by Ogunjimi Taiwo

The sad thing is that the same students that are victims of government’s irresponsibility will be the same ones running around supporting APC when the same APC’s Governor Amosun finds it easier to obtain loans to build bridges than to get loans and source for funds to pay lecturers’ salaries.

The Olabisi Onabanjo University Chapter of ASUU held a peaceful protest on Monday, 17^th March, 2014 to alert the public to their plight and to take a decision. They have not been paid their salaries and they are expected to go to work in the midst of the fuel scarcity/hike. They decided that since they’ve not been paid, they should not be expected to come to work.

Now students and parents are screaming blue murder. We’ve just come from a 7-month strike and we’re embarking on yet another strike? And all the ASUU jokes began to flood social media space again. You see, these are the kind of youths we have today. We would make jokes about the strike, abuse ASUU for striking again, ‘bind’ every demon that doesn’t want us to graduate and go for service with Batch A, and then sit at home grumbling and flinging blames wondering why ‘these ASUU people’ can’t make ‘sacrifices’ and keep on working without pay.

We have a confused definition of sacrifice and a disturbing concept of patriotism. The university is not a non-profit venture; it’s an institution that rakes in money and whose maintenance and running is the responsibility of the government. The lecturers that work at the university are not volunteers for a charitable organisation; they are people who have an agreement with the school that they will get paid for services rendered. If their employers are now defaulting on existing agreement, should the employees continue working for free because they want to be ‘patriotic’? Have they no kids of their own that must go to school? Have they no family that looks up to them for survival? Have they no responsibilities within the society?

Look, we must perish the thought that some people must make sacrifices on our behalf. Even if ASUU doesn’t go on strike, the very thought that our lecturers have to teach us without pay should upset us. What kind of knowledge do we expect them to give us in that state? The likes of Maxwell Adeyemi Adeleye and Yinka Gbadebo have made themselves perpetual advocates and supporters of government’s actions when it comes to ASUU, always asking why ASUU cannot evolve new ways of getting their rights from government without involving students. We have asked them to suggest alternative methods but they have always come up empty. We will always be victims as long as we continue to carry a distorted picture of sacrifice in our heads.

The alternative left for us is to join our voices with ASUU’s to demand prompt payment of salaries and better working conditions with the understanding that better working conditions for our lecturers mean better learning environment for us. If we will not learn from anything, let us learn from the recent NIS disaster. If the myriad of unemployed youths that trooped into the stadia had been told to come out for protest against the high rate of unemployment in the country and government’s insensitivity, we wouldn’t have seen 1000 people, yet over 80,000 people turned up in the different locations across the country.

There are no two ways about it, there’s nothing like “both parties should iron out their differences”; the only solution is for government to live up to their responsibilities and stop taking education with loose hands and putting it at the bottom of their priority list. The sad thing is that the same students that are victims of government’s irresponsibility will be the same ones running around supporting APC when the same APC’s Governor Amosun finds it easier to obtain loans to build bridges than to get loans and source for funds to pay lecturers’ salaries. The same students that are victims will be the same people running after PDP and chanting “Goodluck Jonathan for 2015” when the same President Jonathan is more concerned about spending money on National Conference, Centenary celebrations, travelling round the country to welcome defectors and saving up money that should be used to develop the nation in preparation for 2015. The same students that are victims will refuse to call their political office holders to order but think it’s their own lecturers that are rightfully demanding for payment for services rendered that deserve to be abused.

The bottom line is this; we are victims and will always be victims until we get it right. The student population must realise that only a unity of the oppressed can break the stranglehold of the oppressor. No worker deserves to work without pay. We must prevail on government to pay our lecturers and provide them with better working environment because it is only then that we’ll be taught the best and have a better learning environment.

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This article was published with permission from Abusidiqu.com

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Muhammed Jimoh

Unlike a more taciturn and media shy Tompolo, Asari is a boisterous, media celebrity and a regular guest at Aso Rock- the seat of Nigeria government.  I doubt if any of our graduates receives the kind of attention Asari receives in the media. While Asari is a self-confessed drop out, Topmolo managed to pass out of secondary school at the age of 23.  Their mates must be ruing in regret.

When my mates and those junior to me decided to take militancy as a vocation, I did not realize the ‘wise’ decision they took until recently when a militant won the presidency of Nigeria and he was electing his comrade-in-arm into sensitive positions.

The meaning of militancy should not be confined to the criminality in the Niger Delta alone. Although militancy in this region seems to be more profitable, but all form of militancy in the last 14 years of PDP appears to be a good source of cash.

Militancy is the ability to demonstrate that you can handle any form of weaponry; that you are at the request of politician to send everyone scampering on election day; that you could ground state institution and constitute threat to a politician ambition.

In my own state of Kogi, those who demonstrated the skill of handling arms become the beneficiary of PDP poverty alleviation program. Boys, as they are referred to, fill the pay rolls of many local government areas. Your ability to organize the boys automatically earns you the position of a youth leader. This comes with such reward as contract for dredging of gutters, local road construction and presenting list of non-existing local government staff for whom you collect salaries. You receive a handsome pay good enough that those school graduates regret ever knowing the book. The councillorship position of your ward is for you to choose.

It appears that those who go to schools nowadays are still yet to realize that the government does not give a damn about education. The quality of the facilities, if any, in our school are eye sores. I was near to tear when of recent I passed by a neighborhood primary schools in the Etahi community in Okene local government. A humane person would not allow even his dog to hibernate there.  In almost each dilapidated block of two classrooms, one is a reserved for ‘study’ while the other is an open toilet for the public. How learning goes on there baffles me. At the end, I come to realize that it is the poor parents who have no choice, but value education, who still send their children to such public and community schools.

You still don’t think that militancy receive more attention than education? For how along was the Academic Staff of University Union (ASUU) on strike? What was the Government response to their demand? Nothing instead ASUU became an object of derision to the PDP led government.  Even ex-militant will not receive the kind of belittling ASUU received. The other day when ex-militant were on demonstration, the police ensure nothing happened to these VIPs, in addition to top government official promptly meeting them to settle their demand. These are just even the junior militants. College of Education and Polytechnics staff have been on strike for only Nigerians know how long.

Some of the senior militants are richer that a state and very influential. The news making round sometimes ago was that Tompolo, a marine criminal, who doubles as President Jonathan’s godfather, got a delivery of his own private jet worth 2.12 billion naira. He is in charge of Nigeria Maritime Security. Asari Dokubo, another creek felon, is also a very rich militant. When the Beninoise authority arrested him to give him the message that Benin is not a lawless country like Nigeria where militants reign supreme, the presidency quickly intervened and within hours he was flown to Aso Rock to take rest.  Meanwhile, Nigerian students are being detained and murdered across Europe and Asia unjustly and out of racism, but our government does not give a damn. The message is this: who send you to school when militancy is a free enterprise. Even when militants eventually acquiesced to our government demand to send them to school, they are sent to better schools in South Africa and friendly European countries.

Unlike a more taciturn and media shy Tompolo, Asari is a boisterous, media celebrity and a regular guest at Aso Rock- the seat of Nigeria government.  I doubt if any of our graduates receives the kind of attention Asari receives in the media. While Asari is a self-confessed drop out, Topmolo managed to pass out of secondary school at the age of 23.  Their mates must be ruing in regret.

Militants are in high places in government agencies and department. For instance, Kuku, another known militant, is a presidential adviser on the swindle called amnesty. Gen. Bayloaf has bagged doctorate degree in humanities in peace and conflict resolution in the Niger Delta! A contradiction, isn’t it? Those who refer to them as ex-militant don’t even know what they are talking about. Ex-militant are those who are dead.

Militancy elsewhere across the country receives attention and is profitable. The ECOMOG and the Yansarakusa boys of the northeast region were the handy tools for politicians in that region to win election and drive their opponents into hiding. The Bakassi and Delta boys were convenient for politicians in the southeast and south south.  The wee-wee smoking Yandaba in the northwest are equally good tools for election. The Odua people Congress (OPC) is a law unto themselves in the southwest. Their leader, Gani Adams is a delegate to the ongoing Jonathan’s National Conference. Today the government still runs after the misguided Boko Haram elements to accept cash for peace. Truly, I should have been a militant!

This is why I pity the so-called civilian JTF. The government does not reward those who help it but those who take arms against it. In the last couple of months, a number of these voluntary, brave and heroic boys have been murdered by the Boko Haram elements. I have not heard the government announcing a visit to their families let alone giving a cash reward to them.  These folks have become a human-shade for the JTF who are actually trained and paid to provide security.

Last week was another tragedy for various schools graduates seeking job. Millions of them spread across the nation hoping to fill less than 5,000 jobs announced by the ministry of the interior. The job did not come but what came was death and injury. Apart being scammed of one-thousand naira each by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Minister of the interior, Abba Moro, blamed the hopeless, jobless youth for the cause of their deaths and injuries across the various centres. Interestingly, the minister himself is a militant. He is being prosecuted for gunrunning and illegal possession of arm in his home state of Benue. However, since he became a senior militant, he got the immunity of prosecution as every senior militant is privileged.

Some people have called the minister Moron, from his name Moro. But, truly, Nigerians, especially the so called educated youths, are the real moron who continue to hope where there is none. No one tries that nonsense with the militants. The last time the militants gathered in Abuja was to protest the delayed payment of their monthly allowances. They were begged by government officials to go back to the creek as their grievances would be looked into. They were escorted back to the creek by a detachment of the Nigeria Police Force.

Then, why should I continue to open the pages of books when my mates and those inferior to me are making it big from militancy? This is a contradiction but it is a reality. Our usual line of foolish optimism, E go better.

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This article was posted with permission from Abusidiqu.com

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Femi Fani-Kayode

It is incumbent on us all to stand up for the weak, the vulnerable, the terrorised, the despised, the enslaved, the voiceless, the ”different” and the persecuted wherever and whoever they are because to love others as we love ourselves is God’s primary and most important law.

I have just finished watching the film titled ”12 Years A Slave”. I couldn’t stop weeping from the beginning to the end of it and frankly I am at a loss for words. This was a masterpiece. It was nothing short of a powerful rendition of a true and heroic story.

I cannot help asking the following question: what did the black man ever do to deserve such wickedness and suffering? What did our forefathers do to deserve such barbarity and mindless torture in the hands of those that held them captive in a distant land?

May God forgive those that brutalised and enslaved us for all that they did to us. I cannot hate them. I can only love and forgive them because only love and forgiveness can drive out hate and heal the wounds that they inflicted on the souls of our people.

What they did to us was far greater, far more damaging and far more devastating than the Germans ever did to the Jews. Though we are compelled to forgive by scripture and the strictures of our God yet we must never forget what they did to us.

And never must such a thing be allowed to happen again. No minority, whether he or she be black, brown, yellow, red, white, gay, straight or in any other way ”different” should be allowed to suffer like that or to feel the pain of humiliation, indignity, servitude, persecution and the denial of the most basic and fundamental rights because we are all God’s children.

It is incumbent on us all to stand up for the weak, the vulnerable, the terrorised, the despised, the enslaved, the voiceless, the ”different” and the persecuted wherever and whoever they are because to love others as we love ourselves is God’s primary and most important law.

They must never be allowed to walk alone because it was that spirit of standing up for others and fighting for the weak and helpless and the display of such love and selflessness that eventually freed the so-called ”slave” from his hideous captivity in the film titled ”12 Years A Slave”.

It was the goodness, love, kindness courage and inherent power of those who refused to remain silent and who were ready to take a risk and stand up for truth and justice that caused the man to regain his freedom and to be returned to his family in Washington after being enslaved for twelve long years. What a man.

What a film. What a great and powerful rendition of truth and what a testimony of man’s inhumanity to man.

What compelling evidence and confirmation of the eternal truth that tells us that no matter how dark the night may be, ”joy comes in the morning”. What an affirmation of the undeniable fact that ultimately good always triumphs over evil. What a magnificent example of God’s power, grace, manifold blessings and great mercy.

I urge as many as possible to find the time to watch ”12 Years A Slave”. You will never be the same again.

Having watched this film I believe that the case for reparations for the slave trade must continue to be made. God Himself will not forgive us if we refuse to do so.

If the world can give the State of Israel back to the Jews as compensation for persecuting them for thousands of years and killing 6 million of them during the Second World war alone why can’t that same world pay reparations to the African for enslaving him for thousands of years and for killing at least 30 million of our people over the ages.

Why can’t the western powers be made to pay reparations to Africa for what they subjected our people  to even after the institution of slavery and the slave trade was formally abolished and particularly during the colonial era?

As a glaring example of the sheer cruelty of the Europeans during that period, King Leopold 11, who ruled Belgium from 1865 to 1909, actually owned the Congo and all that was in it as part of his personal estate.

By virtue of his supposedly blue blood, one man owned millions of Africans and all their land and chattels even though he resided thousands of miles away in a distant Europe.

Such was this man’s inate brutality and monstrous power that he orchestrated and directed the slaughter of no less than 15 million Congolese Africans whilst he ruled from Brussels. This was so even though he never set his foot in Africa throughout his long reign.

Yet the world sat by silently and did nothing. As a matter of fact many of his fellow Europeans actually applauded his actions and described him as a good example and indeed the epitome of all that was noble and all that ought to be expected from the very best of European royalty. I ask again, what did the black man do to deserve this?

What about Cecil Rhodes, the Englishman man who, according to European historians, ”literally and lawfully bought” a large part of southern Africa and all that was in it for the British Crown and who named that new frontier after himself by calling it ”Rhodesia”?

It took over 100 years and a bitter and prolonged 15 year civil war (from 1964 to 1979) for the black Africans of that sad and beleaguered land to secure their rights, to be recognised and acknowledged as being human beings, to win the right to vote and to install democracy and majority rule.

It was only after all this was achieved, in 1979, that the name ”Rhodesia” was dropped like a hot potato and was changed to ”Zimbabwe”. I ask again, what did the black man do to deserve this?

