In the quest for meaningful expression

Know what I mean

Clarity, that is something that I find matters more than ever in communication, persuasion, and in winning the argument. Whilst one does not always win the argument or even engage with the point of winning, it is important that whatever views are shared are clearly understood, eliciting questions where necessary and documented for the record.

Even though I have never been a humanities major, I have more of an engineering bent, the activities and projects I embark on can be quite consequential, the fear of change is ever-present and anyone could quickly challenge either what they do not agree with and usually what they do not understand.

Use the treasures of language

I find that there is a richness in expression that I can bring to bear to convey complex issues in simple terms with analogies and allegories, almost like parables. Taking people along with concepts they understand and applying in situations they can begin to grasp.

There will always be a form of words that encompasses what I need to say, that I have to reiterate until it is impactful is part of the scheme. I do not play with communication and the way I choose to use it, if I have to be overly formal or introduce a putdown, the intention is to express displeasure or disdain without the need for an expletive.

Sometimes, you have to read it more than once and whatever wells up in you to respond would have dissipated when it sinks in. It is all in there, it just needs to be eked out.

Nigeria: Give way on Twitter too

Quite irked, I really was

The greatest danger in having a torrent of opinions is it begins to erode the banks of moderation and flood the plains with controversy.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) September 25, 2013

I posted the above tweet yesterday as I tried to contain my anger in dismay of some views expressed on Twitter.

There is nothing wrong with having opinions on many topics, in some cases, that person might well be a polymath, and we need the engagement of such brains on the diversity of issues that crowd the Nigerian discourse on Twitter.

Where I have issues is when opinions consistently offered unchallenged become a burdensome and unconscious form of hubris breeding intellectual arrogance causing disabling ignorance as Peter Drucker the legendary management consultant once said.

Give space for others

Sadly, when people occupy the opinion space so commandingly, we lose the input of the less articulate, but more knowledgeable leaving all of us the poorer for it at first and then allowing for the propagation of error and falsehoods that seriously needs debunking.

Even I have been reticent to enter into some scraps because it can both be laborious and energy-sapping, besides it descending into a shouting match, though I do my best to avoid that and settle for agreeing to disagree, moving on soon after that.

My tweet used the analogy of a torrent as in that of fast-moving body of water, possibly a river, and the banks being the ability to allow in interaction and discourse with the plains being the wider audience that might read the stuff, flawed as it might be.

Espouse good engagement

We all in terms of what we know, what we embrace, what we tolerate and how our patience is exercised, have a solemn duty of sorts to call out those who with their views upset the community of fellowship and the equanimity we espouse.

The simple advice I find myself wanting to give is, if you are prone to the verbal diarrhoea, find a private convenience with a huge water closet to do your thing, and when you leave, a finger depressing the air freshener for a minute would give others the opportunity to use the facility soon after you.

Thank you.

Nigeria: A new horde of atheist super-zeroes

A new horde

It is amusing when you exercise a prerogative on Twitter and a certain lot believe that they have the inalienable right to override that prerogative having arrogated to themselves the entitlement to be engaged at all costs.

With time, it has become obvious that the opening line already shows the slippery slope to conflict, their feigned quest for understanding is never what it seems, they are perched ready to debunk, deride, excoriate and ridicule – they are the new atheist horde from Nigeria.

They believe that they are the bastions of logic, driven by scientific reasoning they have become completely unreasonable towards the reasons why others might believe quite differently from their apostate godless existence, they are right and you are wrong.

Seeking prey

If you have the smarts to refuse to engage them, they feign hurt, they demand a hearing, they flail and ache with shrill whimpers of an abused dog that you have had the temerity to deny them, but they must be denied.

For, they are the carrion seeking godless hyenas desperately seeking who to feast on, their forlorn existence given purpose by negating the beliefs of others. They are ready to deem you arrogant, condescending and disrespectful, but if you mount the rostrum they construct all in the ploy to wrong-foot you, they claim a form of superiority that appears to validate their existence.

Ostracised from their communities, they adopt multiple identities shape-shifting on the Twitter landscape hoping to find the luck of the draw, they are frustrated to distraction if you refuse to take their bait, if their persistence is rebuffed it is taken as rude.

Brusque, brash and brutish

They have no finery in language, no broad interest in the good things of life like fine wine or banter for all discussion must lead in one direction only, the purpose for which they exist, a life without God fulfilled by hacking down the gods of others.

