria, and in fact, the entire world given the circumstances and human condition, and human nature.
Igbos and Igboland have had it rough. There is glaring disparities and discrimination in citing of projects. And for instance, Onitsha and Aba have been big commercial hubs since I was a child, and any reasonable government should know these salient facts; If I were president of Nigeria Aba and Onitsha would have had LARGEST international airports outside of Lagos and Kano, only and solely determined by the volume of business and traffic and profit and not some other ancillaries and extraneous expediencies! But Dr. Osuji and other Nigerians know that this has not happened in Nigeria!
Dr. Osuji and others who may erroneous deceive themselves into believing that antisocial behaviors are peculiar to Igbos and Igboland, may be told that, only recently, there was news of a man, a Nigerian man, whose mother lived abroad, (in Britain)? The man arranged for his MOTHER to be robbed, she was robbed and murdered while visiting Nigeria... the man and his mother are not from Nnewi or Olololo! I condemned the guy and his friends for the heinous murder of anyone for money, particularly, his own mother, BUT, we should all inquire into what drives such desperation; Neither the man or his mother was of the Igbo race/stock... but I do understand, at least in a psychiatric sense, what drove the desperation to rob his own mother!
We should endeavor mightily, to look for CAUSE and EFFECT in evaluating our human conditions, even as I express my disapproval of Dr. Osuji’s generalizations, I will have to assume that he intended no harm to our people, nevertheless, I worry about this idea of giving Ndiigbo another, additional negative label. I worry about generalizations; sweeping generalizations with such a broad brush
Ndiigbo have been marginalized and relegated in various ways during the past 41 years... economically, politically and structurally. Anti social behaviors in Nigeria and worldwide, are not peculiar to Igbos ... It is beyond dispute that anti social behaviors increases in spate and degree during economic stresses/recessions/depressions. It is incontrovertible that the Eastern part of Nigeria has suffered unmitigated neglect from our central governments for so long.
The following is excerpted and in quotes, from WHY ARE IGBOS KIDNAPPING OTHER IGBOS FOR RANSOM MONEY? Ozodi Thomas Osuji
“This paper traces the current spate of kidnapping and other anti-social behaviors in Igbo land to what it calls warped Igbo character and pathological Igbo society; it says that Igbos have wild individualism that seeks individual achievement without caring for the larger society, leaving all to fend for themselves and the ignored youth resorting to criminal behaviors. It says that Igbo land is approaching Somalia where law and order broke down and that unless something is done and done soon that Igbo land will become Somalia, with no law and order, with chaos and pillage the order of the day and Igbo life become nasty, brutish and short” Oh my goodness!
We should not blame one segment or one demographic in the Nigeria for symptoms of decadence in Nigeria; But if we must blame Ndiigbo selectively and with particularity, how about putting the social, political and economic conditions/circumstances in Nigeria/nationwide in perspectives?
Why must we pick on Ndiigbo? There are antisocial behaviors throughout Nigeria and throughout the world. In Nigeria for instance, if we must point fingers, particularize, or generalize, How about the ever recurring violence, intractable and internecine violence in Jos, Bauuchi, Maiduguri etc? Why must we pick on Ndiigbo? How about the political violence in Edo, and South Western states of Nigeria
We should leave Igbos and Igboland alone! Why kick a guy who is down or why blame the victims of marginalization and relegation? There is nothing peculiarly Igbo in the suffering, hardships and DESPERATION in Nigeria, which motivates self-preservation and survival of the fittest instincts... if anything, we may find rationale, additional rationale in Igboland as it has been under more SEVERE stresses than the rest of Nigeria which is under economic and political stress as it is, and have been for years! We should lend our names to and we should not give credence false accusations and negative labeling of Ndiigbos or other Nigerians.
In order words, whatever is wrong with Igboland is equally wrong with other parts of Nigeria... all of us who are patriots and well wishers of Nigeria.... must fathom lasting solutions to our national challenges, malaise, and general state of national funk!