We need not go into the sufferings of our black brothers and sisters in apartheid South Africa at the hands of the white Boers from the day that the Dutchman, Jan Van Riebeek, arrived on the South African coast with his wife and two children on 5th April, 1652 and saw what he graphically described as ”stinking black dogs”. We need not talk about the humiliation and enslavement of our fellow black Africans at the hands of the Arabs of the Sudan, whether it be in Darfur or Southern Sudan for over 500 years.

We need not go into the sheer barbarity and inhuman suffering that our brothers and sisters were subjected to in the sugar cane fields and the coffee and banana plantations of the West Indies and South America for many centuries.

Everywhere we look throughout world history the story is the same: Africa and Africans have been pillaged, raped, tortured, humiliated, enslaved, butchered, wrenched from their families, scattered, bought and sold, considered as chattel and treated with the most explicit and extreme forms of brutality and violence by those who have a different skin colour to us and those from outside our shores.

Yet still there have been no reparations and no formal apology.  Instead what they have given us today is the the ”second slavery” of foreign debt and humiliating servitude by every single African country to the western monetary agencies such as the IMF, the Paris Club, the Bretton Woods Institutions and the World Bank.

Those evil and opaque bodies and their paymasters and agents are today’s slave masters and they have turned successive African governments into little more than desperate pimps, shameless prostitutes and indebted and pliant little beggars.

They have squeezed the very life out of our people, destroyed the future of our respective nations and blighted our collective destinies. This is neo-colonialism in it’s most primitive and raw form. I ask again, what did the black man do to deserve this?

Yet thankfully there is still hope and God’s power still remains sure and ever present. He is ever faithful and His promises are ever sure.

Nothing drives that point home more than the fact that despite all we have suffered over the centuries in the hands of those that enslaved us and that viewed us as nothing more than worthless chattel, today it is a black man of free African descent, whose forefathers were never slaves and whose proud ancestry can be traced to modern-day Kenya on the east African coast, that is the most powerful man in the world.

That man’s name is Barack Obama, President of the United States of America. The fact that such a man with such a heritage can be President of a nation that once prided itself on slavery and that once regarded the black man as nothing more than a glorified chimpanzee is a testimony to the power of God. Yet the African is not alone in this respect.

Apart from the Jews, the Red Indians of North America, the Armenians of Asia and the Aborigines of Australia there is only one other group of people that have suffered almost as much as the African in the hands of other races in human history.

Those people are those that were once known as the ”serfs”- the slave under-class of slavic Russia. Like the African, the serfs and peasants of Russia were also treated with disdain, regarded as chattel and viewed as being sub-human by the Tsars and ruling class of the Russian Empire.

They also suffered immeasurably in their millions for thousands of years under successive Russian governments and rulers. Like the African, they were also ”owned” by their rulers and they lived or died at the pleasure of the nobility.

It is yet another irony of fate and another testimony to the awesome power of God that today the second most powerful man on the planet (and some would argue that he is actually the most powerful) is a proud, confident and strong-willed Russian whose ancestry can be traced directly to the serfs of mother Russia and who comes from equally humble origins. His name is Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation.

The world has indeed been handed over by God to the seed and lineage of those that were once oppressed and that were once treated as sub-human by others but that is not good enough.

The case for reparations can and must still be made for Africa and Africans in particular and we must begin to make that case without fear or favour.

We must pick up the gauntlet and take over the baton from where others  like the late Chief MKO Abiola left off.  More than any other African  leader, both living and dead, MKO Abiola championed the cause of reparations and he put the case so well. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that he had to be stopped and that he was ultimately martyred.

Permit me to end this contribution with two other curious and interesting observations about Putin and Obama. The historic suppression of their forefathers and ethnic stock are not the only things that they have in common. Permit me to explain and let us marvel together at the power of God.

President Barack Obama’s paternal grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was a cook to a British army officer. President Vladimir Putin’s paternal grandfather, Spiridon Ivanovitch Putin, was a cook in Lenin’s country home and later became a cook to Josef Stalin.

Who would have ever thought that the grandson’s of two mere cooks and men from such a humble lineage could ever become the Presidents of the two most powerful countries on the planet at more or less the same time. As the bible says, ”the Lord exalts the humble and resists the proud”.

The morale of the tale? Never look down on anyone and treat all men and women, regardless of their station in life, with the respect that they deserve because only God knows tomorrow. The son or grandson of your servant today may well be the leader of your nation tomorrow.

It is also interesting to note that both Putin and Obama have two young daughters but no sons. Obama’s predecessor in office, President George W. Bush, also had two daughters and no sons whilst President Bill Clinton, Bush’s predecessor in office, also had one daughter and no sons.

The morale of the tale? The test of a man is not in having a son but in achieving his life’s ambition and getting to the top. Whether sons or daughters, all children are a blessing from God. As the bible says, they are all ”arrows in our quiver”. We in Africa particularly must cherish, appreciate and give thanks to God for our daughters as much as we do for our sons.

And whilst we do so we must also bear in mind that the case for reparations must be argued and we must never forget that if we, as Africans, do not do it ourselves no, one will do it for us.

May the souls of all those that perished as slaves continue to rest in peace. God bless Africa and God bless the producers and facilitators of ”12 Years A Slave”.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Olumide Oworu

 ” I looked at my dashboard, the fuel light shot me a cheeky flash, almost like it was mocking me. ”

It was ‘Jibola’s birthday, and he was hosting a get-together at Aguda. I decided to ”show face” since Jibbs did same at my birthday party, besides that, we were good friends. I dressed up for the party and left my house, for what looked like a promising afternoon. As I pulled up to the petrol station to get fuel, I noticed a queue. What the heck?! The fuel in my car was less than quarter tank, and I was in no mood to join the queue; I figured I’d get fuel at Aguda, seeing that I was going to go past three petrol stations, before the party venue anyway. “On to Ags” I said to myself.

Windows down, radio on; just as I approached the first petrol station, the fuel light appeared on my dashboard. No worries, I thought; I was about to get fuel,little did I know what the day had in store for me. The first petrol station was closed, and so were the other two after it. “Ah, yawa don gas!” I exclaimed. I quickly called Jibbs on my phone, “Hello Jibbs, guy abeg fuel dey your house?”

“Omo, no fuel o, me sef dey try organize fuel for my party, make we use am take on gen”, Jibbs replied, to my shock.

What was I to do? I didn’t know of any other filling stations in the area. I looked at my dashboard, the fuel light shot me a cheeky flash, almost like it was mocking me. I parked my car and stepped out. Confused and helpless, I decided to get on an okada (motorcycle) to search for fuel. What choice did I have?

The okada rider told me plainly, “Oga, fuel or no fuel, you go pay me my money complete oh, ehen” But that was the least of my worries. After riding around Aguda without any luck, we found ourselves in Lawanson (another area in Surulere). There was a long queue at the filling station, this time, I was so overjoyed to have found fuel and very willing to join the queue. One problem though, even if I queued up, where would I put the fuel? In a bid to get fuel instantly, I had forgotten the most important thing- a container. My car was way back in Aguda.

“(Sigh) Which kain day be this?”I said to myself. Drenched in sweat from the heat of the sun, I hopped back on the okada in search of a jerry can. After going down four streets, I finally bought one, and then headed back to the station. After waiting for a while, I finally got fuel, and then headed back to my car. I paid the okada rider off, glad to have finally gotten fuel in spite of so many hurdles. As I walked down to the car, with a great feeling of relief, it suddenly hit me; No funnel or hose to put the fuel into my car. “Damn, I should just have taken a taxi to Jibb’s place” I lamented, almost frustrated. Another search began. Luckily, only shorter this time.

I sat in my car, happy to have found fuel, but angry at myself for all the trouble I had to go through because of my initial impatience. Plus, all the struggles meant I had to attend the get-together wreaking of fuel. ”Never again” I said to myself, driving slowly to Jibb‘s house, and hoping to make the best of what was left of the day. I looked at my dashboard again and calmly uttered “Fuel please”.

To this day, I still leave the blue jerry can in the trunk of my car to remind me of that day.

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Olumide Oworu is an actor, model and rap artiste. He featured in MTV’s Shuga season 3.

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

by Abiola Solanke

It is alarming that in this 21st century, we have institutions that prevent her students from making use of gadgets such as Computers, mobile phones, I-pads etc. Many of them give dress codes to their students, restrict their movement, enforce food time-table, dictate the clothes they must wear, determine the time they must read, compel them to go to chapels, etc

The incident at Bowen University, Iwo on Wednesday, March 19, 2014 is an event that will continue to linger in the minds of staff, students, parents and friends of the institution for a long time to come. According to a report by The Punch, students went berserk and vandalized no fewer than twenty (20) vehicles in the institution. The cause of the protest was said to be power outage and lack of water supply in one of the new male hostels. Findings later revealed that the cause of the protest was more than the issue of power outage and lack of water supply as it was connected to some management decisions that didn’t go down well with the students such as; restriction of students movement, compulsory locking of the hostels between the hours of 8am and 4pm, time table for eating amongst many others.

It was reported that the students were watching a European Champions League match that fateful Wednesday evening when the electricity supply went off and the frustration coupled with the bottled-up revolt against the new management policies was believed to have triggered the protest. By the time the dust was settled, no fewer than twenty vehicles belonging to staffs of the institution had been vandalized while several shops within the campus was also looted. The unfortunate incident at Bowen calls for concern and a review of the policies enacted in our private tertiary institutions.

It is alarming that in this 21st century, we have institutions that prevent her students from making use of gadgets such as Computers, mobile phones, iPads etc. Many of them give dress codes to their students, restrict their movement, enforce food time-table, dictate the clothes they must wear, determine the time they must read, compel them to go to chapels, etc. Students are sent to the tertiary institution to not only acquire knowledge, but to learn self-reliance, human relations and independence existence. One therefore wonders how the students will acquire these additional skills if they are constantly dictated to and their daily routine dictated by the authorities.

Even more disturbing is breaching the right of staff and students to unionise contrary to Section 40 of the Nigerian constitution which states ‘’Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests’’. The right to unionize in these institutions is being trampled upon thus making agitation and championing the staff and students interest a mirage. Apart from defending the interest of members, these Unions especially the Student Unions help to develop and mould future leaders for the Nation. It is a ground where students can acquire leadership skills that will benefit them and help them even in their chosen carriers which is one of the goals of these schools in the first instance.

Many of our private institutions in a bid to instil discipline in their students introduce policies which does not necessarily instil the desired discipline in them. Many of their students ‘hibernate’ their normal behaviours while in school and exhibit them when they are out of the school on holidays which confirms the saying that ‘’you can only take a horse to the river, you can’t force it to drink the water’’. Many of the students are treated like kids and not like the adults who they are. To many of their students, it is like being imprisoned and are not allowed to socialise and mix freely thus affecting their human relations when they graduate from the schools. Its high time our private varsities begin to allow their students some level of liberty to determine how they shape their lives. Varsity undergraduates in these institutions should be given the requisite training and exposure that will justify the fees that are paying and make
them interact freely and compete favourably with their colleagues from public varsities after graduation.

Two basic amenities that have to be provided for in a higher institution are electricity and water. Though both are national problems which have crippled many businesses in the country, but then in higher institutions, their chief executives strive to devote a substantial part of their finances to these two basic amenities. It is surprising however that in a private university where students pay between five hundred thousand to seven hundred thousand naira, electricity is supplied to the halls of residence for just six hours daily! The protest by the students is a reaction to the suppression of their fundamental human rights. It is a product of bottled-up frustration against the system and the power outage that precipitated the protest was just the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

There is the likelihood of communication breakdown between the management and students which could have been averted if the students had their own Union. It is also important that these institutions allow their students some level of liberty while at the same time instilling discipline in them after-all, there is no evidence to show that their products are better-off behavioural wise compared to those from public institutions. The unfortunate incident at Bowen is a wake-up call to our leaders that the people are gradually finding their voice and are resisting unpopular policies. Gone are the days when people accepted oppressive policies without any form of dissent. The voice of the people is in their unity and when the people can unite and come together, any anti-people policy can be surmounted.

The unfortunate and regrettable part of the whole incident is the looting of shops and vandalizing of vehicles. It is a sour taste which leaves much to be desired. It is unfortunate that University undergraduates will become lawless and turn a supposedly peaceful protest into a vehicle for destruction and looting. This is condemnable and should be discouraged by well-meaning Nigerians. Apart from the fact that the students will likely have to pay surcharge for the vehicles destroyed and shops looted, it has brought about a disruption in the academic calendar which is undesirable.

Certainly, lessons have been learnt, though in the hard way, it is hoped that other private institutions, public universities and the nation as a whole will come to the reality that no matter how well the people have been suppressed  a day of revolt will surely come. Private tertiary institutions need to re-visit some of their laws and guarantee their students some level of freedom. The right to unionize should also be revisited in these ivory towers to build future leaders and expose students to leadership experience.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Bayo Oluwasanmi

Every wise course of action to pursue is contrasted with a fool’s course of action to avoid. The pastors are rebelling against God and they will end up destroying themselves. They will fall beneath their own load of sin and will be trapped by their own sin.

Things have never been so bleak for believers today. The world is going through unprecedented economic challenges. Security in an increasingly insecure world is one of today’s most sought often – and elusive – commodities – security for the future, security for vocation, and security for protection. We’re bombarded with legislated immorality and confused political leadership.

People who boast to know Christ especially the pastors do not actually believe he is the only way to salvation. Many people planned to ruin their lives. Yet, many a life ends in ruins. Some pastors are craftily cunning like the Satan in their attempts to destroy the moral fiber of God’s children. Their deviance from God’s ordained pattern for love, sex, marriage, and family is both attractive and inviting.

Recently, three pastors made headlines across the globe about the wildly unorthodox demonstration of how some believers can be controlled by their pastors. According to a report in Times Live, Pastor Lesego Daniel of Rabboni Centre Ministries in Garankuwa, South Africa, made his congregation of about 1,000 eat grass followed a sermon in which he explained that Jesus had many other disciples than the 12 listed in the traditional Bible who were doing new things which were considered unconventional at the time. The minister who is popularly known as “miracle man” said eating grass is part of ritual to show that humans can be controlled by God’s spirit.

