Nigeria: How Far, So Far? By Matthew Hassan Kukah
Posted: June 4, 2011 - 00:32
By Dr Matthew Hassan Kukah is
The key to good decision-making is not knowledge. It is understanding….…Malcolm Gladwell
In my essay marking Nigeria’s 50th anniversary last year, I tried to make some projections as to what Nigeria might look like in the next 50 years. I played around with the theme of what I called, Nigeria’s coming power elite, that is, the millions of our children who are in the Diaspora. I was rather enthused by the reactions I got from that piece. Only last week, I had the honour of speaking at the Nigerian Governors Forum in Abuja. In that short presentation, my concern was with posing the question: How did we get here? For a good part of that day, I received several text messages from people. What I sense is that by some inadvertent collusion, we have ended up with no intellectual content to our politics.
When I posed a similar question at one of our monthly Roundtables which I organize in Kaduna, my good friend, Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed asked what I thought then was a strange question. Its import only hit me later on. He had asked me rather poignantly, Father, where is here? It is doubtful that Dr Ahmed understood how deep that question was. For, it forced me to think about my own assumptions. Yes, indeed, where is here, or to put it differently, what is here? In other words, like travelers lost, or tired from travel, or at sea, where indeed, is here? The question as to where is here, can be answered by the sheer ubiquity of our chaos, failure and decay.
My interest in this essay is to highlight some of the issues that I raised very briefly in my presentation at the Governors’ Forum. I believe that we are at a momentous period now in our national history. I believe that more than ever before, we now require a robust intellectual input to steer our democracy on a path that can best reposition Nigeria to face the future with hope and confidence. To do this, I will address ten key issues.
First, Nigeria has to come to terms with why our journey has been so very slow. The corrosive impact of military rule, with its tradition of unaccountability and the corrupt influence of money have left a legacy that the political class has continued to exploit, seeing power as merely an opportunity for theft and self enrichment. Someone wrote of the Congo that given the predatory foundation laid by King Leopold and his Belgian exploiters, it was natural that the only one who qualified to succeed him had to be a Mobutu. Mobutu’s historic despoliation and ruination was a natural progression of the dungeon that Belgian colonialism left behind.
In the absence of a clear cut negotiated settlement to end its rule such as in South Africa, or outright defeat of an older order, such as in Afghanistan, Nigeria’s so called transition to democracy in 1999 was at most a muted fraudulent strategic repositioning by a ruling class that had run out of moral options. The late General Abacha’s denouement had turned out to be an exposition of the last dregs of a stale wine of military rule which had been exposed to hostile elements of corruption. Leaving no tradition of accountability or a blue print for organizing for the Common Good, Nigerian politicians have simply come to see their role as merely the continuation of the same exploitation of their people in a semi legal environment protected by the architecture of a weak state. Beyond planning for its own survival, the Nigerian political class has simply no serious blueprint for a national project. The late Professor Claude Ake in a 1996 essay titled,
Is Africa Democratising, drew attention to this sharp distinction when he argued that: Military rule is not so much the aberration we often call it as the negation of what is uniquely human in the way we relate. The military can never engender Democracy because it is the antithesis of democracy as regards norms, values, purposes and structure. The military addresses the extreme and the extraordinary, while Democracy addresses the routine, the Military values discipline and hierarchy, Democracy values freedom and equality, the method of the Military is violent aggression that of Democracy, persuasion, negotiation and consensus building. After many years of discrediting politics, aggressing and humiliating politicians, virtually everyone is discouraged from politics except those with a neurotic attachment to power, no other means of livelihood or self esteem
The principal challenge that the nation faces therefore is how to open up the political space to allow the energy of ordinary Nigerians to become the creative force for growth and genuine development. Politics and political processes were slowed down because the transition to democracy in Nigeria was already concluded before it started. Whereas the Afrikaners had decided that they would give power to Mr. Nelson Mandela, the black South Africans were lucky that they had a disciplined organization, the African National Congress, founded way back in 1917. The ANC had institutionalized ideology and discipline which to which the great Nelson Mandela had to submit to in totality. In our case here in Nigeria, although a cabal made up of retired and serving military officers, retired technocrats and politicians of northern extraction had struck a deal to give power to General Obasanjo while he was still in prison, there was no party platform on which he would
land. Factions, fractions and cliques of different and divergent ideological leanings or none at all, responded to this emergency return to civilian rule.
What emerged as the Peoples’ Democratic Party was at best a menu hurriedly designed well after the meal had been served! A motley crowd of men and women brought together with the mission to perpetuate the ravaging and exploitation of the resources of state, saw President Obasanjo’s earlier commitment to transformation suffer severe strain as the old order sought to claim back what it had not really surrendered. The contortions and distortions of 2003 elections bear no repetition but they showed the strain. Bloodied from that fight, President Obasanjo soon began a process that would reverse some of the gains he had already made. He decided to shed his moral claims, took off the gloves and bang, the rofo rofo fight started. The third term agenda sowed the seeds of the national humiliation that was the 2007 elections. These failures were not evidence of a diseased political elite. They were merely symptoms of a cancer that had not been properly
diagnosed not to talk of recommending a regime of chemotherapy.
Second, what we have as here, is really the evidence of our failure to have a real transition to democracy. We had missed the basic theoretical philosophy of transitions and forgotten that not all transitions from authoritarianism lead necessarily to transitions to democracy unless the old order has suffered defeat or surrendered to a superior moral high ground gained through negotiation as in South Africa. The squalor, the impact of the pervasive and invidious culture of corruption, the collapse and rut of all physical and social infrastructure, the culture of violence are all before us of evidence that the old order was still stalking us.
In a way, we have all become victims of a weak, gasping and collapsing state, preying on its citizens. In a rather strange kind of way, governance has been about the dog returning to its vomit. Fancy the contradiction expressed in the fact that the failure of policy has become the cure. Let me explain. Does it make sense that all those areas where we have the greatest failures are the areas into which huge resources are being sunk? Think of the billions of dollars sunk into generating power which we cannot see. Yet, rather than face this failure, we are told constantly that billions are going to be sunk on railways, power and so on. The lack of roads has become the justification for the perpetuation of the myth that road construction is the excuse for sinking billions of dollars into nonexistent roads. Ditto Education, Health and range illusory options created to justify the persistence of theft as an article of faith. National extortion has become a
tool of governance. The politicians along with their Ministers constantly dip their fingers into the coffers while recycling the proceeds of theft into their pockets and fuelling the Party machinery. It is the cumulative impact of this frustration that found expression in the violence that followed the elections. This is why holding public office is the prelude to political ambitions (Councilor wants to become the Chairman, Chairman of the Council wants to become the Governor, the Governor wants to become the next President and the President decides he does not want to go!) Why should public office not be the prelude to stealing of state resources?
Third, is it likely that we have reached a defining moment, one of the quality of which Malcolm Gladwell, the writer and New Yorker columnist calls, the Tipping point? In the little book by the same title, he says: The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.
