Nigeria: Yar'Adua healthy from Germany with love

Rushed out to Germany again

This situation continues to baffle me, that we have a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who needs to fly out to see his private doctors in Germany anytime he has an ailment.

Someone must be telling me that in that great oil-producing nation there is nobody nor any institution with the knowledge, expertise, equipment and location to treat our President.

The situation is so damning as it is laughable and the joke is made all the more derisive when his spokesman suggests that he had an allergic reaction – is there an adrenalin nurse in the house?

I would suppose there was someone in Nigeria to administer some palliative medicine to arrest the allergic reaction whilst he travelled 7 hours on a plane to Wiesbaden in Germany see his doctor.

The real mandate to the Ministry of Health

In fact, we see the messing around that has been happening in the Ministry of Health with the fraudulent disbursement of bonuses to staff for keeping Nigeria in a disgraceful situation.

The oversight committee in the Senate does not seem to know there is a conflict of interest in taking money for junkets from an arm of the Executive when you are in the legislature – rather than having junkets in Ghana, as if Nigeria does not have team-building and bonding facilities good enough for its representatives – they should have been working on ensuring there is at least a facility of world standard that could address medical problems of our leaders.

Again, the irony and shamelessness is really not lost on anyone when the spokesman goes on to say, “There is nothing that precludes the president from seeking healthcare abroad. Even leaders in advanced countries do that.”

We have a health emergency

I am not sure Chirac, Bush, Blair, Shroeder, Koizumi, Howard, Berlusconi, Martin or Putin (That is the G8 leadership at around 2004) have ever left their countries to seek treatment when the best in their country is at their beck and call. It would be disingenuous of me to suggest that the best in Nigeria are not good enough for our President.

The spokesman however acquiesces to the feeling we all have, as he says, “I share the position that our country should be able to make travelling abroad for medicals (sic), either for the President or any other citizen, a matter of choice rather than of necessity.” He took the words out of my typing.

Then we are given the political spiel about critical challenges, access and commitment – meanwhile, Yar’Adua recuperates from Germany with love till Tuesday after a week of being away.

Do we have a health emergency? We do; the possibility of the bad luck of losing a President and Goodluck stepping in – Nigeria could not suffer worse luck – I am down on my knees with fervent supplication in sack-cloth and ashes – This should not be our lot.

The entity is Nigeria, the identity is Nigerian

Inadvertent Ambassadors

I am of the opinion that anyone who has any association with Nigeria is automatically an ambassador of Nigeria and by unfortunate commission assumes that role fully when they leave the shores of the motherland, fatherland or ‘parentland’ as you deem fit.

This is not to impose the weight of any responsibility on anyone, but if people do identify you as Nigerian, you become the source of information about the country and you are inadvertently the window into their opinion of Nigerians.

I have been in conversations where some people have had bad experiences with Nigerians and someone speaks up saying they have had Nigerian friends, salt of the earth, compassionate, responsible and very trustworthy confidants – we leave impressions everywhere we go.

Nigeria is the entity for identity

I tire of the argument that the entity called Nigeria is not representative of a people who have a common purpose; (reference to a comment on Chxta's blog) that entity has existed since 1914, there are very few people alive who can remember when Lord Lugard put together that jigsaw puzzle.

Nigerian is what we are regardless of localised affiliation; our old national anthem recognised that ‘though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand’. There is a brotherhood of Nigerians, whether you decide to belong and contribute to its development and progress is your choice.

It is time for us to move beyond the tired arguments and debates of old of which we have had not part apart from the reading of history.

Drop those old chains

I tire of the allusion to slavery when problems of Nigeria are discussed, I do not know anyone who was taken as a slave from the localities of my forebears; I had the good fortune of having a great-grand mother into my early 20s and she never did talk of anyone taken into slavery in her time – Slavery had been outlawed since 1834 in the British Empire.

I have been to Badagry to see the chains and shackles of old, I have seen Roots, but I do not intend to try out those chains and make them the symbols of my tomorrow by blaming the problems of today on a past I was never part of.

Becoming relics of the past

Nigeria has a very rich history of empires, kingdoms, conquests and defeats; we can take the lessons of our history and use those as a force to build a people of a strong heritage with a future brighter than the brightest day.

Many of us are free-born Africans but have refused to be what we are, rather we seek refuge in some hamlet mentality fearful of the next village and bound in the terror of superstitious beliefs that everyone out there is the enemy – if we cannot come together in community building we cannot move on to the greater task of nation building.