A Kenya Pastor, Pastor Njohi told his female congregation not to wear underwear when they attend his church “so God can enter their bodies easier.” According to the Kenya Daily Post, Reverend Njohi of the Lord’s Propeller Redemption Church in Dandora, Nairobi, reportedly banned women from wearing underwear during his services so people can be “free in body and spirit” in order to receive Christ. Njohi is also said to have warned his women members of the “dire consequences” if they did not follow his orders. The women were reported to have adhered to the new rule and attended the church’s following service without any undergarments. They were also advised to check their daughters were not wearing anything under their outer clothes.

Pastor Allen Parker of the Virginia White Tail Church, Virginia, USA, passed a new law where the congregation was asked to serve the Lord the way God created them by worshipping in the nude. According to ABC 13, Pastor Parker said some of Jesus’ most important moments happened while he was naked. “When he was born he was naked, when he was crucified, he was naked and when he arose he left his clothes in the tomb and he was naked,” he said. If God made us that way, how can that be wrong?” The church now describe itself as “Family Nudist Community.”

The naïve will play with fire and get burned. The foolish will take the bait – and find that every kick offered by the pastors also contains a kickback. It is the filth of unfaithfulness for the so called “men of God” to engage in spiritual terrorism against their congregations. A well, or fountain, offers pure water for personal use. The water that runs through the street is basically sewage. The pastors are feeding their sheep sewage.

Religious indoctrination is a powerful and potent Weapon of Mass Deception (WMD). It deals with virtually every facet of human relationships. These maxims deal with folly and wisdom, pride and humility, vengeance and justice, laziness and initiative, poverty and wealth, enemies and friends, lust and love, anger and anxiety, masters and servants, life and death.

The three pastors and so many others have re-evangelized the world by preaching a diluted version of the Gospel. They have become wealthy through deception and distraction. They have become a spiritual opposition to all that the Gospel stands for. They are prime examples of pastors who are jailbirds and desperadoes who thrive in thieving and grand scale larceny.

The pastors are guilty of eisegesis. Eisegesis is reading into the text what is not there. They read their own feelings or thoughts into the Bible. By this theological treachery, they based their teachings and interpretation of the Bible on something the Bible or Scripture is not about. How can the pastors reconcile eating of grass, women coming to church without underwear and bra, and worshipping in complete nudity to the teachings of the Scriptures?

By preaching the opposite of injunctions of the Lord, they are the real enemies who try to lure away men and women from God. Instead of comforting the persecuted, they are tormenting them. Instead of freeing the prisoner, they imprison them. Instead of drawing people into the light, they lead many into the darkness.

They have traded their congregants’ peace for anxiety, joy for hopelessness, and selfishness for humility. Their congregants are less confident in God in the face of uncertainty. The people have turned from their spiritual independence and reliance on God to become dependent and appendages of the pastors.

The pastors have turned God to be god of terror that must be offered sacrifices to withhold or ward off sickness, death, and destruction from the congregants and their families. They shamelessly deceive and entertain evil. They multiply the miseries and tragedies of worshippers and demand the impossible from them. The people feel brutally betrayed, hopeless battered, and desperately lonely. Instead of rejoicing, they have been thrown into a pit, a spiritual slavery if you will.

They continually use the Bible as a tool to transform evil into good. They have rephrased and reshaped its contexts and contents as weapon to exploit, oppress, and extort. In the midst of tragedies faced by their congregants, they look for simplistic answers and quick fixes and other Band-Aids to cover their gaping wounds.

The situation with many Christians today is grim and dim. It looks like darkness will prevail. They are confused how to navigate the narrow strait between chaos and deception. In such a strait, the wisest are perplexed, and the boldest staggered. The increase of wickedness in the church thwarts them with fear, discouragement, and confusion.

If the spiritually imprisoned parishioners continue to feed steadily upon a diet of confusion and distortion and extortion being served by their pastors, they will permanently be victims of danger, spiritual lethargy, and anxious thoughts, and being led astray. They will ultimately become fools of self-destruction.

Every wise course of action to pursue is contrasted with a fool’s course of action to avoid. The pastors are rebelling against God and they will end up destroying themselves. They will fall beneath their own load of sin and will be trapped by their own sin.

My warning to the simple-minded, the gullible, the naïve, and the vulnerable worshippers is: Don’t play with matches – especially Satans that masquerade in cassocks. Carry a book of matches with you whenever you go to church to keep that warning fresh in your mind and heart. Listen to the God inside you – he writes with a pen that never blots, speaks with a tongue that never slips, and acts with a hand that never fails.

The cathedral is famous for its ornately carved columns. Most of the churches today are spiritually empty hollow sphere – the Lord is here, but God is hard to find!

*** There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord. – Proverbs 21: 30

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Emmanuel Okonkwo

The Constitution frowns at any discrimination of a person on grounds of the person’s community, ethnicity, place of birth or origin, circumstance of birth, sex, religion, political opinion or disability. What is not clear is – does the law frowns on the other person’s right not to want to middle or involve with an Osu?

ABSTACT

The theme of segregation is not alien to any part of the world. No matter the appellation it is branded with, its existence cannot be denied. Once, the blacks were referred to as the ‘black monkeys’. In the United States, there was a glaring distinction between the white man and the black man. In South Africa, we were plunged into the dreadful arena of the Apartheid. In Nigeria, the story is the same. One wonders, are humans not made alike? Is there any justification behind this prejudice? Why is the concept of Osu prevalent? Why is it so powerful that the elites champions or are silent to it? If it is a culture, is cultural change impossible? Why does it still exist despite the laws made against it? This essay seeks to lare bare the origin, misconceptions and criticism against the Osu caste system, using the Igboland of Nigeria as a case study. The method is both historical and analytical.

INTRODUCTION

Prior before the advent of the colonial masters, the igbo people like every other tribe, lived within the confines and comfort of their culture and norms.[i] The indigenous traditionalists believed in the earth goddess, deities and ancestral spirits under a creator called Chukwu, Obasi, Chi or Chineke (the supreme God). Their beliefs overwhelmed their culture and social lives. One of these beliefs is encapsulated in the word Ikpenkwumoto, meaning to judge uprightly. Thus the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Dabierin’s case took judicial notice of this cherished custom when she asserted that evidence (testimony) of the elders especially on land matters, are mostly true.

Again the Igbo’s cherished brotherhood, communality and relationships. This is buttressed in the word Umunna, Obinwanne, etc. Odimegwu recaptures it when he wrote ‘The African communalist family engendered dialogue and consensus as the mode of relations and method of governance in the traditional society’ (2007:298).[ii] Ogugua summarizes these cardinal virtues of the Igbo community into ‘Life, offspring, wealth, truth, justice, love and peace’ (2003).[iii] However beautiful and desirous that state of nature was, the dark fog of segregation lingered with it. A certain set of clan or clans are regarded as the ‘unclean’, ‘cult-slave’, ‘living sacrifice’, ‘outcast’, ‘slave of the gods’, even ‘the untouchables’. Living with them or marrying from them is highly forbidden. Such an act may even convert the defaulter (Diala) into an Osu. Surprisingly, the segregation that befell these unfortunate victims, is not characterized by hatred (for foods are given to the gods knowing the Osu’s eat from it, and arms are given to them), rather it culminated from a parochial and fanatical awe of the long aged belief of the ‘living sacrifice’.[iv]

THE ORIGIN OF OSU CASTE IN IGBOLAND

The true origin of the emergence of the Osu caste seems to be at large. Different stories are told about this living tale. For instance, Amadife tells us that the origin is traced to the era when the gods were believed to demand for human sacrifice during festivals, so as to cleanse the land of abomination. Then the people would contribute to the general purse for a purchase of a slave or for kidnapping one. This victims and their descendants became known as ‘Osu arusi’.[v]           For Ezekwugo, the origin is traced to the Nri Kingdom (the acclaimed ancestral home of the Igbo man). It is believed that the Nri’s possessed a hereditary power and thus do go about cleansing the various kingdoms of abomination. Any community that refutes to be cleansed are dabbed ‘osu’s’ or ‘untouchables’ (1987:10).[vi] Some believed they were descendants of travelers who were merely allowed to stay in the community. Others say they are bastards from non-Osu’s (Diala).

Finally, the stronger view seems to lean on ostracization. This occurs when a particular person or group refutes the decision of the King or the entire community. The people naturally begin to withdraw from the defaulter (this was a traditional method of punishment/criminal justice in the pre-colonial era). Sometimes, the king banishes the defaulter from the land. Upon the passage of time, from one generation to another, the victim or the children of the victim are then referred to as Osu’s together with their descendants.[vii]

CONFLICT BETWEEN OSU-ISM AND THE IGBO CONCEPT OF LOVE, UNITY AND COMMUNALITY

The Igbo community is once known for its belief in love, unity and communality. For instance, ownership of land was communal and not individualistic. Liberty was cherished and there was nothing like kingship at its inception. Anyi nile bu ofu (we are one) was the emblem. This was why the appointment of warrant chiefs in the indirect-rule system of Lugard led to its failure in the East. Igwe reports that one of the fundamental constitution of the Igbo society and culture is  the spirit of liberty. No one community or village would want to oppress the other. No Igbo man would want to slavishly serve another under normal circumstances. The parable says it all – Egbe bere ugo bere nke si beya ebele nku kwaa ya (let both the kite and the eagle perch and stand and let the one that stands in the way of the other become powerless) – (1991:143). [viii] Ogugua further recaps the cherished principle of relationship, belonginess, solidarity and the common good.[ix] However Igwe noted that the spirit of liberty led to individualism and self-deceptive competition (1991). Perhaps, this was what intensified the ambivalent attitude towards eradication of the Osu crisis. The puzzle here is, how come a community of such values and morals should abhor the opposite of it’s values? Simply put, can belonginess and solidarity co-exist with segregation and ostracization? This may be referred to as ‘Identity Crisis’ in the words of Oraegbunam (2006:237).[x] It is sad indeed to see us making a cultural change by adopting the bad sides of westernism, while we are ambivalent towards accepting the good sides, namely – Abolition of Osu-ism!

CONFLICT BETWEEN OSU CASTE AND THE LAW: A PHILOSOPHICAL EVALUATION

Right to freedom from discrimination is provided for by section 42 of the Constitution. The Constitution frowns at any discrimination of a person on grounds of the person’s community, ethnicity, place of birth or origin, circumstance of birth, sex, religion, political opinion or disability. What is not clear is – does the law frowns on the other person’s right not to want to middle or involve with an Osu? The cases of Nzekwu v Nzekwu [1989] 2 NWLR (pt 104) p.373 SC; Mojekwu v Mojekwu [1997] 7 NWLR (pt 512) p.282 CA, are to the effect that one’s entitlement cannot be denied on basis of discrimination. But surely, this does not extend to forcing a man to associate with another. For the right to associate includes the fundamental right not to associate. And if there is a right not to associate, then to an extent, there exist a right to discriminate. But this discrimination is attenuated and curtailed when a right of the other person to obtain something arises. In other words, in strict legal sense, an Osu as a right to go anywhere any man has right to go; to speak where any man has right to speak; to contest any post any man has a right to contest; and to propose to any lady any man has right to. But these rights are all subject to the rights of those at the other end i.e the lady, the people to be ruled, the owner of the place etc. while they cannot deter him to apply, he cannot force them to accept. The solution may therefore lie in ethical persuasion.

The right to peaceful assembly and association is provided for in section 40. Association includes political parties, trade unions, or any association. However, the section limits this right to the dictates of the Independent National Electoral Commission with respect to political parties. By implication, the section forbids unlawful assembly and associations. Now the Osu’s right to associate with the people of his village (which is a lawful community), cannot be abrogated by the face that the community does not want him. Although one may argue that such right is dependent on the willingness of the other (community) to be associated with. On that regard I am forced to admit that this law is not breached. It will only amount to ethical and moral considerations. It is notorious that an Osu is prohibited from even coming into the gathering of the Diala (freeborn or non-Osu), not to consider him addressing them. His right to be heard is consequently denied. The right to freedom of expression and the press is guaranteed by law. In Adewole & ors v Jakande[xi] it was held that Section 39 affirms the freedom of expression to every individual and the press. Thus within the provisions of any act enacted by the national assembly, a person is free to own and operate any medium of the dissemination of information, ideas and opinions. Hence the right of press group is ensured too. So is the right of an Osu.

Onwubuariri tried to justify the Osu caste by implication when he classified the types of Osu to include: 1. The voluntary 2. The involuntary and 3. The mass consensus classification. While the last two are not the fault of the victim, Onwubuariri justified the voluntary type of Osu which reflects the victim’s choice to become an Osu. This type occurs when the victim, out of laziness, takes to the shrine and eats from the food of the gods. It is also voluntary according to him, when the victim resorts to the shrine for solace out of the fraustration or maginalization witnessed as a Diala[xii]. Thus if a man want to be an Osu who are we not to respect that?                                With greatest respect, I do not think psychologists nor humanists, will concur with Onwubuariri’s implied postulation. Frustration of a maximum depth can indeed cause one to act independent of one’s will (which should be a defense under section 24 and 28 of our criminal code). Thus it could lead to a natural mental infirmity, which psychologists would label ‘Abnormality’.

Another purported justification seems to have its root in Aristotle’s conception of equality. Aristotle believed that equals should be treated equally. The implication of this postulate is that we are not all equals. But does the veracity of Aristotle’s postulation extend to the discuss at hand? No! I do not think so. The initial stage for status scrambling must and should be a fair and equal platform. It is upon the success or failure of one’s prowess that the later status should be determined. But then again, the ethical implications are too alarming to ignore.

Moreso, on the argument for punishment; as necessary as punishment may be, ostraicization raises the ethical question – should an innocent B suffer from the crime of A? I do not think so either. Why should the descendants suffer from their father’s deviance? Besides, the difficult dialogue between the corrective or punitive justice system is awakened! If the people have claimed to be bound by one constitution, then they should refrain from taking the laws into their hands!

