Spare: Prince Harry's storytelling prerogative

The epilogue first

That Prince Harry has decided to tell his own story is his own prerogative, just because he is royal does not take away both his agency and his individuality. Prince Charles and Princess Diana gave primetime interviews and ghost-authored books too. In the same vein, no one is under any obligation to read his book, it is not being forced on anyone.

Then this and much more…

As a monarchist, I vow

Maybe I should start with a statement that I believe the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland serves a purpose. For broader reasons, I would say I am both a monarchist and a democrat.

However, as a matter of necessity, all institutions need to adapt and undergo changes, some radical to remain relevant or they risk extinction. There is a difference between the institution and the people who for whatever period of time get to helm those institutions, be that the monarchy or government in the office of the Prime Minister.

The weaknesses of our democracy

Sadly, I cannot report that the crop of politicians we have today exhibit the qualities and abilities of leadership that can persuade me that ridding ourselves of the monarchy is wise at this time. The political parties especially the Conservative Party which once was a broad church of diverse representative views have evolved into one where there is only one persuasion and any deviation from that leads to expulsion.

That is what the Brexit situation wrought on the Tory Party at the 2019 election, they got rid of the reasonable and acquired the reactionary. Looking back over 12 years of predominantly conservative government, I think we can agree that the nations are not better off now than when they took power in May 2010, but I have already digressed from the purpose of this blog.

Changing is banging at the door

The state of our monarchy after 70 years of Elizabeth II calls for a review of how they exist and operate, their ability to adapt would require Solomonic wisdom with Churchillian persuasion. We have a clear line of succession, the King, his heir, the Prince of Wales, and the grandson, Prince George but they do not have the obscurity that conferred the mystique on the aristocracy that Queen Elizabeth started with, and there was much radical change in how the monarchy conducted itself over those 70 years.

To many, Queen Elizabeth was a symbol of stoicism, rarely did you see displays of emotion or expressions of character that might look interesting. King Charles pen wars at his assession that continued during his visit to Northern Ireland or the much-rumoured fiery temper of Prince William, the Prince of Wales, we know a bit more about Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and we would soon learn more still.

The press of the press

I doubt I have the spare change to buy Spare, the memoir by Prince Harry to be released on the 10^th of January 2023, but some revelations that have been shared would suggest there is a firestorm coming for the monarchy and I am not sure there is any dexterity to hand to manage the blowout.

What I know is that Harry and Meghan have had the most unfavourable British press that is followed closely by the Australian version, we have been swamped with stories and regaled with tales, there had to be a time when the people affected could talk back and clear the air.

It began with their exodus to America and the Oprah interview, however, people have taken sides and formed whatever impressions about the couple that the entrenched are totally unpersuadable about a different narrative. That the sides could be along racial lines is something I have observed too.

The whoredom of the press and the royal family

If we go back to when Princess Diana was alive and had issues with the press, it is sometimes believed it was the pursuit of the paparazzi that contributed to the automobile accident where she lost her life in Paris, one can say the press is unrelenting in its quest for celebrity tittle-tattle, you need to be in a totally different domain to escape it.

When reading up about Franz Welser-Möst who conducted the Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Concert, he alluded to the relationship between the press and the Royal Family and his time as the conductor of the London Philharmonic “Look at the press about the royal family,” he noted. “There’s no other country where the press is just so weird as it is here.” That was in 1995, you can draw whatever conclusions you want from that. [Los Angeles Times: Conductor Battles Burden of Success]

Angry black woman loading…

One widely reported excerpt from Harry’s leaked book was one related to a confrontation between Prince William and him, captioned below:

Describing a confrontation at his London home in 2019, Harry says William called Meghan “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”, which Harry calls a “parrot[ing of] the press narrative” about his American wife.
[The Guardian: Prince Harry details physical attack by brother William in new book]

I do not know Meghan Markle, but as a once successful and independent woman who married into the royal family, she had her work cut out. That beast called love would put you in unintended situations for which you have to battle for your survival.