. We should be careful not to assist those who would make victims of us or help to repeat our checkered history and beleaguered state of affairs; such is not good for Ndiigbo or Nigeria or for that matter, any human collective. Generalization is for the intellectually incurious and intellectually lazy.
Igbo Kwenu! Nigeria Kwenu!
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Rising antisocial behaviors in Nigeria? It is desperation, stupid! Economic desperation!
I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but, I will be quick to tell you that there is nothing peculiarly pathological about the antisocial behaviors which are now common in Igboland as all of Nigerian nooks and crannies. Antisocial behaviors driven by poverty and economic desperation
Were it not the fact that Dr. Oz Osuji is of the Igbo ethnic stock in Nigeria, I would have rapidly labeled him as a bigot and man of biased and prejudiced thinking. We he not such a prolific writer and public intellectual, I would have called him a self loathing Igboman. Dr. Osuji seems to think that as an Igboman that he has poetic license to write critically of Igboland and even savage Ndiigbo in the process and doing so have subjected him to the appearance of being traitorous and treacherous regarding Ndiigbo at first glance
It quite difficult to be measured after reading Dr. Osuji’s most scandalous attack piece against Ndiigbo with the title above which implies or suggests something peculiar and unique about the Igbo character which makes us predisposed to negative individualism with genetic predisposition to antisocial behaviors, when in fact the average Igbo person is his brothers’ and sisters’ keeper
Dr. Osuji is probably unaware of the self-help culture of Igboland, where families, villages, age-grades and churches and sundry community unions and associations join together to ensure the education of Igbo youth up to highest education levels. Dr. Osuji fixation on individualism in Igboland, completely neglected to mention the collectivism and communal efforts in Igboland which have perennially ensured the success of projects in Igboland, large and small.
I think that in Dr. Osuji’s article we find the invaluable caveat to medical doctors which warns thus, “first, do no harm” kidnapping and other antisocial behaviors are on the rise in Igboland as in other parts of Nigeria. In discussing or writing about these social scourges, we have to be mindful not to do harm to our people with sweeping generalizations and painting Igboland with broad brushes of negative labels, there are already enough of these on our people
Additionally, Dr. Osuji also gives credence to the advice to surgeons and lawyers. Surgeons may not perform surgeries on family members or selves because of the familial emotions invested which may impact outcomes negatively, similarly, it is often said, that a lawyer engaged in representing self, has a fool for a client, again, because of the undetached emotions as in the surgeon trying to save a family member, say, mother or child, father etc
Dr. Osuji allowed his personal disappointed as a direct and indirect victim of a kidnapping crime to moderate and emotionally impact his writing or what ought to be an objective if dispassionate commentary on a national affliction, desperation driven by abject poverty! Why, we must ask, do some of our women, known to be usually morally and culturally upright and outstanding, now resort to prostitution in abroad, sometimes with winks and nods of approvals from husbands and other family members? Why, must ask, there is so much desperation in our homeland in the midst of abundance?
Dr. Osuji permitted his immediate and personal emotion to cloud what ought to be a public discourse of the state of human condition now permeating and pervasive in our homeland, Nigeria. He seem to have put pen to paper, as soon as he received the disturbing and disappointing news of the kidnappings and ransom demand, hence his very emotive rendition as conveyed in his scatological piece attacking, in which, he an Igbo person himself, has unwittingly put Ndiigbo under unfair scrutiny and microscopic examination as having some character trait, quite unlike other Nigerians or for that matter, as if Igbos are unlike other humans, and Igbos isolated from the rest of the world in individualism as a human foible
Upon reading a recent story in The Punch Newspaper in which one Dayo Modupe recounted an encounter with Nigerian Customs Service, I commented that it was actually a pleasant surprise that Nigerians are not more violent and going postal, despite the regularity in which some Nigerians seem to want to needlessly subject fellow Nigerians to miseries. The abject human conditions in Nigeria are liable to push sane persons to the outer limits of sanity. Good people change and may engage in anti social behavior due to poverty and the desperation which have become all too common. Symptoms of the extent of desperation are common all over Nigeria, whether in so-called ethno religious violence in Jos, Maiduguri and Bauchi or the MEND demand for resource control or the restive Boko Haram or the kidnappings in Igboland, these are all testaments to our abject condition, poverty of ideas, poverty of creative political solutions and bankruptcy of leadership.