Again, some have argued that the Osu discrimination is divine as it is mandated and exemplified by God himself. The book of Genesis chapter 3, marked the first banishment and ostracism of Adam and Eve. We all, today, suffer from that wrong. Lucifer himself was banished by God and he suffers the ever-labeled name of Satan. He is likened to an Osu. What is the difference between and Osu and the then Gentiles? The stigmatization of the Samaritans? The Christians and the Jews? And yes! Why is segregation common to all parts of the world?

The above arguments, except one, can be dismissed by the simple logical truth – that the world is doing it doesn’t make it right. Otherwise, why is the world gradually reversing? Why did the nation agree to shun discrimination? What informed the Magna Carta? Why did Nigerians applaud the anti-gay law but frown at the punishment stipulated for defaulters?                                        Regarding the biblical argument against God himself, I am forced to humbly delve into the spiritual, for the spiritual cannot be comprehended with the physical alone. Therein lies the age-long border between the Rationalists and the Empiricists. First, let me say there was no ostracization, but a mere banishment of Satan and Man. The book of Job chapter 1 verse 6, records the devil coming into the meeting with the sons of God. That meeting must be periodical and for the devil to attend and have his place and spoke with God (a thing any Osu will die to witness), then Satan is nothing near an Osu in the sense of the word. Neither is man rejected by God, less John 3:16 would not have existed.

Secondly, every sin can only be punished based on its quantum meruit. This is both ethical and natural. If sin is sin, then the punisher will be grossly unfair. Infact some armed-chair Christians have argued that God would have terminated Satan’s life than allow the present conflict. Many have died, and the punishment for death ought to be death. This is to say that Satan’s punishment is either suitable or alleviated – a perfect ethical justice. As for man, the rule was if you want to stay here, don’t do this. Man failed. The natural consequence is you can’t stay here. But because the offspring must not suffer, and the purity of the innocent offspring to stay on board has been contaminated and stolen, Christ had to die to redeem not only the innocent but to give chance to the banished to purify himself and come back. It is on this note that I commend certain rumored but unnamed villages which allows a ritual cleansing of the Osu to come back into the fold. Although the unanswered question would be, will it ever be the same?

CONCLUSION

From this research, it is my submit that Osu caste still exist within the Igboland, some are well pronounced some are whispered as a result of Religion and Education. It is also prevalent in all parts of the world under the disguise of some other names. While the law prohibits segregation of these victims, the law does not and must not mandate forced relations. The solution to the acceptability of the Osu’s, lies more on ethical and moral persuasion. Seminars in conjunction with the local government and the village chiefs and heads should be made to sensitize the people against the dreaded impart of Osu caste. The world is gradually sinking into the Hobbessian state of nature. But this state of nature is false and caused. The John Locke’s state of nature must be redeemed. We must begin afresh to value the true virtues, less we all shall fall. And what a fall would be there my countrymen!

by Ifeanyi Uddin

At this point, I can think of a dozen reasons why the fuel subsidy should stay. Easily the first is why any Nigerian should trust this government with any fiscal savings that arise at his/her expense. We ought not to endure further increases in our tax burden without a palpable scaling up of the quality of our representation.

The queues are back at the filling stations; and our lived experience has taken a turn for the worse; a few fires have started.

Yet, this is but a seasonal experience. Like the rains which will soon start to fall, methinks our response ought to be to prepare to contain its less salubrious fall outs, rather than rail against it. As with all seasonal occurrences, our perennial fuel scarcity has leitmotifs that we should interrogate further.

The resumed debate around removal of the fuel subsidy as solution to these shortages is one of such recurring themes. Its main question is whether we should continue to dispense fuel at the pump-stations at prices far lower than the market clearing rate?

The huge sums that government spends in keeping the price of petrol at N97 per litre across Nigeria could arguably be (better?) used elsewhere. Nonetheless, the decision over whether these alternate uses are better than the current expenditure line is contingent on how we estimate the gains to the economy from keeping fuel prices artificially low.

It would seem that in our case, a large portion of the gains from lower fuel prices is appropriated by society’s middle and upper classes (whatever these categories mean) who are able on account of cheap fuel to maintain private car pools. The meat, though, is cornered by fuel importers (pretend and real) who through a variety of scams divert subsidy payments into their pockets. These then buy private jets and yachts.

What about the poor and the vulnerable? These are left holding the short end of the straw. Sad, really. For the world over subsidy schemes are designed to protect this category of persons from the deleterious effect of high or rising prices. With three quarters of our 150 million compatriots eking out a living on less than US$1 a day, higher fuel prices would always impact negatively.

The “poor and the vulnerable” may not have private cars, jets, or yachts, but they would face rising prices across a range of spending options: food; transportation; rent; children’s school fees; medical bills; etc. Indeed, deferring to this reality, government then goes about designing lower order subsidy programmes (SURE-P being the latest in a long line of alphabets soups) aimed at ameliorating the poor’s poverty.

In a roundabout way, we thus reach a point of inflection in this conversation. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a programme of “subsidies”. So long as its rationale (social and/or economic) is clear; its target beneficiaries are identifiable and reachable; and its administration is transparent. Sunset clauses are useful, too, when self-negation is a key part of the design of the subsidy’s structure.

On these measures, the problem with our “fuel subsidy” programme is simply one of an inept government. Translucent accounting\administration mean that folks are robbing the scheme blind, and government is not aware until the public physically resist a price hike. Government has not successfully prosecuted anyone since the scandal aired. And we have no guarantees that the robbery is not still on.

Indeed, the plethora of often competing (and official) reasons for the current scarcity, including the activity of speculators, pipeline sabotage, fuel tanker diversion, etc. indicate how not on top of the sector government is. As if we needed reminding. We are currently in as much need of foreign forensic auditors as we are in need of answers to what may have happened to US$20bn oil money.

At this point, I can think of a dozen reasons why the fuel subsidy should stay. Easily the first is why any Nigerian should trust this government with any fiscal savings that arise at his/her expense. We ought not to endure further increases in our tax burden without a palpable scaling up of the quality of our representation.

Then there are process arguments. The leading case for removing subsidies in the downstream sector is a market-based one. In search of an easy example? Take the ease with which private providers in the telecommunication sector solved the stasis that NITEL had superintended for aeons. Is there space for private provision doing the same for domestic petrol distribution?

Unfortunately, by conflating private provision of a service with a proper market for such service, we ignore two possibilities. The first is the likelihood of the transfer of a public monopoly to a private monopoly. And the second is the possibility of private providers colluding in the absence of a strong anti-trust infrastructure.

Two illustrations are useful here. The first is provided by the poster child of government’s reform efforts: the telecommunication sector. The lesson of more than ten years of private provision in this sector is that whereas private providers are more efficient than the public sector, in the absence of a properly functioning market (i.e. where supply responds to price signals, and vice versa), this “efficiency” could turn out to be more apparent than real.

Compared with the quality of GSM service provided elsewhere, the Nigerian offering is rudimentary to the point of insulting. (In parenthesis, we have been invited by the sector regulator to go to court to enforce our right to value for subscriptions paid). The same argument holds with the advances we have purportedly made in the cement sector. Over the 6 months to end-December 2013, a glut in the Ugandan cement market, resulting from reduced demand in its export markets, pushed prices down from US$180 per metric tonne, to US$150 per metric tonne. In contrast, in Nigeria, a glut in the market for cement usually pushes prices up.

Several years ago, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida was reported to have argued that the Nigerian economy defies economic logic. True. But only because, as in the oil sector, significant non-economic actors have hijacked the nation and its processes. A feckless government then runs from the “private sector provision” pillar to the “market” post, searching for quick fixes!

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The article was published with permission from Premium Times Newspapers

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Ayobami Oyalowo

The Nigerian government as currently constituted is led by inept, unconscionable and wicked individuals who have all failed to grasp the simple notion of patriotism and nationhood. They live in obscene opulence using public funds, while impoverishing Nigerians daily with their ill thought out actions and inaction.

The government is so out of control. It is so bloated and infested with fraud and deceit and corruption and abuse of power. – Ted Nugent

The Nigerian government as led by President Goodluck Jonathan is extremely wicked and inhuman. This terrible character trait is consistently manifested in several forms. From a lukewarm and an “I don’t give a damn attitude” to bloody harvests of untimely mass deaths in the North Eastern part of the country, to massive looting and hemorrhaging of the treasury by various individuals serving in this government, it has been one sad tale of woe for poor citizens of Nigeria to another. This government doesn’t care about Nigerians and it is showing it in various ways and manners.

Two days before the jamboree dubbed “Centenary Celebration”, 59 Nigerian children were slaughtered in a callous and barbaric fashion by bloodthirsty demons of Boko Haram. The president of Nigeria meanwhile led a jamboree of dancing and drinking in Abuja, in the guise of centenary celebration. No thoughts were spared as to what agony the families of those children were going through. As I write, almost a month after, the president is yet to acknowledge; let alone visit/commiserate with families who lost their children. Indeed he doesn’t give a damn, does he?

Just recently, it came to light that over $20billion had been stolen from the State run oil corporation, the NNPC, through connivance with the minister of petroleum. But up until today, not one person has been suspended; neither is there any serious effort made to unearth what went wrong. The president rather surreptitiously suspended the man who alerted the nation to such crude and naked rape of the public treasury. And to divert the attention of Nigerians, the government and her cohorts created a severe artificial fuel scarcity situation which is still on, two months after. By so doing, Nigerians were kept busy and engaged so that the noise generated by the stealing of public funds by the Jonathan appointed officials will be drowned. But is this the right way to treat the citizens?

In India, the Jamnagar Refinery was commissioned in 36 months, housing the world’s largest refining complex with an aggregate refining capacity of 1.24 million barrels (197,000 m3) of oil per day, more than any other single location in the world. The total cost was around $10billion.

The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW). This dam was constructed at the cost of $22.5billion.

Nigeria on the other hand imports refined fuel. Nigeria is the ONLY OPEC member country that wholly imports refined PMS for domestic use. In 15 years of PDP misrule, rather than fix local refineries and if possible build more, the federal government led by the PDP handed fuel importation licenses to their friends and cronies to continue to cheat poor Nigerians and make them suffer in the midst of plenty.

Imagine if the NNPC and the minister of petroleum had not stolen $20 billion, we could have built enough refineries to refine crude for domestic use and even export some. Nigeria would have made more money that way, but why should they do that when they could steal and buy exotic homes in Vienna and other places or buy private jets?

Imagine if they hadn’t stolen that $20billion, like China, we could have fixed our power problems. But why should they fix it when their friends are the ones importing diesel and generators? The clowns running Nigeria don’t care about Nigerians in general. All that matter to them is to steal more and get richer. Any wonder they deliberately destroyed the educational system? They’d rather send their children to schools abroad while ensuring the children of other Nigerians are barely educated to distinguish between right and wrong. The plan is to keep a large number of barely educated goons at home to serve their own children in the future. And their plan is working. If you doubt me, read the comment section after this write up. Some barely literate youths will be paid a pittance to engage in mudslinging and vitriolic abuse of the writer and others who are not afflicted by their apparent Stockholm Syndrome.

Few days ago, the minister of petroleum, was bold enough to declare that subsidy MUST be removed from PMS as the government can no longer sustain it. IMPUNITY of the highest order! Meanwhile she promised Nigerians that she will ensure a Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of all the four refineries in Nigeria within 9 months. That was in January 2012. Maybe 9 months means something else to her. Billions were spent by her ministry, yet we continue to import PMS and NOBODY is asking her any questions.

Meanwhile, the AIT writes on the report on the House of Reps investigation to Minister Diezani thus: “The petroleum minister Alison is allegedly committing the sum of N130million monthly to the minister’s Challenger 850 aircraft and in two years has expended about 3.12 billion naira towards the upkeep of the private jet used solely for her personal needs and those of her family. Till date, the lease of the aircraft is said to have gulped about 10billion naira. Huge sums have said to have been used to fly the leased jet all over the world for leisure… all allegedly from public funds.”

According to the motion mover, Samuel Adejare: “This has been going on for two years and a lot of money has been committed–N10 billion. When I read this on the pages of that paper, that was on the 9th of march, what happened about one weekend ago where youths of this country gathered to look for 4,500 jobs, came to mind. Somebody serving this government is wasting that amount of money to hire a plane”.

That is the same woman who wants poor Nigerians on N18,000 monthly wage to pay more for petroleum products. Sadly, nothing will come out of the so called investigation as we all know she’s a co-president and Jonathan cannot fire her because they are in cahoots; illegally milking Nigerians while asking the poor, about 120 million of whom earn less than $2 daily, to cooperate with government and sacrifice by paying more for fuel.

The Nigerian government as currently constituted is led by inept, unconscionable and wicked individuals who have all failed to grasp the simple notion of patriotism and nationhood. They live in obscene opulence using public funds, while impoverishing Nigerians daily with their ill thought out actions and inaction.

As I write, another N20billion has been reported missing from the police pension fund. Add that to the initial N151billion allegedly stolen by Maina, who incidentally is still roaming free, from the same police pension fund.

Yet our “humble” president still believes corruption is overrated in Nigeria? Well, Mr. Jonathan may be right. Corruption is not much of a problem as the impunity displayed by the president and those whom he surrounds himself with. Stealing in this government is free for all. Their creed seems to be: “steal as much as possible so that you can guarantee a slap on the wrist as punishment”. Indeed only a fool steals millions in Nigeria because a small thief ends up in prison while the big ones get national honours and are now the Jonathanian branded “elder statesmen”, most of whom were also nominated by our “amiable” president to represent “us” at the national conference and chart a course for our future. What a future that is turning out to be!

The same impunity was at work on Saturday 15th March, 2014. when the NIS out of wickedness and unbridled greed invited over 500,000 applicants for an interview, knowing that the slots available were a mere 4,000. But they went ahead, collected the sum of N1000 from each applicant made up of mostly unemployed or underemployed youths. In their usual ill-preparedness, there was a stampede that killed about 19 young Nigerians. It is a week today, yet not one official or the greedy minister, Abba Moro has been fired. Governor Christie of New Jersey, in Jan 2014, fired his top aides who orchestrated a mere traffic jam. But here in Nigeria, President Jonathan merely warned a minister who killed 19 Nigerians out of criminal negligence. You be the judge.

