The spirit of Viagra moved upon the waters

Executive direction (ED) of purpose

For particularly medical reasons, I have never considered the use of Viagra, and this is because of the apparent side effects that greeted its advent on the scene almost a quarter of a century ago.

Besides, on the wide spectrum of erectile dysfunction, there would be no need for it except for recreational purposes and I have had encounters with certain who have required medical attention for painful priapism, and I doubt they have summoned up the courage to tell of their ordeal in jest even after a decade of their somewhat embarrassing experience.

The rise of watery things

However, my eyes fell on this tale at the weekend, and it deserves some commentary, for the story suggests that the drinking water at a church in Kenya was laced with Viagra which led to the arousal of all male members in the church and some attempting to exploit their situation fully in harassing female members of the congregation. [The World News: Kenyan Police Hunting For 19-Year-Old Girl Suspected Of Adding Viagra In A Church Water Tank]

I am quite amused that all 17 male members in the church drank the water in sufficient quantities before the service to all be aroused literally at the same time, it almost feels like the water was fed to a trough and snouts sunk in to take their fill, maybe an affliction of thirst befell them all at once, or someone received the revelation that the water now had the properties of the biblical Pool of Bethesda where the first who got in was healed and for this church in Taita Taveta County all male members rose to an occasion they had not been invited to.

Men seeking a Jezebel

Taita Taveta County is far enough from the major Kenyan cities of Mombasa or Nairobi, that one might think that kind of excitement in the congregation is rapturous and calling for orgasmic ululation, but we would be quite ahead of ourselves because it is not clear from the story that the water was tested to determine if it was indeed laced with Viagra or some other Sildenafil compound.

Meanwhile, the police are after a suspect, Tracey Fadhili, 19, who apparently lives near the church and was seen at the church compound the previous evening, but this does not suggest she was the culprit. I would not want to cast aspersions on the investigative competence of the rural police force, I, however, have my doubts that she was responsible for this situation. It begs the question of why she would lace the water storage with Viagra and to what end? As there is no other backstory on her, one can only wonder. They found a Jezebel to castigate.

Send them home for it

Adding to my amusement is the idea that this free blessing of manhood excitation is considered shocking. Involuntary as the response might have been, it can hardly be considered shocking for it might well be a miraculous manifestation for those who had given up on believing Lazarus could rise again. What I would not accept is the idea that the use of Viagra makes you lecherous that there is literally no self-control and the aroused seeks to mate with the next available female they cast their lascivious eyes on. Does the church even believe in miracles anymore?

Furthermore, a male organ erection is not a weird feeling, that it happened during a church service, unfortunate as it might seem, is not against nature or the expression of self, weirder things have happened to men and this, I can assure you is not one of them.

If the pastor were at any time inspired and directed, he would have come to one useful realisation, closed the service, blessed the congregation, and encouraged the men to go home to their wives and girlfriends with the word that of hope, faith and love that endure, love is the greatest of all, and when boosted by the ramifications of Viagra, you make for a happier church. What more can we ask for? Leave Tracey Fadhili alone, she did no wrong.

Africa and the mind-set of non-issues

Not waiting in vain any longer

I was not particularly ululating over Barack Obama’s trip to Kenya, neither did I find time to see what he was up to.

I did my share of waiting to wave at dignitaries in the 1970s when we stood as pupils of Corona School by the railway line at Bukuru, Jos waving Nigerian flags at the convoy of Yakubu Gowon the then Head of State of Nigeria and his friend Gnassingbe Eyadema from Togo when they drove up to Yakubu Gowon’s homestead near Pankshin.

Besides, every Children’s Day, the 27^th of May, we went marching to the salute of the governor of Benue-Plateau, J. D. Gomwalk, really, I had had enough of that stuff.

Treating people differently

However, there were some things one could not miss about what Barack Obama said in Kenya, some brilliantly highlighted by the Independent.

Obama was always going to talk about gay rights, but he had a broader thing to say about rights which, unfortunately, was lost on his host.

“When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that's the path whereby freedoms begin to erode. And bad things happen.”

He could not have said that in any simpler terms, to codify the treatment of people differently because of their difference in the law will not only erode the freedoms of those people, it sets the stage for eroding the freedoms of the next vulnerable group.

Missing the point totally

There is no doubt that there are many vulnerable, voiceless and somewhat powerless groups in Africa, women, children, girls, the poor, the sick, the indigent, the minority by tribe, religion or some other association, they are all in line for a form for erosion of their rights eventually, even if it does not seem obvious now.

Uhuru Kenyatta a few months younger than Barack Obama and son of Jomo Kenyatta who led the struggle for Kenyan independence said in response, ‘gay rights was "generally a non-issue" for most Kenyans’.

That sort of dismissiveness is dangerous makes you wonder about the allegations of culpability that led to ICC charges against Uhuru with regards to the post-election violence in 2007 to 2008.

How many other non-issues?

The question becomes how many other rights are generally a non-issue for most Kenyans? How many minority groups have had their freedoms eroded because they have become a non-issue, an insignificance, a nuisance, a distraction and are readily ignored because they do not matter?

For how long will the leadership of Kenya follow the inclination of the majority to the detriment of the minority who they are also elected to serve and protect?

It was a poor choice of words, but broadly the issue of gay rights in Africa has become a litmus test of what its leadership is ready to address progressively in the name of human rights.

We lost many opportunities

They have expended so much energy in promulgating anti-gay laws to persecute and prosecute people who are generally invisible and in the shadows whilst ignoring the critically important aspects of rights for women and children, national development, education, health and welfare for all.

In the meantime, the seriously disaffected who have already concluded that they are viewed as a non-issue to the majority, have found the comfort extremist Jihadist companionship to wreak the havoc of unspeakable terror all around Africa.

