‘’Driving Against Traffic: Signs That Our Rulers Need Psychiatric Evaluation’'

I have extracted this piece below from a series of articles I wrote mid last year, entitled ‘’Driving Against Traffic: Signs That Our Rulers Need Psychiatric Evaluation’’. Enjoy…

OF BED REST, FOOD POISONING AND RUPTURED APPENDICITIS
When the news broke out early last week that the wife of the Nigerian president, Dame Patience Jonathan was flown abroad a week earlier in emergency air-ambulance, the web-space was a-stir with all sorts of posturing - from the rude to the malicious and to the vaguely sympathetic.
The cause was food-poisoning, probably contracted in Dubai - the new destination choice of the adventurous – that was the leading speculation. Then the hoopla took a dramatic curve when the Presidency supposedly announced that in fact the woman of timber was merely taking a deserved rest in Germany.

Less than 24 hours after, some major newspaper pointed accusing finger at a ruptured appendicitis that was earlier misdiagnosed as food poisoning. No wonder, our hospitals are not fancied by the wealthy since they can turn food poisoning to damaged appendicitis! Even as you read, no one is certain what Dame Jonathan is doing in Germany - or what ailment has temporary halted her colourful meanderings across the globe.

The dark metaphor here is a throwback to the sad last days of former President Umaru Yar’Adua when only a sprinkle of whodunits knew where he was or what ailed him. That scepter of mismanaged communication and retarded psyche of the African leader to hide everything from public eye - even the (health) status of prominent functionaries - that could have benefitted from the public’s metaphysical pool of goodwill and warm wishes.

It is a reflection of the governor’s disdain for the governed that information concerning the nonspecific, security-deficit whereabouts of elected officials and their prominent partners are hidden from the public eye. It is such clannish, voodoo-themed communication strategy that informs a presidency unwilling or afraid to reveal the true nature of the first wife’s state of health - or lack of it. Won’t it be wonderful for millions of Nigerians to spend few minutes each day to pray for the quick recovery of Dame Jonathan – after all, she is one of us, whatever arguments we enlist in defence of our differences.

Okada Bad! BRF ‘Badder’!!

 Nowadays, in Lagos, Nigeria, the simple most politically correct statement is that Okada is bad business; surely the Okada menace is real. 
Without disputing that position, let us put in a parallel position: should a government also be ‘bad’ to deal with a bad situation. If common thugs storm the road to villainy with scant regard for law and order; should law enforcers be encouraged to effect ’ jungle justice’ on the unruly crowd, even for the sake of creating a peaceful and orderly society?

Whichever way we look at it, the Lagos State government’s drive to rein in the seemingly lawless and dangerous antics of Okada (commercial motorcycle) riders in the state would ordinarily commend itself to reasonable people. The rightness of government’s vision is unassailable. After all, lives are sacrosanct - a little detail that Okada riders appear reluctant to worry about.

Several people have died, many more have been maimed; homes and dreams destroyed by the wanton recklessness of these riders. Admittedly, even the Okada riders also post self-destroying high casualty figures in these deadly statistics.

What more, the manner and method many of these Okada riders operate their unbalanced machines suggest they either have a death-wish before coming to Lagos with a target to kill as many Lagosians as possible; or they ignorantly assume a veneer of indestructibility - though statistics at orthopedic hospitals and bone-setting centers all over Lagos put a lie to their foolish fantasies.

Yet on the menace of the Okadas, their cup is certainly full: they have no regard for traffic rules. They carry a gruelling distaste for motorists and pedestrians. The beast in the average Okada rider is unleashed when he has a brush with a motorist - it doesn’t matter whether the car driver is right or wrong. Within few minutes of such a minor scrape, the scene of accident is speedily overtaken by tens and tens of ‘’solidarizing’’ Okada riders, seeking instant reprieve for their colleague. If the ill-fated motorist is not wise enough to ‘shush’ the fast-developing dilemma, he will be a victim of brutal ‘justice’ where the raging Okada assembly acts as judge, lawyer, law-enforcer and insurance company!

Sadly, the checklist of Okada riders’ atrocities is long, untidy and provocative. They are a difficult sector to hold brief for; yet the bastard child in a family of blue bloods, is still at the very least a member of the family, a fellow human being.

My argument is not in any way supportive of the reported criminal actions of some Okada riders who allegedly destroyed some of the state’s popular BRT buses. And as a consequence of these foolish acts of destroying public properties, the state House of Assembly is reportedly weighing the possibility of a blanket ban of Okada as means of commercial transportation.

Of course, no government will fold its hands as a small section of its thriving populace takes the law into its own hands and basically ‘levy war’ against the majority. Destroying public infrastructure and endangering lives of fellow citizens while expressing pecuniary interest in a private enterprise should never be condoned. The Okada riders have dragged their own case from bad to worse. You cannot take an ‘opponent’ to court and still engage in self-help. It beggars reason that someone being nominated for sacrificial burning now goes around town looking for petrol.