Economic depression anywhere in the world is often followed by increased spate of higher incidents of crime or crime waves, anti social behavior etc. And it is almost irrelevant whether it is America, Jamaica, Haiti or Nigeria. Anyone who pays adequate, sufficient and enough attention to cyclical economic spirals would know should know. There is, in the majority of cases, a direct correlation between high crime rates or upsurge in antisocial behavior with economic downturns or downward spirals worldwide, this is not peculiar to Igboland, Nigeria or Africa!
No Igbo person and No Nigerian should internalize any anti social behavior or the negative effects of economic depression, abject poverty, capitalist individualism as peculiar to us. Self-preservation is a human trait, which in the extreme, can be perverse and twisted. Warped and perverse human reactions to circumstances are not peculiar to Igbos or Nigerians.
Nigerians have been told to believe that Nigerians invented fraudulence, until it was discovered that Bernie Madoff is not a Nigerian, neither is Jeff Skilling or Ken Lay of Enron. Igbos and Nigerians in general should cease and desist from internalizing, pretending to own, hold patent, trademarks and copyrights to perversities! Human conditions, development and circumstances are what motivates human responses to such, positive or negative responses, as such.
Dr. Osuji, with all due respect, you should stop poo-pooing Igboland... Dr. Osuji seems to see something for which Igbos should apologize, what he termed Igbo nationalism and Igbo nationalists! What exactly is wrong with being an Igbo nationalist? Should the Igbo race not take interest in self-preservation? Is it not even more particularly so, given the checkered history to which Igbos have been subjected in Nigeria from pogroms to civil war to marginalization and relegation? Dr. unnecessarily badgered Igbos in his feeble and woefully unsuccessful attempt to discuss kidnappings in Nigeria. We should discuss the cause and effect of the current human condition in Nigeria. All Nigerians ought to do a better business of putting the collective feet of our current crop of political leadership feet to the fire. And how about making Nigeria’s current parlous economic conditions and the upsurge of incidents of high crimes, including kidnappings, ethno-religious violence and resources mismanagement on the front burner as election issues? Why blame the abject human conditions on Ndiigbo, in fact, Dr. Osuji, why dump on Ndiibo?
Could Dr. Osuji show me or point to me, what other ethnic group, language group or region of Nigeria which has through self-help built an airport as was done in Owerri? Could Dr. Osuji show me other groups in Nigeria which more than exemplifies resilience? I will show Dr. Osuji Ndiigbo as survivors and triumphal and persistent strivers, despite the civil and despite efforts at arresting developments in Igboland, and despite utter neglect by our federal government, Igboland has not fared badly, in self-resuscitation in the aftermath of the civil war... Igboland is filled with indefatigable Nigerian citizens bar none!
Dr. Osuji ignores the plights and predicaments to which Igbos and Igbland have been subjected and he should know better! Too many Nigerians across the spectrum are willingly and blissfully, including Dr. Osuji, are ignorant or suffer voluntary self-imposed amnesia regarding Igbos and Igboland. Th writer and novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says it best, when she stated that Nigerians need to discuss our national history, with particular reference to the Nigerian Civil War and lasting consequences upon all of us, Igbos and non-Igbos ... our people need healing and true reconciliations ...
I write here, to inform Dr. Osui that I am tired of folks using Ndiigbo as scapegoat and Nigeria's whipping boy! I am so outraged by Dr. Osuji's article, hence the need to write this response or rejoinder in a hurry, such hurry! Dr. Osuji, I feel a sense of national duty to disagree with him as stridently and as vehemently, as I am personally affronted by his generalizations which does not take into account the desperation driven behaviors he so succinctly describes. A Nigerian at Nigeriavillagequare, only known as Abraxas assessments which I agree with, as he pointed out that there is nothing unique in the antisocial behaviors in Igboland different from other parts of Nigeria, and in fact, the entire world given the circumstances and human condition, and human nature.