Yet, as is indicative of a monarchy at risk of being found moribund, the Queen asked her most trusted aide from a certain age and time to help Meghan adjust to entering the royal family, this without considering the same lady failed to help Lady Diana Spencer integrate well too. Yes, that Lady Susan Hussey, has met a shockwave of opprobrium and is on a crash-course on engaging with diversity in these times. Having a stiff upper lip is not enough for getting on with life, regardless of status, means, or privilege. We have long left the war years, and nostalgia is keeping us back.

However, back to William’s view of Meghan, he said, she was difficult. Well, ask any black woman who has had trouble in any settle because they have dared to have an opinion, initiative, a voice, or exuded a sense of independence. The first loaded word to castigate them is difficult and the straight journey to an impossible angry black woman has already begun. Meghan never had a chance, the moment she gained the epithet of difficult and the long tail of descriptions that followed.

Tell your own story

The difference between Prince Harry and Prince William is Prince Harry was ready to stand for his relationship, and stand up for his partner and wife. That cannot be said of how Prince William first broke up with Kate Middleton before he saw the sense to rekindle their relationship and marry her.

Blog - A welcome but unprincely separation (April 2007)

That Prince Harry has decided to tell his own story is his own prerogative, just because he is royal does not take away both his agency and his individuality. Prince Charles and Princess Diana gave primetime interviews and ghost-authored books too. In the same vein, no one is under any obligation to read his book, it is not being forced on anyone.

However, if anyone has readily consumed whatever the media has said about Harry and Meghan without disregarding the apparently cosy relationship between the press and the royal family that offers access and patronage to portray the principals in the best light whilst reducing others to inconsequence, then it would only be fair to see what Harry has to say.

Finally, until we have met those persons and made their acquaintance to the point of knowing who they are, what we have is a media persona, a depiction crafted by benevolent and malevolent agencies over which the persons concerned gain or loss benefits and have a portrayal they have little control over. Harry and Meghan have chosen to make their lives in America, and they need to earn a living with the skills, opportunities, and even the privilege of birth. I bid them Godspeed.

Nigeria: Where the afflicted have no respite being cobblestones to the comfortable

Reflections on writings before

Every once in a while, I go over some of my almost 2,500 blogs written over 11 years to check if when I have contributed to the global body of social commentary in my own small corner, whether I have expressed the best of our common humanity.

Especially as we are in the Nigerian electioneering season, I have watched with horror compounded by disgust as heretofore respected members of the press and individuals of seemingly respectable views have hitched their wagons to incredible embellishments, amazing fantasies and outright lies – Propaganda most vile.

Reflections on the times

I have tried as much as possible to ignore many of these infractions that are engendered by the struggle to survive and the willingness to rent out the conscience for a while, to the highest bidder seeing that circumstances are tough and difficult.

It is sad that people are left with no other option than to forfeit principle and honour for temporary reprieve, reputations painstakingly built over time squandered for pecuniary advantage that we are in a race to publish the lies with such fervency that the repetition of those reprehensible untruths would almost eventually begin to sound like the unassailable truth.

Reflections on our state

We are up against an entrenched establishment that has made corruption the norm that no conscience exists to moderate behaviour for the better. Impunity is the default licence of the powerful to pillage without restraint, because the system not only encourages it, but celebrates it as the sign of success and the wealthy returns of divine providence.

This has become both the inspiration and the aspiration of many, the access to great wealth without industry and to absolute power without responsibility or accountability. This is how we reward politics and politicians, the powerful and religious leaders, and the stupendously rich with no audited means wealth in Nigeria that each and every contest for electoral office or position to influence has become a fight to the death.

If not that serious, these people clog the courts with grievance, little and large, buying up legal expertise to intimidate the bench into yielding to their demands.

Reflections on comfort and affliction

In every sphere of life, we have the afflicted and the comfortable, so many of the former and a select number of the latter who vie for the spoils of the commonwealth at the expense of the afflicted without any inkling of consideration or humanity.

It is in this area from politics though religion and our broader community we find that the press, the leaders and individuals have amassed into the absurdity and hence commit the atrocity of comforting the comfortable more by afflicting the afflicted even worse.