Clearly, we can attempt this luxury against the backdrop of two rather superficially plausible propositions. First, we might convince ourselves that we have put military rule behind us. This illusion can be sustained against the backdrop of other realities. One was the decisive and incisive decision in 1999 by Generals Obasanjo and Danjuma to cut off from the ranks of the military, an elite segment whose appetite for power had been wetted by public office. That singular decision many would argue, has severely constrained the military’s ability to threaten the polity.
Evidence of the fact that we have crossed the Rubicon might be gleaned from the fact that since in many respects, the military has historically been the fighting wing of the northern ruling classes, under normal circumstances, the clouds and fumes around Yar’adua’s health in the last days of his regime would have offered a perfect excuse for a coup. Happily, Nigeria survived.
Again, even the violence that attended the last elections would also have provided a perfect excuse for the military to argue that the civilian government had lost its capacity to contain the violence. But, happily, the circumstances were different. Of course, at a theoretical level, we can argue that the nature of the beneficiaries of a coup or no coup would have also had a say in determining the behaviour of the military and their civilian sponsors, many of who might probably have drowned in the process.
Can we argue that our ability to successfully organize four elections back to back is also indicative of the fact that we have indeed reached a decisive point in which the military now appreciates that its interests are now subordinate to those of the political establishment? If this argument is found to be sufficiently plausible, then it does appear that Nigeria is on the threshold of a new dawn. But, of course, that depends on other factors. The key concern here is the quality of the political actors on the ground and whether indeed, we have a crop of politicians who can turn away from the predatory politics of the last eleven or so years.
In another biting critique of the Nigerian political ruling class, the late Professor Claude Ake, in a 1993 lecture, summed up the characteristics of the political classes by concluding that: The Nigerian ruling elite survives against all odds. There is no legitimacy to draw on. It has run out of ideas, even bad ones. We are always looking up to someone else, forever searching for good leaders to see us through. The Nigerian state is a negative unity of takers in which collective enterprise is all but impossible. The challenge is for a new crop of well-informed, modern and patriotic politicians to commence a process of severing this ugly, opportunistic, parasitic virus which encourages a visionless gang who see politics or military rule as business by other names.
Fifth, what are the building blocks that Nigeria needs? The real challenge is how the President and the political class decide on team selection. Here, I do not mean just political office holders and the ruling Party. Clearly, there are two institutions whose roles the President needs to think more clearly. These are traditional rulers and religious bodies. These institutions have become very visible in the political process. As we can see from the persistence of violence, there is need for clarification of the roles that these two key institutions have to play in a democracy. Indeed, the so-called eruption of post elections violence was indicative of the need for a clearer role for the two institutions who should be less visible in a democracy.
There is of course a slight conceptual difficulty. Whereas Muslim traditional rulers collapse the two identities of traditional and religious rulers into one, the same cannot be said of the Christian religious leaders. Within Christianity itself, whereas the Catholic Church maintains a legal and critical distance from partisan party political processes, many Protestant bodies have a slightly different disposition. Some within the ranks of the Pentecostals, especially the one-man Churches, believe that the altar can be transformed or co-opted into a partisan political soapbox. The result is the increasing high profile roles that we have seen recently shown either in direct participation by some Pastors or the enthusiastic and direct embrace of Caesar by which some pastors want to become official Chaplains while their Churches become the Political Party at prayer!
The need to extricate these threads of confusion is important. We saw very clearly in the last elections some worrying trends which, if not properly handled could pose problems for both the government and the religious bodies. Seduced by material benefits, many religious leaders seem ready to play roles that show outright partisanship. Government patronage has the tendency to create further problems especially given that adherents to different faiths hold different political views or no views at all. To be sure, unlike traditional rulers, religious leaders do not get their staff of office from the state. Therefore, they have every opportunity to play a more critical and prophetic role of speaking truth to power and standing up for the weak in society. It is understandable that in our convoluted environment, this role is complex. However, if traditional and religious leaders must play their roles and protect their people from the excesses and temptations
of political manipulation, they must try hard to steer clear of partisanship. The politicians have everything to gain and nothing to lose but the religious or traditional rulers have almost everything to lose and nothing (except the material) to gain. The reader might wonder, since yours sincerely is often accused of being a politician. Well, I consider myself a public intellectual with a duty to interrogate politics and political behaviour as part of the process of nation building. I am political because I am human, but not a politician because I am a Catholic priest!
Sixth, what are the present obstacles to Nigeria’s democratization agenda? I think the first is the Constitution. Clearly, the Constitution as we have it runs the risk of becoming an incubus to national development and integration. It is unfortunate that too many factors have combined to make its necessary amendments so difficult. First and foremost, the members of the National Assembly have shown such a gargantuan appetite for self-interest that most commentators would argue that their primary entry into those hollowed chambers was to become major partners in accessing the loot. From the first set of legislators in 1999 right through to the last session, corruption more than anything else trailed this otherwise august body. The legislators did not fool anyone when they tried to brag their way through the stunning revelations of their bad ways by Mallam Lamido Sanusi, the Central Bank Governor. Indeed, no less a newspaper than Business Day reported
last week that on balance, it has cost the Nigerian people over one billion naira to get a single bill passed in the National Assembly.
Perhaps our real problem is the quality and caliber of men and women who found their way into that Chamber. Or, it might also have to do with the fact that the Party to which they belonged and which was the Party in power had become notoriously blind to charges of corruption in the polity. In responding to the charges contained in the report of the Presidential Advisory Council over the issues of the size of the Cabinet, the President was reported as claiming that his hands were tied by the Constitution. The point here is that the Constitution requires some really surgical operation in areas that can free it to serve our country effectively. It is hoped that the next Assembly will have the courage to place national interests above those of the members of the Chambers.
Seventh and as a corollary, key issues like the question of Land ownership and citizenship rights require immediate attention. Clearly, the Governors seem to have continued with the bad ways they inherited from the military since the promulgation of the Land Use Decree in 1976. The allocation of choice lands to cronies, friends and associates continues to remain a major ingredient of political patronage. In the peripheries of urban cities, Local Chiefs have climbed into this bandwagon of corruption and, in collusion with government officials, are busy selling lands that do not belong to them. In the process, land speculators and racketeers are constantly swindling innocent citizens. There is need for a radical review and harmonization of Land laws across the country if we are to avoid the dangers of most of our cities becoming glorified ghettos in the future. Again, the crisis over land is closely related to citizenship rights and the rights of Nigerians
to move around in their own country. The problems of the Plateau should have offered us a good opportunity to address these issues, but clearly, the politicians are prepared to continue to play with human lives. These two issues should occupy the attention of both the national and state the Legislatures. But, sadly, since the politicians are the major beneficiaries, it is difficult to see who enough enthusiasm can be injected into this issue. Another area of concern is the overwhelming dependence on the sharing of loot from Abuja especially given that there are no mechanisms for control or transparency in how these resources are used. To facilitate their control, some Governors simply hand pick Speakers and Local Government Chairmen who simply continue to grovel for morsels. The result is a lack of debate or application of resources to the needs of ordinary citizens since the Chairmen are replicating the same tyrannical tendencies.