Now, to the government of Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN (BRF). The sanctimonious attitude of the Lagos powers-that-be would have been acceptable if conditions precedent to the establishment of the Traffic Laws of Lagos State were conducive for expanding and integrating transportation system. Of course we know that Rome was not built in a day; the same reason why Okada cannot be wished off our streets with a flick of the hands.

What do you call a government whose response to affront against its law is not only to confiscate offending private property worth over 100,000 naira each - and subsequently announce that 3,000 of those motorbikes have been crushed! Why crush 300million naira worth of private enterprise just to institute compliance? Is that not the same disease eating up the fabric of our social and political landscape? - Impunity!?

Apparently, in answering that question their own way, aggrieved Okada riders thoughtlessly descended on government property in retaliatory indiscretion. Foolish as that action is, the activities and vision of the government in dealing with the menace of Okada riders suggest that our rulers don’t understand participatory politics, in spite of their paper qualification and exposure.

We are told to go to Igbobi (National Orthopedic Hospital) and see the grim reaper Okada has become. That is true. But we can also tell Fashola to go around Lagos at night time without security escorts, and see how vagabonds, rapists, thugs and armed robbers run amok, killing and maiming and robbing the innocent at will.

Of course the finger can conveniently be pointed at Fashola for instigating the recent wave of criminal activities around Lagos State on account of his mindless anti-people posturing and policies … such as the demolition of shanties without even inadequate rehabilitation to marginally compensate evictees for the almost sudden deprivation of shelter. The gleeful mass destruction of thousands of motorcycles belonging to road ’terrorists’ is not exactly a creative way of tackling the menace.

When you want the people on your side in the pursuit of public law and order, a government should find a way to manage such a critical sub-sector in way that the same public will not turn against their hardworking government. It is not by a flick of the wand you remind people that trekking several kilometers to work or to poorly designated bus stops serviced inadequately by a bus service barely able to move around less than a third of the teeming population of Lagos. To a people fed on and bashed by ‘Danfo’ and ‘Okada’ for several years as their only means of transportation to now be denounced for encouraging Okadas as the blight on the antiseptic clean landscape of Lagos is taking governance to ‘Kegite’ level.

The level of infrastructural decay is soul-dampening, and while Okadas merely scratch the surface of moving Lagosians (now I refer to residents of the state, the one BRF is praying will wake up, smell the coffee, and flee to their villages) from one spot to another.

Based on the prohibition of Okadas from 475 roads and highways, and its attendant crises, it is easy to see that BRF wanted to completely eradicate Okadas from Lagos State. The health, security, law and order, commercial and aesthetic issues involved in the Okada challenge lend support to the need for such a vision to become real in a developing mega-city. So, I have to agree that Okada is ‘’bad business’’ but government should not be ‘’badder’’ superintendent in actualizing such visions.

Even when you want to wage a war on behalf of your people, it is perhaps useful to throw in a dose of patience, perseverance, clarity of purpose, steadiness of goals and the overall benefit of the largest chunk of your people – these tendencies should condition the actions and utterances of war generals.

How much less mere servants of the people whose tenure and legitimacy should be at the pleasure of the vast majority of the people. On account of these and many acts of this administration, has BRF done enough to earn another term, if he were to run for a third term and if such were possible? The answer, as they say, is in the air.

Femi Akintunde-Johnson, Writer, Journalist and Author can also be reached at: fajswhatnots@yahoo.com

A Nation Shamed By Seething Madness

The hearts of true patriots across the globe go towards the families, friends and acquaintances of the 46 young souls wickedly executed in Mubi, Adamawa State on October 1, 2012 for reasons yet unclear; and the ill-fated UNIPORT Four hacked and lynched over alleged stealing of telephone sets and/or laptops (on October 5, 2012). We cry as a nation diminished by these unjustifiable and devilish actions; a people traumatized by cascades of heinous devastation and butchery all across our blood-drenched landscapes. We totter from one devastating incident to another – a situation made more terrifying by the apparent helplessness of our helmsmen.

 

While we mourn with those who mourn, we should never trivialize the deaths of these young people and many others cut down in their prime all across the killing fields of Nigeria, by growing silent in our anguish and sweeping the very horrible acts under the carpets of public amnesia and indifference. We must all raise our voices, stoke the fire of ceaseless agitation and protests until the wicked perpetrators of these brazen murders are exposed, prosecuted and dutifully visited with the full weight of the law.

 

Beyond the gang of evil men that supervised the two killings, we must investigate the roles played by law-enforcement personnel, the so-called vigilantes and Aluu communal ring of admiring onlookers. Every participant in the Port Harcourt horror should be thoroughly interrogated and dealt with appropriately. While the grieving students of Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, and the University of Port Harcourt are prevailed upon to moderate their sorrows with the words of China’s most famous philosopher and political theorist, Confucius: ‘’We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.’’