As we stand today wondering if there still is that difficult expression of compassion in our humanity and hopefully the last breath of life in our consciences, we should ask ourselves whether in thought or in deed, in good intentions or in real actions, in silence or in expression, by omission or by commission, we comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, speaking the truth to power and bringing change that really does matter and benefit our greater humanity.

“The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Finley Peter Dunne [Wikipedia]

Will Self on The Purpose of Satire [BBC Radio Four – A Point Of View]

Opinion: Please don't call the President a liar

I cry for our journalism

Over the last few weeks, I have concentrated on managing the blogs posted to commemorate my Decade of Blogging. It does not mean there was nothing else to write about.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Now, I touch on a topic that I have covered in various ways pertaining to journalism in Nigeria, from poor copy editing, through faulty terminologies to plagiarism.

A newspaper reported yesterday that the President ‘lied’ when referencing how his off-the-cuff Christmas speech was related to the public.

The responsibility of the press

The substance of the issue is beside the point, but this goes down to one simple scenario, if the press is to inform, engage, investigate, collaborate and serve as a guardian of democracy giving voice to the people, it has to get more sophisticated with the responsibility it has to disseminate the news.

The President in terms is somewhat a divisive figure who excites passionate sycophancy to intemperate antagonism, a welcome dartboard with a big bull’s-eye for criticism that his coterie of advisors and acolytes have perfected the art of being under siege.

He is not perfect, but that does not make him a devil, and much as many may not like him and individually some might excoriate and ridicule him, the press should hold themselves to a higher standard of engagement.

In many cases, the only way we would ever get to hear the President’s views on any issue would be through newspapers that have found a way to building a reputation for cutting-edge reportage and the use of language with the finesse of nuance and the ability to convey truth and fact as objectivity as possible.

Tact and leeway in reportage

More pertinent, they should give authorities when presented with certain facts that leeway to reconsider or restate their views as each engagement sheds more light of the backstory of any issue being debated on or reported on.

To call the President a liar is seriously antagonistic and aggressively reckless, even if the accuser is in the right. It gives the President no options apart from a descent to opprobrium, disgrace and dishonour. As the person of the President is impugned the office of the President is brought into disrepute and then what respect can we accord our leadership if they are under the cosh of dishonourable conduct.

At worst, the press should have suggested the President misstated the facts or might have been wrongly briefly, in which case, the office of the President might have had the option with review what the President said and retract the reported ‘lie’ with necessarily losing face.

An unfortunate step

To confront the President with the accusation that he lied is as good as asking for his scalp, the press might have won the battle for that setting but would have lost the bigger war, the war to make the press have the necessary in-roads into the system to ensure the public are adequately informed.

However, if the press does think that resorting to ambush tactics and mob justice of the pen with a public journalistic lynching is the best approach to things, much more is expected of juvenile delinquents and this unfortunate descent into disagreeable communication would simply polarise rather than serve the greater interests of Nigeria.

Indeed, certain of the press need to act tough and appear impermeable to obsequiousness to the powerful, and separate themselves from the bought up personnel who are instruments of patronage and the wielding of influence for propaganda ends.

It does not excuse the need to tact, for finesse, for nuance, for the understated and the effective use of language in analogy or metaphor to convey serious matters without a thuggish disposition.

Retract for him to restate

I would suggest that the press retract their accusation that the President lied and restate their case with a bit of deference and allowance, it would give the President some leeway either to reinforce or restate, there evidence provided would then be weighed to determine with the truth is.

I think the word I am looking for is diplomacy and the press can use a bit of diplomatic language and still get the job done without looking like a bull set lose in a china shop. That I have to write this blog is unfortunate, but very necessary.

Editorial: Unravelling our inscrutable government processes

Hoarding essential information

Nigeria in terms is an obscure and inscrutable country especially when it comes to the government and the democracy we run.

Every once in a while we happen upon some gem of information about process, procedure or mostly the abuse of process and power of those who have assumed responsibility by hard work, graft, hook or crook but it is never freely obtainable.

The government media organs are so beholden to the powers that be that they have become propaganda tools of political potentates and their cohorts rather than disseminators of cogent information that is due the citizenry of the country.