The non-issue talk is a mind-set, a rotten one at that, because it goes without saying that many who have resorted to terror would never have considered it pathway of protest or emancipation if those who were supposed to represent them listened, engaged, participated and contributed to their wellbeing that they did not feel they were a non-issue but were acknowledged, respected and included in the greater and laudable pursuit of being part of their nation for its good, its development and its progress.

In pursuing gays, we lost opportunities to improve the lives of, and consolidate progressive laws with respect to people we see daily who are affected the most by our inaction even if they support our actions against the minority of the different and the other.

Nigeria: The relative cost of our democracy is unsustainable

This is too dear

I have written many times about the exorbitant and probably prohibitively unsustainable cost of the democratic experiment in Nigeria and there are many reasons to be concerned for how much we pay our lawmakers on average. [Nigeria: Our Exorbitant Government]

The graph below published by the Economist is more than just an eye-opener but it is also revelatory about how political office is a parasitic drain on the national resources since politicians cannot be considered part of the economic engine of a country.

What makes this graph worthy of the most righteous indignation begging for public insurrection is not so much about what the politicians earn, but the gap in earning capacity between the citizen and the representative lawmaker.

The comparisons

Australian lawmakers earn the most at $201,200 followed by Nigeria at $189,500 and then Italy with $182,000 and the United States at $174,000 all compared to the people they represent, we find that Australian and American lawmakers earn less than 4 times the average economic activity of their countries divided by their populations (GDP per capita), Italians just about double that and Nigerian lawmakers earn 116 times that.

The World Bank, the IMF, the CIA and the University of Pennsylvania all put the GDP per capita of Nigeria at between $2,661 ranking 137^th in the world out of 180 countries, $2,720 ranking 143/187, $2,800 ranking 148/194 and $1,716 ranking 152/185 respectively.

By comparison Australia is in the top 10 thrice, Italy in the top 30 twice and then the top 35 and the United States of America 4 times in the top 10, it goes without saying that Nigeria has no business paying its legislators in what is purportedly a representative democracy these atrocious amounts of cash that bilk and milk the country without contributing anything to its economic growth.

The consequences of expensive democracies

Worse still, it creates a competition for political office where the rewards far outweigh the commensurate perspiration leading to many situations where power-grabs by every means possible warps every notion of free and fair elections, talk less of representative democracy – it is utterly bad for Nigeria apart from the fact that it is unsustainable.

Looking at the chart again, you also wonder why Sub-Saharan African nations that hog the bottom third of GDP per capita tables are the ones that take the lead by far in the discrepancies between elected and elector besides the fact that only Ghana has consistently rewarded its electorate with the will of its people, Kenya did not in the penultimate election which has the current leadership indicted for crimes against humanity and Nigeria is a travesty in everything but name.

Nigeria is awash with oil money in the wrong hands which is used in acquisitive, ostentatious, hedonistic and wanton display of power, wealth, influence and mischief, it exacerbates a pressure cooker of ethno-religious and regional tensions, none of which the leadership have had the wherewithal to grapple with or understand that the consequences as it holds together with threadbare allegiances of snouts in trough might well be dire for the 2015 election year.

Enough is just enough

In my humble opinion, this democracy is neither representative nor working if the people we choose to represent us are so far removed from the reality of the citizenry that they literally live in a parallel universe, there ought to be no reason for Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana to be democratic outliers compared to the economic activity within their regions in comparison to their people, it calls for reform and this must be urgent, radical, far-reaching and deeply examining of the culture of corruption and influence-peddling we have allowed to become the raison d'être of political life.

This is the one time when the chorus from the village to the city and from the homes to the marketplaces of the country should ring loud – Enough is just enough.

Other reading

Nigeria: Our politically immature systems

Nigeria: Percentage Allowance Legislators

Editorial: Sexuality pervading discussions about judges

Judging judges

Sometimes I wonder why people are so quick to judge on the matter of sexuality and its expression. It is a topic I have written about extensively and most notably is the one I wrote in 2006 titled, Somehow, strange sexualities excite Africans [1] which has been one of my most read blogs as well as the most referenced from search engines when sexuality and Africa appear in the search phrase.

The matter of judging, judges, judgment and justice and sexuality becomes even more interesting in a number of recent events.

Last year, Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled Proposition 8 against gay marriage unconstitutional and one reviewer of the judgment [2 PDF file] felt that it was factual, well-reasoned and powerful [3].

It showed you could not underestimate the abilities and genius of a sound legal mind but the supporters of Proposition 8 were unhappy that this ruling was put in abeyance as it was being contested in a higher court.

Avoiding pernicious precedent

There was the minor issue that that Judge Walker is homosexual but they felt he should have recused himself because he was in a long-term same-sex relationship with the possibility of it culminating in gay marriage and thereby presenting a veneer of conflict of interest.

A judge in a higher court had Tuesday ruled that he had no legal obligation to exclude himself [4] from adjudicating the case with a rather staunch defence of the judge’s impartiality and integrity by saying, “It is not reasonable to presume that a judge is incapable of making an impartial decision about the constitutionality of a law, solely because, as a citizen, the judge could be affected by the proceedings.”

In terms of Judge Walker not revealing his presumed vested interest, he goes on to say, If Walker had disclosed "intimate but irrelevant details of his personal life," he could have "set a pernicious precedent" for other judges by promoting disclosure of highly personal information, before being able to adjudicate on matters of life and society of which they are as citizens and human-beings are part of.

Defending the integrity of judges

In essence apart from defending the integrity of Judge Walker, it was a staunch defence of judges in general from vexatious and outrageous attacks on their impartiality and professionalism just because they might be affiliated to situations or causes that their decisions might impact even if their legal commentary is sound and unimpeachable.

Back on African soil, the spotlight is on Kenya where decisions are to made regarding the nominations of Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice.

Dr. Willy Mutunga is being considered for the top job; he has never been on the bench but is a distinguished academic and a respected activist in the promotion of law and justice in Kenya.

