An Accident in the Waiting

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?

WHAT IS A VOTE WORTH IN NIGERIA?

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.

Faces of the Post-Election Murderers

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?

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

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?

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 Igbo Man Wants to Rule Holland

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

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.

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

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.

Media Muzzling in Uganda--Prelude to Darkness

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!

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!

Election malpractices in Rotterdam: a journey backwards

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

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

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.

A scientific meeting and my anger

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.

Campus radio licenses: a diversionary tool in Nigeria

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.)