While impunity and wickedness characterize the present government, they will do well to pay heed to James Madison and I quote: “Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.” The danger now is that when power is abused, it leads to chaos and chaos is such that may sweep the abusers away.

In conclusion, Nigerians are no fools and if subsidy in PMS is no longer sustainable, then those in authority must not only tell us the ill of subsidy, but they also must tell us why we cannot REFINE fuel for domestic use and even export refined PMS. If Singapore, a small nation without crude oil, has 3 excellent refineries in good condition and even exports PMS to Nigeria, then we have no excuse to continue to import PMS for domestic/local consumption.

Sadly, those at the helm of affairs in Nigeria are a greedy lot without shame; neither are their various policies made with altruism. Their belly is the god they worship. But as the saying goes “one day go be one day, monkey go go market…”

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Ayobami Oyalowo tweets from @Ayourb

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Agwu Obinna

It’s the job of the manager to say, “hey, I fell in love with you because of this art form and I am convinced that Greatness resides in you and I can’t wait for the world to hear your thoughts and words because they will eventually love it. Now you are going to go back into that studio and make me the most fantastic rap music your heart can muster or go and sing me some great soul music, the type that is alien to the world and leave it to me to deliver your message!”

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

The above, time-honoured statement by the celebrated American writer Mark Twain, continues to ring true a century after he first expressed it. In fact, it is a truth that pre-dates the man himself. However, the immutable wisdom in that quote seems to be lost on the current generation of artiste managers in Nigeria. In recent times, the artiste management fold has shown unmistakable signs of  acute incompetence, indolence, and a dearth in creative ideas, which has stunted, and in some cases aborted, the progress of many talented artistes. This sorry state of affairs has further perpetuated the stereotype that certain kinds of talent or music cannot ‘blow’ in Nigeria. These days when someone declares s/he’s a rapper or a soul singer people start to feel some kind of condescending pity for them that is conveyed via that cold, How-could-you-do-this-to-yourself-look that seems to trail them everywhere. And soon enough, the artiste gets tired of this pariah status, and decides to “diversify,” to switch sides, to dumb the music down.

It’s the job of the manager to say, “hey, I fell in love with you because of this art form and I am convinced that greatness resides in you and I can’t wait for the world to hear your thoughts and words because they will eventually love it. Now you are going to go back into that studio and make me the most fantastic rap music your heart can muster or go and sing me some great soul music, the type that is alien to the world and leave it to me to deliver your message!” This is what it should be! The manager should be the artiste’s most loyal believer and an unshakable pillar of support in times of self-doubt.

This is the reason  I am just sick of hearing people, sometimes artiste managers, talk like it’s impossible for one to make inroads into the Nigerian music scene with soul music, rap music, even R&B is becoming an “alternative” genre too, R&B!!??. Let me tell you, guys, contrary to popular opinion, nobody really knows what the people want to hear; not even the ‘people.’ So, it’s not the industry; It’s your team and how much belief you have in the artiste that counts.

Managers need to wake up to their responsibility. Management is hard work and heart-work. Social media appears to have sold the present day managers a rather convenient idea of what management should be. Otherwise, how does affixing your artiste’s photo to your twitter profile and using same as BBM display picture help to further the artiste’s career? I still maintain that as far as management goes, nothing will ever beat that good old hustle. Pick up a phone and call everyone your product would need to get ahead and put in the required leg work, just make, at least, one tangible move every day. Management is a fierce, dirty job that can’t be fully discharged hiding behind a Twitter handle.

For the act that would like to know how to hire the right manager, here’s my submission: Hire first a music lover, who is particularly head over heels in love with your music. The guy that wakes up thinking about you and your journey is the man. The one that has the burning desire (passion) to share your gospel with everyone they come across (word of mouth never fails!). Passion is a powerful resource, and this guy will most likely get you farther than the industry top shot with all the contacts would care to. Passion is also a time-tested stimulant for imagination and creativity, and those two are essentials for breaking any act into the mainstream. Hire the guy that doesn’t need money before he thinks with and for you. This is so important, as some managers/management ‘companies’ now manage artistes on a retainership basis. This is an anomaly that goes against everything that artiste management stands for. Managers are partners not employees; they invest belief, time, thought, even financial resources; they should share in your hunger and your sorrow to qualify to share in your joy and your reward. That’s just the way it is, and blessed are those managers who haven’t been paid retainer yet they believe. Moreover, if you are one of the unfortunate bunch being manhandled by these Management contractors, well… sorry.

The established acts are also not exempt from the debilitating effects of this, industry wide, management rot, indeed they are more vulnerable. Because certain things now happen for them (the big acts) naturally, the incompetence of management at this level is usually less obvious, hence, more insidious. So, Mr/Mrs A-list act, how has your Manager improved your performance/showmanship? How has your manager helped to improve your fan engagement/fan Base? What plans does your manager have to boost the sales of your coming album? What is your manager’s concept of your brand? Is it in tandem with yours? How often does your manager say to you, with great excitement, “oh, I have an idea…?” How involved is your manager in your creative process? Does your manager think you are already at the zenith of your craft hence, not much room for improvement? You know, it wouldn’t hurt if established acts interviewed a few prospective managers before handing the keys to their career over to one.

Finally, there has to be ‘agreement’ between artiste and manager; this is crucial, and I do not mean just verbal assent but oneness in vision, direction, and purpose. It is my experience that every time an artiste has come in contact with a manager that has implicit faith in them, they always move mountains. As it is written, “… ALL things are possible to him that believes.”

MOB

Failed manager.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Perry Brimah

The Dangote business model some are understudying can never make a penny outside Africa. Check his money making ventures—all are local. In America it takes ingenious thinking, brilliant ideas, discipline and skills to become a renowned millionaire. In Nigeria it takes shrewdness, dirty bloody money and corrupt connections.

I was recently called to approve of a very handsome advertising offer from the D. Group in a magazine I edit. It was really good money. I told the online magazine to politely reject the offer. It will be better we stay broke and poor than partake in his filthy wealth and lose our principles and dignity, I told them. On one condition can we accept to run his ads—if he promises to reduce the extortive price of cement for all Nigerians by just 20%, we will run his ads for free for him for one whole year.

Nigerians have a problem. We praise and appraise anyone with wealth without realizing and questioning the source of their wealth…whether or not it is from our inheritance and stolen from our suffering and dying parents. This sycophancy and celeb-worship renders us—as a society—hopeless, worthless, denuded and condemned to a second-class life of misery, begging and poverty.

The problems Nigeria faces today with the oligopolistic cabal were faced by the United States earlier in its history with the Robber barons and the rise and wars of the labour unions. One only hopes and prays that Nigerians wake-up now, and Nigeria will not be saved from its Robber barons by a tortuous and arduous, bloody and luck-dependent process as happened in the United States. If you know our government is evil, what do you call the cabal—who literally own the evil government and work behind the scenes to ensure the government protects their interests and their ventures to our permanent detriment? These same cabal were behind our worst dictators and again selected, sponsored and have been behind our terrible politician regimes including this one.

To explain my position on Dangote, I here present the 10 secrets to being a successful Dangote, the true edition:

1. Get a powerful government friend, preferably the President. Aliko Dangote got Obasanjo. Not his second term but since his first term at the head of the government. It was during Obasanjo’s military rule in the 70’s that their partnership was struck and Obasanjo first gave Dangote sole-importation rights.

2. Ask your government friend to give you sole importation or manufacture rights. Dangote first got this through Obasanjo in the seventies. Choose an essential commodity, not a luxury. Choose food, cement, roads, cars, mobile phones/internet, anything Nigerians cannot do without so the government can impose your monopoly on the people and they will have no choice. A dollar-a-head multiplied by 168 million Nigerians. Voila! World billionaire!!!

3. Ask your government friend to also give you zero-barest minimum import tariffs on all equipment and materials you wish to import. Dangote practically owns his own ports.

4. Next, get your government friend to promote and secure your company to be the only ‘business’ allowed to manufacture and sell whatever product you are engaged in. Cement, rice, etc. Dangote according to reports admitted that the Nigerian government once got him to import so much rice, it crashed the local market. Do this and you are on your way to your first billion.

5. Secure your position by sponsoring and collaborating with all governments, military or civilian. When it comes to politics and political parties, as Dangote does, sponsor both sides, whoever will take your dirty money; so whoever wins, your oligopoly is secured.

6. Privatization: Buy state assets at a fraction of the price from your government friends, who are by now secret investors and share-holders in your business. Have the government refurbish these assets for trillions and sell them to you for one-tenth of the price.

7. Kill Competition: Now that you have benefited immensely from the generosity of the government and nation, have the government permanently ban all competition. For instance, ensure that there is now a very high tariff on the import of cement so no one can compete with your monopoly.

8. Be ready to blackmail. Anytime a competitor successfully imports even a single bag of cement, close a small branch of your company and announce in the papers that 1000 workers were laid off/sent to rest because the import of that bag of cement ‘crashed prices’ and so there will be an unemployment crises. Dangote loves this one. Anytime Yar’Adua or other President pushed him to reduce his exorbitant prices that defied the laws of supply and demand, he quickly temporarily shuts a plant down to blackmail the president with the fictitious unemployment crises.

9. Set your prices triple the price for that commodity before you got involved and triple the global average price. For instance, sell your cement at $12/bag when everywhere in the world it sells for $4-5/bag. Even imported cement sells for $4-5/bag in Nigeria. But since your monopoly is protected by your politician friends in power, you are free to set your prices as you like to crush and deplete the masses of their money while declaring double quarterly profits for your government and foreign share-holders…as Dangote always does. People will believe it is the cost of doing business in Nigeria. Fool them, though you know that every other businessman who likewise does business in Nigeria, competes with global costs, keep declaring your double profits, enjoying cheap labor, free land and no tariffs. Get rich by making your countrymen poor.

10. Keep it running: Stay out of direct politics; do not make the mistake of Abiola. Stay on the sidelines, be the one to choose and sponsor candidates into the parties; publicize yourself as a charitable employer of labor. Keep sponsoring political candidates with back-door deals for them to handover the nation’s oil wells, resources, land and the people’s pockets to you. Help politicians invest and launder their money.

Two Islamic hadiths that Dangote wannabes can relate to:

Abu Huraira narrated that the Prophet said: A time will come upon the people when one will not care how one gains one’s money, legally or illegally. (Bukhari)

It is reported by Jabir that the Prophet said: The flesh and body that is raised on unlawful sustenance shall not enter Paradise. Hell is more deserving to the flesh that grows on one’s body out of unlawful sustenance. (Ahmad).

The Dangote business model some are understudying can never make a penny outside Africa. Check his money making ventures—all are local. In America it takes ingenious thinking, brilliant ideas, discipline and skills to become a renowned millionaire. In Nigeria it takes shrewdness, dirty bloody money and corrupt connections.

Unfortunately for those who have been reading the recent out-pour of press by Dangote, supposedly teaching them how to be successful entrepreneurs: know now that your ‘teacher’ is your worst enemy. Dangote will block you from establishing any business in Nigeria. We all will ultimately soon be his glorified slaves (employees) until and unless a true Nigerian civilian or soldier leader breaks the cabal monopoly. Our current administration as with those in our past, is more evil than is easily seen. We do not notice and there is little press when they lock us in binds to be openly robbed and extorted by the cabal. The government never supports healthy, necessary competition to protect the interests and prosperity of the masses; and the cabal are so heartless they will usurp every advantage given by the desperate and insensitive politicians they bought into office.

Till we are delivered or deliver ourselves from the claws of these government-partner monsters, we must all say no to the cabal. We must avoid their goods as much as we can and patronize competitors even if their prices are a bit higher. It will pay in the long run if we do so. A little hunger today will secure food for our children tomorrow. This is our only chance.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Ayomikun Soyombo

I have kissed the glory of Oscar. Mighty hearts have honoured me. I became a slave. To be crowned a queen

1. I was neither born a slave

   Nor as a queen

   Black was my skin

   And slim my frame

   I loved to smile

   I was born into the Luo ancestry

2. Mexico was my birth place

   Kenya my homestead

   I once walked the streets of Nairobi

   A little girl chasing my little dreams

   Acting flowed within my veins

   It at the end pushed me to Yale

3. In 12 Years A Slave

   I picked 500 pounds of cotton daily

   For a master who repeatedly raped me

   A master whose brutality lighted my path to fame

   The memoir was written in 1853

   In 2012 it drowned my reality

4. The world paused in awe

   As I cried in slavery

   My embittered voice made cinemas shudder in silence

   As an era of sadness was reawakened

   But then has slavery really ended in the world?

   Has slavery ended in Africa?

5. I have kissed the glory of Oscar

   Mighty hearts have honoured me

   I became a slave

   To be crowned a queen

   Victory, truly, never eludes the heart

   That keeps dreaming, that keeps fighting

6. You may be denied success in a season

   I urge you to never give in

   Bleak & lonely may be your path

   Still try not to give in

   Castles of gold are not built in a day

   Except in the fictitious worlds of magic

7. Dreams never die

   When we don’t let go of hope

   Hope stirs the heart

   Rousing strength to conquer distant lands

   Many more ‘Lupitas’ lurking in Afica’s womb

   Never sleep, never slumber, never give in!

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Soyombo Ayomikun tweets from @alabaster85

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Ose Oyamendan-Eimakhu

By the way, I hope you like the way I addressed you. It was a tough thing to coin. I have no clue how to address you. The Senators are called distinguished, the house of representative members are called “honorable”. Since you all are creations of President Goodluck Jonathan, I think you’re his apostles. How does Jonatithes sound?

Dear Jonatithes,

I must apologize for not writing sooner to welcome you to our great capital city. I was a little bit confused as to the protocol of welcoming men and women to a city they visit often and where many of them have homes. But then I saw the government was bleeding the treasury to make you all comfortable and suddenly, the folly of my ways dawned on me.

Everyone knows the government cannot be wrong. They have information that even supermen do not have. They have seen the future and they know you all have needs. Abuja is an unforgiving city. The competition is intense yet all the street folks see is the exaggerated tales of corruption.

