Memories serve to remind us of past experiences and to warn or caution us on what to look out for or what to avoid in order not to repeat past unpleasant event or to take advantage of opportunities. Sometimes our memories fail us to the extent that we have to go through unnecessary hassle again. At order times, memories serves to the effect that we escape painful repercussion or consequences. Which ever has been the case; lessons are taught and learnt by all for the benefit of mankind. If don’t mind, let us share some of our childhood experiences for a start.
We all run errands for our parents, elders and guardians while young. I was sent on one such errand one day when fortune gave me one vast substantial smile. I was going and playing with a ball of orange when I caught a glimpse of a round shinning metal object on the ground. What could that be on a grass land in a bush path? On the impulse of the moment I dashed back to satisfy my curiosity and … what did I see? Holy Moses!! Dear readers, I found a sparking coin of one shilling, the equivalent of today’s 20 kobo in a world of my own without a soul around to contest it with me. I was beside myself in joy and tucked it right deep down in my knickers inner pocket. I immediately resolved never to disclose my find to anyone. I lost count of how many times I touched or felt my pocket to make sure the coin did not disappear or get missing. You must know the effect of this catch on my psyche, but so you can appreciate it, let us convert this one shilling to its correct purchasing value. One shilling contains twelve pence and one penny was enough to buy one loaf of bread, several balls of beans cake, two sticks of pencil or two pieces of eraser. It was such a large sum of money for a teenager!
At a stage, I was afraid that if I was found with the money, I could be accused of stealing, but I also feared that my guardian will take if from me if I told him. To be on the safe side, I informed a friend of mine with whom I spent the money for a long period of time. My friend was faithful as he too did not let it known to anyone. We had a wonderful time devouring one shilling! Did you call it twenty kobo? I doubt if that denomination is in circulation today and if it is, it cannot buy anything, not even a stick of matches.
Not long after that, my friend and I embarked on a hunting expedition looking for lost coins. We combed all the known bush paths, alleys and crannies without luck, not knowing that punishment awaited us at home. As we got home, we could not account for our absence for such a long time as we refused to disclose our mission surveying the entire village. We were not only beaten, we served all manner of punishment including compulsory fasting as we were denied of food for the whole day. Such is the reward of fortune hunting that proved entirely fruitless and frustrating; who did we have to blame except ourselves! If this experience is our and unpleasant, there was another one with a tinge of sadism to it which we brought on ourselves on one unfortunate day. While still young, I hate to remember that day although I now recall it not only with nostalgia but also for the lesson of life it teaches. On one fateful day, my friend and I were going to school and I said to him that if I should find one pound on our way, I would buy a bicycle and buy trousers and shirts. My friend demanded to know how much I would give him and I replied that since it was my money, I would give him one shilling. He demands for five shillings, as he reasoned, because we would not have to share it with anyone else since we were just two.
I told him the last time I found one shilling, we spent it together and when we both went on hunting binge looking for lost money, we found nothing probably due to his bad luck; therefore, I reserved the right to give him just any amount out of my one pound. He felt insulted that I accused him of bad luck and swore that if I did not give the five shillings he demanded, he would not allow me to spend the money. I felt challenged and wondered how someone would stop me from spending my own money. I replied him that ten of him could not stop me from spending my money. I cannot remember what next he said but we engaged ourselves in a wrestling match in which we floored each other in the mud, rolling in the marsh as if have a rollicking dream on one’s bed.
By the time we were separated, we looked like swine emerging from a marshy swim and it dawned on us that we were supposed to be going to or be at school. Now as dirty as we were, we dared not show up at school, not even when we were too late. To return home was also a big problem as we would have to explain to our parents how and why we got so enmeshed in mud. This mutual dilemma forced us to reason together again to device an alibi or some reasons to account for the humiliating dirty appearance. We were to lie that one of us fell into a pit on our way to school and the other was drawn into the pit by the weight of the one in a rescue attempt. However, the story sounded incredible even to our own ears, not only for the many questions that would throw up, but also for the fact that there is no pit enroute to our school into which anyone could fall. Not being very inventful liars, we ran short of lies and we concluded we had no option than to go home and tell the truth to our parents. Now, several punishments awaited us immediately: one for the fight we fought, two, for our school uniforms which we dirtied, and for our failure to go to school. Again, we would still face the penalty for our absence at school for that day and this by the school authorities, and we did.
To think that we brought this entire ordeal upon ourselves over the sum of one pound (today’s two naira) which was never lost or found is a study in juvenile delinquency and wishful pastime. When my father asked me what I thought would be the feeling of the person who lost the one shilling I found and spent so lavishly, I had no answer. He also asked how I would feel if I lost the one pound over which I was fighting my friend, on the sharing formula, I could not imagine my sense of loss. My dream of buying a bicycle ended in a punch up and a wrestling match that put to shame the Sumo brand of the martial art.