Eight, there is the issue of national security. Since violence and the insecurity it induced was often the greatest threat to the state, it is not unexpected that political violence became the major excuse for soldiers, the manufacturers and exporters of violence to step in and take over its deployment when it discovered civilians were toying with it. Under the military, security of the Head of State and his government was the major preoccupation and indeed the basis for legitimation. This is why, those within the military who were suspected of threatening the government were often lined up and violently shot as coup plotters. Gradually, the cost of protecting the Head of state became a license for unlimited access to resources. This is what led to the emergence of various security outfits and Operations which have now become an industry. The culture of security vote emerged and it is now part of our political culture. Today, in our so called democracy,
no citizens are allowed to question or know how much of their budgets go into this security vote. If this is not licensed stealing, I do not know what it is.
But, perhaps what is even worse is that although the culture of security vote has been democratized across the levels of government, we see that while more and more Nigerians are dying by the day from violence, the state Nigerian state is losing its capacity to ensure security of its citizens. Armed bandits, armed youths, and so on are constantly intimidating the Nigerian security agencies. More Nigerians have died in our democracy than at any period in our history outside the civil war. Tragically, both citizens and government have shown an unbelievable degree of apathy with the loss of lives. The circles continue and the state and federal governments simply set up Committees, an exercise in mutual hypocrisy since both the members of the Committee and the government know that nothing will become of their report. If this were not a matter of life and death, perhaps one might be less angry. But, the fact that Nigeria remains one of the most unsecured
parts of the world while billions or naira and millions of dollars are being stolen in the name of security is totally unacceptable. Governments should feel free to vote money for security, but there is no reason why this should be a secret.
Ninth, there is the challenge of values in our society. The failure of our electoral processes is a symptom of the moral rut that has taken over our country and the entire fabric of our national life. What can one get now in this country that can be called a right as a citizen? Is it Justice, Jobs, personal safety, access to social services covering health and education among others? The fact is that today, the inability of the state to offer services is tied to the deep corruption that has eaten into the Bureaucracy where, over time, bureaucrats decided to abandon their sacred duty to serve and simply decided that the politicians and the soldiers should not be allowed to chop alone. Of course, it is hard to blame individual citizens in an environment where the failure of government has meant that every citizen now has to bloom where they are planted. Those in power have lost the moral right to impose the will of the state since they are the first fault
lines.
Nigerians complain daily that money is being turned into a god. This may be the case, but we need a context for it. For, really, what else is there to do when you do not have a state that can look after you and your family? This is not an excuse but simply to state that the failure of the state has severe implications for everything in the life of our nation. This is why, restoring a moral balance in our society is a matter of great urgency.
In his seminal essay titled, The Talented Tenth, the great Marcus Garvey presented a masterly argument to the effect that like, Abraham and the debate over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, only the Talented Tenth could reverse the ugly and sad black condition in the United States of America. Among other things, Dr. Garvey argued: If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the
object of life. Today, genuine religion, teaching values and morals has lost grounds to preachers who have fashioned religion to fit the moulds of blind materialism of the moment.
Tenth and finally, we must return to where we started, namely, what is the future for Nigeria? In his little book, The Education of a British Protected Child, Chinua Achebe restates the Igbo proverb which says: If you do not know where the rain began to beat you, you will not know where you began to dry. How apt.
To be sure, we have and we must make much out of the successful elections especially as the world has commended. However, it will be deceitful for anyone to claim that these elections did not have problem nor can the result be indicative of the fact that we have seen the end of the bad ways of the political class. Their imprimatur is commendable, but in the final analysis, it is what Nigerians feel and how they perceive changes in their lives that is most important. If for the sake of argument, we accept the congratulations for the conduct of the elections, will the political class rise up to the challenge of rebuilding a severely fractured nation like Nigeria?
Dr Jonathan has great challenges ahead, but they are also opportunities for statesmanship and patriotism. He has to simply have a sense of history and what greed has done to his predecessors. Like the Brazilian monkey, many a statesman has held on to the nut of power until the forces of darkness caught up with him. This was what happened to General Abacha. Some of his predecessors had a chance to make history but allowed blind ambition, poor reading of the direction of the moral wind vane. The result is a tattered legacy (as in President Obasanjo). For a man who has come from nowhere, President Jonathan must decide whether, as I mentioned in my lecture at the Governors’ Forum, he wants to be an orphan or take his place as a prince.
If he wears the toga of an orphan, then, he can reverse the ruination that has made Nigerians vulnerable orphans and set in motion a machinery for creating an inclusive society based on justice and fairness to all. This will help us make up lost time. If on the other hand, he prefers to function as a prince, then, the footsteps of those who presided over the political funeral of his predecessor will not be far away. You have a four-year mandate. Live by it in case tomorrow does not come.
The President has a chance, but there are too few good men and women left, men and women with enough courage and moral fibre who are willing to sacrifice everything including their political ambitions to do the right thing for Nigeria. There are men and women within and outside the PDP who have destroyed this country and those who have tried to build this country. The President must rein in some of the bad eggs in his Party. The mad violence was merely a channel for pent up anger and frustration against a system that has remained blatantly unfair especially to the weakest.
There is no doubt that in its present shape and form, the Nigerian state is an anti thesis to development and progress. Held down by ethnic entrepreneurs, there are no winners, only losers. If the President does not free himself from their clutches, they will sink him. They have manipulated the levers of this corrupt contraption called Nigeria and that is why we have come to grief and are living in the shame that is characterized by darkness, squalor and death in the twenty first century. Whether they come wearing the agbada of regionalism, the cap of ethnicity or the beads of religion, the President must look back and see if he can find anything that these shameless chauvinists have done for anyone outside their immediate family and fixers while posing as praetorian guards. If we can build on these elections, we can inspire confidence in the system among our people.
In doing so, we shall end the tragic culture of voting without choosing. Congratulations, Nigeria.
Dr Matthew Hassan Kukah is Monsignor,Parish Priest, St Andrews and Vicar General of Catholic Archdiocese of Kaduna
Monday 21 November 2011
"All Our Presidents Are Accidental Tourists," Says Matthew Kukah
Lecture: Priest highlights the problem of the nation Nigeria, urging everyone to take the responsibility for its present state.Lamenting the fact that Nigerian Leaders would have to strengthen their level of preparation before ascending political offices, so that the country could be driven on a platform of visions and not mistakes, Matthew Kukah, a Catholic Priest has declared that it is unfortunate to have all Nigeria Presidents ascending office via one mistake or the other and not with a prepared mind to govern rightly.
"As we can see in the issue of this country, all our President have come by accidents. We have had long history of accidental access to leadership. Who is that person in this country that have been preparing somewhere with a mind that in another five years I want to be the President. All of them are purely coming in through accidental causes. "He said.