An opinion piece [5] appearing in the Business Daily Africa lauds his credentials suggesting that he meets and exceeds the requirements for the job and avers that his “experience spans significant milestones in Kenya’s democratisation” going on to list examples of his work.

Courting controversy

It would amount to tautology to stress his qualifications; his eligibility is unimpeachable however appearing for vetting [6] at a committee of the Kenyan parliament, the members of the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee (CIOC) seem to have been distracted and engaged in the subjective, sentimental, speculative and sensational.

Obviously, it is a matter of interest in Africa if a man wears an earring stud and especially a man of Dr. Mutunga’s standing which should not detract from his professional ability but can excite insinuations that associate such fashion with homosexual even though it has never been conclusively proven to be of that progeny.

He proves an enigmatic figure having been baptised a protestant, confirmed a catholic and then now a convert to Islam creating all the avenues for courting controversy and more.

Misreading human rights activism

At which point, one would wonder how the vetting for the two top offices of justice got embroiled in the fascination with the sexuality of the nominated principals whose jurisprudence credentials were primarily the reasons why they were put forward.

Ms. Nancy Baraza who ideally should be addressed as Dr. Nancy Baraza is known for her work in the defunct Constitution of Kenya Review Commission and the Kenya Law Review Commission. Besides she has fought for seemingly unpopular causes in Africa as adequate healthcare provision for gays and lesbians in Kenya.

However, those laudable human rights accolades lead to a bizarre set of exchanges that resulted in her saying, “I'm not a lesbian. If I were a lesbian, there are some very good friends of mine in this room (and) I would have dated them.”

No-nonsense justice

Not sparing the blushes of the inquisitively voyeuristic committee, Dr. Mutunga also has a line that might have sent the prude scurrying back into their forsakenly atrocious holes, “My community, the Kamba, have a saying that 'When you go for circumcision, you go naked so I'm okay. I'm happy to answer these personal questions,’ I'm aware that we are in an era where leaders are being held accountable. I'm cool with that.”

With these people Kenyan might well be ushering in a period of straight-talking, upright, confident and principled justices who are not going to apologise for their opinions, lifestyles, causes or activism – this probably is the kind of judiciary every African country needs, no not blind-sided by titillation and unprofitable distractions but given to entirely without reservation to the principles and cause of trusted and impartial justice based on sound application of the law and its credible precedents.

Sources

[1] Somehow, strange sexualities excite Africans

[2] Judge Walker’s Proposition 8 decision. [PDF file]

[3] Judge Walker's decision to overturn Prop 8 is factual, well-reasoned, and powerful. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine

[4] Gay jurist in Proposition 8 case had no legal obligation to remove himself, judge rules [Updated] - latimes.com

[5] Business Daily Africa | Kenya needs Mutunga as Chief Justice

[6] AllAfrica.com | Kenya: Private Lives of CJ, Deputy Nominees Queried

Nigeria: Dragging Iwu to the court of the Twelfth of June

June the Twelfth lives

It would appear June the Twelfth still has a few more lives in it before it gets consigned to history. In fact, it can never be completely consigned to history because it comes every year and someone somewhere would find reason to commemorate the day.

For Nigeria, it remains that one seminal moment when the freest and fairest elections were conducted in the country, the only sad thing being the will of the people was aborted before full recognition was made of the winner.

This being the 15^th anniversary of the event, the chairman of the then electoral commission which was known as the National Electoral Commission, Professor Humphrey Nwosu launched his tome about that election.

Titled Laying the Foundation for Nigeria’s Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election and its Annulment – a mouthful of a book title not yet available on Amazon, the reviews beyond the pre-launch hype show us nothing particularly new or worthy of news – one reviewer calls it beautiful nonsense.

Boos and all

In any case, at the launch, the guests of honour that included General Ibrahim Babangida, the President who annulled the election, though absolved by the professor and his successor Chief Ernest Shonekan were not present to grace the occasion.

When the name of the current chairman of Inept National Electoral Commission, Professor Maurice Iwu’s name was mentioned at the event, it was booed – perhaps the chairman thought it prudent to attend the occasion lest he be derided.

Anyway, rather than concentrate on trying to avoid more controversy, INEC through its spokesperson has decided to take up the defence of its head by making the following assertions.

The two electoral commissions were different.

One operated under a military junta in 1993 and the other under a civilian administration in 2007.

The annulment of the results of the first almost plunged the country into chaos, the more recent one was a successful transition from one civilian regime to another.

The comparisons are baseless and we should concentrate on the successes of the 2007 elections and work on strengthening the democratic process.

Since Professor Iwu was not at the event he could not have been booed.

Debunking the assertions

The assertions are interesting and quite informative because, whilst the elections happened under different circumstances, it did not mean that the clearly expressed will of the people should be subsumed in annulment or incompetence such that the fairness of the 2007 elections remains questionable.

The elections of 2007 could well have plunged the country into chaos, but the death of 300-plus citizens during those elections was 300-plus lives too many.

The comparison should and must be made to determine if Nigeria has really progressed or not and the verdict in terms of the electoral process seems to tick the negative boxes.

It can only be a delusion for INEC to continue to contend that they conducted very successful elections in April 2007, but maybe we are missing a point that I would elaborate on later on.

Then a man does not have to be present at an event to acknowledge anytime he is booed, a name mentioned carries just as much weight as the presence of the person, if that person is well known and has a reputation the booing audience fully acknowledge – there is no journalistic slight in reporting that a person has been booed or praised, regardless of if that person is present or not.

Transition was the only goal

It would appear that the goals of success INEC defined for itself were not for the conduct of free and fair elections; that was not their purpose at all – from the statements, they were doing the impossible – that impossible act was the transition from one civilian regime to another.

Nobody mentions that it was the same ruling party that had literally politicised the commission such that it took the courts to restrain the commission from blatant unconstitutional infringements.