In retrospect, I am happy I was punished both at home by my father and at school by my teacher over a crime which may be described as covetous rascality. Imagine that I spared no thought for the person who lost the one shilling I found or the loss to the person whose one pound would be lost and found, but was already seeing the bicycle I was going to buy with it. If you think all these happened because we were children, then I will tell you that adults also build monumental castles in the air, with more devastating consequences.
In the build up to the just concluded general election, many candidates were upbeat in their hope to win and become senators, governors and president. As aspirants, they were already enjoying the honourary titles of Honourables, Distinguished, His Excellency etc and their top aides were carrying themselves as senior special assistants or ministers. Making promises during campaign runs came easy to them since none of the promises is well thought out and so, need not be fulfilled. Some of them became so arrogant and presumptuous you would think they have been in those offices already. They no longer see themselves as one of us and have translated themselves to a higher world, just by imagination of having won an election that has not been held!
In the aftermath of their dismal failure and electoral misfortunes, they literally get insane with rage and begin to issue libelous press statements full of insinuations, innuendoes and incitement, all of which serves to encourage the ordinary citizens to go on rampage over an election that was never won by their masters. What do we do to a former Head of State, member of the Council of State and a three – time presidential candidate if he is found guilty of inciting his followers to riot? How do we make him pay for the death of hundreds of citizens, billions of property and the general tension and disunity his inordinate ambition has generated? Stripping him of his membership of the Council may not be a sufficient punishment for this heinous crime, especially since he has proved so unrepentant, unremorseful as to be daring the president to arrest him. If he is allowed to go scot free, he will remain with the feeling of being untouchable and may even embark on a more sinister venture in future. Meanwhile, someone should tell him to withdraw those home made bombs with his operatives from our streets as an interim minimum and mandatory requirement, until justice is done!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
The President We Deserve
The President We Deserve
By Sam Onimisi
No Vice President or Acting President can claim to have the power needed to act decisively on crucial issues with national ramifications, given the fact or reality that he is on the hot seat on a temporary basis. President Goodluck Jonathan found himself in such a precarious situation when he had to walk on tight rope so as not to hurt some feelings or step on powerful toes. He had to endure the humiliation meted to him by the powerful cabal left behind by the sickly President Umaru Yar’Adua, shortly before being evacuated to a Saudi Arabian hospital. Even when he was made President, he was all too conscious of the fact that he became so on the doctrine of necessity, a legal framework that is as fragile as a frail. What more, his natural humility never allowed him to act presumptuously and so, he managed to wage through the last one year as President – a time when more bombs exploded in unlikely places, only next to the number of bombs used during the Civil War.
For his undisguised humility and non-vindictive outlook, various shades of political opinion became unanimous in their admiration for and their adoption of President Jonathan as a Pan- Nigerian candidate. A record of 46 political parties either aligned with or adopted him as their candidate and their widow’s mite contributed in no small way in his electoral victory. Thus, his success at the polls cut across the six geo-political zones and endorsed by most ethnic groups and religious faiths in good but varying degrees or proportion. Perhaps this is why the post –election protest was restricted to mainly one geo-political zone (the North West) and about three states in another zone (the North East). Even in those seemingly unfriendly zones or states, President Jonathan won the mandatory 25% votes to make his mandate truly national and unmistakable.
Now, the April 16 presidential election has invested President Goodluck Jonathan with the people’s mandate for the next four years, beginning from 29th May 2011. Aside from the normal precaution necessary in decision – making process, the fear of stepping on toes must now disappear for good. The election has exposed some individuals who hitherto, constituted themselves to a cult of untouchables with some air of power and authority as if they could sway the electorate one way or the other. Those individuals lost their wards in the election and so, were demystified as godfathers. They are no more in position to hold the President hostage to their personal or group interest; it means that the President need not defer to them except when it is absolutely right or necessary. The encumbrance they constituted has now been removed by the national mandate given to the president by the people.
The President should not now hamstring himself by being besotted to any cabal or power-bloc or power-brokers that are known to act only on selfish interest. Having worked with many aides when he was Vice President or acting President, he should have known what it means to work with people without vision, aides whose purpose in office is the prestige the office confers on them, rather than what they can do for the President to make his burden lighter. Every dead weight among his aides should not be retained on sentimental ground. The rule of law must now be given a freer reign, and this is an area where President Jonathan has a sparkling record. What needed to be added is that no time must now be wasted in bringing culprits to justice if the rule of law is to become part of our political culture.