Distracted by constitutional sleight

A case in point was when the UN Building was bombed in Abuja last month as every international media outlet was reporting in the matter, the National Television Authority was broadcasting the animist Osun festival and never got to reporting the national tragedy for hours.

The Nigerian Constitution which in terms should be the rulebook or maybe the guidebook of government and governance is as ambiguous as any interpretation will allow, where issues end up in the courts, the players obtain justice by SAN intimidation – SAN being Senior Advocate of Nigeria – any side can easily take up to 6 SANs to court as representatives, it is utterly absurd.

The cynical ploy employed by the disruptive element of the Presidential Special Adviser on New Media presenting reading the constitution as the panacea to democratic representation on Twitter is devious, disingenuous and without doubt knowingly a distraction.

We have had the Freedom of Information Act promulgated and signed but I have not seen people pick it up and use it with a vengeance, it is like once we got the Act signed that was the end as opposed to the means to an end.

No matter whose ox is gored

There are very few bold politicians or public figures who can put their heads above the parapet and simply speak out without dissimulation, from the erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo whose brutish expression is in need of a modicum of finesse to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi whose candour puts the frights in many especially the legislature when he exposed the atrocious cost of that lackadaisical cabal of blowhards.

Beyond the occasional exposé in the newpapers and the guerrilla press where proprietors risk running the gauntlet of the supine security services and thin-skinned megalomaniacs, the only other insight we have had into how we are governed has come from the US diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks.

Somehow, the US Envoy to Nigeria engaged many of the political class whose inferiority complex in being invited to dialogue was evident in their inability to keep their counsel or be discreet – never have such a mob in aggrandising themselves with a foreign ambassador skirted what would be the boundaries of treasonable felony in other countries, it is a shame but for those of us who have sifted through the WikiLeaks troves we find some interesting anomalies in how we are misgoverned and the brokers that make Nigerian literally ungovernable.

An insider giving insight

Lastly, there is Nasir El-Rufai who at one time was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory with a seat at the cabinet and for all intents and purposes an insider, a key figure in the inner sanctum of Nigerian politics.

Today, he is a member of the opposition, a somewhat strident opponent of the government with sheaves of information that the government would rather the citizenry had no inkling of and if they did, it would first have been processed by the propaganda mill that embellishes intention, misrepresents it as fact and spews out what is closer to fantastic fables.

Now, Mallam El-Rufai may not be the friend of many and there are some that are implacably opposed to the man, whatever he has to say – I for one cannot vouch for how he managed his tenure of service, I just know he was counted worthy to be asked to serve and he did his bit.

The verdict however will be down to a spectrum of perceptions from commendably excellent through rank hypocrisy to atrociously corrupt, none of which particular bothers me.

A service we should treasure

Where Mallam El-Rufai comes into his own is the incontrovertible data he is able to produce to support his opinions which could be objective, subjective or pandering to some ulterior motive.

One can so easily be distracted by all that and miss out the gems of information provided in the data and analysis – I for one think Mallam El-Rufai is providing an essential service in putting necessary data in the public domain until such a time that we can more easily find empirical data to answer questions we might have about our government structures.

It goes without saying that Nigeria does need a fact-checking service that assesses government policy and announcements for impact, truth, corroboration, propaganda peddling, vested interest, bias and so on.

Until then, we have to deal with snippets of information, tales, rumour and the crumbs of lax controls of classified material along with a few “good” men to unravel the beast of our democracy.

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

Redefining our culture with the FOI Act

This was published this morning as my first blog for the Daily Times of Nigeria under the title Redefining our culture with the FOI Act and it highlights how our culture of documentation and archiving will have to change.

A duty to all

The signing of the Freedom of Information Act 2011 by President Goodluck Jonathan has been lauded by many especially the media as a major development for Nigeria democracy.

It is however important that we do not lose the real changes that this development might bring to the Nigerian information gathering and sharing space.

