CCUDD

Part Four: Dutch Signs

2011-11-06T12:02:00.001-08:00

My article on Radio Netherlands Worldwide this week is on Dutch signs. Here:

Part Three: Dutch Endangered Species

2011-10-30T01:26:00.000-07:00

My article on Radio Netherlands Worldwide this week is not on Dutch doctors or lunch. It's about something far more serious. Here.

Part Two: Dutch Lunch

2011-10-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

My article this week on Radio Netherlands Worldwide is on Dutch Lunch. Enjoy it here.

Back in Holland

2011-10-16T02:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am back in Holland. Every Friday, for the next eight weeks or so, Radio Netherlands Worldwide will publish my short articles on their website. I write short pieces on my experiences in the Netherlands. Here is the first: http://www.rnw.nl/africa/article/africans-going-dutch-part-one-dutch-doctor

An Accident in the Waiting

2011-06-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

A few days to the General Elections held in April 2011, a miracle happened all over Nigeria: there was remarkable increase in electricity supply everywhere including the villages. Many streets were hurriedly lit and there were lights in Ibadan on roads that end in the bush. Many roads were hurriedly patched. Garbage heaps were cleared regularly in Ibadan for almost one whole week. Elections have gone and life is back to (ab)normal. Darkness has returned to most parts, and many can’t find kerosene to buy. Was any voter by government’s hurried ‘window dressing’? I doubt it. Meanwhile, I spotted this electric pole a few kilometres outside Ibadan yesterday.This is a sure sign that the elections are over. This pole will have to wait till 2015 when another round of elections will hopefully hold. Or—it will get government attention if (I pray not) it electrocutes a few influential people. It's an accident in the waiting! But who cares?

Beer's Tower at Ibadan

2011-06-24T06:09:00.000-07:00

If you went to Ibadan, you would know that the City of Brown Roofs is distinguished in many ways: the city spreads on and on and on with neither end nor pattern; the roofs are indeed red-brown with sparkles of other colours here and there. Also, you would notice that there is refuse everywhere you turn--as much refuse as you want. Pace-setter town, Ibadan houses the first Nigerian university, the first TV station in sub-Saharan Africa, a national museum, the national archives and many more.

But few tourists visit these landmark places. Why? Ibadan does not need a tourist centre because the entire town is one big tourist fascination. Many people visit Bower's Tower in Ibadan, a colonial legacy that allows you to see a huge part of Ibadan and then conclude that you haven't seen a quarter of it. My friend and I visited Bower's Tower recently and were unhappy with the sight (especially the stench and the refuse on the way to the Tower). Bent on impressing my friend, I took him to another Tower which I call Beer's Tower--salute to Nigerians' creativity!

How on earth do they get to the top of this?

WHAT IS A VOTE WORTH IN NIGERIA?

2011-05-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

The just-concluded Nigeria general elections were described by many local and foreign observers as largely free, fair and credible. In the history of Nigeria, it comes second to the June 12, 1993 election which was annulled. But the April 2011 polls were not perfect. An area that interested me was the buying and selling of votes. Some purchases were made before the day of the election; some right as voters walked to their polling booths; others right on the grounds on the polling centre. Individual votes were sold; block votes were also sold—such monies being offered to community leaders who promise to ‘deliver’ their community. How much really was a vote worth?

A market woman in Saki, Oyo State: "They gave us N500 each (about $2). The first time, we got the money before we voted...and then we did not vote for them. This time, they showed us the money and said 'Go and vote for us first'".

A driver in Oyo, Oyo State: “They gave us N200 and said we must swear that Ogun [fiery god of iron] should kill us if we did not vote for them. I said because of only N200?”

A plumber in Ibadan: "PDP people gave N500 but ACN said they had no money but good plan for our future. We then took PDP money. I voted for ACCORD. My friends, I don't know whose they did, but we did not vote for PDP. But ACN too gave money, maybe N200".

A housewife in Eruwa, Oyo State: "They gave us coal pot [Worth about $3] and matches"

A female librarian in Ibadan, Oyo State: "They gave me gele" [Head tie, worth about $4]

A civil servant in Makurdi, Benue State: "PDP gave a module of rice, three cubes of maggi (seasoning)."

A retired driver in Igboora, Oyo State: “PDP brought 30 Bajaj to Igboora for ward leaders” [A Bajaj is a made-in-China motorcycle, worth about $700]

A university student in Ibadan: “They gave our Hall a flat-screen plasma TV set, a decoder. But people said you want us to fail exams; that’s why you’re bringing these now. Too late. We won’t vote for you”

How much was a vote worth? It depended on who was buying the vote. PDP offered the highest in most places. This should not surprise anyone—PDP has unlimited access to state resources. It also depended on whose vote is being bought ... community rulers got much more money than ordinary citizens! Student leaders got more than students. Halls of residence got more than human beings! Well, Nigerians have become different—maybe wiser. They take the money from everyone and vote for the person of their choice. Some turned down the money. A student hall of residence refused the gifts outright.

Victory on the Wings of Hatred

2011-04-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

We just had a real blood-pressure-raising election in Oyo State, Nigeria. Mysteries! Everyone wondered how the incumbent governor who was so strongly despised by so many people was so sure he would win. His confidence was extremely intimidating. His loss in that election was greeted with tremendous applause by people from all shades of opinion. I haven't seen such jubilation since the days of Obama's victory. But the victory of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) rode on the wings of the hatred which most people had for the incumbent governor. The votes were mainly protest votes. In a newspaper article published today, I advised the governor-elect, Mr Abiola Ajimobi to be wise in interpreting his victory. To read the article, click here.

Faces of the Post-Election Murderers

2011-04-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

In the last past four days, I have received reports of woes and worries from Northern Nigeria. From family, friends and colleagues, the story is the same: armed youths are burning houses, hacking down Christians, southerners and northerners who did not support or vote for former military dictator, Muhammadu Buhari. In Minna, Niger state, 50 Christian youth corp members were locked up in the Nigerian Christian Corpers Fellowship House and the house was set ablaze! These corp members are just fresh from the university.

But look at the faces of those doing the actual killing and burning ... They are very young teenagers who weren't even old enough to have voted. These are Almajiri beggars who are on Islamic and Arabic training. Without father or mother, without education or skills, without any chance of a meaningful today or hope of a bright future...they feed on leftovers and from garbage. It is thus easy to see why their lives and the lives of others mean nothing to them. You can't reason with them. They know very little, speak only Hausa and understand very little. To put it very charitably, the Almajiri is a creature who has been denied the right to become a real human being.

The Almajiri system of Arabic schooling has been described as deplorable. Yet, it cannot be controlled or abrogated. It provides a ready army of hungry and idle youths to politicians and religious fanatics bent on blood letting.

I hate this thought but it keeps popping up: In 2005, US Sub Saharan Intelligence Analysts and Futurologists predicted the possibility of the collapse of the Nigerian state within 15 years. Click here for the report of the analysts/futurologists. Fifteen years from 2005! Is anyone doing the math? If by 2015, Jonathan clinches a second term, we can only be sure of a worse massacre in the North. Maybe the process by which we may kiss Green-White-Green bye will then begin! Did anyone hear the call for a Sovereign National Conference in the papers? Maybe it's indeed time for Nigerians to sit and talk about Nigeria.

Speaker Dimeji Bankole--a Different Kind of Loser?

2011-04-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

Mr Dimeji Bankole was Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives at Abuja for four years beginning from 2007. He thus was the longest serving speaker since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999. A young man with degrees from Ivy League universities, Bankole was model to many young people. His persecution by the governor of his state who saw his popularity as a threat and by the (former) Behemoth of Nigerian politics, Mr Olusegun Obasanjo only helped boosted his popularity. But Bankole also misbehaved several times and shocked Nigerians. During the Ekiti State re-run, Bankole openly sang a song: ‘We who deployed Mobile Police (MOPOL) to rig the last elections will now deploy soldiers’. This open declaration of war on the electorate was unfortunate. For once, Bankole, darling of many Nigerian young men, forgot what he stood for.

But Dimeji Bankole soon regained his consciousness. In the election that was conducted on Saturday 9 March, 2011, Bankole who contested on the platform of the hitherto invincible People's Democracy Party, was badly defeated. He lost his re-election bid by over 5,000 votes [ACN - William Samuel 28,490; PDP - Oladimeji Bankole 23,103]. Bankole lost the election but won something more important. Within hours of the counting of the votes, Mr Bankole was quoted as saying that "the result showed the wishes of the people". He conceded defeat!

Conceding defeat is extremely strange on the political scene in Nigeria. It is normal for politicians in Nigeria to spill bad blood when they lose. Bankole’s PDP suffered grave losses in the elections and before we wake up, the papers will be filled with cries of blue murder! Is Dimeji Bankole an exception? Maybe. For now, I'd say he lost the elections but recovered something—some of the refinement he brought from Reading and Havard which he had discarded for a long while.

Nigerian Electoral Violence--New Victims on the List

2011-03-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

As the 2011 General Elections draw near, the spate of violence has also increased. Lives are lost and property destroyed. But all of that is familiar story. A new dimension is war on billboards and posters. It seems the saying is "if you can't reach the neck of the candidate [to cut it off], reach her/his billboards". [Billboard belonging to Mr Rasheed Ladoja, former governor of Oyo State, allegedly torn down by supporters of his former deputy, current governor and governorship candidate, Mr A. Alao-Akala] In Nigeria, it costs about N250,000 (about $1,650) to erect a billboard. In my state, where pupils in government schools receive lessons sitting on bare floors in the sun or in un-roofed classrooms, that is a lot of money. That will roof a four-room block of classrooms or provide furniture for 250 pulpils. And it is important to note that politicians in power spend government money on their campaigns. There is no difference between a governor's purse and state purse. See more pictures below. [Billboard belonging to Mr. A. Alao-Akala allegedly torched by supporters of one of his opponents, Mr R. Ladoja or Mr A. Ajimobi] [Billboard belonging to a member of the Oyo State House of Assembly, also ripped.] I spoke with a few party loyalists. You can predict their position: "We didn't start it. They first tore our billboard. We merely responded". [Billboard completely ripped.] What do Nigerians think? Nigerians would be much happier if the only things that were ripped, torched or destroyed were billboards, and if heads, limbs, houses and cars are spared! "This is okay", an elderly man told me. "If this is all they cut, it is their problem. Let them stop cutting people's legs or destroying innocent people's car. No one will complain". Yemisi Pedro, an undergraduate student of environmental engineering thought differently. According to her, "if we cost the environmental hazards and depletion caused by this behaviour, we would be very sorry for ourselves and our future. The more you destroy these things, the more manufacturers have to manufacture; the more raw materials are used up and resources are depleted. And when you burn them to destroy them or to dispose of them, you're just burning our fragile ozone layer". I think when we combine the cost of destroyed property and lives with the environmental hazards mentioned by Pedro, we will realise that democracy is indeed very costly in Nigeria.

Are Tunisia and Egypt Headed for Nigeria?

2011-02-06T08:47:00.001-08:00

Besides regular change of political leaders, one other commonly held properties of development is that it is accompanied by neoliberal policies--free market. With a long leap of faith, pundits and academics sugggest that a free market policy will attract foreign investors and thereby, promote economic development. Democracy is therefore believed to come with development. These assumptions have been challenged by the growth of Japan and China which are so-called non-democratic countries. But that has been no reason to doubt the desirablity of democracy.

As I listened to the rhetoric of anti- (and pro-)government protesters in Egypt and Tunisia, I heard echoes of our own protests against the military in the decade before 1999. Expressions such as "rented crowd" "pro-democracy groups" "pro-government protests" "militant media" etc remind one of the struggles for democracy in Nigeria. In a sense, we can say Egypt (in spite of itself) and Tunisia are where Nigeria was about two decades ago. And that is true as far as periodic elections are concerned.

Tunisia was ruled by Ben Ali for 23 years and Egypt by Mubarak for 30 years. Nigeria has been a democracy with regular change of leadership for 12 years now. But do Tunisia and Egypt really desire to be where Nigeria is? Acccording to MDG Monitor (An Initiative of the UN), both Tunisia and Egypt are far ahead of Nigeria in terms of development. In terms of Human Development Index, Nigeria ranks 159th of 177 countries but Tunisia ranks 87 and Egypt 111st. Life expectancy at birth in Nigeria is 46.6 years; in Egypt it is 69.8 while in Tunisia it is 73 years. In spite of their lack of democracy, Tunisians still live far longer than Nigerians! Over 70% of Nigerians live below poverty line, that is they live on less than $1.5 daily. In Egypt, such people form only 3.1%; in Tunisia it is 2.0%. About 97% of Egyptian and Tunis children are enrolled in primary schools but in Nigeria only 65% of children are enrolled in schools. In all respects, these non-democratic countries are far better in development terms than Nigeria.

Is democracy anti-development, therefore? Maybe not. However, democracy, in Nigeria at least, has been an extremely expensive venture. One batch of corrupt and selfish leaders is replaced by another just different only in its greater commitment to self-enrichment. Each leader is surrounded by a swarm of assistants, personal assistants, special assistants and a private army. The outcry by the Governor of Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was that 25% of the nation's budget is consumed by the National Assembly. About 500 people share 25% of what is meant for 150million people. Yet this is a democracy where the people are supposed to be on the driver's seat.