 

The rate and coldness at which extra-legal hurricane justice is spreading across the lands give impression that our rulers have lost control of the ship of state…just as all have become their own local governments (providing for self almost all basic amenities that define fair living standard), the Nigerian people appear to now want to be their own police force, military brigade and such units of coercion and repulsion. In a land where the government makes itself look like an uncaring, bungling road-side mechanic, the people (unled and unaccountable) do as if they have a right to take spanners and hammers to knock anyone out of existence.

 

Our people must not allow the atrocious conditions and seeming hopelessness of living in Nigeria to lure them into swapping their humanity and innate goodness with dark wickedness and malevolence. We must not surrender to the encroaching breeze of poverty and disillusionment in such a manner that we now have no qualms murdering and strangulating our children, friends and neighbours at the faintest excuses. No manner of crime, no level of official complicity, no resentment or provocation adequately justify inflicting instant jungle justice on one another without due process of fair hearing, independent appraisal and the whole gamut of the rule of law. We are not murderers; we are not anarchists; we are not terrorists (even in spite of the brutal efforts of Boko Haram); we cannot therefore afford to add bloody names to our long list of inglorious ‘achievements’ in the global village.

 

The ‘government of the people’ must start to sleep less and protect the people more proactively, both the rich and the poor. Nigeria must no go on like a giant mistake that cannot be corrected.

 

By Femi Akintunde-Johnson (Writer, Journalist & Author)

Contact: fajswhatnots@yahoo.com

 

 

My Predictions for 2015… Beware of 2013! (part 2)

Here are few reasons why I believe our political leaders will not learn from history, and are therefore frantically preparing their own ignominious ending – a mere footnote in the political history of Nigeria.

STATE OF THE NIGERIAN STATE

To the chagrin of only few Nigerians (because we are very few indeed who still believe anything the government of Nigeria says or promises), Prof. Barth Nnaji’s stentorian pledge to make power (electricity) a near stable commodity in 2012 is likely to remain a mirage even a year before the next election (2014). Frankly, by that election he would have been long removed, and at least two others after him would have been disgraced from office in desperate haste to beat the magical 2015. Obviously, unforeseen security calamities would not be a good enough excuse not to provide stable power after trillions of naira frittered over the past 10 years.

The ongoing charade over the investigation and prosecution of oil subsidy fraudsters and the re-probe of complicit Fuel Subsidy probers will peter out in shameless cloud of incoherence and political compromises. And as we are regaled with the diverse strands of dramatic departures and extensions from the main issues of fuel subsidy over-payment or non-payment or non-existence, the farce will deteriorate to such a stage that it will no longer worry them to discontinue the entire embarrassment, and dig up another scandal to entertain the gullible and irritate the conscientious.

Inflammatory statements and condescending declarations from the highest quarters will flow freely in the two years preceding the 2015 elections that will infuriate Nigerians but amuse and astound the democratic world. When the President of your Senate contemplates muffling voices of dissent on a global information highway, and wags fingers at apparently rude remarks of angry and oppressed citizens as if warning roast-beef hawkers on the rickety highways to Otukpo… you must shudder at what our politicians still have up their sleeves.

There used to be a period in our national life that we proudly declared certain obscenities witnessed in some banana African, Asian or Caribbean countries of the 70’s and 80’s could never happen in the largest black nation on earth. We have since perished such infantile outbursts. That was then! We have tumbled down from that delusion. Was it not in our presence, that a state governor walked into an auditorium to swear-in new permanent secretaries; yet strolling in beside him was one of the new appointees, Nigeria’s very Own, Africa’s leading First Lady, the venerable Dame Patience Jonathan? Two hours after her “mates” had sat patiently waiting for the governor (ostensibly kept waiting by the new super secretary who had to snatch herself away from graver national duty in Abuja to make the ‘maritime’ ceremony). And we used to generously deride Uganda, Lesotho, Burundi, Bahrain, Panama, Libya, Tunisia and such enclaves where primordial insanity appeared to have gazumped national self-restraint and rule of law. Guess who the same people are laughing at now?

Without doubt, the ongoing scandals rocking the legislators and MDA’s are mere flakes; barely escaping the protective eyes of rollicking grand-daddies of corruption (or perhaps they were deliberately thrown in the air to bring some recalcitrant devotees into subjugation). Surely, we shall all live to witness greater and sadder disclosures of more repulsive scandals, frauds, looting of recovered loots and overt back-stabbing in high places!

All these activities of unbridled wastage, unrestrained gluttony, indecent pilfering of the public treasure will only last for a little while, as Karmic eruptions are bound to express themselves as from 2013, when, as usual in Nigeria, corruption will shoot itself in the feet, and tumble fantastically on account of its ungainly and unbalanced weight.

These scenarios aforementioned are nonetheless exhaustive. Our atmosphere is riddled with unsubstantiated litany of criminality and perfidy against the people and their treasury. Who will confirm our fear? Who will ascertain the veracity of our doubts? Who will arrest the arrogant sponsors of state power? In a corrupt twist of faith, moneyed friends of powerful politicians are conducting sting operations to deflect our attention and burst our bubbles over pretentions of crusaders who appear to be fighting for the people but are indeed lining their own caps with gains of subterfuge.