There is no doubt that with this Act the media now has the duty and responsibility to seek after fact, ensure they obtain the truth, conduct intelligent and thorough analysis of data as well as strive to make our more representative democracy borne of the 2011 elections more accountable and responsive to the needs of the general populace.

Document and catalogue

This Act demands a number of changes to the way all public institutions do their business; they must fully document information about all their activities, operations and businesses, and in doing so, the information must be organised to facilitate public access.

By extension, it might mean that all written material, files, folders, records stored on various devices, cards, forms, maps, plans, graphs, charts, drawings, photographs, films, images, negatives, microfilm and much more dumped in all recesses of organisations will have to be retrieved, committed to some sort of electronic archive and catalogued, it might mean that each major department hire an archivist or librarian to handle these matters.

Along with this will come the need to properly classify the information into openly accessible public domain material and different levels of access depending on the needs for secrecy, privacy, confidentiality, importance and seriousness, though the Official Secrets Act does not provide a blanket cover for public interest material and the onus of the burden of proof is now on the public institution to justify why access to information is declined.

Efficiency and security

The 7-day limit granted by the Act to produce information requested under the Act means the cataloguing process needs to become more efficient; backlogs of requests need to be prevented so as to avoid sanctions and penalties on the officials of the public institutions.

The matter of electronic documentation also means that many of the poorly designed Internet websites, homepages and databases would need a radical revamp; it can also present the opportunity to process FOI requests through an electronic kiosk system facilitating even faster access to the information being requested.

Checks and balances would then need to be implemented to ensure that information does not get altered illegally; that information provided is not falsified or denial of access to certain bits of information are not as a result of the destruction of the same; it could be the beginning of e-government in Nigeria.

Use judiciously

The biggest responsibility that this Act confers on all Nigerians is first that of trust and then the need to verify, sources, information and detail, the need to commit to getting the whole truth whilst eschewing sensationalism, speculation and rumour.

I hope that those who use this Act will do so judiciously, without malice and with every sense of purpose for the betterment of our democracy; its abuse will only confirm the fears that kept the bill moribund for years in the legislative pipeline.

Editorial: Tenth of May 2011

Mona Lisa Philistines

There is a sense that fundamentalist religious practices today hark back to medieval times and worse in a century that we wishfully think accords equality of sexes after all the emancipation and progressive rights advocacy of the 20^th Century.

Israel is one country that is delusional with pretence suggesting their apparent Western democracy and liberal values have permeated every representation of people as portrayed by the excuse of a free media.

One picture that has had global viewing is the White House Situation Room photograph taken when Osama bin Laden was being exterminated in Pakistan.

The prominent view of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with hand over mouth and a senior female staffer standing at the back seem to have disappeared from that picture when it was published by two orthodox Jewish newspapers.

It is was a teaching time for me in that it would have been safer not to include the picture at all in the story than to allow for parallels to be drawn with another scholarly and fundamentalism group known as the Taliban.

It is argued that maintaining the chastity of women requires they may not appear in publicly viable material just as it saves the men from the lure of the lurid and sexually questionable – you will just have to view the picture as it is published.

Service must be above party

There are some to whom the newly elected President of Nigeria will not find respect, adoration, praise or deference. That is their prerogative.

The ruling party has in terms captured a majority of elective offices and that means it would take a tsunami of evidence to overturn what we can safely assume will be the de facto government for the next 4 years.

The job of running the country is not going to be an easy one and even if there is to be an opposition to the government one would hope that they are constructive, assertive and most of all reasonable.

The real concern is getting competent personnel to fill in the positions necessary to help Nigeria achieve its potential regardless of party or political affiliation. Nigeria cannot afford politicking and party recalcitrance for another four years when there is much work to be done.

Party hierarchies can continue to oppose and object as they wish but those called to the service of our dear fatherland should be allowed the privilege and given every assistance and blessing to perform to the very best of their ability and for the good of all Nigerians.

Nigeria: An analysis of that rigging document

A very fascinating document

Having just read a document, I cannot say if I should be amused, amazed, annoyed or apathetic but I am impressed with the organisational abilities of the Jonathan/Sambo presidential bid vehicle though they could do with using a spelling checker to give their scheming ways a sense of professionalism.