Igbos and Igboland have had it rough. There is glaring disparities and discrimination in citing of projects. And for instance, Onitsha and Aba have been big commercial hubs since I was a child, and any reasonable government should know these salient facts; If I were president of Nigeria Aba and Onitsha would have had LARGEST international airports outside of Lagos and Kano, only and solely determined by the volume of business and traffic and profit and not some other ancillaries and extraneous expediencies! But Dr. Osuji and other Nigerians know that this has not happened in Nigeria!
Dr. Osuji and others who may erroneous deceive themselves into believing that antisocial behaviors are peculiar to Igbos and Igboland, may be told that, only recently, there was news of a man, a Nigerian man, whose mother lived abroad, (in Britain)? The man arranged for his MOTHER to be robbed, she was robbed and murdered while visiting Nigeria... the man and his mother are not from Nnewi or Olololo! I condemned the guy and his friends for the heinous murder of anyone for money, particularly, his own mother, BUT, we should all inquire into what drives such desperation; Neither the man or his mother was of the Igbo race/stock... but I do understand, at least in a psychiatric sense, what drove the desperation to rob his own mother!
We should endeavor mightily, to look for CAUSE and EFFECT in evaluating our human conditions, even as I express my disapproval of Dr. Osuji’s generalizations, I will have to assume that he intended no harm to our people, nevertheless, I worry about this idea of giving Ndiigbo another, additional negative label. I worry about generalizations; sweeping generalizations with such a broad brush
Ndiigbo have been marginalized and relegated in various ways during the past 41 years... economically, politically and structurally. Anti social behaviors in Nigeria and worldwide, are not peculiar to Igbos ... It is beyond dispute that anti social behaviors increases in spate and degree during economic stresses/recessions/depressions. It is incontrovertible that the Eastern part of Nigeria has suffered unmitigated neglect from our central governments for so long.
The following is excerpted and in quotes, from WHY ARE IGBOS KIDNAPPING OTHER IGBOS FOR RANSOM MONEY? Ozodi Thomas Osuji
“This paper traces the current spate of kidnapping and other anti-social behaviors in Igbo land to what it calls warped Igbo character and pathological Igbo society; it says that Igbos have wild individualism that seeks individual achievement without caring for the larger society, leaving all to fend for themselves and the ignored youth resorting to criminal behaviors. It says that Igbo land is approaching Somalia where law and order broke down and that unless something is done and done soon that Igbo land will become Somalia, with no law and order, with chaos and pillage the order of the day and Igbo life become nasty, brutish and short” Oh my goodness!
We should not blame one segment or one demographic in the Nigeria for symptoms of decadence in Nigeria; But if we must blame Ndiigbo selectively and with particularity, how about putting the social, political and economic conditions/circumstances in Nigeria/nationwide in perspectives?
Why must we pick on Ndiigbo? There are antisocial behaviors throughout Nigeria and throughout the world. In Nigeria for instance, if we must point fingers, particularize, or generalize, How about the ever recurring violence, intractable and internecine violence in Jos, Bauuchi, Maiduguri etc? Why must we pick on Ndiigbo? How about the political violence in Edo, and South Western states of Nigeria
We should leave Igbos and Igboland alone! Why kick a guy who is down or why blame the victims of marginalization and relegation? There is nothing peculiarly Igbo in the suffering, hardships and DESPERATION in Nigeria, which motivates self-preservation and survival of the fittest instincts... if anything, we may find rationale, additional rationale in Igboland as it has been under more SEVERE stresses than the rest of Nigeria which is under economic and political stress as it is, and have been for years! We should lend our names to and we should not give credence false accusations and negative labeling of Ndiigbos or other Nigerians.
In order words, whatever is wrong with Igboland is equally wrong with other parts of Nigeria... all of us who are patriots and well wishers of Nigeria.... must fathom lasting solutions to our national challenges, malaise, and general state of national funk!
. We should be careful not to assist those who would make victims of us or help to repeat our checkered history and beleaguered state of affairs; such is not good for Ndiigbo or Nigeria or for that matter, any human collective. Generalization is for the intellectually incurious and intellectually lazy.