Tunisians and Egyptians must have a rethink: if chasing Ben Ali and Mubarak off will turn them into the kind of democratic Paradise for Maggots* that Nigeria has become, is all the fight and bloodshed worth it? And that is the belated question Nigerians are asking: was this the democracy for which we fought and were exiled, jailed and /or shot and killed?

* Title of a recent book by Wale Adebanwi on the indefatigable anti-corruption czar in Nigeria, Nuhu Ribadu

This Dart Hits Me III: Not a Merry Xmas

2010-12-25T22:56:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve saw evil descend on Jos and Maiduguri. On Friday 24, three bombs exploded in Jos--two in busy Jos markets and one in a Catholic church. Over thirty people were killed in Jos; several more wounded. In Maiduguri, a church was burnt and a pastor and two others were killed.

My friend, John Galadima, lives in Jos with his family. John teaches Mass Communication in University of Jos, Nigeria. But he was in Ibadan this season to get ready for the final defence of his PhD thesis coming up soon. When John got the news that his hometown was in flames, he was totally crestfallen. He spent nearly all on him making calls to his wife and relatives. In the evening, John had to take a shot of local gin to douse his rising restlessness. Thank God, his family members were not harmed. Contrary to tradition, I decided not to send any SMS this year wishing anyone merry Xmas. It was not a merry Xmas.

What is sad about all of this is that there had been clear signals that there would be attacks during Christmas in Jos. Five days before dropping the bombs in Abuja on October 1, militants warned government; days before Boko Haram invaded the Bauchi prison and set their bloodhounds free, government got wind of it. All of the recent blasts, attacks, massacres were preceded by what is more than rumours of the atttacks. And don't think that the Nigerian security agents are dumb asses. They are simply overstretched protecting the rich political class. Merry Xmas?

This Dart Hits Me--Part II (Darkness Covers the Land)

2010-12-07T09:19:00.000-08:00

The promise of the Federal Government was to increase electricity supply to 6,000 megawatts by December last year (2009). Well, like many other promises from government, that failed woefully. Right now, the 120million people in Nigeria survive on less than 2,000 megawatts. I wrote on this in an earlier post on this blog: Home Sweat Home. Most Nigerians have adjusted to the darkness and frustration created by the absence of electricity--as well as to the hellish noise created by generators used by neighbours. For six weeks, there was no electricity supply to the building that houses my faculty. That did not bother me too much. What recently hit me was this: university students having to write exams with candles. It was an evening paper and by 6pm it was dark already. The lecturer in charge had to provide candles so that the exam could continue! See pictures following--if you can see anything! Tomorrow, the government will complain Nigerian students aren't performing as good as their counterparts elsewhere. They will lament that Nigerian universities aren't among the top 1,000 in the world. And they always blame lecturers for that.

This Dart Hits Me: Part I--Yomi Fashina is Dead

2010-11-20T14:27:00.000-08:00

In April this year when I returned from a three-month fellowship at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, I took a decision: I would be totally indifferent to any of the problems which have come to define Nigeria. I had met the electric power supply worse than it was three months earlier, the roads were worse... in short everything had gone worse including the health of the then president. I had always carried with me the burden called Nigeria. I was given to staying up at night worrying about Nigeria; soliloquizing during the day about the problems of Nigeria, and often giving vent to my frustrations about Nigeria at seminars and during lectures. Now, I decided ‘No More’. Nigeria was not my property or business. I constructed a mental and emotional cocoon, an iron shell into which I often withdraw, far away from Nigeria. But Nigeria is a good marksman and its dart keeps perforating my cocoon and hitting me. This One Hits me Sore!

The worst dart Nigeria has thrown at me since I withdrew into my cocoon was thrown on Tuesday November 9. My student, research assistant and friend, Oluyomi Dipo Fashina (DF) was returning from Lagos on the notorious Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. The bus in which he was travelling was involved in an accident. Yomi had several compound fractures in different parts of his body. Gallantly, Yomi fought the pains for five long days. In between spells of comas, Yomi was able to speak once. All he said was that everyone should relax; he would be fine. In the evening of Sunday 14 November, DF died. The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway had its way!

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If anyone came close to being a perfect gentleman, Yomi was that person. A great team player, an ever-smiling workaholic, a leader and a true servant of men. Yomi, with like-minded classmates like Chuks Egbunike, John Ibanga and Folake Ogunleye, did a comprehensive fieldwork for me on mobile phone deception in Nigeria. And together we explored the Communication Infrastructure Theory and its possible applications in Nigeria. Several times he was my extra pair of eyes which picked my un-dotted i’s and uncrossed t's. He was there for me literally at the snap of a finger!

Since Yomi’s death, everywhere I turn, I encounter him: his MA thesis is on my shelf and on my table; his writings are in my files; his documents are on my laptops. Where do I turn from you, Oluyomi? My colleagues and students meet me and console me as you do one who lost an only child.

If the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was good, if Vehicle Inspection Officers did their job, in short, if this was not Nigeria, Yomi would be alive today. In the last ten months, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway (on which Yomi had the accident) has claimed about two hundred lives through accidents. The accidents included several occurrences of fuel-carrying tankers which lost control and ran into many passenger vehicles burning everyone to ashes. Women, men, children, newlyweds on their way to their honeymoon—all dreams are being cut short. We moan and groan and keep quiet. The dead become mere statistics. The road is bad, the vehicles are bad, drivers are unlicensed, policemen are busy with N20 bribes and the government is busy with elections and rigging, while Nigerians are dying in their prime!

Nigeria, it’s hard not to be hard hit.

Special Journal Edition: Media, Politics and Democratic culture in Nigeria and Zimbabwe

2010-10-04T02:27:00.000-07:00

The International Journal of Social and Management Sciences (IJOSAMS) devoted its latest edition (Volume 3, No 1, 2010) to Media, Politics and Democratic culture in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Contributions were made from the two countries and the United States. Click here for the table of contents and list of contributors. Click here for abstracts of the papers. The Volume was edited by Anthony Olorunnisola, PhD, Department of Film/Video and Media Studies, College of Communications, The Pennsylvania State University, US.

‘Now that everyone is a photographer, we starve’

2010-07-14T22:31:00.000-07:00

Recently at a wedding reception in Lagos, Nigeria, I was attracted to the plight of most of the ‘professional’ photographers present. In Nigeria, ‘professional’ photographers do not wait to be invited to an event especially weddings, funerals and college convocations. They besiege such events and take photographs of especially well-dressed ladies and dash to the nearest studio to print the pictures. Before the event is over, they return with printed photographs, seek out the photographed persons and sell the photos to them. Each 5” by 7” costs N100 (about 70 US cents).

But things are changing. At that wedding reception, I noticed that many people prevented ‘professional’ photographers from taking their pictures. Rather they used their own digital cameras. At a point, I counted 12 guests poised to take shots of the dancing couple.

Many Nigerians have personal digital cameras or mobile phones with camera. Mass produced from the Asian Tigers, camera phones are cheap. A mobile phone set with a camera costs about US$50. With these in many people’s hands, they no longer want to pay for the professional’s shots. As a result, “when you bend down in from of them to take their picture, they scream ‘No, No!’ And if you take them, they won’t pay”, said one of such photographers whom I chatted with in Lagos.

Another told me that five to six years ago, before cheap Chinese phones put cameras in everyone’s hands, he earned up to N10,000 (about US $80) from covering an event (uninvited). In fact, from such monies, he paid his way through the university. Now he hardly earns up to half of that. In his words, “now that everyone is a photographer, we starve. It is frustrating. If it was now, I wouldn’t have been able to pay my fees in the university”.

Researchers assessing the impact of new media technologies have often focused on the positive side. Assessing the full impact of new media technologies must go beyond what the technologies do to users in terms of liberating access and bridging socio-economic and cultural distances. It must encompass the threat which such technologies pose to those whose basic survival depends on the old order.

Corruption in Nigeria: is Jordan Smith Right?

2010-06-11T00:36:00.000-07:00

In the premises of a clinic in Ibadan, I overheard three women (Picture to your left) discussing a wide range of issues. Sitting under a huge tree, they lamented the recklessness with which politicians steal and lavish government money in Nigeria. One of them, a terribly aggrieved woman, told the other two of a politician she ‘helped’ during the 2007 elections. According to her, as a result of her help, the politician won and was now earning lots of money.

She did not specify the nature of the ‘help’ she rendered this politician. What she emphasised was the grievous disappointment she had encountered in the hands of ‘that ingrate’.

Her son was on admission and needed surgery. She had no money but had assurance of getting money from the politician. She went to him but all the man gave her was ten thousand naira (about $70). The surgery was to cost thrice that amount. She felt greatly let down because, according to her, even those who did not ‘help’ this politician had received substantial financial help from him.

She and her friends acknowledged the fact that politicians steal government money but wonder why this particular ‘ingrate’ would not share with those who ‘helped’ him. “We are not saying they should not eat money [embezzle money]. But when they eat at least they should remember us who put them in position of power”, they concluded.

I have serious problems with Jordan Smith’s studies of corruption in Nigeria but my anger is made worse each time I see his assertions played out in conversations and conduct of so-called ordinary Nigerians. One of Smith’s (2007)* conclusions is that among Nigerians, embezzlement of public funds and other forms of corruption attract anger and bitter condemnation only when the discussants are not direct or indirect beneficiaries of the loot. If the loot gets to the average Nigerian, they shut their eyes to its sources and the dirt surrounding it. Maybe on this one, Smith was right.

*Smith, J. D. (2007). A culture of corruption: everyday deception and popular discontent in Nigeria. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press

HOME SWEAT HOME: ‘It’s Our Day of Electricity’

2010-05-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

I returned to Nigeria few weeks ago and discovered a most ingenious thing that PHCN has done. PHCN is the agency in charge of electricity in Nigeria. PHCN has developed a remarkably intelligent power rationing scheme in the city of Ibadan where I live. In my section of town, we get electricity every other day. The week of my arrival, we "had it" on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Those were our days of electricity, days to really look forward to. But I was soon made to understand what ‘our day of electricity’ means. It means the day that you have the right to hope for electricity—not the right to have it! On such a day, you hope that there will be electricity. That is all you do the whole day--hoping.

In fairness to PHCN, we do have some electricity on those days: sometimes for just a few minutes during the whole day, other times—when we are really lucky—for up to three hours on such wonderful days.

But complete woe betide your section of town if you were careless enough, on your day of electricity, to allow rain to fall or strong winds to blow. Once any of these two evils is allowed, PHCN switches off electricity and you no longer can hope for even a ‘flash’ until your next day of electricity.

I also discovered that my neighbour has bought a mighty electricity generating set. He has also positioned it so strategically that the noise drones right into my bedroom thereby keeping me alert all night. Thanks, dear neighbour. It sure is great to be home, home SWEAT home.

‘My Daughter is not for Sale!’: Is Bride Price Getting less Popular in Nigeria?

2010-05-07T03:53:00.000-07:00

‘My daughter is not for sale! All I want is for you to take good care of her’. That was the verdict of Chief Agedo as he gave out his daughter in a traditional wedding to the family of Ter Ikeseh (Ter and Joy are in the pic left). (This was at a traditional wedding I attended in Minna, Northern Nigeria on Saturday May 1, 2010)

Chief Agedo announced that he did not want any dowry (that is, bride price or bride wealth). We who were there to support the groom and his family were overwhelmed by this show of kindness.

In Nigeria, bride price and the cost of wedding have been the reasons that many young men cannot marry and many young women remain spinsters. The cost of wedding and bride price is said to be the highest among the Igbo people of South East Nigeria. Bride price, which is paid by the groom and his family to the bride’s family, comes in the forms of cash, food items, live animals, and clothes. All of these can amount to as much as 2 million naira (about $14,300) or even more—if the groom appears to be rich. To get out of this, many have eloped and many have called off their courtships with ladies from families whose bride price demands were too high.
In the pre-colonial times, among the Tiv people of Nigeria, men avoided bride price by engaging in exchange marriage. In this case, a man gave his sister to another man in exchange for that man’s sister—a very smart practice that was destroyed by ‘civilisation’ and Britain.

Extremely relieved were we when Chief Agedo did not ask for a bride price. Ter, the groom, was so happy that he needed no instructions before lying prostrate in traditional homage to his in-laws. [Picture below]

But some friends told us not to rejoice too much over the demand for no bride price. According to one of them, in his culture, bride prices are not demanded, not out of kindness but because the culture believes that a man cannot (should not be allowed to) pay bride price once but should continue to pay it as long as he lives. Therefore, the bride’s family continue to make financial and other requests for as long as the marriage lasts—as reminder that the man wasn’t asked to pay any bride price.

Others felt the demand for no bride price was actually rising because bride prices have been a way of cheapening the worth of the lady: how can you put a price tag on a human being? A third group felt the growing trend of ‘no’ bride price was a response to the economic difficulties facing young men. In that case, culture is responding to the economy.

I strongly support the dynamic definition of culture suggested by the third group. Culture is not fossilised. I think also that many young ladies today find it hard to get a young man whom they love and count to be a ‘husband material’. When they get one, they will fight tooth and nail to ensure that only few cultural huddles are placed in the way of their wedding. Many of such ladies will kick hard if the family do not quickly announce an affordable bride price—or no bride price at all. In such cases, saying ‘my daughter is not for sale’ may simply be a face-saving effort.