It would have been a greater achievement if the transition was from a ruling party to the opposition but the numbers did not look that way in the end.

However, if the standard of success was only predicated on a successful transition to a hand-picked invalid who seems to be grappling with the levers of power without successfully moving the vehicle more than an inch – well, it would have been utterly naïve of us to expect the elections to be free, fair and absent of irregularities.

The judgement of June the Twelfth

Professor Iwu should by now have developed thick enough skin not to be ruffled by any comments about him, but June the Twelfth brings his stewardship into stark relief as a sycophantic neophyte, oblivious of ethical demands of his brief and in denial about his rank incompetence.

This was exemplified in still having electioneering documents in South Africa 24 hours before a major election – that he still holds office beggars belief, but the woes of the challenge of the President’s election have to pass, then the buffoon can be kicked out and pensioned off in ignominy.

Professor Iwu, when dragged into the court of June the Twelfth is found wanting and judged a failure but it is a more foolish man who kicks against the goads.

As for INEC, maybe sometime in the future, free and fair can enter their vocabulary, but now, transition trumps a decent electoral process – the result of which can be seen the turmoil of Kenya and now Zimbabwe – it is a real shame, indeed, it is.

They shall not grow old

Picturing the gruesome

Kenya Burning is the name of a photo exhibition that documents the happy days of the election through to the lynching and mob violence that claimed the lives of over 1,200 people and displaced 300,000.

This tragedy came about because the political class failed their people by conducting a flawed election rigged to produce results that completely dissatisfied the opposition and was evidently corrupt.

As the rulers shuttled between 5* hotels and news conferences trying to win influence for their apparatchiks, the people descended into inter-tribal violence taking Kenya to the brink.

Interestingly, the report notes that no politician has visited this exhibition to see the results of their handiwork such that some have suggested the exhibition be moved into their dining room, if only to show that when the people speak and they refuse to hear, the consequences are dire.

Burning witches

The burning however has not stopped because something more gruesome has happened, 11 people between the ages of 80 and 96, eight of whom were women were burnt in a village in the western Kisli district for allegedly being witches.

They were dragged out of their houses and individually burnt, then their houses razed to the ground – apparently that is a valid exorcism.

Apparently, someone had found an exercise book containing the minutes of a “witches” meeting with indications of who would next be bewitched.Let me try a positive spin on this - a meeting of elderly concerned citizen about the state of affairs in their village where certain members of the community have been singled out for either honour or reprimand.

Our old people

Beyond the problems we have in Africa and especially in Kenya which was sadly showcased in Living with Corruption and the situation where live expectancy at birth is now 55.31, one would think reaching these amazing ages would be a sign of survival against all militating odds that fill our screens about Africa.

I was fortunate to have a great grandmother into my early 20s and she was the repository of information that allowed us to trace back our genealogy up to 7 generations considering bad record-keeping in Nigeria.

The hold of superstition

We are losing something special in our African culture if we are so held in bondage to irrational superstitious beliefs to which people react with mob hysteria and end up committing criminal acts in the name of preserving their communal welfare.

I am not discounting the supposed notion of witchcraft or witches; there is probably one under every table, if you care, but what really is the empirical test for determining if a person is a witch or an innocent person who just happens to have grown old?

I really worry that no commonsense prevails when anyone is branded a witch, you are guilty at the declaration and in many societies including before the West became as barely civilised as we are now, and the witch was strapped to a ducking stool and made to admit practising witchcraft.

Who would not confess if your lungs were forced to take in water instead of air, a confession or denial still had the same penalty – death.

The people who had the power to execute judgement wielded undue influence in the community and could abuse this power to rid the community of possible rivals whilst holding the community in terror, fear and obeisance to their whims.

Believing other things

It is dastardly to the extreme that one should read this kind of news in this day and age – one would suppose the mob was also religious possibly Christian and church-going where their belief systems are supposed to give them the confidence not to be bothered with witches having any influence over their lives.

One can only say that church-going does not necessarily confer faith on the person; I have seen in Nigeria where many really think there is an enemy everywhere working against them such that not a positive prayer escapes their lips, they are so bound to their enemies that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They are usually their worst enemies; dishonesty, corrupt behaviour, a lack of ethical principles, a lack of integrity, shirking responsibility, bad decisions, poor judgement, illicit deals, deceit and the propensity to tell white lies could well transmogrify into some hated close relation messing up your life.

The common parlance is “someone is doing you” directly translated from Yoruba, Wake Up!!! You are doing yourself in and stitching yourself up praying the wrong prayers and offering the wrong sacrifices.

I would broaden this scope to include any other organised religious belief system and the way it gets preached in Africa it sometimes seems to replace rampant superstition with virulent fundamentalism, both of which are almost as evil as witchcraft.

For the fallen

By which time another poor hapless innocent person has accused of practising witchcraft as we rid our communities of our old and aged when we should be learning the secrets of life from them.

What shall be said for the fallen? Not the words of Laurence Binyon – They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old – rather it is sounding like – You must not grow old as the young around you might kill you – it is a sad indictment of our humanity and we are all the poorer for it.

The law in Kenya should treat these cases without sentiment as mob violence leading to murder and the leaders of these mobs must be held to account, we cannot allow our superstitious suspicions to run riot and lead to lawlessness, not in this day.

Developing News

Meanwhile in Nigeria a cat was knocked down by a car and this said cat transmogrified into a woman, apparently the woman has confessed to having changed forms but is now in protective custody in a clinic being treated for injuries inflicted on her by a mob about to lynch her having suspected the cat became the woman because she had blood on her.

The police are at a loss as to what charges to place, I would suppose such tall tales are very difficult to align to the law of evidence, it would be like letting the cat out of the bag.