Igbo Kwenu! Nigeria Kwenu!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Hosni Mubarak's Dictatorship, Defeated & Gone; What Is Next For Egypt?
Hosni Mubarak's Dictatorship, Defeated & Gone; What Is Next For Egypt?
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Hosni Mubarak, the infamous dictator, tyrant, authoritarian and absolute ruler of Egypt is gone!
It is a new day in Egypt! Egyptians as jubilate, celebrate and dances in the streets most triumphantly! The world is transfixed and exultant for the successful revolution inspired and driven by Egyptians in a peaceful protests.
The long beleaguered citizens of Egypt have triumphed, after thirty years of deployment of arbitrary power by Mubarak and his military cabal. Mubarak’s absolute grips on political power in Egypt unraveled after 18 days of popular and diverse protests which reflected the secular composite picture of the Egyptian nation. Over 80 million Egyptians today heaved a collective celebratory jubilation in relief. We are all Egyptians now, we join Egyptians as they celebrate, jubilate and savor the success of their revolution against authoritarianism.
The Egyptian military, the Egyptian army is now in charge of the affairs of Egypt. This was no official coup d'etat, instead, this was more or less a bloodless palace coup, edging aside Hosni Mubarak, who have been, in fact, the focus of this Egyptian revolution. Mubarak has been a fixture in the Egyptian political real estate and landscape for far too long. He presided in extremely brutal manner for thirty years. Mubarak inflicted extreme repressions on all political opponents. Hosni Mubarak is finally gone, defeated and forced off Egyptian political stage
Egyptians do not want a military government. The last thing and the worst thing that could culminate from this revolution, is, to have a mere shuffling of one cabal as replacement for another cabal.
A majority of Egyptians equally do not want a theocracy or religious government. There are now these multiple variables which must be confronted and addressed forthrightly by Egyptians, in the most specific and most robust manner. The world has heard Egyptians loud and clear. The world will do well to now support Egyptian people, in the most unequivocal ways, as the Egyptian nation and her institutions are re-ordained in freedoms and democracy.
It is hoped by many, that the Egyptian army and military would reach out to the civil society and advocates, promoters and supporters of democracy in Egypt as opposed to usurping political powers which was procured and secured by dint of hard work, borne of heroism and courage of the Egyptian people. It is hoped that the Egyptian military would not betray the Egyptian people. Air Marshall Hafez Mohammed has, on behalf of the Egyptian military announced that the Egyptian military does not seek to perpetuate itself as manager of Egyptian politics.
The Egyptian military, the Egyptian army in particular, should not perpetuate the old system and the old Mubarak cabal. The Egyptian military, army, must resist the temptation of seeing or perceiving itself as the beneficiary of this revolution undertaken by citizens of Egypt. The Egyptian military-army can and should only act as chaperon and transitory caretaker, for a short period of time, which will enable political and constitutional powers to be properly vested in Egyptian civilians. Let the ripples effect of the Egyptian revolution pervade and permeate Palestine, the Arab and Persian Worlds. Let there be a contagion of true democracy worldwide because of the successful revolution by the audacious, brave, courageous and bold actions of Egyptians.
The Egyptian military-army should now learn to become accountable and answerable to civilian government, civil society, they must yield to democracy and constitutionalism, and this will be their first time since 1952 and it will require intelligence, creativity, obeisance and complete deference to civilian authorities. There must be civilian control of the Egyptian military, the status quo and the cabals which enjoyed it, must give way as soon as possible.
Egyptian people during the preceding tumultuous 18 days exemplified peaceful and nonviolent ways of securing freedom, democracy and justice. Egyptians have put a lie to the rumors and recycled garbage imbued in the generalizations against Muslims and Islam as replete with people filled violence and lust for blood! The only violence during this Egyptian revolution is the violence by Mubarak’s thugs and gangs of enforcers as they exhibited their thuggish and arbitrariness, the Mubarak trademark during the preceding 30 years.