Colonised in the mind

I also tire about the tales of the effects of colonialism, Nigeria was already independent and a republic before I was born, so why should I aspire to have a colonial mentality when I was born after the country of my heritage was already the master of its own destiny.

When my father built his house, it was not built to the design of some old colonial District Officer quarters, it was built as he wanted it with his own ideas and plans as a Nigerian free to decide how he wanted things to be done, the architects, surveyors, builders and decorators, all Nigerian, were paid for their work, no slaves were employed – there was no colonial brick in that building. I do not intend to build mock-Tudor, Georgian or Jacobean either.

We deceive and delude ourselves if in the fifth decade of our independence we still think our problems are not majorly of our own doing and seek to blame them on others like Mugabe is trying to do about Zimbabwe after 28 years of destroying the good land he inherited.

You cannot choose your co-passenger

A simple analogy is this, when I book a flight, I can choose the seat I want, but I cannot decide who sits beside me. If at the end of the day I have to sit with someone for a 4-hour flight I can be all grumpy and asocial throughout and make my flight utterly miserable.

Alternatively, I can try and engage the person in conservation, something, I am wont to doing because I am something of a chatterbox; a foible, I suppose – the person either responds or doesn't.

If they do, we enrich each other's life, knowledge, experience and probably become friends; I cannot count the number of invitations I have to visit the homes of people in faraway places because of these chance meetings.

Nigeria – Our sovereign Motherland

The entity called Nigeria is the source of the identity of every Nigerian, it is time for us to accept the fact of that entity as it is and start to engage with the unknown passenger (other Nigerian) beside us in the flight (Nigeria) that we are in and work towards a unity of purpose to build Nigeria, the nation of which we are all willing or unwilling ambassadors.

When I see the Motherland of our old national anthem until 1978 and the Fatherland of the new since 1978, I wonder if the old does not capture more clearly the essence of what it is to be Nigerian and the pride we should have in our great country; that critical word seems to be missing in the new.

The new seems to be a slight rewrite of the old and though we have to live with the new, the fact is we still seek a nation where truth and justice reign, where our flag is a symbol of honour and where no man is oppressed.

The old tells us what it is to be Nigerian, the new tells us about the duty we have to make Nigeria great such that the labours of our heroes past shall never be in vain.

Arise, O Compatriots!

Reference

The two Nigerian National Anthems

Nigerian scammers will always be a minority

Those rotten Nigerians

One is saddened to read that 87 Nigerians have been arrested in Spain on suspicion of defrauding at least 1,500 in a postal and internet lottery scam.

In the light of my last blog, these are the kind of people who make our inadvertent commission of being ambassadors of Nigeria a very difficult job.

They put us in inappropriate spotlight that many who do not have an alternative identity have to try harder at proving honesty, capability, eligibility and trustworthiness.

Be smart about scams

I have received many letters saying I have been put into some lottery and I have won a prize but for me to gain access to the prize I have to pay some administration fee to some agent engaged by the lottery firm.

I do not think you have to be too smart to see that there is something fishy about such a proposition, the news story indicates thousands of these letters and emails are written in ungrammatical English.

The question would then be why a “reputable” lottery organisation would engage an unprofessional outfit to manage lottery winnings that probably would reflect badly on their enterprise.

In it to win it

My view of lotteries is simple; you have to be in it to win it, and every lottery I have won has been because I consciously entered in that competition with the hope that my numbers or ticket would come up and win the grand prize or some other prize.

Where lotteries are managed on the Internet, especially in the Netherlands, you have the option to include both your address and bank account number so any winnings go directly into your bank account without the need of an agent.

In fact, the whole scheme of this scam looks quite wrong headed, whilst the administration of winnings might be a costly exercise, informing the winner directly of their winnings should not be too cumbersome.

Most people who register in competitions have the option to opt-out of having their details passed on to agents, if a lottery firm outsources this service, one would expect that the letter or email informing a person of winnings would bear all the official hallmarks of the lottery organisation at first.

No need to pay

Then, the lottery organisation would have paid the agency to handle the winnings, the agency should not then have to charge the winner any administration fees because a percentage of the winnings should have gone to covering the cost of administration – a winner should never have to pay administration costs.

Another question is how a lottery expects to break-even if it randomly chooses non-contributing participants from an email list, I do not believe there is some bottomless cash pool somewhere where someone derives joy from giving money to unknown strangers and then requires them to pay up to get paid.