According to the motivational speaker and a member of the constitution reform committee set up by the Presidential era of Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr. Kukah x-rayed the list of all the past Presidents both military and political, stating that all of them were virtually unprepared for the task ahead of them.
Speaking at Ado-Ekiti at the Public Lecture organized by the Ekiti State Government to mark the present administration's a year in office, titled, ‘Long walk to a new dawn,' Mr. Kukah described the state governor, Kayode Fayemi as a veteran of struggles as the political thread that took him to the office was humanly unbelievable and challenging, but described his final ascension as the will of God.
Also, Mr. Kukah advised all Nigerians to see themselves as partners in the struggles to reform and rebirth Nigeria, urging them to stop seeing only the politicians as the corrupt individuals affecting the politics, but should look inward to correct wherever there might be needs for every individuals to make changes.
"Many of us belief that the only people that are corrupt in this country are the governors, Presidents and co, the rest of us are innocent, so it is only those who are in power. Those of us who are ere are not the guilty, we have to make it clear that government truly owes us a duty, but has given the opportunity to many of us to make them accountable and we have failed, because most of us are like them." he said.
He however said that through so many means, especially in the name of contracts, those in government and outside government are all guilty and are conspirators in whatever level of development a state has found itself.
The speaker also said that why Nigeria have not been able to overcome religious crisis is due to its way of applying the wrong prescription to solve its problems and cause of the crises, he however charged President Jonathan to ensure having adequate laws in place to check the criminal attitude of the militants and their cohorts in government.
US Ambassador: Social Woes Fuelling Boko Haram in Nigeria
Boko Haram have attacked the Police Force Headquarters in Abuja
REUTERS
The U.S. ambassador to Nigeria has urged it to address "appalling" social problems in its restive north and ease off on heavy-handed security crackdowns if Africa's most populous nation is to overcome a growing Islamist militant threat.
Boko Haram, an Islamist sect whose name translates from the northern Hausa language as "Western education is forbidden", has been behind dozens of deadly bombings and assassinations in northern parts of the country this year.
The sect's home is at the base of the arid Sahel in the northeast, one of the West African nation's poorest regions and bordering Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
President Goodluck Jonathan has said Boko Haram needs to be dealt with like other militant groups around the world but many diplomats and aid groups have called for the government to look at some of the home grown issues that feed the violence.
Jonathan is deploying a growing military force to counter the sect's attacks but many residents say troops do more harm than good, while rights groups accuse soldiers of brutalisation and unlawful arrests that backfire into sympathy for Boko Haram.
"I think it's important for political and military leadership to impress upon soldiers on the ground that they need to do their duty but they need to do their duty in a way that doesn't violate the rights of the civilian population," U.S. Ambassador, Terence McCulley said in an interview with Reuters.
"At the same time I think it's important the government look at how to redress these social-economic indicators in the north. Pick any one you want, whether it be health, literacy or access to clean water, the situation is really appalling."
Boko Haram's ambitions are growing and its attacks are becoming more sophisticated. A car bomb exploded in the car park of police headquarters in the capital Abuja in June, narrowly missing the chief of police.
In August, the sect hit its first international target. A suicide bomber smashed a car full of explosives into the side of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria's capital, ripping off the side of the building and killing 24 people.
Intelligence agencies and security experts believe Boko Haram has expanding ties with jihadist groups outside the country, including al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which operates in North African countries that border Nigeria.
"We've heard stories for years of individual members of so called Boko Haram or Nigerian Taliban travelling to northern Mali to train with GSPC (Group for Call and Combat), subsequently AQIM," McCulley said.
"Clearly extremists here are learning techniques and are adapting their methods based upon what they've learned, what they've seen outside Nigeria."
Jonathan won an election in April that international observers and many Nigerians said were the fairest since the end of military rule more than a decade ago.
He has since put in place an economic team, led by former World Bank Managing Director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that has been tasked with forging ahead with a reform programme, which is moving more slowly than international investors would like.
McCulley said Jonathan had made some "truly impressive appointments" and the U.S. was encouraged by the commitment he has shown to reforms, which include a sovereign wealth fund, removal of fuel subsidies and a plan to privatise the power sector, now a major drag on Africa's second-largest economy.
Despite being Africa's largest crude oil exporter and holding the world's seventh largest gas reserves, Nigeria only produces as much electricity as a medium-sized European city.
International investors have said Nigeria's population of more than 140 million offers huge potential gains but a common complaint is that corruption often stunts economic growth.
"It's a clearly a problem. Corruption not only saps the confidence in people in government, it also discourages both national and foreign investment and I think it's a problem Nigeria needs to tackle more aggressively," McCulley said.
He said a big step in Nigeria's development would be to put someone in charge of the country's anti-corruption agency with the integrity shown by Attahiru Jega, the man behind the successful elections in April.
Littleman Muhammadu Buhari By E. C. Ejiogu
Muhammadu Buhari
By EC Ejiogu
The only problem that I see with SO is that he is roundly dedicated to the Nigeria project. Elsewhere, he will be called the quintessential patriot. But when it comes to the Nigeria project, nothing can be more demeaning than calling someone like SO a patriot. This is in the sense that for reasons that derive from the foundational maladies that afflict it, Nigeria is only fit for what it has represented ever since it was cobbled together by the British, i.e. a den and roost for evil men and women, autocrats, dictators, and the clueless who misrepresent themselves as leaders.
But if I must excuse SO’s on-and-on advocacy for the Littleman as a potential savior of the Nigeria project, the latter’s inclined fixation on returning to power cannot be excused. His track record is clear indication that he is an evil, sinister, and treacherous character whose sole desire is to perpetuate an obnoxious contraption and use it to hold the Igbo and any other nationality especially from the lower Niger from charting the path of self determination.
By the way, with all respect due a friend, I must add that SO’s devotion to the Nigeria project as it is presently structured and his conviction that therein lies the redemption of every distinct nationality, which was forced to constitute it could qualify as pathological altruism—“the idea that when ostensibly generous “how can I help you?” behavior is taken to extremes, misapplied or stridently rhapsodized, it can become unhelpful, unproductive and even destructive”.
Which brings me to two core queries that advocates of the Nigeria project have refused to attend to: Where is that voluntary covenant, which binds the distinct nationalities that inhabit the Niger basin in the Nigeria project? Why then must anyone insist that the nationalities must continue to allow themselves to be entrapped in the Nigeria project even as it is evident that it hinders their progress? I hope SO doesn’t retort with: For unity’s sake!