Black holes that gravitate to endless disputing, argumentative to disagreeableness, they drive you to exhaustion, but as you review everyone else you engage of the thousands you communicate with on Twitter, these are radically different, odious and repugnant, they must be withstood at all costs and the best way to achieve that is to treat them like strangers – ignore them; if you must humour them, tease them but never fancy them.

They seek to unsettle your equilibrium and make you a drifting cloud bereft of water for rain, obscuring the sunlight needed for warmth, life and growth, you follow at your peril into the abyss of bottomless rancour.

The Taliban in new garb

My opening gambit was, “So take your ball back home, no one wants to play in the rain.” I should have brought a trailer of tissues for the sniffles that followed for I had not appealed to their sensibilities because their extroverted inferiority complex worn in every intonation to show some superior knowledge is too burdensome for them to engage without conflict.

If for once they can divorce themselves from the extremism that is quite similar to the Taliban but without the religion, you might take them for nice chaps, but even the social graces they might have once possessed has been lost with their kind of indoctrination, they must ram their guano down your throat and woe betide you if you attempt to gasp for oxygen.

Like those who have received their religion prone to error with obtuse interpretation and practice, so have these too, we seem to be predisposed to practice what was not intended of those who schooled us in the new knowledge and beliefs we have received – it is unfortunate – even where reason should prevail, we find ways to suspend intellect for the purpose of obstinacy at where we immovably stand.

I could be persuaded

Surely, there are reasonable atheists out there, ones who having railed about the divisiveness religion brings who do not go on to create another dimension of divisiveness their consciousness exudes in – I seek common ground in most things – where I see conflict looming, it is unnecessary to be unduly confrontational for kicks.

I am tolerant of others who are ready to be tolerant of me, the human race is too diverse in culture, beliefs, views and persuasion for anybody to think where they have arrived is the final destination of human knowledge be you adherent, agnostic or atheist – if we seek co-existence where we meet and when you go away fellowship with those of your persuasion, there is harmony and where we agree to disagree, it will never become disagreeable.

I might be persuaded differently of the opinions I have expressed here, but to date, these views have been reinforced, if this is a pattern, extremism finds a home in the character of anyone regardless of what they do or do not believe and that is a very dangerous thing.

[Comments are closed to this blog.]

Thought Picnic: In Support of Activism

Causes without course

Recently, I have found myself attending meetings where the ideas discussed are far from mainstream.

From a pragmatic perspective, there is no reason for those ideas not be part of the package of the good life of humanity but for all sorts of reasons due to history, culture, traditions, creeds, tenets, laws, religion, beliefs or politics people suffer unmitigated and unnecessarily bad consequences.

The voices are many

In such cases, the cause might well be lost for the individual but it does not have to be lost for society.

What keeps that cause alive is the voices, the many voices of those in favour, those against and those somewhat indifferent but available to be persuaded of the arguments of all sides.

Now, I know that certain voices are extreme, strident, aggressive and uncomfortable but that is the nature of activism and the drive for change.

The method is insignificant

There are times I have not agreed with the methods used but I very well appreciate the broader intentions, which are to achieve a goal that would do humanity a lot of good.

We have seen this in the rights movements to enfranchise the masses, women and then minorities, the activism to extend rights to the underprivileged and much more.

The battles are diverse and unceasing, but the victory for humanity even after great setbacks is only in a matter of time.

Channelling the inconceivable

This brings me to an interesting case of historical literature published in 1868, in the novel Phineas Finn, there is a recorded conversation as to how public policy is formulated and it is interesting that in the political arena, this seems to fetch true all the time.

Attributed to Anthony Trollope, this how the conversation went and I highlight the words that show the progression from inconceivable to essential.

"Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable; – and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.”

“It is no loss of time,” said Phineas, “to have taken the first great step in making it.”

“The first great step was taken long ago,” said Mr. Monk, – ”taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards.”

The initiators were not popular

The previous two paragraphs indicate that the discourse about a cause must never die and apparently the first step leading to the adoption of such policies would normally have been planted as a seed by those at the time of conception society might have castigated, excoriated, persecuted, prosecuted and even martyred but that is for history to discover and eventually document.

It is why I am never discouraged when a greater cause hits the buffers because of the political discourse of the day, it will never be the end and much will change over time to bring the good to bear of what is currently unacceptable but tolerated.