Sometimes I think many of us Nigerians are very rude. Here you are, in Abuja, trying to re-shape the fortunes of our country and we can’t even roll out the red carpets. Instead we’re all complaining about your salary. Do these people know who you are?

What in the name of wealth is N4m a month! You know what that breaks down to? A mere N200, 000.00 a day for the sixty or so days you will really work in the next three months! Now, if the cries that you’re living too large is not insulting, I don’t know what is.

What can N200, 000.00 buy these days? I’ve heard people say in most countries people will gladly work for their country for free for three months. I laugh when I hear and read that because we are not any country. We are Nigeria and we don’t roll that way. I mean, we’re so cool Robert Mugabe is taking jibes at us for corruption.

I will let you in on a little secret. I’m hoping this becomes a regular thing. At this rate, I may just make it into a constitutional conference at 80. N200, 000.00 a day, with some adjustment for inflation. That will be a cool way to retire.

By the way, I hope you brought your kids along. Isn’t it funny you’re all in Abuja to reshape the future of our dear Nigeria just when you’re mostly on your last legs? Think of it, when the Ahmadu Bellos, Azikiwes and Awolowos went to London to negotiate the future of our country with the British caretakers, they were in their 30s and 40s; their future was still ahead of them.

But, you whom the lords of Abuja have entrusted with rejigging this little experiment the British thought would have collapsed by now are grandfathers and grandmothers. I had a curious encounter the other day with an older man. A teenager had angered him and he gave him the look of a man who is about to ruin the young kid. I wonder if you have those thoughts some times. After all you’re not gonna have to carry the can for whatever decision you make in the next three months.

I’ve been looking at the list of delegates and thinking deep thoughts. I was wondering, do you all feel collectively guilty? Do you feel guilty that you whom Nigeria spent a lot of money training, you who had scholarships and free education, you who had a great life in public and private service, you who destroyed the future that we live in today, you who killed the hope of the future. I wonder if you feel any guilt for the past you managed so wrongly.

If you think of it, most of you went to school in the golden 60s, 70s and 80s when life still had meaning and when you could put Nigeria and a glorious future in the same sentence and not think of having your head checked. Back then, the government spent a fortune training you and settling you into public and private service. It was you and your peers that decided that the balance in the treasury and the future balances should take a short trek to your accounts

Do you have any guilt that you are the ones that are being asked to define our future? Do you have any guilt that you’re doing it without those whose future you should worry about? Do you really think you can give us hope for the future? Do you ever pause to think that the next three months may just be a whole lot of talk about nothing?

Do know something though; I do feel your pain. I think it’s really wrong for anyone to put you in Abuja without consideration for hangers-on or what the Nigerian elite call aides. Who is supposed to get you companions? Who is supposed to feed you, clothe you and drive you around? Do they expect you to think for yourselves? And, pray – what makes those elected representatives so special that they have to have aides and you do not.

By the way, I hope you like the way I addressed you. It was a tough thing to coin. I have no clue how to address you. The Senators are called distinguished, the house of representative members are called “honorable”. Since you all are creations of President Goodluck Jonathan, I think you’re his apostles. How does Jonatithes sound?

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This article was published with permission from Premium Times Newspapers

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Lagun Akinloye

…the stampede was not just a result of poor crowd control but a symptom of Nigeria’s desperate dearth of employment opportunities.

Both Nigeria’s Senate and House of Representatives have called for separate investigations into the stampede at a mass recruitment exercise in Abuja in which at least 16 people died and hundreds were injured earlier this month. The Senate rejected calls, however, for the removal of Interior Minister Abba Moro.

On 15 March, 65,000 jobseekers turned up to 60,000-capacity National Stadium in Abuja to take a recruitment examination organised by Nigeria’s Immigration Service (NIS). The stadium only had one entry point open and there was insufficient personnel and organisation to manage the crowds. The ensuing confusion and scramble led to a deadly stampede.

In the aftermath of the disaster , Moro, whose office was charged with conducting the exercise, avoided taking direct responsibility by claiming that those who died in the stampede had “lost their lives through their impatience.” The official line from the presidency meanwhile took on a more sombre tone, with a statement saying “we are shocked and deeply saddened by the news of the untimely death of the young citizens who were at the exercise not only to secure jobs but to be allowed the opportunity to contribute towards the development of the nation.”

Calls for resignations have gone unheeded, but there are hopes the tragedy could act as a wakeup call for the government − and not just into organisational deficiencies and mismanagement – but into the underlying problem of youth unemployment. After all, the stampede was not just a result of poor crowd control but a symptom of Nigeria’s desperate dearth of employment opportunities.

Out of work

Despite Nigeria’s strong reported economic growth in recent years, large swathes of its estimated 170 million population is unemployed. This problem is particularly acute amongst the country’s youth population, and according to the National Baseline Youth Survey Report, 54% of Nigeria’s youth population was unemployed in 2012.

The government has created some projects aimed at tackling this problem − such as the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YOU WIN) and the Subsidy Reinvestments and Empowerment Programme’s Graduate Internship Scheme (GIS) − but they have recorded few successes so far and are of relatively small scope.

“These initiatives are mere grandiose white elephant projects which are not only inadequate in tackling the teeming unemployment but also fail to reach the end user,” says Idayat Hassan, a senior programme officer at the Centre for Democracy and Development West Africa (CDD).

The deteriorating state of Nigeria’s secondary and tertiary educational institutions has also had an adverse effect on the quality of their graduates. As Hassan points out, “Results from the 2011 Senior School Certificate Examination conducted by National Examination Council and West African Examination Council recorded 90% failure.”

Given this skills gap and shortage of opportunities for young people, it comes as no surprise that 500,000 hopefuls applied for the just 4,556 vacancies being advertised by Immigration Service. A fraction of those were accepted to take tests, which were to be held in a number of major cities. The Ministry of Interior outsourced the examination process to a private company, Drexel Nigeria Limited, who charged applicants N1, 000 ($6) each to take the test. However, the Interior Ministry, Drexel and NIS failed to organise sufficient measures to control the crowds arriving to take those examinations and to provide medical services in the event of an emergency.

“The government was definitely to blame,” says Olumide Abimbola, a Nigerian anthropologist and editor of Nigerians Talk. “It is a scam when unemployed Nigerians are made to pay in order to take part in a public sector recruitment exercise and when nobody has yet been fired for the shameful and tragic exercise.”

At Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council meeting, President Goodluck Jonathan directed the immediate cancellation of the immigration recruitment exercise and announced that all those who lost their loved ones would automatically be able to put forward three applicants in a rescheduled recruitment process. Those injured in the stampede will also be compensated with a job.

Tackling unemployment

Nigeria’s unemployment problem is not one that can be solved purely through economic growth, especially when that growth is based on petro-dollars, many of which find their way into individuals’ pockets rather than the state coffers. In fact, many argue that Nigeria’s rising economic indicators have done hardly anything to help ordinary citizens.

“There is so much money in Nigeria, so much economic growth, the richest person in Africa comes from here, and Nigeria is home to a growing number of private jet owners. Yet millions of youth are jobless while over 100 million people are poor. The fundamental reason is that this economic growth only benefits a tiny 1%,” says Hassan Taiwo Soweto, National Youth Leader Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN).

Instead, concerted governmental efforts will be needed to improve basic education, develop sectors of the economy such as agriculture and manufacturing that will create employment, and ensure opportunities are available for young people to learn the skills they need in a changing economy.

“Tackling youth unemployment is not going to be easy,” says Abimbola. “The government needs to look at different options, and this will involve bringing together people from different sectors.”

If this is not done, analysts warn, Nigeria’s young and disgruntled youth population will only continue to rise, and the stampede for jobs will continue to grow.

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Lagun Akinloye, a British Nigerian, studied Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. He is particularly interested in the history and politics of West Africa, specifically Nigeria.In addition to his role at Think Africa Press, Lagun is an executive member of the Central Association of Nigerians in the the UK.Email:lagun.akinloye@thinkafricapress.com. Follow him on twitter @L_Akinloye.

by Perry Brimah

I will immediately return the looted $20 billion which will all be invested in massive job creation.

Consequent to our critical criticism of the government, some have asked what people like us would do different if we were the President. This specifically in relation to our rejection of the insult to the Martyrs of March 15th, “unemployment day,” who the government in our view further debased the memories of and added pepper to the injuries of their families by throwing jobs at them.

If I were president, here is an outline of what I will have done after the many died and many were cheated.

1. I will first give an immediate public address empathizing with not only the families of the killed and injured, but all Nigerians on the national tragedy. I will apologize for the behavior of unscrupulous elements and officials of my regime who conceived and orchestrated such a dirty scam and carelessly directly led to the hurt and death of our great youth. I would apologize to the families, the husbands of the pregnant dead who lost their spouses and unborn children.

2. An important part of my speech will be my promise that no stone will be unturned in the investigation and prosecution of all culpable in the act. I will placate the people and re-assure them of my government’s commitment to their safety, their dignity and their rights to secure decent livelihood, decently and their assurance of justice by my government by immediately announcing the unreserved suspension of the Interior Minister and the Comptroller general of Immigrations. I will promise that all others found culpable in the heinous operation will follow suit.

3. I will suspend and if my powers and the preliminary investigation prompts/allows, immediately sack the Interior minister and place him under house arrest. If as expected, investigations find him unquestionably guilty, he may be hung for the deaths of our great youth and leaders of tomorrow and for the insult to the nation in violation of his pledge to serve Nigeria and Nigerians for which he is over financially compensated.

4. I will declare March 15th a national Unemployment day.

5. I will participate in the burial of as many victims as possible and meet with the families of all victims as soon as is convenient for them after their events of mourning, to express my sympathy for these Martyrs, and to listen to their grievances and determine with them individually what compensation within the permits of the government will best suit each family. I will not insult them and the memory of the martyrs by throwing jobs at them. I am convinced that several of these respectable families will even in patriotic altruism, turn down monetary or employment compensation and rather stake their lots in an assurance of a better tomorrow for all Nigerians.

6. I will immediately refund the N1000 stolen to all the millions of candidates who applied for the Immigration scam process. I will also compensate them from Federal funds with an additional N50,000 for the national insult, their deprivation of jobs by my government, the embarrassment to their dignity and the compensation for their time wasted.

7. I will force all the cabal who are aided by my government and governments before me, who are in illegal possession of the nation’s oil blocs, land, etc. And who are benefactors of the fuel subsidy scams, the government supported oligopolies and the government assisted extortion of the masses, to immediately employ thousands of youth and pay them proper salaries, whether they have jobs for them or not. I don’t care if the youth will just sit in their courtyards—either employ 20,000 youth each for what you loot from the nation’s commonwealth or run from the country on self-exile or get ready to rot in jail.

8. I will establish a comprehensive employment committee to look into the evident unemployment crises plaguing the nation. I will immediately trim all Federal ministries, budgets and frivolous projects to free funds to improve the lots of the unemployed. I will sell all the 10 Presidential private jets to utilize the recovered funds for job creation for our millions of youth and unemployed masses. I will also ban all frivolous public expenses including travel for health purposes and other rubbish. Redirecting these unnecessary government expenses to Nigeria will create an environment for the development of our sectors and this will force the creation of jobs.

9. I will immediately return the looted $20 billion which will all be invested in massive job creation.

10. I will resign for my incompetence, recognizing that since all my chosen cabinet officers have been proven dangerously incompetent and deserving of termination, Mike, Stella, Tukur, Mark, Abba, Diezani, Dasuki, Wike, Ngozi, etc, the problem is actually with me.

Finally, but very importantly, I will open a public commentary forum and listen to what you discuss and suggest and do the things you want us to do for the people.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Adeshina Afolayan

Well, we sympathise with those who lost their lives. But then, government is just trying to fulfil its promise to close up the employment gap that has continued to grow yawningly.

And I am not concerned about its abundant mineral resources or climatic condition. Of course, in that regard, we are spared the horrors of rampaging anthropomorphised disasters: Hurricane Katrina, Cyclone Andrew, Whirlwind Marino, Tornado Alley, Blizzard Brutus, Snowstorm Anaconda, and so on. Quaint, isn’t it? If these disasters were to have Nigerian counterparts, the result would be, well, hilarious in spite of the consequences: Cyclone Umoru, Hurricane Titi, Blizzard Akindele, Tornado Sule, Windstorm Boko, Sunstroke Asaroyoma! I told you it’s hilarious.

I am not interested in natural disasters. Nigeria is a wonderful country for another reason: We are a country with a unique national problem solving dynamics. The problems that other nations break their back and strain their brains to crack are easily resolved here.

Consider this: The Nigerian ruling elites expunged History from the curriculum of its secondary schools. Wait for it! Of course, your normal and most immediate reaction would be outrage and vituperation. But then, think: History is a wicked reminder of obnoxious pasts, and who wants that? Why should we as a people be burdened by terrible and dusty tomes of terrible and dusty events gone bad and by?

Even the students intuitively understand this needlessness, and so refused to take history in school! Of course, there are better subjects—the colonialists, out of the goodness of their hearts, left the global English language. Then there is Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and the almighty Mathematics. Even the Chinese language is about to make an appearance, as the counterpart of French, in a manner that further buries the primitive vernaculars (Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Fulfude and those others).

Aren’t the Chinese constructing our roads now? Don’t we owe them the courtsey of learning their language as a mark of gratitude?

So, no serious nation on earth gives attention to history. To achieve progress in development terms, we face forward, not backward. Even Professor Ernest Renan counsels that we can actually become a nation when we collectively immolate ourselves in forgetfulness. Nigerians certainly should not be reminded about the horrors of the ugly Civil War, the primitive antics of ‘heroes’ and ‘sheroes’ (apologies to Professor Pius Adesanmi), and countless other irrelevant mistakes that are best forgotten. Master strokes! The Nigerian ruling elites know their onions!