Sahara Reporters appears to have come into possession of what they call a rigging document which from my reading constitutes a strategy to infiltrate, persuade, cajole, compel and suborn the delegate selection process.

Introducing Mr. Fox

In a document titled The Man – Mr. Fox – a PDF file download; probably to depict cunningness and wiliness with the possibility that each dawn chicken count in your barn would have suffered a missing fowl for the table and palate of the fox, this makes quite interesting reading.

Mr. Fox is Atiku Abubakar, the vice-president during the two terms of presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999-2007 who was passed over for Umaru Yar’Adua.

This is a WikiLeaks-type scoop, a whistle-blower has revealed an internal strategy document meant to wade through the cesspool of Nigerian politics, most especially the snake-pit of the ruling party’s delegate congress, though it seems the document was exposed to Mr. Fox’s organisation who has taken the opportunity to circulate it far and wide with the hope that the President’s underhand tactics would be condemned.

And so?

I am not surprised by the content of the document, however, the fact that it has such great detail is progress in terms of planning, organisation and documentation in Nigerian terms.

Just before we rise in righteous indignation against the Jonathan/Sambo Organisation, Mr. Fox no doubt desperately wants to lead Nigeria, this document reveals enough about his person, his character and his motives to show that the exposure of this document is just as much for political advantage than for a free and fair fight to represent the ruling party as the presidential candidate.

One could well say that Mr. Fox is just as Machiavellian in his scheming but has left no smoking guns and dead bodies, but there could well be a cupboard somewhere with skeletons a mile deep.

A compendium of Nigerian politics

This is Nigerian politics, the power of the incumbency, the display, the use and abuse of power and the ability to use power to tease and persuade people to one’s side, none of which makes this right by any stretch of the imagination but it reveals how juvenile our political system is, why it is still about personalities than ideas and how the force of momentum is not created by the discussion or argument but by the herding of the crowd who are sheep needing shepherds.

It is a shame that the document does not have a table of contents or an index so you have to read through 139 pages of the stuff and really, I was left thinking what is new at the end?

Kingmakers and influence peddling

Nigeria is divvied up into constituencies of cohesive aggregation towards key figures in society who can be engaged through other political heavyweights chief amongst whom is Olusegun Obasanjo – who would have thought?

But this gives it context, people who have held power before need to maintain influence by being accorded the role of kingmaker, those who appear to have platforms in the media, in entertainment, in religion, in tradition, in business, in the states, in law enforcement, in the military and even in the judiciary need to be given the sense of proximity to power, feted at dinners, granted audiences with the President, given courtesy calls and every ego-massaging elixir to deliver their support and herds to the door of the President’s ambitions – it is a popularity contest and the one with the greatest numbers speaking up has the best chance of taking the spoils.

In the gift of the President are political appointees in key offices and rewards for those who show unswerving loyalty, patronage is paramount, Mr. Fox does have an uphill battle, he is to be annihilated at best.

The game at play

The issue then becomes whether delegates have an independence of mind to judge each candidate by their merits and potential not forgetting the murky baggage each candidate carries because none has clean hands.

There are many names in this document which might well be souls bought and sold not to talk of votes that are in the bag, money having changed hands.

It is very possible that this scheme would be extrapolated to the national polls in April 2011, I think it is a given that whoever leads the ruling party would become the next President of Nigeria, the real contest is in delegate aggregation, if the contestants are this bad, it simply means we have been dealt a really bad hand.

The picture that appeared last week of the President kneeling before a church leader for prayers and blessing is a political coup if I ever saw one and that is just one tick on Page 44.

Getting the meat out of this

In this morass, one must not miss the gems of wisdom, an understanding of the problems Nigeria is facing, actions to be taken to address them, the reasons the ruling party is losing traction in the South-West of Nigeria - the big revelation being the governors were not performing and contrasted with the governor of Lagos State they were woeful failures.

Whilst the earnest wish of the ruling party is to have quality candidates that become good governors, the grasp on power of these dead-weights has the party hamstrung; the President appears to have no choice but to support every dog in place.