The Overton Window

Joseph P. Overton then came up with an aspect of political theory that illustrated the narrow window within which an idea might gain acceptance and consequently evolve into policy. This became known as the Overton Window.

The degrees of acceptance in increasing order of acceptance was listed as follows:

• 1.    Unthinkable
• 2.    Radical
• 3.    Acceptable
• 4.    Sensible
• 5.    Popular
• 6.    Policy

Someone will always have to think the unthinkable which with time after convincing others might be seen radical but over the course of time the argument is persuasive enough to be acceptable and might well become sensible enough to be offered as a popular choice by which time there is enough support to make it policy.

Change is inevitable

There are positive and negative trajectories to this but I believe the momentum for change will be for the better if amongst the articulate and prominent voices we have, those who are able to convey with great conviction the reasonableness of an idea that the unreasonableness of the status quo will have to be abandoned.

That is why I am in support of all forms of activism, some could well be counter-productive but in that quagmire the ideas will eventually find refinement and any reasonable person engaging logic with critical thinking and objective discernment will become an ally in the cause for the advancement of humanity, in communities, in societies or in nations at large.

The two-state solution for Palestine and Israel is not inconceivable, having women ordained as bishops in the Church of England is not impossible and the notion that homosexuality is unafrican has a course to travel from unreasonableness to a fact of reality – it has always been part of humanity.

Editorial: Justice, justices and justifiable injustice in Nigeria

Justices in unjustifiable rancour

There is one event in flux in Nigeria today that would determine if the professional classes will apply their knowledge and expertise to a thorny issue or emote on the media having their inconsequential sentimental gestures reported as some sort of objective assessment of the situation.

Over the last few weeks, the judiciary has been involved in an internecine war that has pitted the erstwhile President of the Court of Appeal (PCA), Justice Ayo Salami against the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, Chief Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu.

This matter from observation looks complicated and it appears to require a more clear set of interpretations from the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in terms of the function of the National Judicial Council (NJC), the power of the courts to trammel the constitutionally mandated duties of the National Judicial Council, the way the executive responds to advice in matters that are delineated in properly vested organs of government and the perceptions of clear separation of powers in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The mien of the National Judicial Council

My brush with the judiciary where the driver of the then Chief Justice Mohammed Bello with him well-seated in the vehicle in a reckless manoeuvre almost ran me over as he made to enter the compound of the Supreme Court in 1990 in no way compares with the situation in which we find ourselves today.

The accusations made against the Chief Justice were grave that the NJC constituted a panel out of the 25 sitting members to review the evidence and they arrived at a conclusion that exonerated the Chief Justice and impugned the President of the Court of Appeal to which they attached a disciplinary sanction that included a warning and the order to make an apology to the Chief Justice.

The President of the Court of Appeal might well have had a case and there are probably a whole lot of political machinations that are at play that make for very unsavoury reading but his situation had already become untenable.

The subtle hint in the sanction was for him to respectfully commit hara-kiri.

Between the offices and the officers

For all the conjecture that the judiciary has been infiltrated by the corrupt interference of the executive, it does beg the question that all the esteemed members of the NJC would have been in cahoots to subvert the course of justice and suborn judicial process to create a constitutional crisis.

There is a need to separate the offices from the officials; the office of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria was at risk of denigration and being besmirched by reason of alleged acts of the person in office and it is possible that the NJC had to weigh the consequences of finding against the person and the damage this might do to the office.

The judiciary in the highest echelons is a gentleman’s club at best, they would be expected to close ranks especially when one of their number decides to make an embarrassing public show of the arcane workings of the establishment.

It would have only been right to find against the person of the President of the Court of Appeal whilst sparing the office of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court but this would have only been to protect the integrity of the judiciary and pave the way in due course to justifiably ease the Chief Justice out eventually for having allowed the matter to escalate into what has become a constitutional crisis.

Lawyer up for argument

The best thing the Nigerian Bar Association can do is to get prepared for court to argue the minutiae and substantive issues of constitutional mandates, the authority of the NJC, the presumably violated rights of the PCA, the matters of the rule of law and the separation of powers with regards to what actions the executive can undertake on advice of other arms of government.

Whilst it is clear that the President can veto legislation, the President however can only make choices based on advice received from the Judiciary.

It is still a judicial matter

The said conflict is most definitely unforeseen and it is unlikely that the populist clamour for justice to be seen to be done will prevail, this will boil down to the matter of points of law and at best following the letter of the law is the most that can be expected; the spirit of the law having been sacrificed on the altar of protecting whatever is left of what can be trusted of our judiciary.