Zimbabwe: Mugabe is a coward

Release my results

Follow me through this analogy – I have just completed a number of academic examinations leading to a major qualification – at the time when I was to receive the results, half the results were released but the whole detail that would prove I was qualified was not released.

Then as I clamoured with the examination board to release the rest of my complement of results, someone took the decision to remark my papers.

I am then left in a quandary, the first being why all my results were not released on time in the first place and then what could have lead to having my papers remarked without information as to why.

Nigeria not an example for good

This is just an analogy; the reality creates a worse feeling for all concerned because the first instance relates to when the Nigerian military government under Ibrahim Babangida cancelled an election that took place in June 1993 having released half the results of that election, a situation that plunged us into another few years of despotic rule.

The failure of democracy in Africa can be directly traced to the failure of simple democratic processes in Nigeria. The situation is so bad that you never find Nigeria at the forefront of speaking up for democratic reform because our processes are so tarnished and not credible enough to give us the moral right to talk to others about doing things right.

Some commentators would contend that the electoral debacle that happened in Kenya in December 2007 only happened because Nigeria provided no leadership in matters of electoral rectitude where the voice of people in votes are properly and correctly presented in the figures sanctioned as official.

Recounts before results

The second part of my analogy pertains to developments in Zimbabwe, where the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has decided to recount the votes cast in 23 districts covering the presidential, parliamentary, senate and council votes.

I find it incredible that first of all, only the complete parliamentary results have been released and only part of the senate results, the rest have been kept from the public who have a right to know what their collective voices have said about who should govern them in Zimbabwe.

I would have had no problems with the recount of districts that have results released, but I cannot see how there can be a recount when the results have not been released.

There can be a recount sometimes, if the results are close, but all parties should be privy to those results and the reasons for the recount. Unfortunately, the ZEC appears to be a pliant organ of the ZANU-PF rather than an independent arbiter and custodian of the democratic process for the good of Zimbabwe.

Mugabe is a coward

The real situation is simple, the Grand Despot of Africa and strong man of Zimbabwe, Mr. Robert Mugabe is a coward. He cannot bear to see that he has been rejected by Zimbabwe after all he did to terrorise the people or buy the election by giving away car keys on the eve of the election.

Mr. Mugabe, is coward because he was afraid to hear his fellow African leaders of the SADC tell him that his time is up, Mr. Mugabe knows the real truth and his cohort of hardliners whose loss of ruler-ship would make them fodder for the Coliseum of the hungry lions of retributive justice are steeling him up for stealing the election.

This is where a country like Nigeria or South Africa should have stepped in and pre-empted what might turn out to be a travesty of democracy.

Give me Brutus or Judas

I despair for what would happen in the end, but should it take a Marcus Junius Brutus to get rid of this Caesar that has destroyed his country or a Judas Iscariot to betray this non-Messiah with the goal to sacrifice one man for the good of the many?

It is time to have Mr. Mugabe despatched, Zimbabwe has been too long under the strangled-hold of this despot, it is time to forcibly take his grasp off the neck of the people and let then thrive as they should for a future that Mr. Mugabe does not have the time, the vision or the will to give.

Invade for democracy

This is one time where every well meaning voice must speak up for the democratic right to have the results of a vote released, correctly, promptly and without controversy.

If this recount is another ploy to adjust the results to meet the needs of people who cannot accept that their time is up, it must be repudiated with the greatest force possible and this time the sovereignty of Zimbabwe should and must be violated to ensure that the people’s voice and votes are what counted to reflect what they have intended.

Zimbabwe deserves respite and this is one cause that is a blight on Africa, only second to the disgrace in Darfur – Zimbabwe must be free by the vote or by the boot.

Wikileaks - The right to know

An undying Internet presence

I happened upon a website that got its DNS entry removed through a legal process by an aggrieved plaintiff in cahoots with an Internet Service Provider.

In what might appear egregious in its remit, the judge not only asked for Dynadot the domain hosting service to remove all traces of the site from all systems that could resolve the name, they also any resolution from showing anything but a blank page.

The law as many would agree is an ass which by inference means it can only be laden with so much before it collapses under the weight of the load.

So, today as we can see Wikileaks.org no more we see Wikileaks.be, for any resourceful organisation taking a site offline only offers an inconvenience and not complete Internet obliteration – reincarnation is reality in new technology.

The need for whistleblowers

Wikileaks provides a unique service as a repository of documents posted anonymously by whistleblowers in government or corporations.

Obviously, if organisations, governments, politicians and powerful organs of influence conducted their businesses with transparency and honestly within the bounds of legality, justice and fairness there would probably be no need for whistleblowers.

Now, this is no advocacy to break the law and countries with official secrets legal codes should for matters of national interest be able to govern what gets revealed to the general public – the only problem is that it gets abused and used to conceal criminality, illegality, subterfuge and injustice.

Kenya stands out

Going through the site, it is not surprising that Kenya which stands out as a paragon of corruption amongst political leaders and their cohorts features prominent.

As it transpired the newly elected government of Mwai Kibaki engaged Kroll Inc. to investigate issues of corruption concerning the looting of Kenya under government of Daniel arap Moi his predecessor.

They produced a 110-page report in 2004 which implicates the ex-President’s sons in activities that have both of them worth just under a billion pounds or $1.8 billion.

This report is either gathering dust or being used as political leverage since it is interesting that Daniel arap Moi came round to supporting Mwai Kibaki having been unseated by him 5 years earlier.

The Kenya page shows a number of whistleblower documents that should be explosive and having people indicted and convicted but systems in Africa sometimes do to seem to deliver justice to certain strata of the society.

Dearth of Nigerian detail

The Nigeria page does not show much apart from personalities like Dr. Dora Nkem Akunyili, who as the Director General of NAFDAC runs the gauntlet of corrupt organisations and interests who flood Nigerian markets with sub-standard drugs.