SO’s more recent outing was his call on the Littleman to come out of hiding and mount what he believes would amount to much needed opposition to Goodluck Jonathan’s make-believe government. Well, well-said. But only if the Nigeria project were a functional state and political economy to boot, and also, if the Littleman himself were a democrat. Does anyone still remember the ancient philosopher’s mantra that says, ‘a good man lives in a good state’?. The Littleman man is neither a good man, nor is the Nigeria project a good state. How then would he be capable of providing an opposition therein? Who made a gift of a coat to Mr. Toad? In and by itself, it will be an aberration for an autocrat to provide an opposition. Even more so, in a contraption like Nigeria that was conceived and brought into existence as a den for the practice of autocratic authority. Just one more: Since the modern era, has anyone seen where a backward group or clique has mid-wived development or progress in society? If you’re in doubt, take a look back, and you will see the roadway of history littered with the pathetic sight of decades of dominance in the project by a backward group, and even some cliques.
Littleman Buhari’s antecedents have shown that he hasn’t deviated from his ancestral pedigree. His ancestors were autocrats who lived and thrived on the hegemony they erected in the greater upper Niger and relied on to dominate and exploit others. He was born and socialized in the same autocratic social milieu, which nourished him and he still thrives in it. It reflects on his public life. Samplers: Did you know that Buhari was one of the senior army officers who sustained a running complaint to Olusegun Obasanjo in 1980, only a few months after he shooed the former’s kinsman, Shehu Shagari into power in 1979 to the effect that he was funding the Police Force better than the Army? That same lack of respect and aversion for the tenets and norms of democracy manifested in 1981 when as a division commander he disobeyed legitimate order from his commander in chief and violated an age-old tenet of healthy civil-military relations in society, which stipulates the subordination of the military at all times to civilian control, by launching “a hot pursuit operation into Chad on his own responsibility” in 1983. He recounted that with pride in a 1993 interview to a newsmagazine. He later capped his subordination with the overthrow of that hapless cabal headed by Shagari on New Year’s Eve 1983. Many wouldn’t forget his often-mouthed arrogant slogan throughout his dictatorship that epitomized his disdain for popular will and concern: “I’m not running for re-election”.
Someone like the Littleman who claims that he is averse to the patronage-clientage system—that, is exactly the other name for what is being called corruption, which afflicts the Nigeria project—that nourished him all his life is yet to account for where he derives the funding that goes into his serial quest to assume state power again. If he is the democrat that he is being made to resemble, why not join up the on-going popular clamor for a sovereign conference to realize a legitimate state through the restructure of the Nigeria project?
Buhari’s messianic-tinged support for the perpetual existence of the flawed Nigeria project is his own indictment as evil in perpetuity. His new-found democratic and anti-corruption claims don’t add up. They are at best, dubious and fictional.
Let no one misinterpret my serious misgivings about the Littleman as an endorsement of Goodluck Jonathan. If at all, the two of them are on different sides of the same coin—a counterfeit.
The only thing I see in and about Buhari whenever I look is his unbridled desperation to reclaim state power in the project and use it for what his ancestors did in the upper Niger more than two centuries ago, which he tried his hands at in the period 1983-1985, i.e. to cow and repress with a characteristic recklessness all in the bid to buy additional lease on time and life for the Nigeria project.
Who would argue reasonably that a Republic of Biafra, which showed exceptional promise in the overall during its short existence, could not have been producing Nobel Prize winners in the requisite realms today, if it had been allowed to survive? It is heart-breaking therefore that on the Eve of the Nobel awards, someone still thought that a Muhammadu Buhari has any positive role to play in the Nigeria project. Tukiakwa!
●E. C. Ejiogu, PhD; is a political sociologist. He is the author of The Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria, published in March by Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Is Goodluck Jonathan Plain Stupid? By E. C. Ejiogu
Goodluck Jonathan
By E. C. Ejiogu, PhD
He remained there all the same—shuttling regularly to Germany for what was called medical attention as his handlers indulged themselves looting and stealing public funds. It got to the point when the Germans refused to admit him any longer in their hospital. But the bizarre absurdity continued as the Saudis took over. Even when the Saudis washed their hands off him, and he was parceled back on life support and left outside the seat of power in Abuja in an ambulance where he decomposed away, he was kept on as president.
As all that went on, there was Goodluck Jonathan, rolling over silently in the full view of the world, contented with being the vice president to a president who was as far as anyone knew, dead! When they eventually knocked something together for him and called it acting presidency, he concurred, literally flashing his signature sheepish grins.
One of Jonathan’s first acts after Yar’Adua’s decomposing corpse was finally wheeled out of the seat of power, and way was paved for him to assume de facto control, of state power in the project, was to bother the autocrats in Saudi Arabia to let him come over and thank them for ‘taking care of’ Yar’Adua. Again, he simply grinned some more after they turned him down.
In the last several months, every reasonable person watching as things continued to unfold spiral down in Nigeria has been rankled by the ease with which the Boko Haram Islamist terrorists sustain their blood-letting all the way from Abuja to several parts of the Sokoto Caliphate areas. They have done that in a manner that fits what obtains in climes that are devoid of governance. It got to the point where the US intelligence establishment stepped in to furnish what became the only credible security warning over the menace. Directed at American citizens who were cautioned to stay away from two luxury hotels in Abuja, the alert came handy also for everyone else, including Jonathan and elements of his hapless make-believe government, who free-loaded on the alert that their own outfit is incapable of generating credibly, and deserted the two locations fingered in the alert.
All of these canalize into a sad reality: Goodluck Jonathan, his sterile-brained butterfly of a wife, their unfortunate exploits in public life, indeed, everything about them constitute yet additional indicators that the Nigeria project is, in Graham Green’s description, a burnt out, in fact, a basket case.
I don’t know about you, regardless of the façade of being president—to that I say, president gbakwaa oku!—as much as I have seen of this Jonathan, there is simply nothing extra that I need to see in or hear from him to sufficiently de-convince me that the man is not plain stupid, I mean silly! It’s only a stupid person that will buy into the absurdity, which is being whispered into his ears by the likes of the flotsam-jetsam character like Ruben Abati who presume that paid cheap public relations blitzes in esoteric magazines—some are currently running in the November issue of South Africa Airways in-flight magazine, Sawubona—constitutes their so-called transformation, which clearly translates to deceit.
Worrisome as this reality is, it is not a surprise though. A social ecology in which—as the late Obafemi Awolowo once said during his lifetime—dogs devour lions, is an aberration. It is only a plain stupid man like Jonathan who would delude himself daily that he is waxing successful as president even when it is plain clear that the land is falling into pieces literally.
•E. C. Ejiogu, PhD, is a political sociologist, and the author of The Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria published in March by Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
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Wednesday 16 November 2011
Where Do We Go from Here?
13 Nov 2011
Views: 2,853
Simon Kolawole Live!: Email: simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com
Those who think Boko Haram is a fleeting menace must be reviewing their position by now. Agreed, we still don't have enough information to be able to fully explain how the organisation is structured, where it gets its funding from and—very critically—how it intends to actualise its political-cum-religious mission of Islamising Nigeria. Rather, the much we can say for now is that Boko Haram is, operationally, well-organised, at least enough to be able to launch successful attacks on the Police headquarters and UN House, both in Abuja. More worrisome is the pattern and targets of attacks. While the Niger Delta militants targeted their terrorist attacks at oil installations and security forces, Boko Haram seems intent on wiping out the civilian population. Also, Boko Haram targets festive periods (like Sallah and Christmas) to unleash major attacks—although it also carries out minor strikes in-between.