Is bride price payment becoming unpopular? It seems so. The reasons though may be many. Whatever the reason, Ter and his family are grateful to the Agedo family of Fuga, Edo State, Nigeria.

Bye to Holland

2010-04-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

I have been here in the Netherlands three months and it is time to return home—home sweat home. I shut my eyes and decided what I want to remember about this beautiful little country and its people. Here is a short list:
Bicycles...bloemen(flowers)...canals...clogs...dogs...dikes...A great people!

Following is an expanded list, a dictionary of sorts:

Beer means Heineken and Amstel—that’s all
Bicycle means a Dutch national identity which must be triple-chained or else it is stolen! (The same way a bicycle was treated in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.) (You've heard of 'stolen identity'?)
Coffee shops: These are places where ‘coffee’ is served rolled in paper and smoked! Coffeejuana. (See 'drugs' below)
Dogs: These are full-blown citizens with national passports and citizen rights and political party! Dogs take their owners out for a walk. (See 'walkway' below)
Drugs: Something you should see with your eyes tightly open and discuss with your mouth widely shut.
Dutch bargain: Something expensively cheap. For example: ‘Rejoice: I saved two Euros comparing prices across 32 shops!’ Alle moet weg!
Dutch language: A language that is easy to speak—just pretend to be suppressing a bad cough—Wageningen; vereniging
Dutch national flag: A controversial piece of cloth: Did the French copy the Dutch or the Dutch copy the French?
Dutch woman: Someone that’s ever smiling--Wonder why she’s called vrouw when she hardly frowns. Could it be because she sneezes very loud? Atchoooooo!
Energy: Something you spend all your energy saving. For example, it’s better to be sick saving resources than to be warm spending them.
Flowers (Bloemen): What your host spends three hours showing you and you can’t see it because it is yet to sprout!
Space: Something small but enough for everyone—except now that Geert Wilders is fuming.
Space: Something you must economise by writing several words as one: Oldenbarneveltweg!
The Dutch: very friendly, so very friendly people
Walkway: Dogs’ lavatory—watch out!
ASC, Leiden: a great place of wonderful people...

I enjoyed my stay in Holland. I hope to be back someday.

Anne Frank and the Jos babies: the crime that isn’t theirs

2010-04-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

My friends, Daan and Thomas, and I passed by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. (Picture left). In this house, Anne Frank, her sister and her Jewish parents, hid from Hitler’s men and machinery during the World War II. (Their offence was that they were Jewish. Hitler was reaching for the jugular of every Jew). Here, Anne and her family hid for two years. Here she recorded her feelings and fears in a diary. Anne and her family were betrayed by a neighbour. They were arrested and taken to one of Hitler’s concentration camps. There Anne and her sister, Margot, died of typhus in 1945. Otto, her dad, was the only one who survived the war. From Anne’s surviving diary, movies have been produced and books written. Anne Frank House is a tourist centre today — see the long queue (picture below).

Anne’s case reminded me of the babies in Jos that were butchered in the dead of the night by herdsmen, earlier that week. The offence of the babies was that they were Berom and Christian just as Anne was Jew—an offence that wasn’t theirs.

Somali Pirates: Robin Hoods or Criminals?

2010-04-15T00:33:00.000-07:00

I found on the website of Radio Netherlands Worldwide (Africa) an article that represents the counter-dominant view of the 'piracy' war in Somalia. It's a brief and interesting article. Click here to read.

Dutch National ‘Identity’: Bicycles!

2010-04-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

Fietsen! At 18 months, the average Dutch child is already riding a bicycle (two-wheel) proudly and effortlessly. This continues for as long as she lives. It is part of the national heritage. The use of the bicycle (fiets) (plural fietsen) tells me that the Dutch are good at making a virtue of necessity. In old cities like Leiden, it is by bike that you can reach most places.

But fietsen to the Dutch are more than a means of individual transport: a bicycle is a mass transit device also. A woman can carry three kids on one bicycle (picture below); a lover and his girlfriend joyfully share a bicycle. A rich family has bicycles for everyone—you need to see the graceful convoy on their way to a park or church! Well, this one is truly amazing: in Amsterdam, there are bicycles for commercial transport—like Nigeria’s Okada or Kenya’s Boda-boda!

In Nigeria, bicycles are ridden by the poor (especially women in the South South and South East) and by the nonconformist—like my elderly friend, Pius Stephen Omole, a grand hippie. Yet, bicycles are cheaper and healthier for the environment. I enjoyed cycling around in Leiden. But you cannot try bicycling in Nigeria—you should not. There are no bicycle paths. To cycle, you must struggle on the same road with suicidal okada (motorcycle) riders, daredevil taxi drivers; ever-angry bus drivers and murderous truck (trailers) drivers. To that list of dangers you must add the spoilt brats of politicians and government contractors cruising around in dad’s four-wheel-drive jeeps. They too do not suffer fools on bicycles gladly.

When he was Minister for Transport, Mr Ojo Maduekwe, speaking for the government, told Nigerians: “Buy bicycles, all of you. Ride them and live long etc. etc”. To show that he meant it, he got a bicycle—costlier than the average Nigerian could afford. Surrounding himself with an ambulance, several security men and cameramen, he cycled for a few short metres in Abuja before he was knocked down by a bus driver. The ambulance rescued him. Which should have come first: decreeing that Nigerians should ride bicycles or providing safe bike paths for them? Anyway, that was the end of Maduekwe’s bicycle campaign in Nigeria. He has since moved on to other ideas which he peddles to keep his position in government as minister. Such ideas/acts include leading a team of ministers to Saudi to thank the King for tolerating the presence of our sick and invisible president, or arguing with the US over the precise content of the infernal diapers worn on Christmas by Abdul Muttalib—Nigerian-born al-Qaeda boy. Ah, may God save Nigeria. To the Dutch: long live fietsen! (And thanks Edith and Hans for lending me your bike.)

This Dutchman Sells Gods

2010-04-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

I visited my friends, Daan Beekers and Thomas van der Molen in Amsterdam. Bristling with Dutch pride, Daan and Thomas tried to take me round Amsterdam and show me the beauty of their country Capital. We passed by the Queen’s palace which was under renovation: she was on holiday in Austria. We went to the roadside open market somewhere in central Amsterdam. Many things were on sale in the market. I was attracted by a man who sold gods and goddesses of other lands—especially Africa.

He has idols of deities from different parts of Africa and Asia (See pictures left and right) to your left. He has Buddha for sale. He allowed me to take his picture and those of the gods but he wasn’t willing to tell me how these things got to Europe or to his shop. He was busy attending to ‘customers’. The gods and goddesses looked starved: they have not received any sacrifices for ages. I could not help feeling this was travesty, and sacrilege. It brought to my mind the old allegations of shrine robbery repeatedly levelled against pioneer anthropologists, missionaries and colonialists.

This Igbo Man Wants to Rule Holland

2010-03-30T04:34:00.000-07:00

His name is Thaddeus A. Osuji. [And his title is ‘Chief’. Trust Nigerians: he must have a title. He’s even modest: back home he would be Chief (Dr) Honourable, Comrade (Engineer) Pastor Thaddeus A. Osuji. Osuji is from Amaoji Ogbe Mbaise, Imo state]. He’s lived and worked in Den Haag, the Netherlands since 1988

During the March 2010 elections, Chief Osuji contested under Unie van Democraten (Union of Democrats). He wanted to be a representative in the municipal council. He did not win but came close to it. He was number eight on the list of his party and it had fewer than eight wins.

The most important thing is not that Osuji lost. What matters is that he contested and came close to winning. Osuji travelled 5,000 kilometres from Nigeria to be able to take part in fair elections. Would Osuji have been allowed to contest if he simply travelled 500 kilometres from his village—and found himself in Zamfara or Oyo State? Or even in Anambra State next-door? Would he not have been shown the way back to his village? The Nigerian constitution allows non-indigenes who have lived in a place to contest in that place. The constitution allows it but the politicians don’t. Democracy is a journey. But when will Nigeria reach a commendable bus stop?

Better luck next time, Chief Osuji.

Dutch Extreme Right: Muslims, Foreigners Not Wanted

2010-03-30T04:03:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting political party here in the Netherlands known as Freedom Party (Dutch: Partij voor de Vrijheid). It is led by the most controversial politician in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders (Picture to your left). Geert is as blunt as the back of a knife. His party wants a stop to the spread of Islam in Holland (he calls it Islamic Tsunami). It also wants an amendment to the immigration policy of the Netherlands to make it more difficult for foreigners to become full citizens of Holland and contest elections or vote.

The cause of Wilders’ fears is visible: many leading politicians in the country are Muslim descendants of Muslim immigrants—Moroccans especially. An example is the current Mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb. Wilders is afraid that in his lifetime, Muslims would take over the Netherlands and institute the Sharia Law.

But Wilders’ ideas are not popular—though his party is growing. A recent poll shows that even Christian leaders in the country are not happy with Wilders — talk of democracy based on principles. And, Muslims have not spoken against him loud enough for anyone to hear.

Wilders’ ideas (if adopted) will hurt many more people than Arab Muslims in the Netherlands. Dutch people born abroad will not be able to take part in Dutch politics. A young friend of mine, Meta, a nine-year old girl, born in Botswana by Dutch parents, is afraid Gildeers’ proposals would hurt her. She wrote the poem below on her fears:

Look at what the politicians are doing, it is not good.
I am allochton [state language used to describe people born outside of Holland and foreigners who have settled in Holland]
But nobody knows anything about this,
Geert Wilders wants to banish me.
I am a child
I am not a small thing.
I have a right to freedom.
If Wilders wins, I will only be a small breath of wind.
The Koran is a holy book, and Wilders covers up the bible.
Later I want to emigrate, because here we are shut up in safes.
The rights are of nearly no importance,
That is what the politicians are singing in unison.

AGIP Oil Scholarhips for Nigerian Undergraduates

2010-03-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

Are you from Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC) host communities in Bayelsa, Delta, Imo and Rivers State, Nigeria, or are you a 100-Level student in Engineering or Medicine in Nigeria? Then you may want to try the Agip Oil scholarship awards. Click here for details.

Nigeria at 50 Conference

2010-03-23T04:10:00.001-07:00

Click here for the Call for Paper and other pieces of information.

Invitation to my seminar

2010-03-22T01:56:00.001-07:00

DUTCH POLITICS: ‘SMALL’ BOYS AND GIRLS ARE IN CHARGE

2010-03-19T05:34:00.000-07:00

In Holland, political posts are held by ‘small’ girls and boys who would have been errand kids or political thugs in Nigeria. When I read that Wouter Bos was retiring from politics at 46 and Camiel Eulings was retiring at 36, I thought, ‘Come on, they weren’t even supposed to have started active politics yet’. Wouter Bos was leader of Dutch Labour Party and Camiel was a leader in the Christian Democratic Party (CDA). Camiel was Minister of Transport; Member of the European Parliament and Vice-President of the continental European People’s Party—all within 36 years of existence on this planet. In Holland, they start (too) early. Consider this:
* 26-year old Herriët Brinkman is CDA councillor in Staphorst.
* 25-year old Evelien van Roemburg is a councillor for the green GroenLinks in Amsterdam
* 24-year old Mohammed Mohandis is Labour councillor in Gouda.
* 22-year old Rob Jetten is the leader of left-wing liberal D66 in the city of Nijmegen
* 22-year old Pieter van Ojen is an SGP councillor in Zeist
* 22-year old Farshad Bashir is two-year member of parliament for the Socialist Party
If you don’t believe this last one, I wouldn’t blame you:
* 18-year old Lidewij Bergsma is a VVD councillor in the Frisian town of Tytsjerksteradiel, and she is still in high school.

But when did these people start? When did they develop an ideology which led them to identify ‘their’ party? How did they start? When did they serve their time out as errand runners in the parties? I knew the Dutch baby starts to ride a bicycle shortly before it starts walking; I didn’t know politicking starts just about the same age. Care must then be taken in addressing people: that teenager riding his bike across the street may be the councillor of this ward! Councillors where I come from are old and powerful: they carry themselves as big men and women with some having their own bodyguards and personal assistants. They earn more than university professors earn.

In gerontocratic Nigeria, party leaders and political godfathers will not think you are fit for any office if you are in your twenties. Do you think politics is learnt in the University that you attended? What do you know? Who do you know? Who is your father? How many party thugs can you muster? AND—How much money do you even have? Small boy like you! How many years have you spent pasting party posters all over town?

Nigerian politicians are old people. Rilwan Lukman was made minister at age 70-something. But in Nigerian you cannot even be sure of anything. Age is shrouded in secrecy. Well, you must begin by asking ‘which age?’ Most Nigerian politicians have several ages: the official age (that is the age stated in official documents—which is altered as and when necessary); the marital age (the age they declared to their wives); the age-grade age (the one known by their age-grade members in the village) and the true age (the one known by God, the All-Knowing!).

Now that the Action President is shopping for a new set of ministers, will he choose old and expired politicians? And they are not in short supply in Nigeria. Or will he look for Nigerian Camiels and Boses? They too are not in short supply.

Nigerian Guerrilla Pressmen Ten Years after the Struggle

2010-03-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

I am about concluding my stay at the Afrika-StudieCentrum (ASC), University of Leiden. I will be giving a seminar on my work here on Tuesday March 23. In the last few weeks, I have tried to do a paper on the current conditions and perceptions of the guerrilla journalists in Nigeria. By this term I mean those journalists who confronted the military and were brutalised and driven underground. I have sought to know what their take is on the current democratic dispensation. I had interviewed some of them and examined some of their writings. The result is a thirty-page paper which I reduced to two pages for this blog. You can read that two-page summary here.