If anything should be learnt from this document, it is to educate oneself about what ideas and policies these people bring to power and the decision to refuse to follow leaders just because they lead, people should ask difficult questions, seeking convincing answers, challenge the status quo and keep out of the mob, if you are in a crowd make sure it is informed, knowledgeable and continually discussing the key issues.

Be sheep no more, do not be herded like goats into the pen just because they have planned to have you penned in there.

Enjoy reading the document but put it in context.

The source

The Man – Mr. Fox [PDF download]

Nigeria: FOI Bill languishes in myopic ignorance

Breakfast at Café Beaubourg

It is quite strange that anytime I am in Paris I have my breakfast at Café Beaubourg [1] which is just beside Georges Pompidou Centre [2]. It is a bit expensive, but I take a table on the 1^st floor with a view overlooking the grounds in front of front of the centre and watch the world go by as I tuck into the grande brunch, half watching, half meditating.

I have never been in the centre ever but I bring an interest quote from Georges Pompidou who was the president of the Republic of France from 1969 to 1974 and in what smacks of republican mirth the President of French Republic is also holds the title Co-Prince of Andorra [3].

Pompidou on politicians

From the Collins Dictionary of Quotations (1995) because somehow the web had failed to document and attribute this to the man, he says, “A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of a nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.”

I must observe than when applied universally to the context of statesmanship in Nigeria, there is none of the former; all our politicians place the nation at their service.

FOI Bill going nowhere

This is exemplified in the non-passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill which has languished in the legislative and executive annals for the best part of 10 years. It was passed by the National Assembly in 2003 but the then President refused to grant his assent to the bill.

So, recently, at a World Bank Training Forum for Journalists a representative of the National Assembly Ahman Pategi (PDP/Kwara State) suggested the bill may not pass in this parliamentary term [4] which ends in 2011.

Interestingly, the chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, Farida Waziri has urged the National Assembly to speadily (sic) pass the NOI bill [5] {Come on NeXT do some proof-reading and spell-checking} suggesting the “need to put in place a conscientious system for the gathering and dissemination of information.”

She almost misses the point just as the politicians are utterly myopic if not ignorant of what an FOI bill provides. They have concentrated on the premise that the bill will give journalists untrammelled access to all sort of information most of which would expose their personal nefarious activities rather than hold them accountable to public scrutiny for the supposed service they are being paid to offer as a dividend of democracy.

Not just about journalism

Indeed, the bill was originally sponsored by representatives who were once journalists but that should hardly be the core of the bill or the root of the fears of the politicians, we already have guerrilla new agencies as Sahara Reporters [6]and PointBlankNews (Caution: Gruesome graphical content) [7] who get all that information anyhow.

People do read mainstream news channels and also review the guerrilla sites to get a general feel of what is going on, the non-passage of the bill will not stop the outrageous, sensational and downright deplorable from being published.

Editors have condemned non passage of information bill [8] with a whole range of statements expressing disappointment, but the issue is very simple.

Dummies guide to an FOI Bill

A FOI Bill requires that all official and government business be properly documented and archived in some generally accessible manner. When documented, each branch of government starting with the legislature which enacts laws of archiving and access, the executive should have a set of security classes for the documented information and levels of privilege necessary to gain access whilst the judiciary can adjudicate as to whether a request is legitimate or not.

This extends the remit of democracy where any legal citizen or interest group can request information regarding the working of our democracy which sometimes might involve activities deemed to be inimical to good governance or corrupt activities which need to be brought to light. It is definitely not a Freedom of Press Bill, which has completely different objectives.

Fear Not!

Like we are always told by our politicians when debating privacy bills, they who have nothing to hide should have nothing to fear, it goes without saying that politicians who have nothing to hide should really fear nothing of the FOI Bill, rather they should see it as another channel for making democracy more accessible to the electorate.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the Re-Branding Nigeria exercise in this context and inform the Minister of Information that if she really wants a laudable cause to bolster she ever decreasing stature and respectability, this is one bill she should latch onto and push through the National Assembly before 2011.

