Knowledge is now haram

As the Nigerian government continues to flounder on how to deal with the threat posed by Boko Haram, whose name means Western education (“boko”) is forbidden (“haram”), the real obstacle in addressing the challenges facing the country is ignorance.

The late Yusufu Bala Usman, an inspirational and legendary professor of history at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria once wrote:
“Ignorance is not the same as illiteracy. Knowledge is not the same as literacy, or, even the same as the acquisition of educational certificates, or, academic ranks. Some of the most highly literate Nigerians, and the most highly educated, by virtue of their certificates and ranks, are some of the most ignorant over many crucial areas of natural and human existence and over our national life, like our geography, history, economy and politics.”

The ignorance of many of my fellow Nigerians can be indeed staggering. This cuts across all ethnic groups, the entire social spectrum and all walks of life. It can be found in any corner of human activity across the country. In academia, the media, the professions, the bars, internet discussion forums, the blogosphere, etc. The ignorance of the majority provides the cover that the tiny minority that holds sway in the country needs to operate with impunity.

Historian Mark Curtis wrote in his book Web of Deceit about the “mass production of ignorance”, in which “people are being indoctrinated into a picture…that supports elite priorities”. This includes the media ignoring publicly-available information that would better inform their readers, presenting chronically terrible governance as the natural order of things, acting as a mouthpiece of the government, etc. On many issues that affect the population, the media fails to inform the public of their rights, the options, the real issues at stake, etc.

When Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola decided to demolish slums in Lagos to make way for rich property developers, there was hardly any mention in the Nigerian media of the fact that the governor has a constitutional obligation to provide shelter for the people of Lagos State – despite copies of the Nigerian Constitution being readily available online.

In a similar vein, there was a resounding silence from much of the Nigerian media on the unconstitutionality of Governor Theodore Orji’s mass sacking of “non-indigenes” in the Abia State public sector.

We can not have a functioning democracy in such an atmosphere of ignorance. People need the right information in order to be able to make the right choices and in order to hold their leaders to account. Like the American syndicated columnist Ted Rall once said: “Where evil men rule, the law cannot protect those who sleep.” Way too many Nigerians have become wilfully blind or have been hypnotised into a trance of ignorance. This is a climate in which ignorance and mediocrity are celebrated and the knowledgeable are ridiculed as “ITKs” (I too know).

Where ignorance is so pervasive, prejudice, xenophobia, ethnic and religious chauvinism move in to fill in the gaps. People are fed all manner of rubbish by religious and secular charlatans masquerading as leaders, and they swallow it without question. Congregations are being fleeced by their pastors’ distortion of selective texts from the bible and they don’t bother to try and read it for themselves and in context in order to gain a thorough understanding of the message.

In the current climate of Boko Haram terror many Nigerians have not bothered to find out more about the group, its origins, the roots of the crises, what exactly are its aims, despite the many credible reports on the issue.

The Nigerian media hardly helps in the search for better understanding. We have little chance of succeeding against such grave threats with so much ignorance about the nature of the threat. We can’t afford to ignore the advice of Mozambique’s liberation hero Samora Machel: “know your enemy and you will be capable of using your enemy’s dynamics in your favour”. We desperately need to start seeking and embracing knowledge and challenging what passes for received wisdom.

Igbo people have a saying that “he that asks never gets lost”. With the conspicuous absence of an enquiring mind many of “my people have become lost sheep, their shepherds have caused them to go astray”.

Nollywood’s untold stories

I am not the biggest fan of the Nigerian film industry.  I don’t think I have ever watched a Nollywood film from start to finish. Sky TV subscribers in the UK can for about £5 a month watch Nollywood movies 24/7 on channel 329. One of my cousins is hooked on that channel and I know many others that are too. I have also been invited to several premieres of Nollywood films in London theatres, but have declined each time.

On a Virgin Atlantic flight to DC from Heathrow a couple of years ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of Nollywood options on the in-flight movies list. Nollywood is certainly now going “mainstream” and gradually becoming part of Western popular culture, despite the absence of patronage from someone like me.