Media Muzzling in Uganda--Prelude to Darkness

2010-03-17T05:09:00.000-07:00

The Ugandan government is about perfecting all plans to muzzle the media in that country as a preparation for Mr Muzeveni's smooth re-election next year. A new law is being passed to that effect. Called the Press and Journalists Amendment Bill 2010, the law empowers the Media Council (appointees of Museveni) to promptly shut down a media house if it is deemed to have published any content that endangers national stability, security and unity. All media houses will also be required to apply for licences to be renewed annually. This is pretty much like the Kenyan Amended Communication Act which empowers the Minister of Internal Security to raid media houses and seize and confiscate whatever is found incriminating before, during or after publication or broadcasting. (I wrote about this on this blog last year. Click here)

These new Ugandan and Kenyan laws seem to be photocopies of the decrees issued during the infamous military regimes in Nigeria. An example WAS Decree 4 (promulgated by General Buhari) which would punish any journalist who published anything capable of bringing a public official into disrepute even if what was published was true. Another WAS Decree 29 (by General Babangida) which prescribed death for anyone who spoke or wrote anything capable of disrupting the society. I must also add Decree 48 (by Babangida also) which proscribed 17 publications owned by five anti-military newspaper organisations. Others were Decree 23 which proscribed The Reporter, and Decree 35 which conferred on the president the power to confiscate or ban any publication (like Kenya’s new law), and Decree 43 which (like the new Ugandan law) set up regulations for registration of newspapers. In Nigeria, we regard these laws as the painful sores of our past sufferings. They have been repealed long ago. They, in fact, sound so ancient and retrogressive we sometimes wonder if they truly existed. But they did. We have locked them up in the Pain Section of our mental National Archives and won't remember them again. They are the past.

Why are Museveni and Kibaki driving their countries backwards into darkness? Backwards towards the pain and misery that Nigeria left ten years ago? Ugandan media have been pliant for many years. Now that they are coming up, Yoweri is uncomfortable. On September 10, 2009, he shut down CBS FM and has refused to open it. Now he's reaching out for the rest of the independent media. Ugandan journalists and East African Journalists Association (EAJA) must rise up against this law! If they need help, they could talk to Nigerian former guerrilla journalists at The News, Tell, Insider Weekly, and The The Guardian. Twenty-four years as president and yet Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is not tired of ruling Uganda. This act is certainly a prelude to darkness.

In this land, Animals have their own political party!

2010-03-12T03:19:00.000-08:00

I thought my friends, Maaike, Gitty and J-B, were joking when they told me of the Party for the Animals. But they were serious. In this land, animals have their own political party with representatives right up to Senate! Yes! Founded in 2002, the aim of Party for the Animals (in Dutch Partij voor de Dieren, PvdD) is to defend the rights of all animals in the Netherlands. Led by a lady, Marianne Thieme, it is said to be the fastest growing party in the Netherlands. This Party thinks humans have enough advocates and are being sufficiently protected but not animals. [To your left is the logo of PvdD].

PvdD is not a joke—and you are not reading Orwell, please. In 2006 PvdD gained two parliamentary seats, a feat loudly proclaimed as ‘Victory for the Animals!”. It also won a seat in the senate! Niko Koffeman, the Senator from PvdD was proudly called Animals’ Senator. Last week, the party took part in the municipal elections and won seats in Amsterdam, The Hague, Leiden, Groningen, Apeldoorn and Buren. Each of these municipalities now has a councilor whose entire energy will be devoted to protecting the interests of animals through legislations and other political means. On its international website, the Party counts its blessings in these words:

The Party for the Animals now has a total of 26 people's representatives. We already had two members in the Lower House, one member in the Upper House, nine Members of the Provincial Council in eight provinces, eight District Water Board Directors in six District Water Boards and, as of last week, six municipal councillors in six municipalities

I remember an argument we had as graduate students in 1996. It was about animals, language and communication. At a point, we decided to suspend the argument until such a time when animals would be able to come into classrooms and speak for themselves! Now it is happening somewhat. Only that members of the Party for the Animals in Holland are humans. But how truly are they sure they know what animals want? And are they protecting animal interests or fighting against the discomfort they suffer when they see animals maltreated? In which case, they really are protecting their own interests?

Democracy is indeed a journey, and Nigerians will actually think that on this journey, Holland is moving a bit too fast. In Nigeria, we do not have a Party to protect human beings yet—not to talk of animals. Early this morning, Elisabeth Yaoudam, my colleague here at ASC forwarded to me a mail on the Jos Massacre. The mail contained over twenty gory pictures of babies, children and women slashed and mutilated by rampaging herdsmen—rearers of animals. That was the fourth mail I got on Jos and each came with a string of unspeakably gory photographs. Once, I puked. For three consecutive nights now, these pictures have haunted me and robbed me of sleep. I have never seen such horrors before and cannot display it on my blog. These Fulani herdsmen did to Nigerians—human beings—what no one dare to do to animals in the Netherlands. Nigerians...animals! Certainly, Nigeria needs a Party for Human Beings. Good luck to Marianne Thieme and PvdD. And to the animals in the Netherlands...Lucky You!

Jos, Oh Jos!

2010-03-11T03:31:00.000-08:00

Too sad to speak.

Election malpractices in Rotterdam: a journey backwards

2010-03-11T03:24:00.000-08:00

Nine days ago, the municipal elections in the Netherlands were held. I reported my impressions of the elections on this blog and have received many comments on that report. Shortly after the elections, there were complaints about some sharp practices in Rotterdam. The papers report/allege that:

One polling station was left unstaffed for several minutes. Voters were required to take their own ballots. Some voters took several.
Some polling stations had the flag of a political party on display.
Party members or supporters were present at some polling stations to persuade voters to cast their vote for a certain party.
Two or more people were found in polling booths simultaneously dozens of times. The law only allows handicapped people to receive assistance.
2.500 voters received two or three ballots at home.
Some votes were counted double.
One ballot box turned out to be empty at the end of Election Day.
It has been reported that staff of some polling stations offered explanations to voters in Turkish or Moroccan, perhaps even doling out advice on who to vote for.

The Mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, may order a recount of the whole votes. A preliminary recount of about one-fifth of the votes show that some 100 votes were not counted in the first count. These 100 votes belonged to Leefbaar Rotterdam, a new party that lost to Labour by a few hundred votes. It is speculated that a recount may not alter the overall results (It did not alter it against Bush in Florida) but it certainly will put speculations to rest. Some in fact are calling for a return to the polls for fresh election.

These incidents are a child's play compared to what happened in Nigeria but it is certainly not a good example coming from the Dutch. Several hundred years of democracy and the Dutch still have issues with elections and voting. Democracy is indeed a journey but this one is a journey backwards. I trust the Dutch government to learn lessons from these incidents and to block the loopholes against future elections, the same way it stopped computer voting when that raised questions of confidentiality and trust. No perfect democracy exists. Which is why Nigeria must get serious with amending the electoral act.

The Netherlands’ municipal election... democracy as a journey

2010-03-04T05:21:00.000-08:00

I accompanied Maaike Westra and Gitty Petit (Picture below), my colleagues at the African Studies Centre, University of Leiden, to Stemdistrict 100 where they cast their votes in the municipal elections that held all through the Netherlands, yesterday, March 3, 2010. This was the equivalent of what, in Nigeria, we call the local government elections. But there is not much else that this election shares with Nigeria’s. Not with the orderly campaigns that preceded the elections, the courteous distribution of handbills, careful pasting of posters only in designated spots, the order that accompanied the voting, the speed of voting—and most importantly, the complete absence of tension and the atmosphere of safety under which voting was done. All of these set up what we experience in Nigeria as antithesis.

The electoral officers were friendly and relaxed (Picture right). They allowed me right into the polling booth (Stemdistrict 100) and gladly allowed me to take pictures including theirs! There was not a single policeman within the vicinity. And party agents? None! Voting without party agents and armed party thugs arm-twisting voters or screaming blue murder! And without armed policemen! The queues were short; in fact, there were no queues. Voter verification took about a minute per voter (Picture below). Maaike and Gitty finished voting within six minutes.

Voting had begun at 12 midnight in The Hague, Rotterdam and Groningen. At Groningen, about 1,200 people had voted by 1 am. People actually went out in the night to vote: they weren’t afraid that the ballot boxes would be snatched or they would be mugged. In Groningen and The Hague, festivals were organised to draw out young people to vote. A colleague at the University of Leiden, Erik Bäher told me that young people were apathetic about voting: as it was in the US (until Obama) and as it is increasingly becoming in Nigeria! Hans Baijens (former deputy Mayor of Leiden) told me that the frequency of elections might be responsible for voter fatigue.
Dutch people are very practical: they go for what is practical and useful, not what is fashionable and prestigious. Yesterday’s voting was manual, not computerised. Computers had been used in the past and they had raised issues of confidentiality and reliability. Yesterday, red pencils were used. (Nigeria is planning on electronic voting by 2011: is anyone thinking of electricity for the voting machines?) (Maaike casts vote: picture below).

In the Netherlands, you could vote on behalf someone else. Such is the level of trust. When I accused Erik of not going to vote, he said his wife would be voting for both of them! Jans-Bart, another colleague of mine, is away from the country—but someone would vote for him. All you need is an attestation from the person on behalf of whom you are voting; but you could not vote for more than two others. Erik told me that in the past, young people had gone to old people’s homes and collected several attestations. They then voted on behalf of scores old people but not necessarily for the parties of the old people’s choice (Young people! You can always trust them to do things like that. But it also shows me something: democracy is about learning to improve. That loophole by young people has been identified and blocked. Now you can vote on behalf of only two people and that’s all! The Dutch keep learning, adapting and adopting. Nigerians...also keep learning, I want to hope!)
.

There were elections into 394 councils in the Netherlands; 8,700 council seats were up for the grabs. These excluded the position of City Mayors: Mayors aren’t elected, they are appointed by Her Majesty, the Queen. Some of the people I spoke with thought the local elections had some critical link with the national elections coming up in June this year. The government of the Netherlands had “collapsed” on Saturday, 20 February, over intention to extend the stay of the Dutch Army in Afghanistan. By ‘collapse’ is meant nothing as disastrous as what we are going through in Nigeria over our sick and kidnapped president. Dutch government is run on coalition because no party is ever able to win enough votes to form a government (Talk of deliberately built checks and balances). The leading party, the Christian Democratic Party (imagine such a name in Nigeria) wanted to extend Dutch stay in Iraq but Labour Party kicked and protested. Led by Woulter Bos, the Party pulled out of the coalition: those left could no longer form the needed quorum—‘Things fell apart’ but the Centre still holds! The country still marches on as if nothing happened. Her Majesty, the Queen is sorting all that out. (Again, democracy must not wear the same colour everywhere. The Queen ultimately holds things together here. She even single-handedly appoints the mayors. No one performs such a role in the US or in Nigeria?).
Finally, less than 12 hours after the elections, the results were out. The ‘ruling’ Christian Democratic Party lost several seats: most Dutch people are tired of that Afghan misadventure. But the Prime Minister, Mr Peter Balkinende, doesn’t think so. Through this voting, the Dutch people may be voicing their objection loud enough for him to hear: the Dutch word for voice is stem, the same word vote.

Importantly, since the results were announced, I haven’t heard of threats of litigations. Nor have I heard of women marching naked in protest against vote theft. Edith and Hans, two people whom I knew, were electoral officers yesterday; they are both home—neither is wearing a bandage or carrying POP.

My uncle and friend, Anthony Olorunnisola, likes to say: “democracy is a journey, not a destination”. Democracy is about identifying new possibilities in the system and exploring them; it is about identifying loopholes and blocking them quickly; it is about making a positive use of defeat by actively including seeming losers in coalition and governance; it is about sensitivity to aspects of a culture that work rather than swallowing foreign concepts hook, line and fisherman! It is about people submitting to the letter and spirit of the constitution even when that hurts! I’m just hoping that Nigeria is on that journey.

(Some coincidence: I was an unofficial observer also at the Obama elections in the US in November 2008. My report of that unusual election here.)

Carlijn and the promises of dance therapy

2010-02-18T08:31:00.000-08:00

Recently, my friend Daan Beekers and his friend, Carlijn, visited me. (See picture to your left). They were my first guests in the Netherlands. During the introductions, Carlijn told me that she was training to be a dance therapist. I was intrigued. Carlijn told me the numerous ways in which dance therapy can heal our hurting world. Dance therapy can be used to help people who have been traumatised and those having different forms of psychiatric disorders including fear and depression. Her mention of disorders reminded me of the observation by Mrs Farida Waziri, the current boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria. Mrs Waziri had observed that many political office holders in Nigeria had psychiatric disorders, madness. In her words: “... we have observed people amassing public wealth to a point suggesting madness or some form of obsessive-compulsive psychiatric disorder”. Then she recommended “that public office holders should be subjected to some form of psychiatric evaluation to determine their suitability for public office” (See Daily Trust, October 8, 2009; page 64). Nigerians need people with the training and passion of Carlijn. This is because of the growing list of traumatised people (Jos, Maiduguri, Bauchi religous riots; kidnappers everywhere), and also because of the growing list of politicians who, according to Farida, steal as if (or because) they are deranged). I did an article on this which may be published in a Nigerian newspaper soon.