Her job is made harder by sometimes unresponsive federal ministers or demi-god thugs with undue political clout like Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, we have every faith that she would prevail.

Another name was that of Chris Anyanwu who was jailed for life for publishing information about an alleged coup plot in 1995, a sentence that was commuted 15 years and she was eventually released in June 1998.

However, when Amy Goodman revealed the collusion of the Chevron Corporation with the Nigerian Army – in that the company offered transportation and logistics support – that lead to the killing of two villagers in the Niger Delta in 1998 and number of shady liaisons left a good few people in the poorest light but it resulted in a documentary that won her the George Polk Award in 1998.

The HRW expose on the unholy alliance sealed in a contract between Godfather Chris Uba and Anambra State aspirant governor Chris Ngige would have been a prime document for Wikileaks.

No fear in revealing

Maintaining the possibly tenuous Nigerian link is Dr. Martha Coleman-Adebayo (An African-American with a seemingly Yoruba name - Adebayo). As an employee of the Environment Protection Agency she found out and revealed that a United States firm was poisoning African workers and families with toxic waste.

Rather than get accolades, she was harassed and severely discriminated against within the EPA, however, what transpired after winning her case against discrimination lead to the signing into law by President George W. Bush of the No FEAR Act 2002.

The Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act 2002), seeks to prevent organisations or managers from engaging in unlawful discrimination or retaliation against whistleblowers.

The Right to Know - I

Once again, one has to be careful about the reasons for whistle-blowing and what is to be achieved by revealing such information. A writer for the Zimbabwean Financial Gazette wrote an article that appeared on allAfrica.com, the premise being the attacks on the right to know.

The article tackles a number of issues but in summary, one could say that if the power of political leadership derives from the people, they should have the right to know about the fitness of their leader for leadership and their ability to govern.

For instance, reporting about the health of the President where its seriousness can make the person incapable of performing their duties should be covered by access through the right-to-know; closer to home is the need to squelch the rumours about the health of President Umaru Yar’Adua of Nigeria.

Dr. Beetroot had details of her alcoholism revealed as it appeared she jumped the queue for a liver transplant having been a public advocate against the dangers of alcoholism.

The judge in a case brought against the newspaper said, “This is a case where the need for the truth is, in fact, overwhelming. Indeed in this matter the personality involved as well as her status establishes her newsworthiness.”

The Right to Know - II

Truth, status and newsworthiness pertaining to matters that have public relations façade far different from the concealed realities need scrutiny and should have the light shone on them.

• In the end, Africa has a right to know how their vast resources are being commercialised but never affecting their livelihoods for the better and why.
• They have a right to know how unscrupulous and corrupt global conglomerates under the guise of humanitarian aid poison them with drugs they would not dare test in their home countries.
• They have a right to know how their politicians deviate from the service to democracy and their constituents towards their selfish ends of self-aggrandisement, corrupt enrichment and influence peddling.
• They have a right to know that they should by merit and qualification be able to attain any goal and if that is not the case, they should know why and who is creating that unfair situation leading to tough sanctions against that practice.
• They have a right to know how the electoral process ends up with results that are not representative of their voting. Some whistleblower electoral officers in Kenya came forward to reveal irregularities with the December 2007 collations.
• If anything, they have the right to know the truth, the whole truth which does not prejudice valid national interest and nothing but the truth regardless of who it touches.

Wikileaks – a resource and repository

Basically, if we cannot obtain information of the sources about issues because of red tape, officialdom, corrupt interference or abuse of legal process, the only way to get at the truth would be through whistleblowers and they have Wikileaks to keep their identities whilst exposing rotten situations.

Support the crusade for the truth, support the message of Wikileaks in the global defence of sources and press freedom as a just, fair and importance cause.

Nigeria sets no good examples for Africa

That Cliché about African Leadership

What is happening in Africa today bothers me a lot because it all concerns leadership – poor leadership, rotten leadership, leadership acquired by violence and corruption, leadership held onto without offering good governance, idiotic leadership and sprinklings of good leadership.

Very few countries in Africa can boast good leadership, there is hope, but what does surround us now is chaos.

For instance, today, Darfur in Sudan still represents an intractable problem of genocide that is quickly fading from urgent action; the completely botched elections in Kenya has caused so much unrest, violent displacement and killings that it might slip out of the control of the political leaders, Zimbabwe has registered an inflation rate (150,000%) that makes the mind boggle and rebels are trying to unseat a government in Chad.

Africans adrift in Africa

The result of this is Africans are refugees in their own Africa, displaced because of policies implemented by fellow Africans who want power and give no respite to their people – savagery, murder, hunger and displacement becomes the lot of the masses whilst the middle-classes and the rising prosperous classes are completely oblivious or indifferent of those problems in the slums, villages and the hinterland.

However, I only have to go back to my blogs in April 2007 where I lamented the issues around the Nigerian election to see why Africans are unlikely to have African solutions for African problems.

Africans silent to African suffering

The issue in Darfur never became a crisis until others outside the continent decided they could not stand for such large-scale suffering, Africans are still dragging their feet on the matter.

The elections in Kenya were most definitely flawed as the head of the electoral commission eventually said he was not sure of who won. African leaders then welcomed the imposed president who “stole” the elections whilst he left his country behind burning.

The entrenched eternal incumbency of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe should have come to an end with the people of the country being able to choose who would lead their country out of the morass it is in, but for the appeasement of African leaders that continues to make a bad situation worse.

It would take the threat and actions of the French army in Chad to keep a democratic dictator, Idriss Deby who has done nothing for his country in all his years in power that others who think they can do the job better have to resort to arms to unseat him.

Where is the country?

The question is, where is the African country with the authority, clout, gravitas and respect that can speak up for the downtrodden masses and exert the kind of influence to ensure things are done right in the “Dark” continent, such we can all be seen in the light as enlightened, emancipated and in control, able to solve our problems with confidence?