The President Nigeria deserve is one who is disposed to exploring all options to political stability and economic development rather than maintaining the status quo even when it retards and has proven unhelpful. Our President must be one who is at home with the facts of our plurality and ever ready to honour, harness and husband it for a true federation of equity, justice and fair play – not in sanctimonious words, but in strenuous deeds. In the dynamism of an ethnic polyglot such as Nigeria, especially given the challenges of the 21st century, it will be puerile to assume that certain issues are given or no – go areas and therefore, unworthy of consideration. For example, no one must pretend that we have had an electoral reform, whether on the basis of the 2010 / 2011 amendments to the Electoral Act or even the relatively above average performance of the INEC. It is not all the time we will have a Professor Jega whose word is his bond. Institutional changes and structural reforms are needed if we must have a peaceful transition from one regime to another by democratic mechanism. The Legislature has not been helpful or useful in the quest to have a workable electoral system, given the many undemocratic and self – serving amendments and clauses added or injected to the 1999 constitution and the 2011 Electoral Act. In view of this fact, the President must be prepared to engage the National Assembly by proposing necessary reversal of such retrogressive amendments or by proposing laws that will replace them – without fear of vindictive impeachment.
As a matter of utmost urgency, and in other to avert a slide into disintegration, the Nigerian President we deserve is one who will initiate a national dialogue untainted and unhindered by existing institutions of state, with a view of making a Constitution that is best suited to our heterogeneity. To assume that the 1999 constitution as amended is a good law is, to carry pretence beyond reason; this is because we have had twelve years of uninterrupted operation of this constitution and our collective experience has proved that it is altogether unprofitable. Any constitution which fails to address the causes and effects of ethno – religious wars, and which has no anti-dote to Boko Haram, Maitatsine, the Tala Kato, the MENDS, the Taliban or Al-Quieda and their subsidiary gangsters. Any constitution that allows stolen income to be invested in public enterprise or permit private citizen to acquire public property at ridiculously low price; or which fails to verify the ownership of property for effective and adequate taxation for development. What is the value of a constitution which purports to regulate inter – group relations but grants no right to self given constitution? A true federal system such as the United States of America is a multi – constitutional polity and yet, we lie and pretend to be operating the American Presidential system but without its component of federalism. Even an angel from above will fail woefully in any attempt to run our unitary system as it is. Our President is not an angel and never pretends to be and so, should be interested in the desired constitutional reform. We had a haughty know – it – all President whose so – called National Political Reform Conference was a monumental disaster as it ended in a fiasco. He also instituted a Local Government Reform Committee which destroyed the local council system instead. Even the amiable President Umar Musa Yar’Auda failed to deliver on his electoral reform promise, even though death snatched him away before he could be accused of failure. I am sure our dear President is not unaware of all these and the need to avoid a repeat of such failures, or to move the country away from rot and stagnation.
The mandate given to President Goodluck Jonathan is not for a four – years turn of the Niger Delta or the Ijaw Nationality even if his origin embodies both. It is not given in order to appease ultra – conservatives who have entrenched but undeserved advantages to preserve. The mandate is not just to keep the peace, maintain tranquility, or law and order as any imposter can do. It is not a mandate of the PDP, by the PDP and of the PDP alone. The President with our mandate must dare, question and challenge those factors, issues and people who wants to keep Nigeria down in the Dark Age. We have hopefully voted for and mandated President Goodluck Jonathan to lead Nigeria to the comity of great and respected countries known for justice, productivity and progressive policies. We deserve no less!
By Sam Onimisi
No Vice President or Acting President can claim to have the power needed to act decisively on crucial issues with national ramifications, given the fact or reality that he is on the hot seat on a temporary basis. President Goodluck Jonathan found himself in such a precarious situation when he had to walk on tight rope so as not to hurt some feelings or step on powerful toes. He had to endure the humiliation meted to him by the powerful cabal left behind by the sickly President Umaru Yar’Adua, shortly before being evacuated to a Saudi Arabian hospital. Even when he was made President, he was all too conscious of the fact that he became so on the doctrine of necessity, a legal framework that is as fragile as a frail. What more, his natural humility never allowed him to act presumptuously and so, he managed to wage through the last one year as President – a time when more bombs exploded in unlikely places, only next to the number of bombs used during the Civil War.
For his undisguised humility and non-vindictive outlook, various shades of political opinion became unanimous in their admiration for and their adoption of President Jonathan as a Pan- Nigerian candidate. A record of 46 political parties either aligned with or adopted him as their candidate and their widow’s mite contributed in no small way in his electoral victory. Thus, his success at the polls cut across the six geo-political zones and endorsed by most ethnic groups and religious faiths in good but varying degrees or proportion. Perhaps this is why the post –election protest was restricted to mainly one geo-political zone (the North West) and about three states in another zone (the North East). Even in those seemingly unfriendly zones or states, President Jonathan won the mandatory 25% votes to make his mandate truly national and unmistakable.