Farida on Corruption

2010-02-18T02:59:00.000-08:00

"Having dealt with many corruption cases, I am inclined to suggest that public officers (in Nigeria) should be subjected to some form of psychiatric evaluation to determine their suitability for public office. The extent of aggrandizement and gluttonious accumulation of wealth that I have observed suggests to me that some people are mentally and psychologically unsuitable for public office. We have observed people amassing public wealth to a point suggesting 'madness' or some form of obsessive compulsion" (Daily Trust, Oct 8, 2009; pg 64)

A scientific meeting and my anger

2010-02-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

I just returned from a 90-minute scientific brainstorming session of my host centre, the Afrikan-StudieCentrum (ASC), Universiteit Leiden. The fulcrum of the discussion was an invited presentation by Professor Arie Rip, a philospher of science. I will skip the details--they are mostly in-house issues of research focus, team sizes and so on. One of the most contentious issues discussed was the tendency for politics and policies to want to interfere with research content and focus. Those at the meeting--we were just about ten--were passionately opposed to this kind of interference and decry the growing tendency. Rather than cooperate with research centres, they allege, ministries are trying to influence the focus of these centres and even the content of their research. They spoke with amazing vehemence and passion, with the kind of concern of someone whose territory, nay, life, is being encroached. For a while, I mentally left the venue and took a (mental) trip to Nigeria. Each time we hold meetings in my Department back home, we are preoccupied with a set of concerns completely different from those of these scientists at ASC. We talk about funding, electricity, salaries, a sick student, approaching strikes and ASUU meetings, deadlines, deadlines and more deadlines from the office of the Vice Chancellor--deadlines about results, deadlines about a report going to the NUC, deadlines about admission meetings, deadlines about a list to be sent to the NYSC, deadlines that you heard of only after they had expired. Deadlines often require typsetting and printing and you have to do all of that without electricity. I cannot remember that we ever discussed research focus or agenda inmy Department! The mundane matters of mere existence consume all our passion and energy. ASC scientists--do they know they are lucky that policy makers and politicians are trying to influence them? In Nigeria, policy makers and politicians don't even know we exist. We don't count. They don't need us. Our research counts for nothing. And that is why no professor of communication has been invited by the National Assembly (NA) to enlighten it about the Freedom of Information bill; no professor of law has been invited to the NA to help it out of the quagmire created by Yar'Adua's situation. Before the 2007 elections, no professor of medicine was asked to render his/her opinion on whether or not Yar'Adua's condition could prevent him from ruling. No wonder, even we do our research in Nigeria just to lengthen our list of publications and get promoted as and when (un)due. Nigeria--the most annoying thing is not that we are not there; it is that we aint even moving forward.

Nigeria: what do you write?

2010-02-01T06:48:00.000-08:00

I was asked by the Prince Claus Fund and the Mondriaan Foundation to give a 30-minute presentation on Nigeria: people, politics and culture. The talk comes up on February 3, 2010. For a long while, I was confused. What do you say about a country that you love so intensely but whose leaders let you down so much? How can you be fair about Nigeria without lying? The paradoxes of Nigeria became my heartache! A country so rich yet so poor; so big yet so small that Abacha kept her in his chest pockets for years... I was delighted when I later received a phone call from the organisers asking me to limit my presentation to Lagos. Ah! Lagos. Click here for the presentation and please leave your comments.

Thanks.

Leiden: Here are the keys but where is Peter?

2010-01-14T05:07:00.000-08:00

‘... And I am back!’
I am in Leiden, an ancient small city in the Netherlands. I will be here for three months, a visiting research fellow at the Afrika-Studiecentrum, Universiteit Leiden. During the three months that I am out of Nigeria, I hope to blog regularly. Welcome to Leiden!

Leiden is truly an ancient city. It is said to have been a small cluster of huts during the Roman occupation about 150 AD. Then it was known as Leithon. About 1050 AD, it became “villa Leyden” and its fortifications were first built. Stone buildings were erected as from about 1450 AD—and some of these buildings are still standing. In fact, Pieterskerk (Peter’s Church) was built in 1473 and is still standing—an awesomely magnificent edifice. The people still treasure their old bicycles. In fact, it’s as if the older is the better among the Leidenaars.

What interests me most is the Leiden coat of arms. Yes, this little city has its own coat of arms complete with its own flag and public holidays. (The Nigerian government promised immediate arrest, detention and worse to anyone found with the old Biafran flag or currency!). The Leiden coat of arms is a red lion holding a rampart on which there are two crossed red keys. The books say the lion stands for strength and defiance—as demonstrated in the refusal of the people to surrender to Spanish siege in 1573-74 in spite of severe starvation. The siege was lifted—as the Spanish army left on October 3, 1574. These days, that day of relief is celebrated annually with utmost pomp in Leiden. The two crossed keys, the books say, symbolise the keys of Heaven handed over to Peter by Jesus Christ with the words, in Matthew 18:19, “I will give you the keys of heaven...”

Everywhere you turn in the city, you see the two crossed red keys: on the entrances of bars; on public dust bins etc. Peter’s keys are everywhere but where is Peter? Beyond the keys, there is nothing in the present to show that the Bible and Christianity were once so central in the Leidenaars’ scheme of things, so central that Peter’s keys became Leidernaars’ identity and symbol of faith and hope. The few Leidenaars I’ve talked with are proud to say that they have no religion. They are also happy to say that few subjects are taboo here, that same-sex marriage is okay and that they were raised by permissive parents etc. Not only this, my colleague tried all he could but was not able to find a church last Sunday: the maps suggest that there are only two churches in this city of about 120,000 residents. Pieterskerk is now more of a tourist centre, a museum than a worship centre. Well, many Leidenaars go in there once a year for the October 3 Thanksgiving.

How does one interpret this metamorphosis? Leidenaars are known for the pride they take in the history of Leiden and their unshaken commitment to preserving their cultural practices: about 20 museums that dot this little land, bicycles, flowers, gin and art works, all confirm this. Somehow, religion seems to have slipped away within the fingers of the custodians of Leiden culture. Cultural preservation is indeed a collective but subjective and selective process.

Or maybe it was that Christianity did not really take firm roots at Leiden in the first instance; not as much as it did in, say, equally ancient Oxford (UK) or even in the US. The Calvinists drove away the Catholics from Leiden in the summer of 1566 and replaced them with what and whom? And what of this old popular saying among the Dutch (Leidenaars inclusive): “God made the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands”. That saying isn’t heading in the same direction as ‘In God we trust’, is it? Leidenaars appear to have been very practical rather than religious—even in their far past. When the siege of 1574 was on, they printed emergency money and on the notes they wrote “Haec libertatis ergo” meaning “These, then liberty”. God had no place in it. Those words have been part of the Leiden coat of arms since after World War II. (Nigerians appear to be more religious than practical. Maybe the truth is in the combination: practical, socially relevant religion).

Tot zien!

There is a Nigerian Spirit

2009-09-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

There is a Nigerian spirit... and it is not a bad spirit. Recently, our youngest daughter was on admission at the University College Hospital (UCH) for a surgical procedure. UCH is top on the list of tertiary health facilities and teaching hospitals not only in Nigeria but also in West Africa. But news about UCH can be terrible: nagging nurses; uncaring doctors; consultants more interested in research than in patients, and stinking corruption. A friend of mine told me how his mum on admission at UCH needed oxygen and he paid for 12 cylinders of oxygen but got receipts for only two! Pretty much like what you hear about Nigeria. But not much different from what you hear about the Blagojevitchs, Halliburtons etc. of America!

My experience with UCH showed me something not often heard about Nigeria. My daughter had just been wheeled into the theatre and we were sure the surgical procedure was on when electricity went off! In Nigeria, we would say NEPA (or PHCN, that is, power authorities) took light. My heart skipped a beat. But right in the reception where we were, other medical teams were examining other patients including a six-week old baby. Pronto! All of them--nurses and doctors--brought out their handsets and switched on the flashlights! Each of the fifteen or so handsets had a flashlight. So the examination out there at the reception and, I imagined, my daughter's surgery right in the theatre continued under the light provided by the galaxy of twinkling flashlights. This event and several others I had at UCH (for instance, nurses and doctors raising funds for patients) showed that there is a Nigerian spirit--a great and indefatigable spirit. It is a spirit that achieves something working with nothing! This spirit works with nothing because of irresponsible and irresponsive national and state leadership. And sadly, it is a spirit that often goes unacknowledged in the national and international media.

This is not a campaign for the Nigerian government's rebranding exercise. As a matter of fact, I think the slogan of that exercise should read: Good people; great nation; bad leaders! (Not just 'Good people; great nation'). Rather, this is my attempt to celebrate a spirit we have trampled underfoot for ever so long.

JCLA Special Edition on Media and Democracy in Africa

2009-08-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Journal of Communication & Language Arts (JCLA) just released a special edition on 'Media and Democracy in Africa'. Guest-edited by Dr Anthony Olorunnisola, Head, Department of Film/Video and Media Studies, the Pennsylvania State University, US, the edition contains contributions from Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and the United States. Click here for the Table of Contents. Click here for abstracts of the articles. Click here for more information about JCLA including guidelines for submission of articles. A copy of the special edition costs $10 including postage. For your copy, send a mail to ayo.ojebode@gmail.com

Naked oath-taking picture and the question of press freedom in Nigeria

2009-07-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

On June 29, the Compass Newspaper published an article reporting that some members of the Ogun State House of Assembly, Southwest Nigeria, secretly took a blood oath to ensure unflinching unity in their bid to remove the governor of the State. Mr Wale Alausa, one of the members was shown nude, taking the blood oath and the photograph was published on the front page of the Nigerian Compass. This has expectedly generated a lot of comments. The comments are about the social disdain for blood oath, power thirst and political intrigues.

What worries one about the story is none of those issues. Rather it is question of the freedom of the press in a democracy like Nigeria. Is the Nigerian press truly free in this democracy—freer than it was during military regimes? By some risky extrapolation, is the press really free in a democracy?

Siebert and his team in their seminal Four theories of the press assume a smooth transition from the authoritarian press system to the libertarian or social responsibility press system as a nation transits from autocracy to democracy. In fact, Anthony Olorunnisola in his book on the press in South Africa after apartheid describes as theoretical incongruent a situation where the press does not transit with the nation. But it appears that the Siebert et al’s definition of press freedom was influenced by the context of physical violent harassment and military oppression against the exercise of the professional rights of the journalist.

Current events in Nigeria and in some other African democracy (eg. Kenya and Uganda) show that the absence of physical harassment and military oppression, and transition to democracy do not truly expand the elbowroom with which the journalist practises his trade. This is not a new finding. Again Olorunnisola warned that the press may simply transit from being controlled by government to being controlled by the wealthy especially advertisers.
Back to Ogun State, Nigeria. I interacted with a staff of the newspaper that published the nude photograph of the lawmaker from Ogun State. The paper is owned by the governor of the state, and the lawmaker was one of those allegedly intending to impeach the governor. It is clear where the paper belongs in the controversy between the governor and the lawmakers. My friend told me he was truly ashamed that the paper published such an offensive photograph, and that the paper has become an instrument in the hands of the governor in the ensuing battle. He believed that the picture was distasteful and could invite disaffection from readers. He said it violated ethical standards; it was wrong. But why then was it used? My friend’s answer boils down to this: it puts bread on the table.

Is the press free in a democracy? My friend feels it is not. The enemy of press freedom in a democracy is only different from, it is not less vicious than, the enemy in a military regime. And the enemy is NOT the commercial advertiser. My friend felt that if any staff of the paper refused to do the bidding of the governor—the owner of the paper—such person’s job was up for grabs. There is a fast growing trend of establishment of newspapers by politicians in Nigeria. In fact, about 90% of existing Nigerian newspapers are owned by serving governors, legislators and active political heavyweights. These ones dictate what the average Nigerian knows through the papers. Is the press freer in a democracy? I am truly worried.

The ban on radio review of newspapers in Nigeria: five months after

2009-04-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

In December 2008, the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) and the Nigeria Publishers Association (NPA) had a meeting during which they announced a ban on the review of newspapers by radio and television stations in Nigeria. Their reason was that the sale and readership of newspapers were being adversely affected by these reviews. They claimed that once people listened to the reviews, they no longer bought the papers; they felt they had heard everything the papers had to say from the reviews by radio and television.

That ban is five months old now and it may be premature to ask if it has increased the sale and readership of the papers. It is however not premature to ask if the broadcast stations are conforming to the ban. The answer is ‘no’. Rather than cancel newspapers review programmes, stations have found ways of reviewing the papers without calling it a review and running foul of the ban. The stations still review the papers but do not refer to their programmes by such names as they used to do. Names such as Today in the papers; What the papers are saying; Inside the papers and Koko inu iwe irohin have since disappeared. What we now have is Daybreak gist; Review; or Have you heard? Not only this, reviewers no longer mention the newspapers they are reviewing nor refer viewers and listeners to the pages from which stories have been picked. Every direct or remote reference to the newspapers is avoided. In addition to this, some reviews are now spiced with local gossips and reports.

This raises a number of issues. NPA and BON based their ban on the review programmes on emotional economics, not on facts and figures. There were no studies or statistics to show that readership and sales of the papers were related to radio and television review of the papers. In fact some have claimed that the reviews encouraged them to buy the papers.