The protesters were organized, efficient and effective with sundry tasks, from garbage pick-ups to medical treatments and other services. The protesters, demonstrators and political activists across the spectrum, were civil and they interacted cordially and amicably despite the much touted and over-advertised religious and other difference, which are supposed to make Egyptians a volatile mix, particularly, in while cohabiting as they did peacefully, publicly during this preceding 18 days.
Muslim Brotherhood which is dreaded and maligned by America, Europeans and Israelis, and peace with Israel by the Egyptians should not be the most important factors or parameter to consider for the future of Egypt. It should instead be seen by all that democracy, and democratic institutions in Egypt, is in the long term, in the overall interests of all parties.
It is actually hoped, that the transition or the prospect of change from dictatorship to representative government in Egypt and all of the Arab and Persian world, would compel all parties to the forlorn and moribund Middle East Peace Process to snap out their constipated complacency and arrogant neglect of the plights and predicaments of Palestinians
Perhaps the events of the preceding 18 days will be a wake-up-call for all parties in the Middle East, not to be contemptuous and disdainful of their citizens, their public and their electorates. And perhaps, those who have been artificially buoyed and propped-up by powerful friends, will now learn to face the reality of learning to play with others and learn the fine art of mutual coexistence in a plural world filled with gorgeous mosaic of human diversity.
Egyptians have demonstrated to all-the-world, that Egypt a secular and diverse society which is able to make peaceful democratic transition, even smoothly. The dire prediction of messy, problematic and violent change, oozing terrorism is a mere figment of the imaginations of those who would malign Egyptians.
The real obstacle to peace have been those who will, arrogantly, rather foist their wishes, their ideologies and worldview on others, without care or respect for the wishes, and aspirations of others. There is now a compelling reason to face honest peace talks and negotiations, hinged on mutual respect, as opposed to usual condescending and patronizing demeaning attitudes toward would be peace partners.
It is sincerely hoped that the political transition in Egypt remains peaceful with particular focus on the paramount national interests of citizens of Egypt, which is not subsumed by the flow of Middle East oil and commerce through the geo-strategically crucially important Suez Canal.
It is further hoped that a true civilian democracy is established with alacrity. The paramount importance giving truest interpretation of the reasonable aspirations and desires of the Egyptian people for democracy, imbued with sacrosanct foundation and true democratic institutions, with due process, the rule of law and all democratic ideals are the immediate outcome of all that have transpired in Egypt during these incredible 18 days which began during the last week of January 2011.
Again, Egyptians in their diversity, Coptic Christians, Muslims, Arabs and Nubians etc have demonstrated a common purpose and triumphantly successful in defeating Hosni Mubarak, an enemy of the nation of Egypt, an autocrat, dictator and tyrant without resort to violence, and as a consequence, Egyptians, particularly, Egyptian Muslims, and the Muslim Brotherhood rejected the false label and the often repeated sweeping generalizations and garbage against Islam and Muslims as having a culture of violence and or being avowed owners of terrorism.
Hosni Mubarak is gone and the process which led to his forced departure showed all Egyptians, particularly the Muslims, as peaceful and exemplifying human aspirations for freedoms across the world, and as President Obama described it, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. statement at Ghana’s political independence over fifty years ago, “there is something incredible in all humans which stirs inside all of us for freedoms”
Egyptians are not seeking to determine of outcomes for the Americans, Europeans, Israelis and the Saudis. It is therefore extremely arrogant, unconscionable and egregious for anyone but Egyptians to seek to impose particular outcomes on the people of Egypt!
Anything done with a view to undo and truncate the democratic aspirations of Egyptians will be resisted by Egyptians. Egyptians have been unchained and they certainly would not be the same again. Egyptians certainly know their way back to Tahirir Square, also known as Liberation Square, they will return to protests and demonstrations in resistance to anyone and any entity intent on subverting, undermining or stifling this revolution and hard won peoples victory. The world will support Egyptians to ensure the entrenchment fruits and dividends, of these 18 days that changed the world!