Despite their regular phone calls to journalists to claim responsibility for the terrorist attacks, we still know pretty little about Boko Haram’s leaders. How much do we know about them and their whereabouts? The planning and execution of attacks clearly suggest that there is a High Command. We can easily say the improvised explosive devices (IEDs)—the nickname for explosives not manufactured by legitimate means—can be made by anyone with basic knowledge, but we should not lose focus of the co-ordinated execution of the attacks. They look well-organised and on target, even if they are still prone to the odd mistake as evident in the failed bids on JTF and Police headquarters in Maiduguri, Borno State, at Sallah.
It would appear two distinct "strains" of Boko Haram have fully formed. The original sect pursued a non-violent religious agenda aimed at criticising the political leadership for riding on the back of Sharia to win elections and failing to abide by its principles thereafter. The result was a long-drawn battle with the political leadership with whom the sect members had previously been cosy. Threatened by the street popularity of Boko Haram, the politicians began to witch-hunt them, launching their own counter force and also employing security forces to hunt them down. A clash was inevitable. The result was a crackdown leading to the deaths of thousands in 2008, mainly in Borno and Bauchi States.
The Nigerian state thought it had suppressed the virus, but I think it mutated and two “strains” emerged. The first launched a revenge mission against the security agencies with pockets of strikes. The attacks were mainly on policemen and stations. However, a deadlier “strain”, obviously aligned with international terrorist groups, began a full-time, large-scale terror campaign. I am not ruling out other "strains", neither am I trying to suggest that the two dominant "strains" are not related, but developments along the line strongly show that the organisational structure is a bit loose, perhaps factionalised, possibly with many cells emerging and operating out of Plateau, Niger and Kaduna States. Not all of them seem to favour a terrorist campaign against civilian targets.
However, with the spokesmen saying they intend to establish an Islamic state, declaring that they do not recognise the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, we can safely assume that they have a political ambition. So what next? Overrun Abuja? Take over government? Set up a Taliban-style system of government? In truth, we don't know their political plans or strategies in that respect. Nevertheless, despite the dearth of precise information on Boko Haram, I am of the opinion that it does not have the capacity to overrun the Nigerian state. Yes, it will continue to wreak havoc on civilians, which is the most disturbing part. Yes, it will continue to attack government buildings and security agents. It will continue to instil fear in Nigerians. That is how terrorism works. It thrives on bloodshed and panic. It aims at destabilising the state.
But the Boko Haram agenda is so divisive and destructive that gaining the critical support it needs to take over the state would be extremely difficult. In fact, with more diligence and competence in the security system, Boko Haram can be neutralised. The sect continues to wreak havoc on this scale because, in my opinion, the security agencies are yet to figure out its backbone. It has taken the US years to strike at the very heart of the formidable Al Qaeda and limit its capacity. I hope it won't take our own government decades to get to the basics. Too many lives have been lost. The sooner we find a solution the better for everybody.
Finally, I've heard many Southerners declare that "the North should go its way" because of the Boko Haram menace. Let the North have their Islamic Republic, I've heard some declare. There even seems to be some suspicion—or suggestion—that the activities of the sect are backed by the Northern political elite. Some go as far as to say Boko Haram is a device by the North to regain power after losing out in the 2011 presidential election. Jonathan's sympathisers often refer to "political motive" and "sponsors" when discussing the activities of this sect. This is Nigeria; I don't rule out anything. But these two assumptions need refining.
One, it is assumed that most or all Northern Muslims are comfortable with Boko Haram. This cannot be true. The desire of the Northern Muslims to live under an Islamic system is different, in the main, from the desire of Boko Haram to impose an Islamic system. There is a difference between a Taliban-style state and, say, the Islamic political system in Saudi Arabia or Iran. The Talibans say women should not go to school, people should not watch TV and men must keep beards, among other strict rules. That is very similar to what Boko Haram is preaching. To worsen matters, Boko Haram is preaching against anything Western, notably education. Its street name, "Boko Haram", literally means "book (Western education) is an abomination". In which case, ABU, BUK and University of Maiduguri—to name but a few key universities up North—would be demolished by Boko Haram or turned into Qur’anic schools.
Now, I don't know how many Northern Muslims would support that idea. Apart from the fact that Muslim intellectuals contributed a lot to what is known as Western education today, how many Muslims want to live in a modern world where all they can do is recite the Holy Qur’an? In addition to reciting the Holy Qur’an, Muslims, I guess, also want to be engineers, doctors, economists, sociologists, political scientists, architects and journalists. To support Boko Haram, therefore, is not in their best interest. For this reason, I am not persuaded that Northern Muslims are enthusiastic about a Boko Haram Republic.
Two, Southerners who suggest the balkanisation of Nigeria based on Boko Haram activities always ignore the realities on the ground: there is a sizeable non-Muslim population in the North. I often wonder why this fact escapes the attention of these campaigners! Southern Borno, for instance, is home to a large population of Christians. Gombe, Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi—all in the North-east—boast an impressive population of “indigenous” Christians. There is a Christian belt that runs across Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Kano and Jigawa. We are not talking of some Igbo or Yoruba Christians doing business in these places. We are talking about "indigenes". What would be their fate if Boko Haram Republic succeeds? If a majority of Northern Muslims cannot countenance living under a Taliban-style government run by Boko Haram, how much more Northern Christians?
Therefore, the urgent task before us now is how to get out of this problem rather than how to dismantle Nigeria. I believe that our inability to address basic economic needs is fuelling criminality in the country. When people have no jobs, when the standard of living is so low, when the quality of life is so miserable, there is no way Boko Haram (and other criminal gangs) will not gain following. There’s a link between abject poverty and vulnerability to crime. We think human beings do what they do because they are naturally bad. That is not the whole truth. If the economy improves today, a lot of young people will not be available for criminal activities. But as long as this economic imbalance continues, the symptoms will persist. So it goes.
And Four Other Things...
Brutish Airways?
The decision by the Federal Government to reduce the frequency of flights by British Airways into Lagos (from seven to three per week) has raised a lot of dust. It was obviously a retaliatory action following a seeming British conspiracy to stifle our own Arik Air. For all you care, BA may have nothing to do with the “conspiracy”, but then business and politics are forever linked, even in the most liberal countries. The Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) is, after all, as political as it is commercial. The Nigerian government thinks hitting BA—the ultimate symbol of British aviation business—would force a solution to the crisis over slot allocation to Arik Air at London Heathrow. This is one of the few occasions where the government is actually standing up for a Nigerian business. Nevertheless, what we need is a solution to Arik Air’s problem. Arik’s profits are reinvested in our economy; BA’s profits are flown back home. Arik employs thousands of Nigerians; BA doesn’t. In fact, Kola Olayinka is the first Nigerian to be appointed Country Manager by BA since it started operations in Nigeria over 75 years ago. That says it all.