The people of Nigeria understand and appreciate their searingly hopeless situation. They often find vain refuge under such idiomatic canopy like: ‘’the unlucky tail-less cow must depend on divine assistance to repel attacks of flies’’. They can feel, and have for many years lived with the arrogance and petulance of astonishingly corrupt politicians calling each other names and enrobing one another in derogatory apparels on national television - only to rollick together at nightly confluence of cake-sharing rituals. Yes, we know of their grandstanding, we know of their stinking wealth and unrestrained obesity fuelled by ill-gotten riches… such was the case of a certain powerful politician, Alhaji Umaru Dikko, who in 1982 swaggered and trampled all over our consciences in untrammeled pomposity. He was too powerful to be checked by the supine President; too connected to be challenged by constituted authorities; too street-smart to be outflanked by the troublesome intelligentsia. But by the end of 1983, he had vanished into the Britannic air - his feathers in tatters, his profligacy a tale told in rebellious shanties by the same people he violently dehumanized both by his withering words and self-serving actions… the pompous politician barely escaped cratal deportation in 1984. And so on and so forth.

As we look towards 2015, our current leaders need to avert the approaching disaster, not by paying professional weepers to fast and pray in our numberless mosques and churches; not by paying titles and building more churches and mosques. Sending people on pilgrimages and feeding thousands of beggars after Jumaat prayers will not cut the ice.... Our leaders must, within the next two years, take a paradigm twist away from this sickening dancing on one spot - they must identify the immediate needs of the people… deliver immediate palliatives and erect a long-lasting superstructure to erase the people’s pains and devastation.

Our leaders should avoid the sort of leadership provided by Governor Babatunde Fashola (of Lagos State) who will destroy marine shanties of Makoko area of Lagos State, where people have dwelled for decades. Without suitably decent alternatives, he wiped out their quarters and left them high and dry on the low seas. What sort of political leadership is that? A state where government officials daily assail the airwaves, threatening hard-working Nigerians with one penal knock or the other, and in failure to comply, should leave ‘’their’’ state for ‘’them’’. What sort of democratic dividends is that?

Our leaders now throw bric-a-bracs of shame at each other… a party whose notable member, the Lagos State speaker, is embroiled in despicable allegations of massive fraud, could find it convenient to demand for the resignation of another party’s leader whose child was acting true to type ( he was recently arraigned for fuel-subsidy fraud). Or the Imo state governor whose itchy hands sacked opposition chairmen of local government councils on the premise that the election that gave them mandate was obtained in spite of a court order which halted the conduct of that election. And the governor was later told by a superior court that since he was not the bailiff authorized to execute court orders, the chairmen should be reinstated. Yet the unfazed governor wondered aloud recently why the court could not see that he was only promoting peace and maintaining the rule of law!

If such maladies are allowed to become prevalent and overwhelming - driving out sense and decency from the streets. Then, of course, their bastard brothers (anarchy and irreverence) will over-run the streets of Nigeria; and our wish for a successful transition in 2015, will remain just that… a wish.

But to my fellow country men and women, let me encourage you to remain steadfast and do not condescend to the inglorious levels of your corrupt leaders. Many people, especially well-known politicians and their strategists, believe they have you in their palms; that they can manipulate you as they want… that they made you vote for GEJ and not PDP in the South West, and can “do” and “undo” as the case may be. I strongly believe that their day of reckoning is fast approaching, when confirmed riggers, forgers, fraudsters, drug addicts and such low-esteemed drivels occupying the heights of our politics would be soundly demystified and their caps thrown into the mud of undisguised defeat and dislocation. The time is fast approaching when thrones that refuse to clean its palaces will be ravaged and despoiled. Then truth, decency and merit will stand and rule firm and respectable.

While we await the glorious days when Nigeria can boast with pride and wit again, I recommend you crunch on this vigorous statement delivered by a leading member of The Zikist Movement in a 1948 lecture (The Age of Positive Action). Mallam Habib Abdallah exclaimed:

“I hate the Union Jack with all my heart because it divides the people wherever it goes… it is a symbol of persecution, of domination, a symbol of exploitation… of brutality… we have passed the age of petition… age of resolution… the age of diplomacy. This is the age of action – plain, blunt and positive action”.

Note: In place of “Union Jack” you can affix any name that represents to you a current source of irritation or despair.

As they say in my side of town: let the house rats holler to the bush rodents… Beware of 2013, oh thou corrupt politicians… there is perhaps wisdom in wistfulness.

Femi Akintunde-Johnson is a Writer, Journalist & Author. Contact: fajswhatnots@yahoo.com

My Predictions for 2015… Beware of 2013!