But, if politicians think the nation is at their service, well, we might well continue to pay them to feather their beds and self-interests as they have so successfully done all the time.

Sources

[1] Café Beaubourg

[2] Centre Pompidou - Art culture musée expositions cinémas conférences débats spectacles concerts

[3] List of Co-Princes of Andorra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] N-Assembly won’t pass FOI Bill, says Rep | Vanguard

[5] Waziri urges speady passage of FOI Bill | 234Next.com

[6] SR Headlines – Sahara Reporters

[7] Pointblanknews, just the news

[8] Editors condemn non passage of information bill | 234Next.com

Prison exults with gay abandon

Such shameful activities

Hardly two weeks ago, could one not deign to comment on the bushman savagery masquerading as press freedom and Puritanical license that pervaded the Cameroonian press as they “outed” 50 supposedly gay men in authority.

What they did was so last Century, even further, so Wildean that the importance of being earnest turned into a feeding frenzy of scavenging hyenas at their most terrible.

This comes in within the atmosphere of the seething homophobia that has lead to the Nigerian executive and legislature to devote scarce democratic goodwill to putting a radically homophobic law in the statute books.

As one commentator put it, it could be a political trap for the 2007 elections since we know that George W. Bush in 2004, carried all the swing states but one that had the gay marriage law juxtaposed with the presidential elections.

As unAfrican as being in Africa

Homosexuality is presumably unAfrican; beside the point that South Africa has laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of expressed sexuality and allows gay marriage. It calls to question which part of South Africa is not African as any other African in land, people and society.

As usual, being tarred with the brush of homosexuality is the ultimate stigma; it was used to harass the first president of Zimbabwe – Canaan Banana and the once deputy prime minister of Malaysia – Anwar Ibrahim.

For the unconscionable, it is the dirtiest tool in the bag; it would make the protagonists of the Salem witch hunts look like pansies.

Whilst our belief systems do not necessarily align, the Nigerian Humanist Movement is doing well to bring a sampling of logic into this mass hysteria.

Outing for an inning

Well, this brings the topic to the fore; as one of the “outed” ministers sued for libel and defamation of character won the action which has lead to the editor of newspaper (L'Anecdote) being sentenced to four months in prison including a fine.

There is not to be so glad about in the judgment apart from the fact that someone so harassed with an outing has successfully defended himself against the stigma and the judiciary took a supposedly objective view of the matter.

However, if the judiciary was not necessarily objective but sided with authority to teach journalists a lesson; at least many would be a bit more circumspect on matters like this.

It is necessary to arraign a press that allows the truth to suffer on the altar of sensationalism.

Accused witch becomes hunter

I would hope that there are 10 more people wrongly accused by that editor and each pursue libel action individually till all such apologies to common decency are completely banged up.

It is the only consolation for others who live in terror and the induced schizophrenia of double-lives because the tyranny of the majority is not constrained by law or precept as is duty bound by any democracy.

The need for enlightenment

Homosexuality is not a race-specific trait, the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah from which homophobia draws its most potent tonic could have been anywhere in the world; just as it was not in Europe, Africa, Asia or America.

Basic religious exegesis also views Sodom and Gomorrah in terms of them being inhospitable which could very well read as intolerant and bigoted. The Scriptures are too much of a double-edged sword to trifle with.

Homosexuality is about people everywhere and their pre-dispositions – only real enlightenment would take us out of the darkness of Puritanical intolerance.

It might well constitute part of the great emancipation of Africa into what is well and truly the Twenty-first Century, beyond famine, beyond poverty, beyond hand-outs, beyond eternal incumbency, beyond tyranny, beyond wars; beyond refugees; beyond hypocrisy, beyond intolerance and beyond plunder.

Prison suits him

If I had one anecdote for the editor, it would be the age-old derisive prison joke – never drop the bar of soap – he had better get a face lift that would win Mr Ugliest Cameroonian.

I have no sympathy for those who terrorise harmless citizens with witch hunts, if I were the prison warden the key to his cell, once occupied and locked would never be found again.

Those who deny others the comfort of civilised society deserve no freedom, liberty or safety.