The same brilliant foresight has been applied to the employment logjam. Nigeria’s unemployment predicament is accelerating at a geometrical proportion. And hence, we need solid reflection and strategic action plans that make Nigeria an employment haven in a global world breaking at the seams with countless youths flooding the unemployment market. Have you not seen Obama’s grey hairs? The guy has been trying to increase the employment profile of the United States since the global economic meltdown (do you still remember that term that burst on us some years back?) Well, Obama will do well to learn from Nigerians. We are the masters of shortcuts, quick fixes, intuitive foresights and strokes of genius!

This genius is actually simplistic…oh, I mean simple, in its brilliance: Use death as a strategy for employment! What better method to replenish life and stoke the fire of patriotism in Nigerians? At the recently concluded employment exercise, conducted by the Nigerian Immigration Services, several people—numbering around 520,000—were caught within the crush of a mighty jostling to fill less than 5000 vacancies. And some people lost their lives.

Well, we sympathise with those who lost their lives. But then, government is just trying to fulfil its promise to close up the employment gap that has continued to grow yawningly. And what better way to do this than to throw the opportunity open to eager Nigerians to avail themselves of a wonderful, orderly and logistically fine-tuned exercise that would have made history but for the forces of darkness and of the opposition bent on pulling down the Federal Government.

Government is the employer of choice in Nigeria. When Government employs you, then you get a life time chance to realise your potential! I have heard of a staff member—just one among countless unknown and smart others—in the NIS who comes to work for a week and take a month off to attend to other significant business outside of work.

This self-actualisation strategy is honed to perfection in the various local governments scattered all over the country where government staff utilise government time and monies to develop themselves. Government usually doesn’t have much to do; so the public office is a government-approved space to display your smart initiatives.

This was the thinking behind the NIS employment exercise: Give as many unemployed Nigerians as possible the opportunity to stand in the hot sun to fill the vacancies released from the goodness of the heart of government. And you are paying a token of a thousand naira for a lifetime—well, almost a life time—of engaged bliss. That’s a small sacrifice to pay, don’t you think? And when the forces of darkness and of the opposition came with their spoiler job, government was ready with foresighted alacrity: for those who died, there will be three slots of instant employment each.

Do a quick math: Assume 30 people died, multiplied by three. That gives 90 people. Not good enough. But assume the mori implicare principle (meaning ‘death as employment’) is applied to the over 4000 people murdered by Boko Haram, what do we have? 12000 employed! Pure genius! What other way to honour the memory of those gone than by bringing those still suffering on board the employment train? Moro has trumped Diezani as the star protagonist in Jonathan’s administration.

But we aren’t dying enough. There is actually a sacrificial component in the principle that makes it a divine one. A family can sacrifice one of theirs to redeem three others who are currently unemployed. The NIS ought to organise more employment exercises that would be deliberately illogical and logistically challenged. This will ensure that many more will throng the various venues. And we should hope that many more than 30 will give their lives for others to get employment. That cannot be a tragedy. It is like saying the death of Jesus Christ is a tragedy.

Our Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro is a hero! But he needs to do more. For instance, as a reward, he should be made to supervise the as yet unrewarded deaths caused by the Boko Haram insurgents. Centres should be set up all over the North for those who have lost people to come forward. And Boko Haram should also be contacted to extend its tentacles into a national spread for the sake of the Federal Character.

The target we should set in employment profile is 1.5 million people employed. And that translates into just 500,000 deaths. A modest achievement, if you ask me. Thanks to Comrade Moro and his brilliant strategy. Arise O Compatriots…Nigeria’s call obey!

Dr. Afolayan teaches philosophy at the University of Ibadan.

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This article was posted with permission from Premium Times Newspapers

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Kingsley Oronsaye

“As it is said; the excesses of the rich will always provoke the iniquities of the poor”

One of the most startling news in 1988 was the death of Christina Onassis. She was the only surviving child of Aristotle Onassis and at his death in 1975, she became the richest woman alive at the age of 25. 13 years later, she died. The cause of her death? Pulmonary edema from an overdose of barbiturates; suicide was strongly suspected, having had a history of depression and drug use.

In a world where having things and striving so much to make the money to acquire those things has become what living is all about, it is sometimes imperative for us to sit back and ask ourselves about what is really important in life. Many of us will eventually come to realize that the acquisition of riches only changes misery, and does not end it completely.

Our life is now centred around the things we can acquire and accumulate; we are now trapped in a frenzied RAT (Running After Things) RACE. We are engaged in brutal competition with one another, to gather the most things and we even pray, fast and sow ‘dangerous seeds’ , for God to join our side of the struggle and competition with one another.

That which we have made the object of our lives, those things we are all so desperately seeking (money recognition, material possession, power etc), will not give us the anticipated peace and happiness that we really seek. In the recesses of our minds, we know this truth but somehow we feel trapped in this rat race, where our life is defined by how much we can garner for ourselves. In a society where creativity is scarce and not encouraged, it means that the only way we can have more is for others to have less.

We need to understand that there is no way we will make our world a better place without us becoming better off ourselves. We must come to realize that no more effort is required to aim high and achieve your greatest dreams and vision, than is required to accept and live a life of existential banality. Life is designed to be inspired by vision and driven by purpose and if you don’t have a well articulated vision and a strong purpose in life, well you are like the man who does not know where he is going; any road will take you there.

Within each of us is the power and the ability to make the world and our world a better place, if only we can transcend our human (personal) fixations. To manifest this power in our everyday life, we must intensify our ability to look at life directly, instead of through limiting beliefs and existential expediency.

As long as we continue to run after things and carry on with the mentality that there are limited resources in our environment, life will be a survival of the fittest; even those of us who have been able to gather so much for ourselves will live in fear, because most of the people around us having nothing  are likely to ‘attack’ us and try to steal from us- what we have worked so hard to accumulate.

As it is said; the excesses of the rich will always provoke the iniquities of the poor. There is actually enough of everything; the problem is that we are not inspired enough and creative enough to manifest this abundance into our everyday reality. So, with the little available, we have to fight and scrounge for and we consider ourselves specially favoured by God, if we can grab so much more than others.

Until we transcend our human mentality of fear and limiting beliefs, most of us will be trapped in the rat race. More and more of us must aspire to get out of the rat race and live the transcendental way of life, where our deepest aspirations becomes our everyday reality. More and more of us must be inspired and empowered to generate and pursue ideas, vision, concepts and frameworks that will manifest into abundance for everyone. Until we tow the path inspired by vision and driven by purpose, we will be locked in the rat race.

THE SAD THING ABOUT BEING IN THE RAT RACE IS THAT WHEN YOU WIN, YOU’RE A RAT.

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 Kingsley Oronsaye is a visionary. His friends describe him in three words; Mystic, Technocratic and Visionary.

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

by Ijeoma Wogu

Do you know that if your Grandma suffered from Peptic Ulcer Disease, and your Father also suffers from same there’s a 50% chance that you may suffer from it too?

My mother is a lawyer and she’s a very wise woman. She encourages her children and those around her to learn from experiences. She tells us stories, the stories of our lives and the stories relevant to us, of the lives of the people we’ve come to know as our family members. She gives a perfect account of events that took place up to 20 years ago and most of her stories start like this “when I was pregnant for you,” (Hi Mom! :D)

You see, history is very important. This leaves me wondering why ‘History’ as a subject taught in secondary schools, has recently been scrapped from the Nigerian curriculum. Do you know that if your Grandma suffered from Peptic Ulcer Disease, and your Father also suffers from same there’s a 50% chance that you may suffer from it too?

• In the practice of medicine, medical history is taken when every patient is brought in for treatment and recalled, when a case is presented to an authority (senior doctor or nurse as the case may be). Without medical history, a sick or injured person can be misdiagnosed and the sick person may die for lack of information. People should really ask more questions.

Disclaimer: the stats in the example I gave above (Peptic Ulcer Disease) has no clinical proof. Now, I think I just succeeded in showing you why it is important to ask questions!

Recently, on Instagram, (A picture sharing social media app also owned by Mark Zuckerberg), I came across  a profile, @CultureCustodian and what I saw really excited and inspired me. You should check it out if you can, it is specifically for the Nigerian audience. A lot of people keep diaries for reasons best known to them but in most cases, so that they would have archived their thoughts and life experiences as well as their feelings to remind themselves later, or to tell their stories to those lucky enough to find these diaries and  interested enough to read the entries. The final aim being that they and the world do not forget them so quickly.

“….to leave my footprints in the sands of time.”

I throw that phrase around a lot when I’m around my friends and we do something epic. With my friends, life’s always an adventure. I’m not saying that I’m a spontaneous person either. I always tell people about my experiences with other people and about places I’ve been to. This is partly because I am my Mother’s child. I totally get it when people say that I always have a story for everything that happens; the thing is, constantly getting oral history about my family from my Mother has helped (a great deal!)  to condition my brain, so that when I hear or see anything I’m reminded of something else; voilà! there’s this cascading reaction that almost never ends because a clap will surely lead to a dance.

This explains a lot about my person. For instance, it is the reason why I can write examinations without studying a leaf and still make at least, a C grade. So, my dear friends from Secondary School there you have it! My Secret! (Lol). It is also the reason why I seem to talk a lot (that and adrenaline). It is also the reason why I seem to be well versed in most relevant topics, cutting across a very wide range of subjects ( Twitter is also responsible for this). For example, I know a lot about Football and Literature and they’re not even related!

Ms Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her now popular speech delivered at a TedXEuston event titled “THE DANGER OF A  SINGLE STORY”. You can search for it on YouTube, practically begged the world to tell their stories. (That was a beautiful speech, you go girl!). There are so many books in the world today and I assure you that if you start now, you can never read them all before your time, so I implore you to read more books. Thanks to one of my heroes of the present day, OKECHUKWU OFILI, I can read books written by You and I, and many other young Nigerians and Africans, right on my mobile device. Check out his award winning app on Google Play Store called “OKADABOOKS”. Reading they say, makes a man.

It is important to be knowledgeable. Yes, this is the conclusion of my rather engaging story. When you get old, you begin to forget details. There are medical cases like Alzheimer’s disease which cannot be cured (at least not yet). And there are devices like dictaphones and voice recorders with which you can afford to tell your stories to your unborn grandchildren, if you so desire. There’s also the internet, I have two blogs, hosted on WordPress.com (WordPress is cool) and I intend to tell my stories through them. Pictures are great for preservation of memories and an autobiography is also brilliant.

 Because Mothering Sunday is this week, I would like to give a special shout out to my best storyteller, My Mother. She taught me everything I know about story telling and I appreciate her for being a hard worker. And to another special heroine, who’s also a Mother, Bola Essien-Nelson (author of “The Diary of A Desperate Naija Woman” series), for sharing through her books and her blogs. Have you read THERE WAS A COUNTRY: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF BIAFRA by Late Prof. Chinua Achebe? 

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Ijeoma Wogu is a budding blogger who’s in love with the concept of Old Nigeria and African literature; a Social Media enthusiast stewing in medical school and the curator of Nigerian ‘New school’ music. She also speaks French.

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

by Femi Owolabi

Unconfirmed sources reported that Atiku had given N1b each to the ACN branches across the states of the federation. Yes, that is N36b! I was an ACN member. Money and other souvenirs were shared at our ward.

In Nigeria, money, or gbemu – as it is being philosophized in the case of political mobilization, is the principal thing upon which partisanship thrives. When you call for a political participation at the grassroots, the first question you are asked is, ‘What is the gbemustic arrangee?’ In plain English, they are asking you, ‘chairman, how much will you arrange for me if I come for this political something?’ The gbemustic arrangee is the first in the scheme of the political systematization. So, most times, as a candidate eyeing a political seat, the game is neither about your competence nor achievements, it is simply about how much gbemu you have, to share! Political rhetoric, ideologies, manifestoes or whatever is not sellable here. He who has the gbemu has the votes. And when you brag about the idea-loaded manifesto of yours and your party, they will tell you that, ‘Olowo’n soro, talika lou’n ni idea,’ Oga billionaire is talking money, this hungry politician is talking ideas. That is why the camel will walk through the hole of a needle before an ordinary Nigerian with good intentions will aspire to a political office and Nigerians would take him/her seriously.

That is why nobody is yet to take Sam Nda-Isaiah seriously since he announced his intention to run for presidency under the platform of the APC. In 2007, it did not take Atiku Abubakar a drop of sweat, after decamping to the ACN, to get the presidential slot of the party. Unconfirmed sources reported that Atiku had given N1b each to the ACN branches across the states of the federation. Yes, that is N36b! I was an ACN member. Money and other souvenirs were shared at our ward. My mind runs back to Nda-Isaiah; where will the humble publisher get N36b to mobilize us? Whatever Nda-Isaiah is saying now, as long as his words are not gbemustically wheeled, only expresses his vacuousness.

I wasn’t shocked, sometime last week when I read somewhere on Twitter; how Dino Melaye’s anti-corruption crusaders accused their principal of failing to gbemustically demobilize them. These are people who one thinks should have believed in Melaye’s anti-corruption crusade and had come out willingly to join him in the protest against corruption. Where would they have expected Melaye to get the money? He was a former House member. And that is enough job to make one a millionaire?!

My sister was dismayed on hearing that Ekiti gubernatorial candidates in the PDP picked their interest form for N10m. What is form? She asked. Is it not just a paper? And how much is a rim of paper? I had a good laugh at her series of questions. This, however, is one thing that should motivate elected officers to steal. In a conversational summit with Ekiti State’s Governor Fayemi last month, he revealed to us that his salary is N549,000. Going by this salary, it should take about two years for the PDP governor to realize the N10m. But, is the case indeed so, juxtaposing their asset-worth before elected as governor and after they had left office?

In his 2012 SNG Public Lecture, the poet and scholar, Niyi Osundare, on the premise of the Ekiti socio-cultural ideology, shares a story.

“Let me share with you a story I heard from my father, a story which illustrates the astonishing difference between the moral order of those days and the degenerate laxity of the so-called postcolonial era.

“As this story goes, a young man in another part of town was beginning to give everyone around him a cause to worry. Already well into his thirties, he had no job; he hated farming, the major occupation at that time because it was hard and dirty. He was apprenticed to one or two trades, but he never waited long enough to complete his training in any of them. The extended family then called him and asked what exactly he would like to do for a living. He said the business of buying and selling was his prime choice, the one he dreamt about all the time, the one that would bring him the fortune and freedom he needed. And he insisted on doing this in some big and faraway town where his need to make profits would not be compromised by family obligations. His family taxed its members, raked together a tidy sum for him and sent him off with all their good wishes.”