The decision by the Federal Government to reduce the frequency of flights by British Airways into Lagos (from seven to three per week) has raised a lot of dust. It was obviously a retaliatory action following a seeming British conspiracy to stifle our own Arik Air. For all you care, BA may have nothing to do with the “conspiracy”, but then business and politics are forever linked, even in the most liberal countries. The Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) is, after all, as political as it is commercial. The Nigerian government thinks hitting BA—the ultimate symbol of British aviation business—would force a solution to the crisis over slot allocation to Arik Air at London Heathrow. This is one of the few occasions where the government is actually standing up for a Nigerian business. Nevertheless, what we need is a solution to Arik Air’s problem. Arik’s profits are reinvested in our economy; BA’s profits are flown back home. Arik employs thousands of Nigerians; BA doesn’t. In fact, Kola Olayinka is the first Nigerian to be appointed Country Manager by BA since it started operations in Nigeria over 75 years ago. That says it all.
Alert ‘Haram’
The Federal Government felt betrayed by the terror warning issued by the US embassy in Nigeria to the effect that Boko Haram could attack prestigious hotels in Abuja during the Sallah. So angry was the government that it wrote to the Department of State to protest against the conduct of the US embassy. Indeed, the likelihood of attacks on these targets is not fresh and US was aware security had been beefed up around them following a tip-off. Why then did the US embassy still go ahead to issue a fresh warning? This is my guess: they don’t trust our security agencies. Every Boko Haram attack is deadlier that the previous one. So no matter how angry the Nigerian government is, the US has a responsibility to its citizens in Nigeria. If we are able to stop more attacks and incapacitate Boko Haram, then everybody will relax, believing that the government is indeed on top of the situation.
The Federal Government felt betrayed by the terror warning issued by the US embassy in Nigeria to the effect that Boko Haram could attack prestigious hotels in Abuja during the Sallah. So angry was the government that it wrote to the Department of State to protest against the conduct of the US embassy. Indeed, the likelihood of attacks on these targets is not fresh and US was aware security had been beefed up around them following a tip-off. Why then did the US embassy still go ahead to issue a fresh warning? This is my guess: they don’t trust our security agencies. Every Boko Haram attack is deadlier that the previous one. So no matter how angry the Nigerian government is, the US has a responsibility to its citizens in Nigeria. If we are able to stop more attacks and incapacitate Boko Haram, then everybody will relax, believing that the government is indeed on top of the situation.
Deadlock Lurks…
Presidency is proposing changes to the constitution which governors are opposed to—and vice-versa. Presidency wants the joint state and council account to be separated so that councils can get their money directly. Governors are saying no way. Presidency also wants the State Independent Electoral Commission, which conducts council elections, to be scrapped because of the one-way direction of results. Governors are saying no. Meanwhile, governors also want states to get a bigger share of the federal allocation but Presidency is not amused. Governors are therefore vowing to use the state Houses of Assembly to scuttle the proposed amendments to the constitution. My conclusion, therefore, is that any attempt to fundamentally alter the status quo will fail, owing to self-interest. We will continue to move from crisis to crisis.
Presidency is proposing changes to the constitution which governors are opposed to—and vice-versa. Presidency wants the joint state and council account to be separated so that councils can get their money directly. Governors are saying no way. Presidency also wants the State Independent Electoral Commission, which conducts council elections, to be scrapped because of the one-way direction of results. Governors are saying no. Meanwhile, governors also want states to get a bigger share of the federal allocation but Presidency is not amused. Governors are therefore vowing to use the state Houses of Assembly to scuttle the proposed amendments to the constitution. My conclusion, therefore, is that any attempt to fundamentally alter the status quo will fail, owing to self-interest. We will continue to move from crisis to crisis.
Babalakin, Go!
I’ve been very impatient with Dr. Wale Babalakin over the delay in transforming the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. His company, Bi-Courtney, was granted the concession under the Public Private Partnership scheme of the Federal Government years ago. I understand the economic environment has been difficult, and getting finance is one of the most difficult adventures these days. But what we need is result. At last, it appears, everything is set. Last week, Group 5, a South African firm, announced a deal with Bi-Courtney on the project. Officials of Group 5 and one of South Africa’s biggest banks, Rand Bank, visited Works Minister Mike Onolememen in Abuja on Thursday. Finally, everything seems to be falling in place for construction works to start. To Babalakin, I say: congrats; on your marks, ready, go! We need that road badly.
I’ve been very impatient with Dr. Wale Babalakin over the delay in transforming the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. His company, Bi-Courtney, was granted the concession under the Public Private Partnership scheme of the Federal Government years ago. I understand the economic environment has been difficult, and getting finance is one of the most difficult adventures these days. But what we need is result. At last, it appears, everything is set. Last week, Group 5, a South African firm, announced a deal with Bi-Courtney on the project. Officials of Group 5 and one of South Africa’s biggest banks, Rand Bank, visited Works Minister Mike Onolememen in Abuja on Thursday. Finally, everything seems to be falling in place for construction works to start. To Babalakin, I say: congrats; on your marks, ready, go! We need that road badly.
Pliny comes to Philly
By 13/11/2011 00:00:00
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•Joe Frazier (Joe Frazier as Trope)
With the death of Joe Frazier last Tuesday, the boxing world has lost one of its greatest icons ever. By the time he succumbed to the cell-splitting blows of cancer, "Smokin Joe" had already passed into boxing legend. Frazier had taken many blows in the ring, but the sledgehammer of cancer is as mortal as it can get.
Perhaps the best and most succinct tribute to the great man came from the normally inarticulate and stuttering Mike Tyson who described him as a great gladiator. This is as poetic as it can get. All great boxers are unacknowledged great poets. At its most rarefied heights, boxing is the personification of poetry. The combinations, the cadences, the fine calibration of blows and the rhythmic violence suggest that boxing is poetry conducted and orchestrated with fists.
For a heavyweight, Joe Frazier was a small man indeed. Physique ought to have been a problem. Smokin Joe lacked the height, the bulk and the intimidating presence of the truly magnificent heavyweight. But what he lacked in heft he made up in sheer heart. It was the heart of an old African lion. It was the heart of a pure prizefighter. Relentlessly advancing and with the predatory precision of the king of all animals, Frazer forced bigger men to back off and to wince and grimace in acute pains.
Built like a compact fighting machine and set for demolition exercise at short notice, Frazier was a robotised contraption primed and packaged to inflict maximum punishment. He was not averse to taking cruel punishment himself, but he gave as much as he got. He packed some dynamite in his punches and his vicious left hook could pole-axed even a five hundred pound gorilla.