The Caribbean for one

I remember one prize I won in 1992 before the Internet was popular which was for a 1-week cruise in the Caribbean, but living in the UK I had to pay a fortune to get to the Caribbean and then probably end up as a stowaway on some pirate’s vessel.

It did not take long for me to realise I was being taken for a ride and about to be scammed, I do not do stressful lottery wins, much as a Caribbean cruise for one could never have been any fun at all, the devil is always in the detail processed by a logical brain. The same scam is now rehashed for another medium.

The logic usually does not add up, eventually, the old saying catches up on the deluded or desperate that has been cajoled into a despicable enterprise – it only takes 1 out 1,000 fools answering to make a profit.

The old saying is – A fool and his money are soon parted – if you have not expressly entered a lottery you cannot seriously expect to have won anything and you should not believe you have won anything.

We are good Nigerians

Meanwhile, shame on all those Nigerians, I do hope that the full force of the law is visited upon them and we who keep on the good side of the law continue to prove that those shameful miscreants are the exception rather than the rule.

Most Nigerians abroad are engaged in meaningful activities that build economies, communities and relationships, we who take our ambassadorial jobs seriously would not relent in being the good and exemplary Nigerian.

Nigeria: Senator frogjumps her back wall

A new interest in Nollywood

I am no particular fan of Nollywood, though in the 70s we got caught up in aspects of Bollywood and Sinowood (Bruce Lee, the noises and the kicks), neither do I watch much Hollywood, the last time I was in a cinema was just about a year ago.

I must however say that some scripts, which are inadvertently appearing as news from Nigeria, are looking like we would be getting a major blockbuster very soon starring the thespian qualities of the histrionic Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello at her most melodramatic – I am enthralled.

Senator Obasanjo-Bello happens to be the daughter of the erstwhile President of Nigeria, and it seems she is getting embroiled in every kind of shady deal, which brings the name of Nigeria and the “office” of an elected representative into disrepute.

Cleared but not really cleared

Recently, the Nigerian Senate cleared their own from culpability in the squander of funds from the Ministry of Health; she happens to be the Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Health.

We have been told that 10 million Naira was given to the Senate Committee for a junket retreat in Ghana. The Director of Administrator in the Ministry of Health, Dr. H. B. Oyedepo who has been talking to the EFCC says it was 20 million Naira – so there is a little business of searching out the real truth and why the doubling or the halving of the money.

The great and desperate escape

Anyway, the EFCC have been after the powerful senator and on a visit to her home to invite her to appreciate the comforts of the commission, news reaches us that she made for the back garden and scaled her wall to escape those menacing EFCC clutches.

The senator would contend that she is no fugitive and we are being regaled with a sob story that she is now afraid for her life.

I’ll tell you this much, if I ran to my backdoor and scaled the wall of my garden, not only would I be afraid for my life, I would be in danger of losing it with a 7-storey plunge.

I cannot believe that such a highly placed politician who has been besmirched with claims of corruption and is protesting her innocence would resort to such desperate measures usually reminiscent of illegal overstaying refugees trying to escape the capture of immigration agents.

Her father’s daughter

The senator has form and she goes on the defensive by claiming, “There's a very huge anti-Obasanjo sentiment in the country now and honestly the behaviour is not normal.”

I could almost sympathise but the truth about the matter is simple, I know that many of us hold our family names in such esteem that we would be all too reluctant to be involved in anything that would bring shame to the family.

That inclination comes from a life of honesty, rectitude, integrity and pride instilled in us by our parents, which would have been instilled in them by a culture that could not countenance the concept of being brought to shame. We hold those values dear, no matter where we are in this world, the few who stray sometimes completely lose their way and end up foul of the law.

Some of the children of President Obasanjo do not seem to have been privileged to acquire this kind of parental guidance, the Obasanjo presidential term seems to be a litany of entrenched corruption, smoke screens of fighting corruption and the complete abuse of process.

A coward exposed

The example of Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello shows that she has followed after the abuse of power rather than the desire to maintain a reputable family name, which others would do by keeping a low profile.

She now feels she is a victim of harassment; that is just so pathetic – she would make us believe she has done nothing wrong - whilst she has peddled influence with impunity and she is now reaping the results in being wanted by the anti-graft agency for a number of questionable activities. Unfortunately, daddy does not seem to be able to pull the strings to exculpate his daughter.