“About six months later, it was Christmas time, and this young man returned to town, looking conspicuously prosperous. People wondered which shone the loudest: the gold chain around his neck or the gold strap of his exotic wrist watch. On Christmas day, he floated a feast whose lavish extravagance beggared a royal banquet. About five goats and countless chickens collided in his giant cooking pot, while all the palmwine tappers in town knew where to direct their kegs that day. The great feast was about to start when the guests sent for my father to join them. The first messenger came; my father refused to go; then the second. The third reported with the sardonic warning that whoever failed to get to the feast when the fireplace was still hot would only have himself to blame if all he met were half-picked bones and the loud belches of the punctual guests.”

“At this point, my father felt the need to clarify a few issues, and said something to this effect: Let me explain myself now before outsiders begin to explain it for me or read hostile meanings into my absence at our brother’s feast. He is our brother, and I have nothing against him. I know the way to our brother’s house, and I have been there many times before without being persuaded to come. And it is not that I woke up today of all days and could not find my appetite. But the question for our brother is: ibi se ti reo ree? (where did he get the money from?). Is this not the same young man for whom we had to collect all our toro, kobo (all our little pennies) some six months ago? How could he have made the profit that could fund the feast whose extravagance the whole town is talking about? No one who has made money the hard, honest way squanders it the way our brother is doing. So, without any envy or ill wish, I ask our brother again, ibi se to reo ree?.”

“My father never attended that feast; and as the story goes, there were some members of the celebrant’s molebi (extended family) who never did. Christmas over, the pots and pans went back where they came; the revelers dispersed; our young man returned to his ‘station’. But about two weeks later, when the New Year was still very new and remnants of yuletide jollifications floated on the wings of the harmattan wind, an uncharacteristic hush fell on the town. The young man, that generous thrower of the Christmas party, was back in town. Only that this time he was securely handcuffed and sandwiched between two hefty policemen who had come to search his family house. The town was later told that the young man was charged with all kinds of crimes ranging from massive theft to embezzlement. He was already working hard for a one-way ticket to prison.”

“Ibi se ti reo ree? (Where did he get his money from?) that was the question people asked in those days when our society’s head stood confidently on its neck, and all manner of thieves and criminals never found their way to power from where they could choke us in their moral effluvia.”

In places like America, I am not sure if a Senator Obama in 2008 had the resources to dispense such largesse as former Vice Persident Atiku did in 2007 in Nigeria. Obama was, instead, trying to raise money through donations from his, mostly middleclass, supporters. And it was a transparent exercise. In Nigeria, grassroots supporters are only interested in milking the political aspirant. They know these rich aspirants had, in one way or the other gotten their money by looting the national treasury. So they need not ask, Atiku, ibi se ti reo ree? Their (supporters) ultimate agenda is to get their share of the gbemu. Their chances may be slim as soon as the man gets what he wants. It is the same crowd that you see at the APC rally that would also show up for the PDP rally. The enthusiasm, partisanship shown is dependent on the gbemustic arrangee!

Observing elections in 2011, there was a polling unit where the ACN agents would give N500 to any voter who thumbed for the party. Realizing this, the PDP in its almightiness raised the bar and offered N1,000 for whoever wants to stand by the umbrella. Some people who had earlier voted for ACN expressed their regret, and would want to clean the mark at the back of their thumb, re-join the queue and cast a fresh vote for the PDP. For N1,000. There were polling units where caterers stood by the ballot boxes, and handed over a packed-plate of rice with chicken to any voter who cast for the party that hired them.

Before his demise, the political philanthropist, Dr. Olushola Saraki Olooye of Kwara had always left open his GRA-house gates for all to come in and feast. It uncovers the mystery, that, since the days of Adamu Attah, it’s whoever Olooye endorsed that would win the gubernatorial election.

In an interview with ThisDay Newspaper, last year, the senator representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District explains how Nigerians put legislators under financial pressure. Says Ojudu: “A colleague of mine died about a month ago. A week before his death, we were together at a function in Lagos and he kept complaining about the financial pressure on him. He said to keep himself safe, he had to hire 12 policemen, each of them taking N100,000 per month with three meals. When he is at home, there will be about 200 people waiting for him for one assistance or the other. And I said, ‘look, take it easy. If you die, somebody else will jump into that seat.’ Do you know that he slumped and died barely four days after our discussion? The financial pressure is too much.

“You get invitation for things like house-roofing. You have to pay school and hospital bills for so many people. I always tell my colleagues that we should come together and fashion out a way to take care of our people collectively, to reduce the pressure on us. All the money you claim we receive is returned to the people. Last December, I had to borrow money to buy 200 bags of rice. We have to sit down with the executive and fashion out a way to reduce poverty in the country. We are doing most of the jobs the executive should be doing. Can you go to an American senator and ask for cash? He would be wondering if you are crazy. Here, people don’t have access to governors. People can come to my house any time of the day. All we do every day is go to the bank, collect cash and share to people.”

Hear the senator, “All we do every day is go to the bank, collect cash and share to people!”

The senator is then asked “How much is the take-home of a senator after all deductions?”

“It is about N1 million,” he says. And then you wonder, is it from this N1m that Ojudu’s late colleague paid ten policemen N100, 000 every month? Nevertheless, Senator should keep sharing this money because whenever he goes to Ekiti, nobody will querulously ask, Mr. Senator, ibi se ti reo ree?

2015 election is just a step away. Democratic coalitions, support groups fueled by gbemustic arrangee are springing out from every corner. The most recent I had seen is the Gooduck Initiative For Transformation, GIFT, 2015. Their key message? “Join Us To Convince President Jonathan To Run In 2015.” The acronym, GIFT!

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This article was published with permission from Omojuwa.com

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Kingsley Ahanonu

If God, in his wisdom, could grant man the freewill, as evident in nature, to make his choices- good or evil, why shouldn’t man, in so much as it’s non-encroaching and does not contravene the positive law, which arbitrarily is the jurisprudence of man, society? Anything further is ‘acting God’–an usurpation. This is what most of us fail to understand.

Since the publication of the open letter I wrote Mr. President, I have not ceased to receive reactions. Some of the ones I’ve read point to the fact that most Nigerians are still adrift of the essence of my take on the issue. It is in expounding the template of my stand and enlightening all in a bid to correct the erroneous impressions held by the many, that this follow-up became necessary.

The ripostes cum rejoinders I have received so far have, in a great deal, brought to the fore the reasons for the simmering detest of
homosexuals by Nigerians; they have in addition, exposed the fluidity of such rationales. As such, it became of a heightened necessity to correct the gaping lacuna and naivety in such misguided rooted impressions.

To appreciably come to terms with the true meaning of this corrigendum, I beg to add that a concerted effort must be made towards having a mindset devoid of prejudice in order not to misconstrue my stand.

In discussing, I admit the risk of repetitions.

In going into the motive of this piece, which centrally seeks to clear up the mist over the heated debate, an understanding of morality vis-a-vis natural law with a concerned focus on the issue at stake would be given paramount consideration. This is because it not only forms the basis of my argument but had also stood as the props of the lines of argument of the many homophobic interlocutors, who are maniacally and robotically in support of the law.

Firstly, we begin the discourse by asserting that nature itself is a weave of morality; nature is ordinarily responsive to true moral values. As such, the goal of established law of nature is to placate the inherent moral dictates.

Morality, as we would understand, acknowledges the earnest place of permitted will in the decision taking of any individual person; it recognizes and permits one’s right to choose. It is against the backdrop of the natural law that a truly moral person, guided by conscience, is determined. The conscience-driven individual does not rely on the wielding of threat to pursue right values and/or reprove the wrongs. In the words of David Hoy, in his Post-critique on Post-structuralism (2004), ‘that acts are once obligatory and at the same time unenforceable is what places them in the realm of the ethical.’

And morality, we know, is the antecedent of ethics. Consequently, in the law of morality hence, the natural law, an individual owes it as a responsibility to himself and his conscience to be steered by its provisions; the consequences being self-borne. Nature wouldn’t victimize one for knowingly engaging in coital interruption or the use of contraceptives to truncate its approved process of procreation; though they are affronts to its course. It has its methodology of recompense, which it would evince at its appropriate time. Man should not be seen to fast-track it.

However, the positive law became necessitated to curb man’s excesses and spurring veer to extend influence into the others purview, in a bid to grease his lascivious ego. If man was left in the state which nature had ordained, there is the tendency to abuse such freewill; the conventional law was put in place to avert such derailment.

Hence, the essence of the positive law would be to sanction wrongs whose motives are the encroaching and invasion of the privileges of the next neighbour; otherwise, it is left for nature or God, as the case may be, to adjudicate.

In all these, I stand to be disputed.

If God, in his wisdom, could grant man the freewill, as evident in nature, to make his choices- good or evil, why shouldn’t man, in so much as it’s non-encroaching and does not contravene the positive law, which arbitrarily is the jurisprudence of man, society? Anything further is ‘acting God’–an usurpation. This is what most of us fail to understand.

Having said this, it would be more prudential to treat the issue of homosexuality in view of above light, by piecemeal.

Many of the enthusiasts of this law that deliberately seeks to vilify a segment of the society do so in ignorance with the view that it is an upshot of western influence. What a heavily flawed claim. How, for goodness sake, can a biological trait be topographically genealogic?

Nigeria, like every other nation, has its own fair share of the variability that is nature; of which gaiety stands as one. The assertion that the Nigerian display of same-sex drive is a copy of the western culture is merely an expressed opinion that falls short of fact.

More so, I disagree with the assertion that homosexual tendency is unnatural. One funny thing with the rule of morality that must be accepted is that it allows for freewill. And so, the dependent on ‘unnaturalness’ as the fulcrum for vilification does not count to placate rationality. And I guess one day, the law would come up also to bar men from plaiting hairs under the premise that it’s ‘uncultural and unnatural’ or criminalise pride on the ground that it’s ‘immoral’?

It would be spurious to contemplate equating homosexuality with crimes such as armed robbery, kidnapping or even pedophilia, as some would want to assert. As against the recourse to gaiety, which is a wrong against self, the foregoing are invasive and against will; they intrude into personal privileges and are non consensual. Hence, the law would be apropos in acting to curtail such excesses.

The most appalling indeed, is the attack against personality. Beyond the fact that it negates the principle of relevance in valid argument, it clearly stands as a misconstruction that it is only victims that could speak against their victimization. And I ask: must one share a thing with them to stand for them? If so then, I speak for them because I share the true essence of humanity with them; as such, they deserve my emphatic identification. And even if they aren’t humans, as some derogatorily posit, I still speak for them because I stand against all forms of indignity and injustice.

And against this backdrop, I could only dissuade them convincingly and not by frigid coercion. On this, I’ll return to later. But this is what the law cannot achieve. Instead, it exposes them to brazen hatred and dehumanization. The enactment of this law merely gives a legal credence to the subjugation and intimidation of these people.

God himself is not a sovereign of imposition; this is proved in God recognition of permitted will. He lets man know what is good and what is evil together with their consequences, lucidly stated; it is up to man to choose. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they acted on the basis of this freewill and so they only had themselves to hold culpable for the resultant calamities. What else could be more unnatural that going against this sovereign principle?

The church, against the light of advancing homophobia and as a moral beacon must come to play its role in leading all to moral values. But she must do so in line with God’s modus operandi. Talk lovingly to homosexuals on the dangers and eternal consequences inherent in it, condemn the act, admonish them to follow the righteous path and leave them to act their decisions (John 8:7-11).

This approach does not portray the church in the light of being for a sin but it places her as an institution sympathetic to the sinner and helping him overcome it just as Christ did and wills.

Anyone who professes to be a true man (or child) of God would not in a bit applaud the practice of same-sex. However, the integrity in the claim of any child of God is called to question if such supports the victimization and denial of the freewill of gays; as they negate the principles of God.

For this, I feel dismayed at the responses of some supposed ‘men of God’ in condemning homosexuals and giving ecclesiastical endorsement to the draconian legislation and in not upholding their banner as reps of Christ.

Agreed, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for their sinfulness. But, to claim that homosexuality was the only sinful reason for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 10:13) and even Noah’s days (Gen. 6:11-13) would be the height of deceit and hypocrisy. For, if going by such erroneous supposition, the whole of the inhabitants of Sodom were all gays that God couldn’t find up to ten straights to spare the land (Gen. 18:32)?

Homosexuality is a sin and like every other unrighteous leanings will eventually be rewarded with the damning perdition that awaits every sinful adulation. But to attach differences to sins based on ‘unnaturalness’ and sundry criteria, I take exception.

To kids’ concern, then. A child that is trained based on sound values will detest vehemently any of such advances and would go to report any of such attempts on him, knowing that it is wrong. So, the fear of our children being at risk, as some might aver, does not hold. The call as ever is for parents to do the needful in exerting more their responsibility of bringing up their wards on sound morals. This will better guard them against paederasts or paedophiles and child abusers of all kinds.

Finally, in as much as God grants them the freewill to do as they wish, it remains his earnest desire that they refrain from it and all
unrighteousness and come to him; the law must also recognize this essence.

My call therefore, is for homosexuals and all SINNERS alike to repent not only because it’s immoral but because it’s anti-God. Whether or not the personal immoral lure is in the eyes of the storm, as this callous enactment has so selectively situated homosexuality, but because they offend the intents of the creator, it would be imminent to make a defining turn-around.

Even as I can’t appreciably come to terms on why a sane person should be seen eating on while walking; with a similar awkward view in a man amorously linked to his fellow, I still don’t understand on why a law is required to compel both into acting appropriately against their wishes. Nonetheless, it would be necessarily proper for the law to exact its duty to adjudicate on the issue of homosexuality only if there is a case of unsolicited approach by homosexuals, because by then is its jurisdictional sphere tampered with.

These have being my points and I do wish Nigerians understand them.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.