Secondly, the laws, policies and promulgations in Nigeria are ‘an ass’. They are mute and lame in most cases. That is why it is easy for broadcasters to freely sidetrack the ban. That is why months after the National Assembly banned public ‘spraying’ of the naira, the practice still continues and is publicised on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in its weekly Newsline. In Nigeria, the law is an ass especially when the violator is rich, powerful and well connected. That is why the National Broadcasting Commission turns a blind eye on the excesses of some stations (such as Silverbird) and hammers others (such as AIT and Channels).

Third, broadcasting in Nigeria is really a business venture wholly in the hands of entrepreneurs. The newspaper review programmes are among the most heavily sponsored programmes. Most stations cannot immediately discontinue these programmes because sponsors have paid for the whole quarter. Even government-owned stations cannot run like public service stations because the government has asked them to become profit-oriented. It matters little whether or not a programme is injurious. What matters is the availability of sponsorship.

The ban on newspaper review programmes may have succeeded in bringing to play the Nigerian ingenuity when it comes to interpreting, manipulating and sidetracking a ban, a policy or law. It has also shown that broadcast stations would go to any extent to please sponsors. In addition to all of this, it has shown our total disregard for scientific research as a basis for individual and corporate decision-making. Just as they did not conduct any research before banning review programmes, BON and NPA will most likely not commission any research to find out if their ban has influenced newspaper readership and sales in any direction even five years after the ban. It is Nigeria.

Campus radio licenses: a diversionary tool in Nigeria

2009-03-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

Since Nigeria returned to ‘democracy’ in 1999, advocates of community radio broadcasting in Nigeria, led by the Institute for Media and Society (IMS) in Lagos, have intensified their call for the approval of community radio in Nigeria. They asked for a separate licensing regime for community radio. Their argument was that if a community intending to own a radio station is made to pay the millions that commercial broadcasters pay, the station would be under the control of a few rich people in that community, and thus would not be radio stations owned, staffed and run by the community. Getting a ‘democratic’ government to approve community radio looked very simple: if democracy meant expansion of people’s access to communication, not just as receivers but also as message makers, deregulating the airwaves should be one of the steps a democratic government should first take. Not only this, if the military deregulated the airwaves partially in 1992 by allowing commercial broadcasting, a democratic government should need little or no persuasion to approve the third tier of broadcasting—the most people-oriented tier.
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But the advocates were mistaken. Nine years after democracy, Nigeria still doesn’t possess a single community radio station. It is the only West African nation without a community radio station. The excuse has been that a community radio station could be used to fuel ethnic and religious animosity in the volatile Nigerian context.
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Advocates have tackled this headlong persuading government, lobbying lawmakers and enlightening the society. Backed by international organisations (especially Panos Institute West Africa and Association Mondiale des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires, AMARC), advocates selected six sites for potential community radio stations and trained potential radio workers. They got the ears of Silas Yisa, the Director of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the body that regulates broadcasting in Nigeria, and the sympathy of the then Minister of Information. A panel set up by government (led by the eminent professor of communication, Alfred Opubor) submitted a report emphasising the desirability and mapping the policy for community radio broadcasting in Nigeria. At a point, the advocates could almost fix a date that the government would release a white paper on community broadcasting.
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Then came the bang: government announced the release of eight radio licenses, not to communities but to university campuses! Advocates were for a while confused and divided. Some called for celebrations, others for a protest. “Is a community radio the same as a campus radio?” A campus radio speaks English, and serves an elite community. English is understood by less than 50% of Nigerians. The advocates decided that they had not got what they asked for. They wanted community stations not campus stations. A campus station was not a community station, they explained. But it was too late for Mr Obasanjo to listen. His obsessive scheming for an unconstitutional third term which, when it failed, was followed by his efforts to ensure that his party won the elections ‘at all costs’. That brought all governance to a standstill. Advocates lost audience with a government interested in only one thing: power.
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Yar’Adua succeeded Obasanjo and has proved to be as much opposed to civic-centred democracy as Obasanjo was. (Recall his meddling with the Electoral Reform Committee report). Advocates picked up and mended the debris of their advocacy and approached Yar’Adua afresh. But again, two weeks ago, government announced the approval of broadcasting licenses to 18 campuses—including several that did not apply for any license. This brings the total number of campus radio to 27 in Nigeria. Again, the community radio coalition is asking questions. Campus radio licenses have become a weapon to divert the attention of community radio advocates from their goal. It is a diversionary tool.
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It is not clear why a democratic government should be opposed to giving people a voice. The present arrangement leaves the majority of Nigerians without a voice of theirs. No known democracy theory can explain it. But again, this is Nigeria. (AND IF I FEED THIS BLOG SO IRREGULARLY, IT IS BECAUSE I AM BACK HOME IN NIGERIA. I APOLOGISE TO MY READERS.)

KENYAN AMENDED COMMUNICATION ACT: VENDETTA, FRAUD OR BOTH?

2009-01-18T23:40:00.000-08:00

I was in Nairobi, Kenya from January 14 to 18, 2009. This was about the time the furore generated by the amended communication act in Kenya was peaking. The government of Mr Mwai Kibaki had amended the Kenyan Media Law and included a draconian section 88 which empowers the Minister of Internal Security to “raid media houses” and seize and confiscate whatever is found incriminating before, during or after publication or broadcasting. The response has been that of condemnation and outcry. Some Kenyan papers reported an appeal by Media Owners for a revision of the amendment; Mr Kibaki’s intention to revise it; Prime Minister Odinga’s displeasure with it as well as parliamentarians opposition to the revision. In fact, parliamentarians promised to reject any attempt by the president to commence a review process (See for instance, Daily Nation Jan 14, 2009). This was surprising to me who expected that parliamentarians would be more pro-freedom and pro-people. I chatted with a few Kenyans over this and got some interesting insight.
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The parliamentarians were glad to pass the amendment which Mr Kibaki later signed into law because they (the parliamentarians) saw it as a way of getting even with the media. The media, in the words of Chris (one of those I chatted with), “had been harassing the parliamentarians” over taxes. Only the basic pay of the lawmakers was taxed; their buxom allowances, which quadrupled their basic, are not taxed. The media felt this was unfair privilege for the lawmakers. Secondly, several lawmakers were aggrieved by the role the media played during the last bloody elections. Some media houses gave reports that made it clear that Mr Kibaki and his allies cheated their way into victory. Passing an act that severely limits the freedom of the media is thus a way of hitting back at the ‘obstinate’ watchdog.
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But it may be more than that. Clement and Milton, with whom I also chatted, felt the parliamentarians want to pocket the media in order to make cheating their way into re-election smoother in four years when elections come up again in Kenya. A thoroughly intimidated and pocketed media would be unable to announce unfavourable election results or to report election rigging. The Act is thus a preparation for large scale, seamless electoral fraud.
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It appears that a mixture of vendetta and fraud undergirds the communication law amendment. Whatever the case is, the story of this infamous law illustrates the important place of the media in the democratic equation, and the threat a good media system continues to pose to fraudulent leadership.
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Now more than before, Kenya needs a strong and independent media to fight the growing large-scale corruption in the country. The papers in the week I was in Nairobi reported cases of the incredible levels and acts of corruption in agriculture, petroleum and tourism sectors of the country. Kenyans have spoken against the Act. The media should be poised and allowed to fight such evils.
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Opinion polls continue to show that close 90% of Kenyans oppose the amendment. But Kenyans may have to do more than just express displeasure. They may need the kind of protest, uproar, threat of litigation, widespread lobby that greeted the closure last year of Channels TV in Nigeria. That reaction immediately brought the Yar’Adua government to his knees.

ACCE Conference: Ghana 2009

2008-12-23T10:48:00.000-08:00

The African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) is the only continent-wide academic body for African researchers in media and communication--that is if you consider Trans-African Council for Communication Education (TRACCE) as the diaporic version of ACCE. ACCE, publishers of the famed African Media Review, has been in coma for several years but is poised to come round with a Conference. Under the theme Communication education and practice in Africa: a social contract for the 21st Century, the Conference will hold in the School of Communication Studies, University of Ghana, from 4-8 August 2009.

Conference subthemes (quite a list) include:
Communication, Language and Culture
Communication and Gender
Communication and Democracy
Communication and Globalization
Communication and Cross-cutting Development Challenges, including health communication; communication and the environment etc.
(This list of subthemes is not exhaustive)

Abstracts are to be submitted as mail attachments to:
Mrs. Alexina Arthur, aarthur@ug.edu.gh; alexinaarthur@yahoo.com
Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, agadzekpo@ug.edu.gh; audreygadzekpo@gmail.com

Deadline for receipt of abstracts : 31 January 2009
Notice of acceptance of abstracts : 28 February 2009
Deadline for receipt of full papers : 31 May 2009

Indigenous communication: Pamela Wilson versus Des Wilson

2008-12-22T22:01:00.000-08:00

Des Wilson took a PhD in African indigenous communication from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 1988. Des’s thesis was on the indigenous communication media and channels of the Ibibio people in South-South Nigeria. Des defined indigenous media as those media of communication that had been in use before the modern mass media and are still in use today. Adopting some of his terms from music, he categorised these media into several groups including membranophones, ideophones, aerophones, symbolographic displays, extramundane communication and music. Examples of such media included talking drums, wooden drums, rattles, folk tales, tattoos, symbolic writing and codes. A little unwieldy, you might think. Yet, to many of us, Wilson’s work was not only an important improvement on the complicated work of Doob (1960) but also a take-off point and launch-pad for enquiry into African indigenous communication media and systems. And this has led to a number of graduate theses. Years after, Mundy and Compton (1991); Mundy and Lloyd-Laney (1992); Millar and Aniah (2005) and several others continue to map the territory of indigenous media a la Des, that is, as that which was there pre-colonially and is still being used today. With the probable exception of the chapter by Louise Bourgault, this line of thought runs through the book edited by Ghana’s Ansu-Kyeremeh, Indigenous communication in Africa (2005). Newspapers, radio and television are described as exogenous or foreign media; the exact opposite of indigenous media. Points of intersection and interaction between these exogenous and indigenous media are explored but as points of distinctly intersecting entities.

But the recent very brilliant book edited by Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart, Global indigenous media, defines indigenous media completely differently. Acknowledging the internal tension in the phrase “global indigenous”, the editors and contributors consider indigenous media as any media used by the indigenous peoples, defined by Manuel and Posluns as “people who have special nontechnical, nonmodern, exploitative relations to the land in which they still inhabit and who are disenfranchised by the nations they live”. Among such media are radio, television, cinema, and even the internet. "The stone rejected by the builders..." you might think. (“Interestingly”, Pamela Wilson’s book, which has fifteen chapters focusing on different peoples, has nothing to say about any of the peoples of Africa. Never mind that the title reads “Global...”. Contributors were drawn from across the globe: that is, from America and Europe!).

Whereas Des Wilson and others focus on the origin of a medium in classifying it as indigenous, Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart and others focus on the users of the media (the indigenous people). Does that say something about the difference between a media scholar and an anthropologist? This difference can take fundamental dimensions especially when mapping out research focus is the issue. And the difference will certainly persist especially since there is little or no interaction among the two groups of scholars symbolised by these two Wilsons. Maybe there should be a journal of indigenous communication studies to engender such interaction.

Students who don't do assignments get A's

2008-12-12T17:36:00.000-08:00

USA Today published an article which summarizes a nationwide survey of college students in the US. The study involved nearly 380,000 students from 722 four-year colleges. The study showed that about 20% of seniors and 25% of freshmen reported frequently going to class without completing the required readings or assignments. Yet, of these students who did not do their assignments, 29% of freshmen and 36% of seniors got mostly A's. Of what use, then, is going through the professor's readings? Read the article here.

Einstein, the Nigerian press & the 'witch' kids of Akwa Ibom

2008-12-05T13:06:00.000-08:00

Last week, Reuben Abati did an indicting opinion in his column in the Nigerian Guardian on the gruesome treatment meted out on 'witch' children in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. These kids were declared 'witches' by their parents' "pastors". They were driven out of their homes by the parents; some were bathed with hot soda; others had nails driven into their skulls; yet others were quickly murdered by their parents and the community. All these went on for years and no one seemed to notice until Channel 4, UK, did a report on them in November this year. The report brought the Nigerian government into ridicule.

Many people have commented on this and have roundly condemned the government, the parents, the cultural milleu that permitted such evil and the religious liars that brainwash(ed) the parents. But none has said a thing about the press. When all these were going on for years, where was the Nigerian press? Akwa Ibom hosts a number of newspapers, television and radio stations. What did these do about these indescribably evil practice? Albert Einstein says:

the world is a dangerous place to live;

not because of the people who are evil,

but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

As soon as Channel 4 released its documentary in November and local press picked up the matter, the government of Akwa Ibom began the review of the Child Rights Act. Today, the Act has been sharpened well enough to be used to prosecute these heartless groups, parents and pastors. Imagine if the Nigerian press did their job of surveillance of the environment well enough, and raised this issue to public consciousness two to three years ago. Quite a number of kids would have escaped this crude inquisition and trial by ordeal. One of the perptrators, a self-styled bishop confessed to having killed 110 witch children. But then he said he 'killed' the witches in them, not (just?) the kids. He is explaining this to the police. Einstein's words haunt me:

The world is a dangerous place to live;

not because of the people who are evil,

but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

A black Black Friday

2008-11-28T14:39:00.000-08:00

Thursday, November 27, being the fourth Thursday of November, was Thanksgiving Day in the United States. It is a federal public holiday set aside to commemorate the safe arrival of migrating Europeans in what is now the United States. The first recorded Thanksgiving was held by 600 safe arrivals in Florida in 1565. The purpose was to give thanks to God for protecting the migrants from the perils of the sea and the poisoned darts of Native Indians. Today, Thanksgiving is a big holiday—probably bigger than Christmas or New Year. It’s one time of the year that the family reunites. But not many people remember that it is supposed to be a day for thanking God. I am afraid the day is associated more with eating traditional Thanksgiving food—roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and veggies, than with God and His providence. Worse still, like Christmas, Thanksgiving has received a bad dent from the gush of commercialization.