Meanwhile, an acting President of the Court of Appeal has been sworn in, the President having taken the advice of the NJC to bring into non effect the official functions and authority of Justice Ayo Salami.

The whole situation is desperately unfortunate but there was no other easy way to diffuse the situation and one would expect that for the interests of all that is wholesome and honourable, the Chief Justice will soon as a gentleman resign for any set of reasons for the sake of restoring to the judiciary a sense of probity.

Editorial: Pressing for legal correctness in Nigeria

The Press or the Law?

This calls for a blog because it does beggar belief that matters of serious legal import in Nigeria are probably poorly researched but even more damning is how the press have not bothered to check the detail and correct the information received.

The presidential election results of the April 16^th 2011 are being disputed by the opposition party and its principals at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja and I think that is a healthy development because it would either affirm the free, fair and credible elections or highlight the failings that might lead to a rebuke or even nullification of those elections.

The presiding judge has however decided that the ruling party has a case to answer [1] on the charges of election rigging and election irregularities putting aside the technicalities and making way for arguing the substantive case.

Sunday laws of business

One of the technicalities that ruling party attempted to have the case dismissed on was that the opposition party filed their petition on a Sunday which for all intents and purposes is not a working day in Nigeria.

However, the justice averred that the life-span of the tribunal allowed for its registry to conduct business on Sunday in order to expedite the petitioning process.

As with any legal argument, the use of precedent case law or acts of parliament does help buttress an argument put forward by a lawyer and one would hope that whatever is cited is correct so that it can be referenced for the sake of agreement, challenge or dispute, especially when such case law or acts might have been cited again in other proceedings and the judges have help different views of interpretation or the referenced view has been superseded by event, purpose, thinking, case law or legislation.

Wole Olanipekun (SAN) [2] is a senior advocate of Nigeria, the equivalent of which is Queen’s Counsel in the United Kingdom and he is counsel for the ruling party and the act he cited with regards to conducting no business on a Sunday was as reported by at least 6 Nigerian newspapers is the “Sunday of Servant Act of 1677.”

No such Act

That obviously piqued my curiosity, the phrase just looked too legalese to be passed off as real legalese so I conducted a Google Search [3] which left me less informed of what it really referred to and so I felt something was wrong.

There was a possibility that the court reporter heard him wrong, because there is an act that pertains to not doing business on Sundays but it is the Sunday Observance Act of 1677, in fact, there are 10 Sunday Observance Acts [4], the latest being in 1932 and there are other related Acts that amend or modify the Sunday shopping and business laws of which the counsel opportunistically chose one that would send everyone riffling through dusty legal tomes to ascertain the facts.

The earliest excerpt of the Act I can find is the Sunday Observance Act 1780 [5], the online legislative archive of the UK Parliament does reach as far back as 1267 only selected laws are documented until the 17^th Century and hence the documented laws of 1677 do not include this Act.

Who was wrong?

The issue here has to be one of many from a legal heavyweight using obscure and rare legislation bamboozle the judicial process is laudable enough because it might suggest his chamber’s library is quite extensive and the chambers are given to research.

It the counsel put forth an incorrectly cited case law or Act, then that would be sacrilegious and it is unfortunate that neither the bench nor the reporters determined the citation was valid and applicable.

I however reserve the greater excoriation for the Nigerian press who on hearing the legal arguments did not bother to check the facts before publication if that was what was said at tribunal or if the court reporter did not seek clarification the newspapers either use one source or they plagiarise each other, none of which augurs well for Nigerian journalism.

Demand for improvement

The standards of journalism are just so appalling from the poor spelling, the lack of proofreading, the incorrect use of clichés and the absence of fact checking.

Nigeria deserves a better standard of press media and journalism for its democracy to thrive but it starts with the fundamentals of good copy that demands good writing, information and hopefully a modicum of education.

In the end, one would hope there is a transcript of the tribunal proceedings to correctly apportion blame.

Sources

[1] 234Next.com | Jonathan and PDP must answer allegation of rigging, says Tribunal

[2] The Nation | Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN The dovish courtroom firebrand

[3] Google Search on Sunday of Servant Act of 1677

[4] UK Parliament Laws - Sunday Observance Acts

[5] Sunday Observance Act 1780