Nigeria: The What About Us Presidential Debate

This blog was first published at NigeriansTalk.Org with the title, Nigeria: The Youth and the What About Us Presidential Debate

Update (25/03/2011)

The Nigerian Youth “What About Us?” Presidential Debate will hold on the 25^th of March 2011 at 7:00 PM (GMT) at the Shehu Musa Yar'adua Centre, Abuja, Nigeria.

The following presidential contenders will attend Chief Dele Momodu (NCP), Mr. Nuhu Ribadu (ACN), Governor Ibrahim Shekarau (ANPP) and Professor Pat Utomi (SDMP). The incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan (PDP) and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (CPC) have so far declined invitations.

Channels TV Nigeria and Youtube will collaborate to stream this debate online at http://www.youtube.com/channelsweb

Additional details about the event can be found here.

Setting the stage

Writing for the Guardian yesterday with the title A Nigerian revolution [1], the celebrated writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said she will be a moderator of the Nigerian presidential debate arranged under the auspices of youth groups with the theme, “What About Us” on the 25^th of March, 2011.

She starts off is identifying the issues of eternal incumbency amongst certain African leaders who have been in power from long before we could read until now and that fact that the leadership structure was quite different from those of the North African countries now in flux because Nigeria had become a democracy since 1999.

The plurality of our democracy needs to have its potency from the generally accepted statistic that 70% of the Nigerian population is under the age of 35 and hence needs genuine representation with regards to their needs and their aspirations.

Pride in our nationhood

That list of things that encapsulates the outlook of the Nigerian youth can simply be defined in terms of what would make any Nigerian proud to be a Nigerian in the brotherhood and sisterhood of the many and diverse elements of our nationhood regardless of tribe, creed or religion whilst offering the equality of opportunity to all to rise to be all that they could be.

We have come to a time when the youth should and must have a voice that can be heard and responded to with consideration, responsibility and sense of duty – our leaders can no more reign as demigods whose ideas and lifestyles are completely removed from the realities of those they represent.

A constituency to listen to

The first rung in the need for accountability in our representation can only be achieved in a forum where those who seek electoral mandate are ready to listen to and answer questions regarding what they intend to do to make the promise of Nigeria a realisation that exudes pride and praise.

The hope is when the debates come all representatives of the parties vying for election would present themselves for scrutiny, for tough assessment and the healthy debate of ideas, vision, mission and realisable goals.

The write-up also offered the opportunity for commentary that ranged from the well-worn issues of poor leadership and corruption to the historical landmarks that very few of the youth can truly identify with.

Memories we have not experienced

Interestingly, one non-Nigerian could remember Biafra, what I remember of that was it ended in 1970 and I was hardly 5 years old then – it is unlikely that that informs the dreams and aspirations of the youth of today but it represents one of those possible wedge issues that could take our focus off the critical issues that our country faces.

We keep being reminded of the North-South divide and the religious divisions which pale in insignificance with many people who live in mixed environments of varied allegiances, it would be very unfortunate if the youth allow their views of Nigerianness to be defined in those terms when the entity is still Nigeria and the identity is Nigerian – we have something that is worth fighting for and we should not allow selfish interests to usurp the agenda and the so-called politicians and power-brokers are mostly responsible for this travesty.

Education is the foundation

One particular comment dwelt on the broader issue of education and the need for all to recognise the value of education in raising the quality of life and status of all Nigerians. The ignorance that allows for preventable diseases to contribute to high mortality rates is unforgivable, the need for our generally patriarchal society to accord women and females equality and the right to education and the need for a language that allows for our citizenry to engage in the political process making the right decisions for themselves and their communities.

Too often politicians have exploited the citizenry and the preponderance of a type of vassality to the political class with the ulterior and inadvertent aim of keeping the uneducated or powerless oblivious and ignorant of their rights and hence the force of agitation to bring change.

The youth are here

This time, the youth are coming to the fore and they would probably decide who takes the political spoils and the politicians better have a good few answers to the question, What About Us? The youth would not be ignored, let alone patronised and one is hopeful that they are making seriously informed decisions based on track record, ability, ideas and competence.