The day following Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday. It is so called because that day, all retail outlets whose accounts may have been in the red lower prices and get more buyers thus moving the account from red to black. In ‘Black Friday’ is one rare use of the word ‘black’ that actually means something good! This commercial appendage to Thanksgiving is gradually overshadowing the main event. In the days leading to Thanksgiving, I heard more talk about Black Friday than about a people giving thanks or a God receiving thanks.

I witnessed this year’s Black Friday in State College, Pennsylvania. My friend and I went to a store to shop for computers. We were warned to arrive early as the period of grace (sales) would be short and the people would be many. We got to the first store about 4.15 am. What we saw was incredible: there were over 120 people lined up in the frozen weather—it was 0oC or 32oF. We learnt that some people had been there since 10.00 pm of Thursday: they had spent over six hours in that chill! No wonder a lot of smoking had to go on! We moved to another less known store and within minutes even the queue there began to challenge a medium-size train. In some stores, there was real pandemonium. In fact, a news outlet reported that shoppers broke down the doors of a store when it was time to get in. Americans are an interesting people: they’d go through anything to save a few dollars when it comes to buying; but they’d blow all of that on what, to the Nigerian in me, is trivial—such as paying $100 to watch a game of football.
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But the Black Friday did actually turn black. In search of my daily dose of Nigerian news, I turned to the Nigerian Tribune online. Of the four news items on its front page, three were records of the needless deaths of scores of people in Nigeria: armed robbers killed several in Ibadan; three more children died from lethal teething drugs; a truck lost control and ran into a full market in Kogi State killing tens of people in the market. In frustration, I turned to the Nigerian Guardian, and Rueben Abati was there describing and lamenting the heartless torture and murder of scores of Akwa Ibom kids who were declared witches (winches) by some rabid pastors and senseless parents. My frustration welled to the brim so I turned to MSNBC online. ‘Enough of Nigeria!’ I screamed. But what did MSNBC offer me: “Wal-Mart worker dies after crowd rushes store” What? American shoppers trampled a sales clerk to death just to save a few bucks? I am done with the news. "Well. Let's see BBC online", I mustered some hope. But I got another stab: Poll riots erupt in Nigerian city BBC declared. Riots in Jos over elections claimed the lives of at least 20 people gruesomely matcheted or burnt to death. "No more!" I resolved. It was indeed a black Black Friday.

The Nigerian Higher Education Foundation symposium at New York

2008-11-22T06:57:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, 13 November 2008, my colleague and I attended a symposium organised by the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation (NHEF) at Columbia University, New York. In attendance were several distinguished US-based Nigerians in academia holding down important positions in their fields and publishing cutting-edge research. Participants also included people from business and representatives of some higher institutions in Nigeria, including the University of Ibadan. In attendance was the Obi of Onitsha, an alumnus of Columbia University for forty years. (I stand with the Obi in the photo above)

The symposium was on the role of partnerships in African sustainable development. Participating organisations included the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Among the speakers at the symposium--and there were very many of them--were the distinguished Professor of Development Economics, Jeffrey Sachs; the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Achebe; Anthony Olorunnisola (Penn State University); Ibrahim Gambari (United Nations); Wole Soboyejo (Princeton University); Bola Omoniyi (the Earth Institute); Funmi Olopade (University of Chicago); G.O.S Ekhaguere (University of Ibadan, Nigeria), and Sam Ofodile (UNIPORT, Nigeria). Some presenters shared their research breakthroughs (Prof Ofodile and his team had perfected a method of injecting a substantial quantity of protein into garri!) while others presented the activities of their organisations (Bola Omoniyi talked about the Millennium Villages Project in countries including Nigeria). Everyone stressed how their research or organisations could help, or had been helping, Nigeria especially with regard to attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Presenters however shared their frustrations with the situation in Nigeria: the difficulty in collaborating with Nigerian universities caused by lack of follow up; the daunting problem of bureaucracy in Nigerian universities; and cold reception or even outright opposition from colleagues back home! The problem of infrastructure and

corruption in the nation as a whole also received substantial coverage. (To your left is a discussion panel at the symposium. I stand with Dr Olorunnisola in the photograph below)

This symposium was my first real encounter with brain drain at work. The presenters were first-rate academics, distinguished in every sense of the word, who had left Nigeria years ago out of sheer frustration--unemployment, militarism, poverty, insecurity, corruption--or in search of education. Nigeria's loss is America's gain. It also exposed me to the reality of media bias and stereotypes: in the media we hardly hear of this category of Nigerians in the US; but all the time we hear of a different kind of Nigerians in America: those who defraud others. The symposium also exposed me to a different kind of patriotism. These people left Nigeria years ago but their hearts never left Nigeria. Everyone was driven by one question: "how can we help Nigeria?" In fact, that was the question that led to the birth of NHEF in 2004.

It appears to me that Nigeria has immense resources and an inexhaustible reservoir of goodwill from Nigerians in diaspora--resources which our leaders and administrators have ignored. Will Nigerian academic adminstrators and political leaders respond to the NHEF and diasporic beckon? I am frightened by the obvious answer to this question.

PS: Jeffrey Sachs's wisecrack at the symposium: Each time people complain about corruption in developing countries, I ask, 'Really? You mean there are corrupt people outside of Washington?'

'Yes we can'…it is real

2008-11-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

No election ever sapped my physical and emotional energy as much as the recent US presidential elections. After witnessing electoral malpractices of indescribable dimensions and scale in Nigeria, I had come to the conclusion that elections in general are not worth the sweat. And as the US election approached and the dirty, dangerous and desperate fighting by the Republicans got worse, my cynicism turned to fear. That fear gripped me tightly. A few weeks to the election, it was clear that Barack Obama would win; but with the US Republicans, it is not over until they are under. The Republicans brought out all the lethal weapons in their arsenal: Obama’s birth certificate issue; Obama’s pastor, Pastor Wright’s racial venom; Obama’s neighbor, Bill Ayers’s ‘terrorist’ records; Obama Aunt’s illegal residence in the US; Obama’s promise to redistribute wealth which they called socialism; Joe the Plumber; Obama’s anti-Israel friend, Khalid …the list of smear dots was endless. For me, every new day brought fresh fears.

The elections came. I went monitoring and observing the process with two sets of news writing students of my host college, College of Communications. I visited three voting stations: two outside and one on campus. I was stunned by the fact that there was not a single policeman in any voting station; I was stunned that people went to vote carrying their children with them—who could do that in my country where people go to voting stations not sure they would return alive or in one piece. I was stunned by the sheer number of nonpartisan organizations out there to help voters find their way and precinct. I was stunned that elections were handled by the states, and not by the federal government. Therefore each state (even county) designed its ballot papers and voting method. I was stunned that, accompanied by Jennifer Zeigler, a colleague and an instructor in news writing, I was allowed right up to the ballot cubicle though it was obvious that I was not a citizen. I was stunned by the sheer list of things people voted on: it was not just the presidential and congressional candidates. Folks were asked, in Fergusson Township, to vote on tenure elongation for County Council members. That too was on the ballot papers. I was stunned by the spirit which kept people on the queue for five hours plus without them complaining. I was too stunned to write—that is why this piece is coming this late.

I met an old white lady at the voting centre in the HUB at Penn State University. She told me she was 76. She carried candies and water which she generously offered people who queued to vote. She wore Obama signs but her water and candies were for whoever wanted to vote—no matter who was their candidate. She had been there four hours when I got there; and was there standing while I left two hours after.

What was behind this spirit? Another colleague of mine, Dr Jo Dumas, who on that day wore the sign “Poll Monitor”, put it this way: “the message has sunk down into people’s hearts. If you want people, reach for their hearts”. I interpreted “the message” to be Obama’s message of change.

Polls closed in Pennsylvania at 8 pm. CNN began including Pennsylvania results in their announcements from 8:15 pm. Talk about the power of speed and technology. (In Nigeria, it took about a week for the 2007 election result to be released—which is what Professor Maurice Iwu, Nigeria electoral boss, wants the US to learn from us!)

My friends and I did not sleep even after CNN's Wolf Blitzer pronounced Obama winner about 11 pm, Eastern Time. “Was it real? Please pinch me! It’s a dream”, one of my friends said as the announcement was made. It is real.

Halloween & Egungun: norm-suspension or ancestral worship?

2008-11-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

Friday, October 31, was Halloween (or Hallowed Evening). Originally, Halloween was a pagan festival in Europe meant to welcome and placate spirits and ghosts who, it was believed, paid homecoming visits to the earth on November 1 each year. But Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV tried to Christianize Halloween and made November 1 the All Saints’ Day, and Halloween became All Saints’ eve. That was about the 9^th century. But today, Halloween has little, if any, connection with the church. Rather, it is celebrated in queer ways characterized by the suspension of significant aspects of social norms and control. In fact, a church organised what it named a Christ-Centred Alternative to Halloween to keep members from participating in the pagan fun.

In State College, US, where I witnessed this year’s Halloween, Halloween symbols such as pumpkin and effigies of ghosts and spirits had been on display in schools, shops and private driveways two months before Halloween. I took the picture above from a charter primary/kindergarten school along Science Park Road. Yellow-and-black Halloween candies had been on sale for over two months. A neighbor displayed seven human skulls (not real) in front of his house. There was a general air of an approaching big festival everywhere. The day before Halloween, folks in strange costumes were in many places—they couldn’t wait for Halloween to come. I met a young lady in a supermarket clad in black attires with a two-foot hat. When asked, she proudly announced she was a witch dressed for a Halloween party.

On the Halloween day, schools ran half-day, and held parties. I met a "real" witch in another shopping mall. (See the picture to your left and the next picture). When asked if I could take her picture, she quickly reached for her witch broomstick and posed witchfully for the shot. Staff of a Department at the Penn State University agreed to celebrate this year’s Halloween by dressing, not as spirits, but as workmen—with helmets, boots, workman jeans and calloused gloves to match.

Halloween is a suspension of whatever made you your social you. In the evening, children dressed in Halloween costumes (ghosts, skeletons and the indescribable) went from house to house demanding candies—and people quickly gave them. They threatened a trick—if you refused to give the candies, and a treat—if you gave. These kids are called trick-or-treaters. And children from neighbors who don’t as much as exchange a glance on normal days knock on neighbor’s doors to demand for candies on Halloween. Talk of suspension of the social norms that inhibit us. (I saw a six-footer among the trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood though!)

For a minute I imagined Halloween in Nigeria. And why not? I used to carry, that is bear or wear, our family Egungun masquerade during Egungun festivals. And, though I was in high school, each time I wore the Egungun, even my father prostrated to salute me. I was no longer me; I was his great ancestor who had counted little him worthy of an ancestral visit. (To your right is the picture of a Yoruba Egungun). And my father, my uncles and aunts and our extended family never took that for granted. Flanked by smaller Egunguns, I demanded anything: chicken, pounded yam and gin, and my dad and the entire extended family quickly offered it--to the ancestors of course. Again, it was a momentary suspension of whatever made you your social you. If I knew candies, the youthful 'ancestor' most certainly would have demanded it.

Well, of course, Egungun is denigrated as a fetish ancestral worship. But there is a question. Last year December on a trip from New Malden to London, my friend and I had just passed by a burial ground and lots of folks were there laying wreaths on grave sites of their beloved long-departed. “Isn’t that ancestral worship?” I asked my British friend. “Oh, no. They’re just honoring their dead relatives”. If it were in Africa, it was ancestral worship; in Europe and America, it is fun or “just honoring” the departed and placating them with candies and flowers. Sometimes, it is too obvious that the only way to justifiably hang a dog is to call it a bad name. I think both Halloween and Egungun are, among other things, moments that we, almost justifiably, suspend the norms and our social ego—ironically still within the accepted boundaries of culture—and be who we wish to be but cannot always be.

FREE JONATHAN ELENDU NOW!

2008-10-30T14:56:00.001-07:00

The Nigerian blogger, Jonathan Elendu was, about two weeks ago, picked up by the State Security Services in Nigeria. He was detained for several days and was released on October 29, but his international passport was not returned to him. Jonathan Elendu is based in the US; without his passport, he cannot return to his family in the US. This is against the Nigerian constitution; it is against democracy and freedom of speech; it is against all sense of fairness. Free Elendu now! Return his passport to him.