Egypt has changed, and will change even more, whether America, Europe, Israel and Saudi Arabia and others are ready or not. Hosni Mubarak, the bedrock of the Middle East policy is gone in resounding defeat. Time for honest peace negotiations is now! The wind of change and freedom has and will alter the balance of power irretrievably!
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Hosni Mubarak, the infamous dictator, tyrant, authoritarian and absolute ruler of Egypt is gone!
It is a new day in Egypt! Egyptians as jubilate, celebrate and dances in the streets most triumphantly! The world is transfixed and exultant for the successful revolution inspired and driven by Egyptians in a peaceful protests.
The long beleaguered citizens of Egypt have triumphed, after thirty years of deployment of arbitrary power by Mubarak and his military cabal. Mubarak’s absolute grips on political power in Egypt unraveled after 18 days of popular and diverse protests which reflected the secular composite picture of the Egyptian nation. Over 80 million Egyptians today heaved a collective celebratory jubilation in relief. We are all Egyptians now, we join Egyptians as they celebrate, jubilate and savor the success of their revolution against authoritarianism.
The Egyptian military, the Egyptian army is now in charge of the affairs of Egypt. This was no official coup d'etat, instead, this was more or less a bloodless palace coup, edging aside Hosni Mubarak, who have been, in fact, the focus of this Egyptian revolution. Mubarak has been a fixture in the Egyptian political real estate and landscape for far too long. He presided in extremely brutal manner for thirty years. Mubarak inflicted extreme repressions on all political opponents. Hosni Mubarak is finally gone, defeated and forced off Egyptian political stage
Egyptians do not want a military government. The last thing and the worst thing that could culminate from this revolution, is, to have a mere shuffling of one cabal as replacement for another cabal.
A majority of Egyptians equally do not want a theocracy or religious government. There are now these multiple variables which must be confronted and addressed forthrightly by Egyptians, in the most specific and most robust manner. The world has heard Egyptians loud and clear. The world will do well to now support Egyptian people, in the most unequivocal ways, as the Egyptian nation and her institutions are re-ordained in freedoms and democracy.
It is hoped by many, that the Egyptian army and military would reach out to the civil society and advocates, promoters and supporters of democracy in Egypt as opposed to usurping political powers which was procured and secured by dint of hard work, borne of heroism and courage of the Egyptian people. It is hoped that the Egyptian military would not betray the Egyptian people. Air Marshall Hafez Mohammed has, on behalf of the Egyptian military announced that the Egyptian military does not seek to perpetuate itself as manager of Egyptian politics.
The Egyptian military, the Egyptian army in particular, should not perpetuate the old system and the old Mubarak cabal. The Egyptian military, army, must resist the temptation of seeing or perceiving itself as the beneficiary of this revolution undertaken by citizens of Egypt. The Egyptian military-army can and should only act as chaperon and transitory caretaker, for a short period of time, which will enable political and constitutional powers to be properly vested in Egyptian civilians. Let the ripples effect of the Egyptian revolution pervade and permeate Palestine, the Arab and Persian Worlds. Let there be a contagion of true democracy worldwide because of the successful revolution by the audacious, brave, courageous and bold actions of Egyptians.
The Egyptian military-army should now learn to become accountable and answerable to civilian government, civil society, they must yield to democracy and constitutionalism, and this will be their first time since 1952 and it will require intelligence, creativity, obeisance and complete deference to civilian authorities. There must be civilian control of the Egyptian military, the status quo and the cabals which enjoyed it, must give way as soon as possible.
Egyptian people during the preceding tumultuous 18 days exemplified peaceful and nonviolent ways of securing freedom, democracy and justice. Egyptians have put a lie to the rumors and recycled garbage imbued in the generalizations against Muslims and Islam as replete with people filled violence and lust for blood! The only violence during this Egyptian revolution is the violence by Mubarak’s thugs and gangs of enforcers as they exhibited their thuggish and arbitrariness, the Mubarak trademark during the preceding 30 years.
The protesters were organized, efficient and effective with sundry tasks, from garbage pick-ups to medical treatments and other services. The protesters, demonstrators and political activists across the spectrum, were civil and they interacted cordially and amicably despite the much touted and over-advertised religious and other difference, which are supposed to make Egyptians a volatile mix, particularly, in while cohabiting as they did peacefully, publicly during this preceding 18 days.