Step forward – Nigeria? The Giant of Africa in size offers none of this ability, its institutions are still mired in corruption, its elections are flawed that it cannot condemn the ones in Kenya, its leadership skirts illegitimacy so it can say nothing to Sudan, Zimbabwe or Chad.

In all that has been happening in the last few weeks, we have heard not one squeak from the Heart of Africa because it has a bad heart.

The insignificance of the giant

We have the biggest sporting event going on in Africa and the grand populace of 130 million could not produce a team that could survive the first stage of eliminations.

This is result of our polity not realising the example we should be setting for Africa so that things can be done right and if done wrongly, we can be a model for correction.

Unfortunately, South Africa cannot step into the breach because they have not been able to raise the expectations of their people beyond subsistence; they would end up with a leader very much in the mould of the many that gives Africa a very bad name.

Africa can only begin to solve its own problems when we deal with each other honestly, truthfully, fairly, justly and with mutual respect based on leadership and governance that eschews corruption and nepotism, that embraces transparency and begins to tackle with vigour the problems that affect Africa and Africans.

There is hope for Africa, but in the meantime, it would require a lot more international intervention and scrutiny to ensure what we are doing is well beyond reproach and within globally acceptable standards before we are respectfully left to maturely seek African solutions to African problems.

PS: This was written to highlight the frustration of a fellow Nigerian about his country not being able to address African issues with boldness because we have set bad examples and lost the moral authority that could be projected with our greatness in Africa.

They damned the consequences

19

I am still numb with disbelieve that Benazir Bhutto has been committed to earth, time and again, I have hoped for a playback to just before the 27^th of December where that scene could be reprised with a different act and outcome.

19, an age where most in the West are still tied to their mother’s apron strings whilst pretending to be grown-up. There is no doubt that people grow up faster in other parts of the world.

They take on responsibility beyond their years and stoically approach life with a resolve that leaves people in their 30s here, in shame. As recorded by Paul Hardcastle in his hit 19, the average documented average age of a US serviceman in Vietnam was 19.

Bilawal (One without equal) Bhutto Zardari, at 19 takes on the mantle of leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party from his murdered mother, 6 years too early to run for parliament and having hardly started at the Oxford University – the responsibilities that dynasties thrust on their younger members can be burdens too great for mere mortals to bear. I wish him well.

Feudal Politics

Asian politics suffers the feudal encumbrance of political dynasties where merit suffers at the expense of nepotistic succession because the name and the mystique of the cult of personality of Bhutto (Pakistan), Gandhi (India), Aquino (Phillipines), Bandranaike (Sri Lanka) carries more gravitas in their localities.

It takes populism and pandering to baser instincts for others to gain control of the political levers of government, sometimes through extreme violence – the fastest way to gain control however, is through a military putsch on the premise that the leaders deposed have been corrupt.

What worries me about Pakistan is the way the perpetrators of this heinous act of violence have damned the consequences of their actions not caring to the life of others, the stability of the country or the opportunity for people to chose their own leaders.

If Al Qaeda is denying they had any involvement in the murder of Benazir Bhutto, the man in sunglasses looks smart enough to be part of the unruly Pakistan intelligence services that Musharraf has presided over with cack-handed incompetence. They really did damn the consequences and their denials are sounding too shrill to listen to anymore.

Living with Corruption

I did hope that Kenya being one of the most tribally diverse countries in Africa would produce an electoral victory for Africa where the votes tallied would match the votes cast.

Naively, after watching Living with Corruption and the spotlight on Kenya, I should have known better. Up to 4 of the electoral officers have announced that there were serious irregularities in the tallying that gave President Mwai Kibaki a second-term in office.

This is a man who was first made a minister in Jomo Kenyatta’s government in the year I was born – 1965 – I am still amazed that there are too many grand-old men who cannot make way for the youth to lead their countries to more promising prospects than the entrenched patriarchy that keeps the poor poorer and allows corruption to grow without abatement.

The First Jezebel of Kenya

I had hoped I would be writing about the electorate slapping down of that dreadful First Jezebel of Kenya – Lucy Kibaki, the President's wife – with a much deserved rejection. She has become a law unto herself and literally out of the bounds of legal restraint and due process.

Going around assaulting people because she is the wife of the president, one of the most ignominious examples of first-lady excess as exemplified in the death by misadventure of Stella Obasanjo who died due to cosmetic surgery complications in Spain or that of Grace Mugabe – the First Shopper of Zimbabwe whilst people starve in what was once the bread-basket of Southern Africa.

These women in steeped in the spirit of Imelda Marcos and Eva Braun do all to make the good work of other first ladies like Graça Machel who has been first lady of both Mozambique and South Africa or other demure but positively activist ones like the first ladies of the United States of America.

Shameless complicity of the West

However, I cannot believe the stance of the West at the rotten results of the Kenyan elections where indeed the violence must stop but the talk of reconciliation which implies accepting the results rather than going to the right result of the votes is unfortunate.

We need to fulfil the demands of democracy first before we devolve to the machinations of diplomacy and not the other way round – we are being sold short again.

When would Africans be allowed to get the government they have really voted for?

When would we be able to say with all confidence that our votes have been tallied and the numbers announced are clearly representative of what happened in the privacy of the ballot box cubicle?

It is saddening that people are protesting to have their votes counted properly and they are being shot down, killed and burnt severally by the police, the army or intra-ethnic violence for seeking what is fundamentally a human right in the West but almost certainly a death sentence in Africa.

Too many times, we have failed to deliver the truth of a basic democratic process, especially when we have to contend with an incumbency-beholden electoral commission so typical of the one in Nigeria.

And like the Nigerian one , they damned the consequences of their actions. Somehow, we still have a plague in Africa of leaders who care nothing for the legitimacy of their standing as long as they can wield power and suppress dissent – we are sentenced to being ruled rather than being lead or governed by men of honour, dignity, who are honest and who command real respect.