It was this formidable left hook that exploded on Mohammed Ali’s jaw and sent him to a shuddering crash in the first of their epic trilogy. Ringside spectators looked on in dazed disbelief. It was only the second time in his professional career that Ali had been so spectacularly up-ended. The first time around, the great Ali rose from the ruins to give Henry Cooper, the British gentleman-boxer, the hiding of his life.
But on that lonely and memorable night at Madison Square in 1971, and before a hostile American audience braying for his blood, there was to be no come back for a ring-rusty Ali. Unwisely enough in that epic encounter, Ali had tried to psyche out Frazier by repeatedly telling him that he was God himself. Frazier had responded by informing "God" that he was in the wrong place that night and he was going to get a terrible whipping. And oh lord, Ali got the shellacking of his life.
In a sense, then, Frazier was the Great White Hope. The American establishment had been looking for a nice, well-behaved black chap who would do the boxing and entertaining beat and leave out the ugly racial politics and the revolutionary rhetoric about the fundamental injustice that underpins and powers the American society.
In Ali and his brilliant bravura, his contrary comeliness, his telegenic tantrums and taunting, there was too much echo of John Authur Johnson, a.k.a Jack Johnson, an earlier Black boxing legend who had beaten the white boys black and blue only to take their women serially and with swashbuckling aplomb.
Once when he was pulled over for speeding, the impudent Johnson handed over a hundred dollar bill for a traffic offence of fifty dollar. When the traffic cop complained that he did not have money for such a refund, Johnson asked him to keep the change since he was going to return at very much the same speed. The American power mafia were not going to have another uppity nigger cock a snook at the establishment. Frazier would seal up the lousy Louisville lip with his scary and scarifying fists.
But if Frazier was the perfect foil for Ali in that regard, he was nobody’s house nigger for that matter. While he hated Ali’s guts, he had a deep respect for his preternatural pugilistic gifts. The troubled and troublesome wizard of the ring was a source of unending fascination for Frazier. He could not bring himself to genuinely hate the mad boy from Kentucky.
Sonny Liston, a former street mugger and partially rehabilitated thug, had entered the ring hatefully bent on sending Ali to his maker. But he was decisioned in two epic encounters by Ali who took his hate-filled mass to the cleaners with his scientific magic. A quiet decent chap of muscular Christianity, Frazier was born in Beaufort in the deep south of South Carolina but was raised in Philadelphia where he ended up a butcher boy.
Surgeons and butchers have one thing in common. They both carve up bodies. But while surgeons carve up human bodies only to sew them back, butchers carve up animal carcasses with professional urgency. Detached almost to the point of stony stoicism as his fists dripped with the blood of his victims, Frazier must have picked one or two things from the butchers’ shop. He was a cool customer.
If boxing is an art or poetry in motion, it is also a precise science demanding phenomenal concentration and ferocious focus. Both Ali and Frazier have these qualities in abundance, and it probably explains the secret of their great success in the ring, The boxing ring is like a nuclear reactor plant. A momentary lapse of focus or concentration could lead to an apocalyptic tragedy. A misdirected punch or a silly error of distance or closeness could bring the whole human edifice toppling like an Iroko tree,
But because Frazier boxed more with his lion heart rather than his head, he was very vulnerable to a more fearsome slugger or the cerebral tactician cunningly and foxily wearing him down in a colossal war of nerves and attrition. Relying on his massive left hook and relentless and remorseless crouching advance, he was like a primitive hunter who did not feel obligated to the wiles of superior strategy. Just keep smoking and going forward and somebody is going to get badly hurt in the long run.
In the event, Frazier’s reign as world heavyweight champion was very brief indeed and it was the Beaufort-born butcher who got badly hurt in the short run. In 1973, Frazier ran into the equivalent of a human hurricane in Jamaica in the guise of an even more brutal slugger named George Foreman. Foreman literally carved Frazier up in two savage rounds and sent him serially to the canvas. A crazed sadist in his prime, Foreman was to later explain that once he entered a ring, his intention was to clear up everything in sight, including the referee if he was foolish enough to wander into the eye of the hurricane.
Thereafter, the more wily and brainy Ali would beat Frazier in two memorable encounters. The 1975 "thrilla in Manila " has been just celebrated for extending the frontiers of endurance and the human capacity to absorb punishing blows. It was a small step for two exceptionally gifted prize fighters but a giant leap for the human race in its confrontation with the beast within. Toe to toe, Ali and Frazier slugged it out with some of the best shots that had ever been landed in boxing. By the end of the fourteenth round, it was obvious that both boxers had arrived at the gates of heaven. Either wanted to throw in the towel but it was Frazier’s camp that moved first, and the rest is boxing history.
They just don’t make heavyweights like these anymore. In the tortured and tormented career of Mike Tyson we see the reason why. Tyson who once boasted that he was privy to certain punches to certain parts of the body which could make even an elephant topple over in delayed reaction may yet be honoured for a signal if inadvertent contribution to the advancement of human civilisation.
And it is not because the deranged pugilist once crowed that he loved to make big men cry in the ring. In Tyson, Androcles finally met his lion. By returning boxing to its primitive default setting of a bare knuckle contention between evolving man and savage beast, Tyson might have forced the world to face up to the unpleasant consequences of boxing as a brutal and cruel sports. If the so called civilised world takes a sadistic pleasure in watching two men boxed into a ring tear at each other unto death like savage beasts, then we had better prepare for the real thing.
Like a psychotic animal, Mike Tyson chewed off the ear of his opponent when he couldn’t contain the sledgehammer blows. It doesn’t get more savage than that. As the Yoruba memorably put things, even biting is part of fighting. Yet as civilisation advanced, the so called primitive societies substituted animals for human sacrifice or abandoned the savage ritual altogether.
But as Walter Benjamin has put it, there is no record of civilisation which is not at the same time a record of barbarity. Western civilisation puts a humane gloss on its fundamental barbarity by casting the other as savage. But the pristine savagery and cruelties of modern boxing puts a lie to that hollow ritual of self-ablution and exposes the violent decadence for all to see.
When Pliny the second famously observed that something new always came out of Africa, he was referring to the endless array of oddities, oddballs and superhuman oafs transported to ancient Rome from Africa as galley slaves to serve at the pleasure of the Roman imperial court. Many of them ended up in the arena as gladiators in bare knuckle contention against ferocious beasts or even more ferocious humans.
Several epochs and the American empire later, it is the descendants of African slaves forcibly transplanted to work on American plantations who serve as boxing gladiators at the pleasure of the American imperial court. Joe Frazier was one of the most distinguished of this breed. But just as it fell on Spartacus, a former galley slave, to lead a revolt of slaves against the Roman Empire, it has fallen on Barack Hussein Obama, a descendant of Africans, to lead a democratic revolt against the oppressive injustice of the American empire. Spartacus failed spectacularly, but the Roman Empire did not survive for long. Something new always comes out of Africa indeed. If boxing is poetry, poetic justice is the ultimate poetry.
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