Muslim Brotherhood which is dreaded and maligned by America, Europeans and Israelis, and peace with Israel by the Egyptians should not be the most important factors or parameter to consider for the future of Egypt. It should instead be seen by all that democracy, and democratic institutions in Egypt, is in the long term, in the overall interests of all parties.
It is actually hoped, that the transition or the prospect of change from dictatorship to representative government in Egypt and all of the Arab and Persian world, would compel all parties to the forlorn and moribund Middle East Peace Process to snap out their constipated complacency and arrogant neglect of the plights and predicaments of Palestinians
Perhaps the events of the preceding 18 days will be a wake-up-call for all parties in the Middle East, not to be contemptuous and disdainful of their citizens, their public and their electorates. And perhaps, those who have been artificially buoyed and propped-up by powerful friends, will now learn to face the reality of learning to play with others and learn the fine art of mutual coexistence in a plural world filled with gorgeous mosaic of human diversity.
Egyptians have demonstrated to all-the-world, that Egypt a secular and diverse society which is able to make peaceful democratic transition, even smoothly. The dire prediction of messy, problematic and violent change, oozing terrorism is a mere figment of the imaginations of those who would malign Egyptians.
The real obstacle to peace have been those who will, arrogantly, rather foist their wishes, their ideologies and worldview on others, without care or respect for the wishes, and aspirations of others. There is now a compelling reason to face honest peace talks and negotiations, hinged on mutual respect, as opposed to usual condescending and patronizing demeaning attitudes toward would be peace partners.
It is sincerely hoped that the political transition in Egypt remains peaceful with particular focus on the paramount national interests of citizens of Egypt, which is not subsumed by the flow of Middle East oil and commerce through the geo-strategically crucially important Suez Canal.
It is further hoped that a true civilian democracy is established with alacrity. The paramount importance giving truest interpretation of the reasonable aspirations and desires of the Egyptian people for democracy, imbued with sacrosanct foundation and true democratic institutions, with due process, the rule of law and all democratic ideals are the immediate outcome of all that have transpired in Egypt during these incredible 18 days which began during the last week of January 2011.
Again, Egyptians in their diversity, Coptic Christians, Muslims, Arabs and Nubians etc have demonstrated a common purpose and triumphantly successful in defeating Hosni Mubarak, an enemy of the nation of Egypt, an autocrat, dictator and tyrant without resort to violence, and as a consequence, Egyptians, particularly, Egyptian Muslims, and the Muslim Brotherhood rejected the false label and the often repeated sweeping generalizations and garbage against Islam and Muslims as having a culture of violence and or being avowed owners of terrorism.
Hosni Mubarak is gone and the process which led to his forced departure showed all Egyptians, particularly the Muslims, as peaceful and exemplifying human aspirations for freedoms across the world, and as President Obama described it, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. statement at Ghana’s political independence over fifty years ago, “there is something incredible in all humans which stirs inside all of us for freedoms”
Egyptians are not seeking to determine of outcomes for the Americans, Europeans, Israelis and the Saudis. It is therefore extremely arrogant, unconscionable and egregious for anyone but Egyptians to seek to impose particular outcomes on the people of Egypt!
Anything done with a view to undo and truncate the democratic aspirations of Egyptians will be resisted by Egyptians. Egyptians have been unchained and they certainly would not be the same again. Egyptians certainly know their way back to Tahirir Square, also known as Liberation Square, they will return to protests and demonstrations in resistance to anyone and any entity intent on subverting, undermining or stifling this revolution and hard won peoples victory. The world will support Egyptians to ensure the entrenchment fruits and dividends, of these 18 days that changed the world!
Egypt has changed, and will change even more, whether America, Europe, Israel and Saudi Arabia and others are ready or not. Hosni Mubarak, the bedrock of the Middle East policy is gone in resounding defeat. Time for honest peace negotiations is now! The wind of change and freedom has and will alter the balance of power irretrievably!
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