Now, the April 16 presidential election has invested President Goodluck Jonathan with the people’s mandate for the next four years, beginning from 29th May 2011. Aside from the normal precaution necessary in decision – making process, the fear of stepping on toes must now disappear for good. The election has exposed some individuals who hitherto, constituted themselves to a cult of untouchables with some air of power and authority as if they could sway the electorate one way or the other. Those individuals lost their wards in the election and so, were demystified as godfathers. They are no more in position to hold the President hostage to their personal or group interest; it means that the President need not defer to them except when it is absolutely right or necessary. The encumbrance they constituted has now been removed by the national mandate given to the president by the people.
The President should not now hamstring himself by being besotted to any cabal or power-bloc or power-brokers that are known to act only on selfish interest. Having worked with many aides when he was Vice President or acting President, he should have known what it means to work with people without vision, aides whose purpose in office is the prestige the office confers on them, rather than what they can do for the President to make his burden lighter. Every dead weight among his aides should not be retained on sentimental ground. The rule of law must now be given a freer reign, and this is an area where President Jonathan has a sparkling record. What needed to be added is that no time must now be wasted in bringing culprits to justice if the rule of law is to become part of our political culture.
The President Nigeria deserve is one who is disposed to exploring all options to political stability and economic development rather than maintaining the status quo even when it retards and has proven unhelpful. Our President must be one who is at home with the facts of our plurality and ever ready to honour, harness and husband it for a true federation of equity, justice and fair play – not in sanctimonious words, but in strenuous deeds. In the dynamism of an ethnic polyglot such as Nigeria, especially given the challenges of the 21st century, it will be puerile to assume that certain issues are given or no – go areas and therefore, unworthy of consideration. For example, no one must pretend that we have had an electoral reform, whether on the basis of the 2010 / 2011 amendments to the Electoral Act or even the relatively above average performance of the INEC. It is not all the time we will have a Professor Jega whose word is his bond. Institutional changes and structural reforms are needed if we must have a peaceful transition from one regime to another by democratic mechanism. The Legislature has not been helpful or useful in the quest to have a workable electoral system, given the many undemocratic and self – serving amendments and clauses added or injected to the 1999 constitution and the 2011 Electoral Act. In view of this fact, the President must be prepared to engage the National Assembly by proposing necessary reversal of such retrogressive amendments or by proposing laws that will replace them – without fear of vindictive impeachment.
As a matter of utmost urgency, and in other to avert a slide into disintegration, the Nigerian President we deserve is one who will initiate a national dialogue untainted and unhindered by existing institutions of state, with a view of making a Constitution that is best suited to our heterogeneity. To assume that the 1999 constitution as amended is a good law is, to carry pretence beyond reason; this is because we have had twelve years of uninterrupted operation of this constitution and our collective experience has proved that it is altogether unprofitable. Any constitution which fails to address the causes and effects of ethno – religious wars, and which has no anti-dote to Boko Haram, Maitatsine, the Tala Kato, the MENDS, the Taliban or Al-Quieda and their subsidiary gangsters. Any constitution that allows stolen income to be invested in public enterprise or permit private citizen to acquire public property at ridiculously low price; or which fails to verify the ownership of property for effective and adequate taxation for development. What is the value of a constitution which purports to regulate inter – group relations but grants no right to self given constitution? A true federal system such as the United States of America is a multi – constitutional polity and yet, we lie and pretend to be operating the American Presidential system but without its component of federalism. Even an angel from above will fail woefully in any attempt to run our unitary system as it is. Our President is not an angel and never pretends to be and so, should be interested in the desired constitutional reform. We had a haughty know – it – all President whose so – called National Political Reform Conference was a monumental disaster as it ended in a fiasco. He also instituted a Local Government Reform Committee which destroyed the local council system instead. Even the amiable President Umar Musa Yar’Auda failed to deliver on his electoral reform promise, even though death snatched him away before he could be accused of failure. I am sure our dear President is not unaware of all these and the need to avoid a repeat of such failures, or to move the country away from rot and stagnation.
The mandate given to President Goodluck Jonathan is not for a four – years turn of the Niger Delta or the Ijaw Nationality even if his origin embodies both. It is not given in order to appease ultra – conservatives who have entrenched but undeserved advantages to preserve. The mandate is not just to keep the peace, maintain tranquility, or law and order as any imposter can do. It is not a mandate of the PDP, by the PDP and of the PDP alone. The President with our mandate must dare, question and challenge those factors, issues and people who wants to keep Nigeria down in the Dark Age. We have hopefully voted for and mandated President Goodluck Jonathan to lead Nigeria to the comity of great and respected countries known for justice, productivity and progressive policies. We deserve no less!
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