Let me quickly introduce myself: I’m not a clairvoyant, a prophet or a seer. I however do believe that if things remain as they are (and there is nothing in the past 30 years to indicate that we will change for the better, or even resist the temptation to over-reach ourselves), my predictions have a good chance of coming true.

  The following are the scenarios I believe may occur before the year 2015 - “the great anxiousness” when Nigeria is expected internally to change government through an improved national election (by incurable optimists), and externally when we are supposed to self-annihilate (according to prophets of doom).

  My predictions are of course predicated on the obvious facts of our current existence, and really do not take much intelligence to articulate that the consequence of the ongoing actions, inaction and serial perfidy of politicians and public officials can only mean one thing: near total collapse of all democratic and state structures.

  For those who understand their history, and appreciate the influence of numbers in the natural order inevitability, figures matter. They really do matter. Crunch these for instance…in Nigeria, our fate appears to be intertwined with figure ‘3’ in every decade, even long before our 1960 independence. Not in the mould of being the third largest economy in Africa. No, rather in a more draconian way - we tend to unravel politically around that number, and then spiral into series of bungling and fumbling mis-steps and misadventure; which over several decades have prevented us from progressing speedily and sensibly as a nation, in spite of the quality of our human resources and the quantity of God’s deposits upon our soil.

 If in 1953, the Nigerian politicians had positively received Chief Anthony Enahoro’s call for “a primary political objective (for) the attainment of self-government for Nigeria in 1956”, we would have embraced a fairly more Nigerian constitution rather than the Lyttleton contraption of 1954; and Nigeria would have been independent four years before she did in 1960. We would have avoided the Kano Riots of 1953, precipitated by deep ethnic and partisan divisions within the polity. We missed that chance; and were reduced subsequently by sundry setbacks.

  The post-independence ego crisis between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Samuel Ladoke Akintola led to the Western Region crisis of 1962/1963, and of course all the intrigues, skirmishes and conflicts were the harbinger of the first military coup in 1966. Though, something good came out of 1963, the Mid- Western region was created in spite of prevailing agitation in the west that it was more of back-stabbing castration from the eastern and northern governments. On August 12, 1963, the Mid-Western Region was born. Nigeria also received her republican status on October 1, 1963.

  The blight of the first set of indigenous political leadership reared its head essentially from 1963 in preparation for the 1964 Federal general elections - a fool-hardy, self-serving politicking that completely ignored the prevalent dangerous tension and anger in the land. But the real detonator for the Wild West’s ''Operation Wetie'' fiasco was the dubiously arranged Regional elections of 1965. Its vitriolic over-flow swept in the military adventurers. More importantly, the unreasonable weakness and confounding indecision of the Tafawa Balewa-led Federal government to deal decisively with bare-faced hooliganism and lawlessness in the western region persuaded the coupists that the politicians had no clue on how to rule their rich country. Does that sound like a déjà vu?

 

However, after surviving a couple of quick-fire coups and a mindless civil war, Nigeria sort of straddled into some peacefulness. But about 1973, the young Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, strangely began to drop hints of amnesia concerning his hand-over date and programme.  He was no longer sure if Nigerians needed civilian rule any longer. That indolence bought him a bloodless palace coup in 1975.

And in fits and bounds, we staggered on until 1983, when the putrid cup of purposeless politicians came crashing down with the rude entrance of the Buhari/Idiagbon bloodless intervention. The military’s return was arguably excusable because of the bastardization of politics and demonization of honesty in the conduct of public affairs. In a now usual climate, a prostrate president appeared clueless while his subordinates traversed the entire country looting public till and flaunting their perfidy across the national countenance with despicable impunity – and all the while, Nigeria drifted about in rudderless and meaningless meanderings. Déjà vu?

1993 brought out the big lie in our much-vaunted claim of the giant of Africa, as rulers of that period driven by their Lilliputian sense of self-importance and inordinate grab and greed for power, truncated what, until then, was our best attempt at national political transition. The only profit we derived from the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election, truth be said, was a great and incessant devastation on the body polity and psyche of the nation… a dull pall from which we are yet to unfurl.

 Of course, we also remember 2003 and its emblematic presidential election, internationally regarded as the worst election ever organized by any human society. The fissures of that election will take political anatomists many years to correctly and fittingly dissect and categorize for edification of the next generation.

 

On these precepts, let us proceed in streams that we are now familiar with….

  My major fear is that the government of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) appears to be working furiously to breathe life into the lurking demons that potentially may rule the coming year, 2013. The cold, disparaging realities of 2011/2012  as expressed in great revelations of incredible larceny and gargantuan pilferage indicate that the cup of our current political actors is aiming for a  resounding crash in the two years leading up to the 2015 elections.

As it is necessary in matters predictive, the elements of cause and effect is pronounced and self-evident… therefore, we may say if thus and thus are allowed to emerge or continue, then such and such may occur or intrude. The possibilities for reinvention are vast, and incidentally opportunities for success are largely dependent on the will and desire of political actors to follow the honorable and responsible path. We basically choose how we want this present political drama to terminate. But enough of putative generalities… now to brass-tacks.