If the result of April’s elections rest in the hands of the youth, whoever gets to power without being properly tested and assessed would in terms be representatives of the youth and they would have assume a modicum of responsibility in deciding the future Nigeria faces.

The pledge of the youth must be to use their votes well and not commit to allegiances based on sentiment or subjective criteria; we need to be able to say that when the youth asked that question they did their part in bringing a democratic revolution to Nigeria for useful change.

Surely, that is not being too optimistic, is it?

Source

[1] A Nigerian revolution | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Comment is free | The Guardian

INEC can, Atiku can

A court tussle begins

If ever you really wanted to muddle up something, you get the lawyers and courts involved - Sorry wigs, the evidence is there, every time.

So, earlier today an appeal court ruled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could bar candidates from running in the elections taking place this month, which some read as a blow to the ambitions of the Vice President to contest as the presidential candidate of the Action Congress.

Now, the Federal High Court has said that INEC must allow the Vice President to run in the April elections.

The interesting part is that the appeal court is somewhat superior to the Federal High Court, but as the latter's decision comes after the former, one does wonder where the trick of this big conundrum would unravel.

If courts have to take on each other, then Nigeria has really evolved to a higher state of legal jurisprudence, it is worth looking at this very closely.

The presidential library lends out colouring book

The damage of laughter

If my computer desk stool were not a strait jacket contraption that keeps me from overreacting to things I read in the news, I would have brought myself into greater harm than any triage team would have been able to deal with, all from fits of uncontrollable laughter and involuntary spasms.

George W. Bush is proposing a presidential library at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas to be built after his term and many would wonder what it would contain.

Generally, a presidential library would contain the bequest of presidential papers, documents, archives, records and other unclassified information pertaining to a president’s term of office from the time of Herbert Hoover.

Much to read or plenty to colour?

In the case of George W. Bush, being a two-term president along with all the world defining events encapsulated in chapters that would be emblazoned from the twin towers collapsing upon themselves in a hail of dust through the chants of USA, onto the Mission Accomplished “Hot Gun” stunt into Mess-O-Potamia and the kindling of World War III in the Middle East, there must be a lot for any researcher to leaf through long after we have all turned to dust.

Some dons in the university have been raising hackles, they do not want the academic purity of their esteemed institution to be tarnished with such a presidential legacy, and it is unlikely that any other university would be leaping into the fray for consideration.

Wherever that library gets built and stocked, be it in the cowboy corral of the Crawford ranch or some other Wild West memorial where you are welcomed with a Texan twang delivered by a Dubbiyew look-a-like in a 10-Gallon hat, it is unlikely that there would be much to read or research.

Many would leave knowing that all the pages were large blocks of blanking, blacking or blotting out all text that the only thing we would make out would be 2 or 3-letter prepositions or words strung together as “on - by - and - to - who” leaving the every researcher the liberty to fill in the blanks with imagination beyond what this administration has ever dared to think up.

Shush! It is a secret

The reason being, in 2001, the president signed an executive order restricting access to presidential records in library archives, the cult of secrecy that pervades this administration would make a freemasonry look like an open beach on a summer holiday and this ghoulish tendency is expected to live beyond this regime.

The amazing thing about the way humanity and history works is that whatever has been done ever and has been witnessed to by more than one person, even if they are all sworn to secrecy on a blood oath, light eventually gets shone on that pact and through the ingenuity of the seeker of knowledge the truth does get revealed.

History will not be rewritten

Concealing the evidence in those archives with an executive order might keep us from seeing some facts about the workings of the Bush administration, but it would not change the lasting legacy of this regime, neither can it change the course of how history would be written and how this regime would be judged and probably quite harshly eventually.

Knowing that the Bush administration already has form, we can deduce that if a visit to the library does not require taking along your wax crayons rather than notepad, we would know that one of the things this regime did was cart $12 Billion cash weighing 360 tonnes into a war zone – how is that for a trailer introducing the George W. Bush Presidential Library?

References

The trailer

The US sent pallets of cash into Iraq