What is most revealing about this saga is this, having been involved in a number of shady deals and transactions; she is unable to face the music and consequences of her actions. This is typical of people who have gained power through nepotism and abuse of process such that they know nothing of the responsibility they are given and when the going gets tough they are crybaby cowards.

If this does not sound like the makings of a Nollywood thriller, I challenge you to come up with a better plot.

Nigeria: Senate safety from blame not guns

That Teflon girl

The Nigerian propensity for a junket and partying knows no limits as we hear the Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello has been let off by the Nigerian Senate.

Her Senate Committee on Health took 10 million Naira of funds off the Ministry of Health for a retreat in Ghana when that along with another 290 million Naira should have been returned to the Treasury on the orders of the President.

This is what led to the resignation of chief officers of the Ministry of Health and the unfortunately scalping of that most respected academic and healthcare professional, Professor Adenike Grange.

Rules and dues

Apparently, Senator Obasanjo-Bello broke no Senate rules which we are told tally with rules in United States and United Kingdom constitutions and because the money has already gone towards their retreat, it cannot be returned to the Nigerian purse.

The rules might tally, but in those countries, they have democratic accountability, judicial oversight and anyone who besmirches the name of the parliament or Congress by mere association would with dignity step down from a position of authority.

As all things in Nigeria, it might just end there because the culture of impunity and collegiate of banditry that props up fellow miscreants allows for all to play the same rotten game and get away with it.

We can only hope that she not yet out of the crosshairs of the EFCC because this lady has form in very many shady matters.

Gun of a chief

Meanwhile, the Senate President, Senator David Mark who might well have to go back to the electorate soon to re-contest his seat has been celebrating his 60^th birthday, troops of titled and lettered chiefs, bloated politicians and power brokers would be in tow.

The Olubadan of Ibadan had another chieftaincy title to dole out for favours yet unknown which saw the Senate President conferred with the title of Aare Onibon of Ibadan.

Aare would be the equivalent of an English peerage some sort of arch-chief, commander-in-chief or generalissimo and the Onibon part, I would suspect means he is the custodian of the guns of the city.

Anytime I hear someone has an Aare kind of title, I am always suspicious of something about to happen.

A requisite sacrifice

A mobile policeman, Sergeant Akinola Tajudeen happened to be at the ceremony to help keep order and he blows of his head accidentally at the investiture of the custodian of the guns – in Nigeria, there is more to it than meets the eye, this one almost makes one believe that one should never consign to conspiracy what can be attributed to incompetence.

There seems to be four versions of the event in the same news story, not that it matters; an unfortunate human sacrifice is as much a successful chieftaincy initiation, no questions about why a mobile policeman in a civil setting should have a gun without the safety catch on.

Olympics: I have a facial on the 8th of August

Scheduling appointments

I must have words with my calendar secretary, he has been scheduling all sorts of appointments that I am not sure I would be able to honour because of other eventualities that might arise.

I have found that I have a facial schedule; in fact, it is a full body treatment as a metrosexual aside; on the 8^th of August 2008 in the afternoon. That is not to say I have no other indulgences before then but that seems to clash with another important event that I had previously considered attending.

Regrets, regrets

My regrets to the Chinese government for not being able to attend in person the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing would be duly expressed, but the greater regret would be, if I have cucumbers over my dainty eyelids, I would not watching the opening ceremony on television either.

I would not give up a floatation tank treatment and the reflexology manipulations not to talk of the beauty treatments that would make a me surer man than me to while away precious pampering time in front of a tube – I do not have a flat-screen television yet – the one I have still works.

We are busy

Before I begin the self-flagellation of utter regret, Gordon Brown might also be down at the spa, Ban Ki-Moon seems to have booked his pedicure for the same time and George Bush is thinking maybe his pheasant shooting date might just change the course of history to make him the best President of the United States ever.

Suddenly, at the eighth second, of the eighth minute of the eighth hour in the night of the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth (It is really the ninth) year of the millennium we might all be busy doing something else but what the Chinese want us to do – watch their grand show of pretending to be a nation that has arrived on the world stage.

Learning from 1936

This time we would not be spectators of a new kind foreboding once experienced in Berlin in 1936, all is not well in China today just was all was not well in German then, one has to be discreet enough not to mention Tibet, Myanmar, Darfur or human rights within China itself, that would not be the done thing.

Ah! I have an offer at the Spa, I can visit twice in a month, and I would be back there on the 24^th of August.

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.