In Pakistan and in Kenya some people just damned the consequences and blood flows unabated for what could have been better managed if these people ever knew what was right to do. We need to have ways of seeking and getting just for these actions.

UN International Anti-Corruption Day - My take

Joining the clamour

I was invited by Omodudu to contribute to the United Nations International Anti-Corruption Day initiative run by the Nigerian Lighthouse for the 9^th of December 2007.

We all have grand ideas of how we can fight corruption but I wonder if we are really addressing the issue as clearly as we can.

My contribution was simple and appears below and it was posted to NigerianLighthouse@gmail.com, this might be a bit altruistic but I do think that is where we have to deal with the matter, a return to the core traditional virtues of principled stances and that would be difficult.

Corruption – Your NO Counts.

Did we have a time when people were principled, honest, content, fair, just and true lovers of humanity? That is where we have to return to, then stop respecting people of dubious means and strengthen our anti-corruption agencies to take them on and win.

When I watched Sorious Samura’s Living with Corruption earlier today and I have viewed it twice and it still makes compelling viewing – the showing times for Europe, Middle East and Africa appear below:

Central European Time (GMT/UTC +1)

Saturday 08/12/2007 20:00

Sunday 09/12/2007 07:00 20:00

Expediency forces compliance

The problem with corruption and how it permeates the fabric of society is almost intractable, it is easy to see high-level corruption involves people in power and international firms or organisations in cahoots in terms of contracts, money laundering, developmental aid, health and education, but there is another level that was so well reported by Sorious Samura.

It is expediency, people are coerced into submitting to the machinations of corruption because their needs trump the hurdles they have to cross to meet that need.

What is my passport doing in her pocket?

For example, when I was leaving Nigeria almost 2 decades ago, the immigration official – a pregnant lady – at the exit point took my passport and as she leafed through the pages asked what I had brought for her – I told her I was completely skint and she pocketed my passport.

What is my passport doing in her pocket? I was going to make that a topic of blogging against corruption and it might well become one soon.

There is no reason or procedure that allows for my passport to go into anyone’s pocket but mine, I also had a situation to hand, I had a flight to catch and was being confronted with a serious abuse of power and a corrupt official.

It took the quiet words of my travelling partner to placate the woman and there probably was an exchange of money before my passport was released. I was incensed but helpless because I could not control that situation, it is doubtful there was anyone in authority I could relate that matter to without having more problems.

It would have been nice to walk away from that situation but this is the problem, we have a need that trumps the hurdles, that expediency means we have to yield to the corrupt elements in our society to get on or suffer loss of time, more money and possibly liberty too.

Low-level corruption

In the programme, Living with corruption we saw where the man needed a job to feed his family that he had to part with two-thirds of his pay to the gateman and the foreman before he could be assured of a job.

The baby in the family was ill, that placed great pressure on the means within the family, and money that should have gone to providing for food was taken by the receptionist and janitor of the clinic before they could gain access to see the doctor for treatment.

The boy was sent back from school because he could not pay the tip required by the teacher – this was not the school fees – it was to meet some need of the teacher who also must have had problems getting paid because officials down the line have misappropriated the salaries and require bribes to release the funds.

Pupils being threatened with failure not because of poor academic ability but because they have not paid a bribe; mediocre pupils who in cases of teens pay up buying leaked examination papers placing a greater pressure on those who are naturally gifted but cannot compete with corrupt kids who already know the answers before the examination.

If education is as important as many now see it is, rather than upset the applecart the parents pay up for their children not to be left on the wayside of a future that we all hope is promising.

Public transport drivers have to ply a certain route that is infested with policeman leeches who even after having their pay doubled had settled into the impunity of charging a flat fee bribe; the driver had to pay or will get imprisoned and end up paying double that.

Some drivers work the whole day but no one cares that some days they end up with nothing to take home to feed their families – impunity breeds impunity and there is no recourse for fairness and justice because this corrupt chain flows up the line to the top.

Corruption fighting back

A friend narrated a tale where he had to invigilate his fellow students during which time one of them tried to reach for his books to check the answers. When my friend refused, he was accused of being wicked, unreasonable and probably a few other unprintable names.

That is one of the problems we have with fighting corruption, a snippet of Nuhu Ribadu shown as a trailer to fighting corruption contained an enlightening statement – “When you fight corruption, corruption fights back”.

May I say it fights back like a wounded lion – like when Sorious challenged a Kenyan minister for taking away the people’s land; the minister accused Sorious of having an agenda.

In Nigeria, the situation is sometimes quite benign, everyone finds a refuge in religion and God – once people call upon the name of God and swear by any revered religious tome they can find many accusers backing off. Interestingly, not many can stand on their honesty, principles or integrity, they need backing because, they, in and of themselves have no such virtue.

Others would use their ill-gotten means to menace their accusers with unscrupulous lawyers and slanted judicial systems – it explains why anti-corruption agencies get bogged down in Kenya, Sierra-Leone and Nigeria.

Starting the fight

The issue here is – where does the little man go to report the unjust, the unfair, the corrupt and the tyrant?

If there is no power that can indict, arrest, sanction and punish the corrupt there is no way the war on corruption can begin to gain traction.

Where there is such a power, the little man also has to be able to gain access to that authority and be able to seek redress that does not get caught up in red-tape.

Dealing with expediency issues are a bit difficult when looking at the examples above, if a child is to be fed or treated in hospital one cannot risk a principled stance and forfeit the life of the child.

We need some social scientists to address these matters and hopefully intimate us with the psychology needed to help the little man whose only hope of escaping poverty is having all that rightfully belongs to him given to him and not pilfered off by every vested-interest-corrupt petty tyrant that lines the way to his home such that he ends up with nothing.

Can we win against corruption? We probably can, but it would not be easy at all.