If the President and his cabinet, the incumbent legislators and state governments across the board do not revert from their current “I-don’t-give-a-damn” posturing, and they continue to do little or no work, and take unsightly remunerations; if they continue to transfer national wealth to private accounts with scant regard for retribution; if they continue to caress indicted thieves and cavort with determined criminals… the year 2013 is a potent number that may herald tremors and terrors that will suffocate corrupt leadership and up-end despotic do-little mandarins who purport to be selfless stewards of our commonwealth.

   

As predictions go, there is no absolute in this crystal ball. There is nothing to show that a change of heart and a reversal from current insensitive directions may prevent untoward consequences.

However, deeply ingrained traditions and human predilection for selective amnesia may lull the current political players to underestimate the inevitability of centrifugal forces that have plagued this nation right from the first Lagos election of 1923.

TO BE CONCLUDED

By Femi Akintunde-Johnson

(Writer, Journalist & Author)

Contact: fajswhatnots@yahoo.com

At All Saints’ Church, Yaba's 80th Founder's Day - Part 2

Each of the other 16 spiritual fathers of the Church is consciously annotated, reflecting and dissecting their respective tenures. Beyond the Super Canons, some priests also stood out. I note with amazement, the personality and talents of Rev. Richard Vidal Earnshaw-Smith (1965-1966); obviously a foreigner (though his origin is not indicated), he apparently was a stunning speaker of the Yoruba language, especially “with the skilful use of proverbs which had profound implication”. The book offers one example that had me scratching my head – as did most of his Yoruba contemporaries. Earnshaw-Smith (most likely a Caucasian) once brought a particular Synod meeting unto silence with these introductory words: “Eyin agbaagba, mo kii yin. Se eyin naa le so wipe, A kii moo gun, moo te, ki isu ewura ma l’emo – meaning: Elders, I salute you. You are the ones who say that no matter how accomplished one is at pounding yam, water-yam, when pounded, will always have lumps”.

His meaning was hardly ambiguous. His personal interactions with Lagosians (mostly Yoruba) bore this uncommon earthiness and rigorous desire to empathize and connect deeply with his people.

But the chapter is not all effusive, or non-critical reverence. Since frailties are what truly make us humans, one or two of the vicars sometimes painted shades of anomy, however inadvertently. Rev. S.S.O. Sodipe (1987 – 1989) is recognized as a gifted teacher and a thorough Anglican, his challenge in interpersonal relationship appears to have under-whelming ramification on his ministry, apart from his partial disability.

In brave diplomatese, the book grumbles lightly (on page 68): “Many parishioners did not fully appreciate the good work of this man. He nevertheless silently but effectively, improved the spiritual life of this Church.”

We also recognize the adventuresome nature of Rev. A.A. Akinade (1991-1994) who sought practical baptismal experience for his wards beyond the precincts of the Church, and found a brook in Ketu he used for baptism by immersion.

And lastly, Rev. Yinka Olumide (1960-1961) was innovative and selfless, but was “blunt almost to the point of discomfort, and spared no one whom he believed could put God’s work in jeopardy, regardless of that person’s status.”

The longest chapter (89 pages) is also the most bibliographic; it’s called “Societies and Organizations”. To underline its importance, the chapter lies in the middle of the book, reminding us that these over 32 associations are indeed the spine of All Saints’ Church, Yaba.

 In all my years of study, I have never come across such vitality, patience and enthusiasm in collating, welding and establishing a plethora of human activities with clearly laid down objectives, tables of registered members (the old, the dead, the living, the leading and the following). Though it’s obvious the societies wrote each of their own part in the history of this Church as evidenced by the passion and ambition dripping all over the pieces, the editors of these sundry divergent materials must have invested hours of tedious and meticulous gate-keeping exercise to sustain some order and timbre in the language, style, syntax and lexicon adopted for the book. On most counts, they have succeeded.

Few pointers nonetheless reveal the widespread difficulties of the editors’ herculean task. More than 90% of the chronology of the societies is in a particular order – using maturity to serially arrange them. Except for the last four society which appear as products of over-sight.

The first society, Men’s Auxiliary Association was founded seven years into the life of the Church in 1939 and listed above Young Men Christian Association (YMCA) of 1943. Yet the last four include groups with disparate dates of origin like Ladies Friendly Society (1978), the Ladies Workers’ Union (the oldest female society, in 1944), the Association of Jerusalem Pilgrims (2009) and then Christian Pioneers’ Society (1984).  

We may equally have to clarify if one of the venerable pioneers, CWB Sawyer is the same as the leading choirmaster, CWB Savage on page 183.

                                                            

However, it is salutary to note that this kind of work that attempts to record human activities and achievements in documentary format can only be a work in progress – as long as humanity sustains and procreates, this book will continue to witness additions,  reversions, corrections and embellishments. It is on this premise, that I advise that the section on YMCA should be reviewed to indicate that it came to All  Saints in 1943, about 99 years (in this same June) after it was first mooted by a Londoner, George Williams (1844). Please, take your cue from the correct attribution of the Boy’s Scout Movement on page 100.