Elendu's arrest and the safety of online journalism

2008-10-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

Nigeria has added another to its string of firsts with the arrest of the popular writer of elendureports.com, Mr Jonathan Elendu, by the State Security Service (SSS). As reported by the PM News, Mr Elendu was picked up on Saturday, October 19, at the Nnamdi Azikwe International airport, Abuja, on his arrival from the United States. He is being held by the SSS for his alleged connection with saharareporters.com. Saharareporters.com is known for publishing top-secret stories and photographs of the gross misdeeds of Nigerian government officials including those of the president’s family members. Elendureports.com is far less aggressive and biting than sharareporters.com. There are rumours that the SSS is desperately inventing a web of accusations, including money laundering and sedition, to squeeze round Mr Elendu's neck. (Above is Mr Elendu's picture which I copied from bbc.co.uk)

Online journalism has been considered the safest form of journalism, the least susceptible to state clampdown. It has negotiated for itself a clear space in the public sphere for citizens’ engagement of government, its actions and policies. This form of journalism is understandably attractive to Nigerians given the experiences of orthodox journalists in the hands of the Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha—Nigerian military dictators who hounded and pounded journalists for nearly fourteen years. (See, for instance, Sunday Dare's Guerrila Journalism)

Media scholars and political scientists who support the idea of a free press find in online journalism an avenue for unfettered freedom of expression. Not only this, online journalism has led them to announce and in fact celebrate the death of gate-keeping and censorship. [See, for instance, Williams and Carpini’s (2000) “Unchained reaction: the collapse of media gate-keeping…”, Journalism (1) 1:61-85]. Jonathan Elendu’s arrest by the government of Nigeria should lead theorists to cut short this celebration and rethink the universality of their conclusions. This is the same way the recent invasion of Channels TV by the SSS calls for a rethink of press freedom in the Nigerian democracy. And those who call President Yar'Adua "Go Slow" should have a rethink: he can be very swift if the issue matters to him--his men did not allow Mr Elendu to even spend a second in Nigeria before arresting him. Nigeria!

There is some worry about the silence of most Nigerian papers on the arrest of Mr Jonathan Elendu. We do not know for sure why most papers, unlike bloggers, have been quiet on this. Even the BBC has done a report on the arrest. Do orthodox Nigerian journalists consider their online colleagues comrades or rivals? Maybe this is a good question for empirical investigation. However this goes, in my view, Nigeria is the first sub-Saharan African country and the second country in the world (after China) to attempt a clampdown on online journalism.

NB: I have edited this post slightly since after receiving Loomnie's comment.

That RAN Conference

2008-10-17T08:41:00.000-07:00

On September 16, 2008, I announced on this blog that the Reading Association of Nigeria (RAN) was planning a national conference to be held in University of Uyo, Nigeria. The Conference took place from October 6 to 9. The first day was devoted to an up-skilling workshop for primary and high school teachers to acquaint them with current trends in teaching reading. The workshop was free for teachers of government schools; those from private schools had to pay. This was commendable social service by RAN.

There was a keynote address which focused on literacy structures for educational advancement and manpower development. The speaker stressed the strong challenges before RAN in its efforts to promote reading in Nigeria. One of the most interesting papers presented at the Conference was the one with the title: "Literacy skills in the language of medicine: the layman’s survival strategy".

Edidiong Umana presented the paper she and I prepared. (That is her picture to your left). Our paper carried the title: “Nigerian newspapers as sources of sickle cell education: what is there to read?” Our content analysis of Nigerian newspapers showed that despite the high prevalence of sickle cell disorder in Nigeria, the print media give it only minute attention—unlike HIV/AIDS. AIDS campaigns get international sponsorship and so attract media attention. We argued that the current greatest criterion for news selection is not found on the pages of journalism textbooks. That criterion is profit. Click here for the abstract. For the full version of the paper, send an email to Edidiong (ediumana@gmail.com).

Contrary to what I predicted in my September 16 announcement of the Conference, not many presenters made recommendations to government. (But the joint communique issued at the end of the Conference did). Does this suggest that individual Nigerian scholars are losing faith in government? Are they asking: of what use have been the recommendations made to government over the ages? Is this doubt, disaffection or cynicism? Whatever the answer might be, it is important to know that I am not a reliable prophet.

Back to Fashola, Ekpu & the nature of news

2008-10-16T07:09:00.001-07:00

"Bad news sells". "Bad news is good news". We have all heard this many times. But really what does a preponderance of bad news do to a people? Or to the press itself? I engage this question in the Nigerian context as I respond to criticisms mounted against Governor Raji Fashola of Lagos who recently pleaded with media people to be more positive in their news writing. My thoughts were published in the Guardian newspaper of October 16, 2008. Click here to read the article.

"This ethnic group...we are not important to the media..."

2008-10-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

In a small-scale study sponsored by the Centre for Research in Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) University of Oxford, I engaged members of some very small Nigerian ethnic groups in focus group discussions. I intended to learn what they thought about the width and nature of coverage they received in the Nigerian media. This followed my discovery, through content analysis, that the 390-something ethnic groups outside the three mega groups in Nigeria occupy just about 23% of the media space devoted to ethnic issues in Nigeria. Minority ethnic group members felt that their identity was marginalized by the media. In their words: “We do not matter. We are not important. If we are, the media will talk about us, about our festivals, about our problems”. There is a covert link between group size, media attention and political-economic influence in Nigeria.

You can download a summary of the work here.

At last, Masaba gets a name…a lesson in news writing

2008-09-28T11:23:00.000-07:00

Mallam Bello Abubakar Masaba Bida has been in the news since the first half of August 2008. Yet, until the end of September, he was never referred to in the headlines by his name. Rather, he was known by all the papers as “man with 86 wives”. Common headlines: “Man with 86 wives dares JNI” “Etsu gives man with 86 wives 48 hours to divorce 82” “’Your safety is not guaranteed’ Man with 86 wives warned” etc. In casting headlines, editors and sub desks are warned to opt for the shorter and the catchier. Why did Nigerian editors opt for the long-winding description? Louise Bourgault in her book Mass media in sub-Sahara Africa criticizes African radio and TV interviewers for preferring long and winding questions to short and punchy ones. She even mocks them for causing interviewers to fall asleep during interviews. I disagree with Bourgault, not only on this point, but also because the whole book smacks of Western triumphalism. But that is slightly out of my concern here.

News writing students are taught to append a description or an appellation to the name of an actor when they write the lead of a story if the actor is not prominent. The appended description brings the actor within the readers’ frame of reference and makes a piece more comprehensible. For instance, it is better to say, “Henry Bida, a sergeant in the Nigerian Army has been honored for his bravery…” than to say “Henry Bida has been honored for his bravery”. The latter lead keeps the reader wondering who the Henry is because Henry is not prominent. If it is a known person, for instance, Umar Musa Yar’adua, no description needs be appended.

Not many people knew Masaba. It was therefore understandable that editors chose to describe him by his unusual feat. But why did this last so long? Why did it take Nigerian editors almost two months of consistent reporting to give Masaba a face and a name? My guess: ascending Masaba’s act above his name would sell the story. Even if it makes the headline clumsy, the story would sell, and for many editors, only that matters. But the sad consequence of this is that, to many readers, Masaba has come to be not a human being, but a bizarre creature without a name. He is not one of us so he cannot be sympathized with or understood. And are the courts not treating him like that? Maybe that is why rejoinders and letters to the editors that are sympathetic to Masaba are very few. And maybe that is why his case is being championed only by “a coalition of northern human rights group”, and this coming about six weeks after his ordeal began.

However Masaba’s case ends, whether in his death with which some have threatened him, in jail or in freedom, Nigerian editors should know that, remotely or not, they robbed the man of his human face.

This article was published in Thisday (Monday, October 13, 2008)

Channels TV Closure: if it were FCC...

2008-09-26T05:55:00.000-07:00

In the news in the last few weeks was the brush between National Broadcasting Commission and the state security services on one hand, and Channels TV and the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the other. The matter has ended and Nigerians are forgetting it. I imagined what the US version of NBC would have done if Channels' sin was committed in America. I also recommended a major restructuring which could be a lasting solution to the continuous abuse of power by the NBC. My thoughts were published in the Thisday edition of Friday September 26. Click here to read more.

Today’s Tears for Timi—by Doris Favor Esemuze

2008-09-22T06:55:00.000-07:00

Timipreye Agbadaebi Zinzinghan was my graduate student. Timi was unusual in kindness, outstanding in grace, firm but friendly. She ignited everywhere with her charm and smiles. Timi fell ill and died in July 2008. I rallied her old classmates together and between us went about 100 emails of lamentations and admonition. Among the best is the one posted here, written by Doris Favor Esemuze, one of Timi’s two closest friends and an elegant word-smith. Doris is my guest on this page. Click here to read the piece.

Iorver: the heart of an art

2008-09-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

Iorver Ikeseh is a final-year student of the Department of Fine Arts, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. Iorver has exhibited his works at many national exhibitions in Nigeria. Though young, Iorver seems to have developed a theme and a motif for his works. It seems to me that his bent is to use arts to depict social problems. Above is one of his works. He calls it Rescue. He has satirised the negative influence of global media on youths, he did a painting of the late Fela Anikulapo, a social crusader, an amazing portrait of Bob Marley and many more. Sometime soon, I will interview this young and budding talent very briefly. He will tell us why he does what he does.

Literacy and human development…Will they listen to RAN?

2008-09-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

From October 6 to 11, 2008, the Reading Association of Nigeria (RAN) will hold its 11th biennial conference in Uyo, Capital of Akwa Ibom State, South South Nigeria. Conferees will discuss the intersection between literacy and human development. Keynote speakers are Professor Steve Layne from Chicago, Professor Thelma Oboh from Minnesota and Prof Ralph Omojuwa from Nigeria. Conferees will discuss how literacy can contribute to alleviating human development problems in Nigeria. They are expected to make suggestions to government and NGOS on what to do to increase literacy rate from the abysmal 67% (adult literacy) (See IRA, 2007).

Ms Edidiong Umana, a graduate student of mine, and I will co-present a paper on “The Nigerian newspapers as sources of education on SCD: what is there to read?” We believe the media have done a lot of informing and educating on HIV/AIDS, cancer etc . We are not certain if they have done enough about sickle cell disease (SCD) education. Yet 100 million people worldwide and about 40 million Nigerians carry the sickle cell trait (Ohaeri & Sokunbi, 2001). If the SCD problem is that severe, the Nigerian media should prime it based on the demands of social responsibility and the news selection criteria of magnitude and prominence. We plan to do a content analysis of the health pages of two leading Nigerian papers to see what about SCD is on them. Many SCD carriers are young; they need education in order to make marital choices and so break the chain of pain, woes and misery. Poor or scant media content as well as illiteracy will deny them this much-needed education. These are therefore anti-human development. Ms Umana will make the presentation on our behalf.

It is commendable that RAN has chosen to focus on human development and how literacy can influence it. The literacy rate in Nigeria is low and human development is poor. From this conference will come suggestions on how to tackle the problems. By these, maybe RAN will save some from ignorance, poverty and disease that illiteracy promotes.

But will concerned government agencies take RAN seriously? Does the Nigerian government think the academia have anything to offer? Recently a government official said Nigerian academics had failed Nigerian. I thought the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) would take him up. But it did not. Maybe ASUU felt the right response was silence. Ms Umana and I envisaged that as usual, government and its agencies would not listen to the RAN conferees. Therefore, we might back up our presentation with media advocacy and SCD activism after the conference.

References:

Ohaeri, J. U. and Shokunbi, W. A. (2001) “Attitudes and Beliefs of Relatives of patients with
Sickle cell disease” The East African Medical Journal. Vol. 78, No 4 pp180- 186

IRA: International Reading Association (2007) Nigeria: 67% adult literacy not acceptable. http://blog.reading.org/archives/002474.html

List of some of my publications--2006 and older

2008-09-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

Ojebode, A (2006) “Nigerian Mass Media Representation of Women in Agriculture and Agribusiness: A Case of Status Misconferral” Journal of Communication Studies Vol. 5, No 1-2, pp 1-14. Click here for abstract.

Ojebode, A. (2005) “Tested, Trusted, Yet Frustrating: An Investigation into the Effectiveness of Environmental Radio Jingles in Oyo State Nigeria” Applied Environmental Communication and Education Volume 4; pp. 173-180. Click here for abstract.

Ojebode, A. & Sola Sonibare (2004) “A Little More than a strong Urge: An Investigation into the Influence of Radio Reading Programmes on Listeners’ Practice of reading” West African Journal of Education Vol. xxiv, Number 1; pp. 79-89. Click here for abstract.

Ojebode, A. (2004) “Media Globalisation and the responses of the Nigerian Broadcast Media: Implications for Democracy and Development” International Review of Politics and Development Vol. 2, No 2; pp. 40-53. Click here for abstract.

Ojebode, A. (2004) “Empathising in Cyberspace: A Study of Empathy among Members of an Internet Group” Multidisciplinary Journal of Research Development Vol. 3, No 1; pp. 87-95. Click here for abstract.

Akinleye, L. & Ojebode, A. (2004) “World Information Imbalance: the Domestic Dimension” Topical Issues in Communication Arts & Sciences Vol. 2 pp. 15-24. Click here for abstract.

Ever heard of a nude radio advert

2008-09-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

Nigerians--are we ever tired of creating new things? A religious leader recently asked the federal government to ban all nude adverts on the Nigerian newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. I have been wondering how a radio advert can be nude. I assume my ears aren't working as well my eyes. That's why I see nudity but don't hear it.