We also need to reconcile the correct owner of the slogan; “Show the Light” between Men’s Christian Circle (MCC, 1979) on page 131 and Torch Bearers Society (1984) of page 141.

Still on lapses: a magical pronoun pokes its head on page 49 beside Revd. Hunter; then, “had never heard of” on page 65 can do with a simple “ever’. And this: Earnshaw-Smith died on November 20, 1969, and the Trust Fund instituted in his honour at Immanuel College, Ibadan could only have been after his demise, yet the book, on page 66, says “even though he had already left a year earlier, in October, 1966”.

As earlier stated, more work needs to be done in updating and enriching the book in subsequent editions. For instance, Egbe Imole whose picture appears on page 229 marking her 40^th anniversary suggests there is/was a Yoruba society after the formation of Egbe Ife Olorun (1946). And a tiny caption slip peeps at us on page 233 (YMCA picture).

As a whole, I find the chapter extraordinary in the assemblage of names, officials and sundry attainments and activities. To neutrals, it looks as if the entire membership of the Church in the last 80 years has been squeezed into this monumental book.

Chapters six to ten deal essentially with structures and main-frames of the Church – Parish Church Council, the Service Units. Evangelical Ministry, Children’s Sunday School and The Saints magazine. In amazing reservoir of intellectual perspective and high sense of occasion, all persons, personages, actors (including children) figures and ordinances that gave birth to, and have sustained those aforementioned operations and administrations, are efficiently labeled and documented. The language of recollection is civil and simple – even bordering on the reverent. Contributions in seemingly routine activities and unheralded gestures are generously splashed across the canvass of time, for contemporary Christianity not merely to admire and revere – but to remind us that the passions for the things of God are recognizable, codifiable and rewardable, before our very eyes.

The concluding chapters (Historical Pictures, Harvest In Retrospect and Epilogue) bounce across 17 pages, panting at the storms of emotions and spirituality that have gone far behind.

For the avoidance of doubt, “The Journey So Far At 80” is not a scholarly tomb. Though historical in motivation and pedagogic in delivery, the prevailing sentiment around the book is a passionate desire to equip the succeeding generations with tools forged in undiluted hardwork, non-conceited communal love, irrepressibly keen sense of brotherhood and absolute joyful trust in the God Almighty.

The book, sensibly legible in deference to adult readership, provokes all who read it to take a bite from the bread baked by His Lordship, the Rt. Revd. Adebayo Akinde on page 8: “It is hoped that (more recent parishioners and the present generation) would be able to relate with the evolution of the Church, the growth and her mission to be home to all who sincerely seek God, desire a warm Christian fellowship and worship, end-time harvester of lost souls, committed good stewards of God’s resources who long to see that Christ’s Kingdom is established and His will is done on earth”.

It is equally true that the stock of humanity gains and soars in robust knowledge when it is exposed to intellectual helpings, most especially scrapped from the grip of history and the ashes of death. Such is the potential and power of this book, even as the future awaits further amendment and enlargement.

Let me leave you with this statement from this cynical fellow often noted for poking graceful jibes at the Anglicans. Ambrose Gwinett Bierce defines every Christian’s most cherished word thus: “Everlasting, adjective; Lasting forever. It is with no small diffidence that I venture to offer this brief and elementary definition, for I am not unaware of the existence of a bulky volume by a sometime Bishop of Worcester, entitled “A Partial Definition of the Word ‘Everlasting’ as used in the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures”. His book was once esteemed, and still is, I understand, studied with pleasure to the mind and profit to the souls". (A. G. Bierce, born June 24, 1842).

In truth, I concur, “The Journey So Far At 80” will give “pleasure to the mind and profit to the souls” of all who come across it.

Thank you.

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

(Author and Journalist)

FELA: He Was Here!

AS TODAY, AUGUST 2, MARKS 15 YEARS SINCE THE LEGEND DEPARTED, WE CELEBRATE HIS PASSAGE, HIS MESSAGE AND HIS PERSONAGE...

FELA LIVES ON...IN THE FERMA OF OUR MATTER... HERE'S IS MY TRIBUTE PUBLISED ON THE VERY DAY HE WAS BURIED AT TAFAWA BALEWA SQUARE IN TUMULTOUS ATMOSPHERE BEFFITING A BENEVOLENT UNIVERSAL EMPEROR...

He was not immodest; he just had to say it as he felt it. You might wish to block your ears to escape the predilection of the weak-hearted. Even before death destroyed, when the mere thought of the great passage claimed the sanity of less endowed men; one of the world's most illustrious beings, Olufela AnikuIapo Kuti challenged death. He chose a name, the established idiom of primary human inter-relationship; and told the world in dear terms what his name stood for: "He who emanates greatness (Fela), who has control over death (Anikulapo) and who cannot be killed by man (Kuti)".

  Those who love Fela will spend precious moments eulogizing his irrepressible courage in the face of official braggadocio, his unbelievable stamina in spite of cold and barbaric attacks from soulless soldiers; his irreverent disparagement of religious pretences which have turned the souls of Nigerians to helpless sponge of unpredictability. They go on and on about the pungency of his lyrics; the asceticism of his yabis; the finesse of his masterful compositions, the surrealism of his arcane religious beliefs.

  And that is not all of Fela. Because he is a living being, a particularly assertive, domineering and unabashedly principled being; he has a legion of detractors, professional opponents and sworn enemies - only surpassed by his legion of fans and millions of silent envious admirers.

  Therefore, it will not be a strange occurrence, even if the conclusion is strange, to "see" the other picture of Fela which his avowed 'opponents' would paint. To them, he is incurably addictive to contraband substances of all sorts. His commune and music provoke unnecessary rebellion and waywardness in ordinarily obedient and normal young souls. His courage and logic are misplaced, misapplied and misinformed; that confrontations with higher authorities, in spite of the latter's corrosive corruption, have been divinely discountenanced by the holy books. So who is a man to challenge such entities?

  That Fela is paganistic and a consummate atavist whose grating realism has been deactivated by an undue exposure to evil doctrines and occultic societies. They can go on and on vouching for the sanctity of their beliefs.

  But the two camps will be compelled to arrive at a joint decision - that FELA is Africa's most colourful artiste. That Fela is the voice of the oppressed: chanting, ranting, grumbling and forever carpeting the incredible excesses and corruption of Africa's depraved leadership. All the big, mean rulers got the flip of his tongue: Bedel Bokassa, Mobutu Sese Seko, Said Barre, Olusegun Obasanjo, Yakubu Gowon, Idi Amin, etc.

  Today, as Fela is buried, Nigeria will tremble - sorrow, tears and blood will flow. It will be in character. As Fela himself reminded us: that is the "regular trademark" of the African situation -  especially the Nigerian environment. Nigerians, who grunted and dallied to honour their own son, while the world poured encomiums and love on him while alive, will today shed crocodile tears of immeasurable affection. The media, even those who could not stand Fela's abrasive outspokenness, would write their fingers white with layers and pages of empty eulogies and profane celebration.

  Even the government, a past-master of uncoordinated state burials, will suck the glowing drops of international exposure today's burial of Africa's creative magnum opus will attract. But this is the same government which hastened his death, which destroyed his wealth, which antagonized his ideas and almost vanquished his soul.

  And the uncontrollable flow of the down-trodden, the trodden and the untrod would mill around the Tafawa Balewa Square, venue of the lying-in-state, moaning, crying, postulating, lamenting and virtually crippling the roads and soul of Lagos. Yet, these are the same souls Fela had battled to infiltrate and activate, to become conscious and committed so they could lift his crusade beyond lyricism to street activism. The people failed Fela, bowing to the greater fear of pain, loss, poverty and imprisonment.

  In envy at Fela's courage and vision, and their embarrassing lack of such, the people gaped at Fela's tribulations on their behalf; sneered at Fela's antics and vituperations; chuckled at Fela's yabis and reformative anecdotes - but they lost him.

  Fela struggled to bring himself and his vision down to the level of the ordinary Africans; to be able to motivate them and thus recreate a continent of progressive malcontents. But his people refused to follow his lead; they ran into the safety of career building and property acquisition. They vanished into the semi-darkness of religious "salvation" - surrendering their tomorrow to no one in particular.            

  Even the few that heeded, were booed, stigmatized and ostracized. In no time, the focus changed for the strong breed: they were forced to redirect their rebellion. The emerging malcontents were pushed to a revivalist vision: to confront societal norms and obeisance; instead of converging into a force powerful enough to change society, change governments and their irresponsibility.

  Fela's message got lost, and trivialities were elevated to diffuse his impact and crusade. Thick hairs were planted in the earlobes of young souls. Priorities were misplaced or lost entirely; force replaced logic with barbarism. Even Nigerian musicians did not understand the equation of Fela's essence. For two or three years, the umbrella body of the musicians, Performing Musicians Employers Association of Nigeria (FMEAN) cajoled, begged and hassled Fela to attend their Nigerian Music Awards (NMA) to receive, in person, his Afrobeat Music Award! Of course, he refused and lambasted them.

  Unfortunately, it never occurred to them then, that Fela that was so well-loved and admired all over Europe and the Americas, deserved much more than a miserly award in a category of music genre he single-handedly created! What is the pungency or relevance of Mariam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and, even Manu Debango, to their national ideals? They all fled their broiling countries, throwing jibes and glove-laced punches at the terrors at home from the safety of distances. Fela confronted the ogres at his own backyard - and withstood the consequences - for 25 years!

  Today, Fela is buried. Tomorrow, his children will start the unofficial mourning. But forever, his legend, myth and music will flow and flourish.