In fact, despite giving Nollywood films a wide berth, I have grown to respect and value the industry. From humble roots and with meagre resources it has grown to be the second largest employer in Nigeria after the public sector.

It is reputedly the world’s third largest film industry behind Hollywood and Bollywood. 

And it appears to be growing even bigger with efforts to improve the quality of production. In this light, Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan provided a $200m loan fund to boost the industry in 2010. In recent times there have been collaborative efforts between Nollywood and Hollywood that have boosted production quality and raised standards. 

The drive for improvement is much welcome, and I hope they can start moving away from the staple of juju tales that may work for audiences in Nigeria but have been a turn off for me. I think Nollywood can learn from Hollywood how to attract people like me who are looking to be educated and entertained at the same time (“edutainment” – like KRS-One called it), with the dramatisation of the stories of many colourful and illustrious figures from Nigeria’s past. Hollywood has great form in showcasing the lives of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, etc.  The George Lucas-directed “Red Tails” was an amazing depiction of the Tuskegee Airmen – African American fighter pilots who overcame discrimination to excel in World War II.

We have many compelling stories about Nigerian historical figures waiting to be given the big screen treatment. The likes of Jaja of Opobo, Queen Amina of Zaria, Muhammad Al-Kanemi, Margaret Ekpo, the Aba Market women’s rebellion of 1929, and many others are all stories waiting to be told on the big screen and would make great viewing. Hollywood is even showing the lead with a Fela bio-pic starring Chiwetel Ejiofor in the works.

The huge success of the Broadway musical “Fela!” is evidence that the stories of inspirational Nigerians can find an audience in most parts of the world. I think it’s time Nollywood raised their game and started filling in the gap by bringing these stories to wider audiences. This would go some way in ensuring “the labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain”.

The Nigerian healthscare system

As I write this, Nigeria’s First Lady Patience Jonathan is a patient at a German hospital suffering from an undisclosed illness.

Earlier this month, petroleum minister Diezani Madueke was reportedly hospitalised in London with an undisclosed illness.

In April, senate president David Mark was treated in Israel for another undisclosed ailment.

I am sure it comes as no surprise to Nigerians that our rulers and their spouses prefer treatment in foreign hospitals to the Nigerian hospitals that they are responsible for bringing up to the standards that are available in Germany, the UK, Israel, etc. The National Hospital in Abuja that is meant to be the best public hospital in the country is reportedly in a deplorable state. One Nigerian newspaper described it as a “National Disgrace”. Itse Sagay, a constitutional lawyer and human rights activist, did not mince his words: “The National Hospital in Abuja which is supposed to be the best in the country today, I understand is in no way any better than a morgue. If you have any serious illness, you dare not go there for treatment otherwise, you won’t come back alive. Today, every Nigerian is now going to India for treatment of one ailment or the other.”

India was indeed an option for my niece’s husband, a surgeon in Enugu, who was diagnosed with cataracts early last year. He went to see eye specialists at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) in Enugu (allegedly the best public hospital in the entire state) and they recommended an operation. Their technique involved slicing open the affected eye. I was informed that it is standard procedure in UK hospitals for this to be done via laser or keyhole surgery, but they don’t have the necessary equipment at UNTH.

However, one of the surgeons there told the patient that their archaic operation technique was risky and she wouldn’t recommend it for him as he is a surgeon and the loss of sight in one eye could mean he could no longer do his job. She said that there were only two hospitals in Nigeria that used modern techniques for this type of operation. They are in Kano and Lagos. Both are private hospitals that would set you back several hundred thousand naira. She said she’d go to India or the UK for the operation if she were in his shoes.

He decided to try the Kano option – a hospital run by a church charity. After several tests they told him in Kano that veins had gotten in the way and made the operation a risk, and it was recommended he go abroad for treatment. He chose a London hospital and it turned out that it was a routine operation that didn’t even require being kept overnight. I asked him what would have happened if he wasn’t a surgeon that could afford the trip abroad and costs of treatment. He replied that he would have lost the use of an eye and then said it is God that is saving most of Nigerians.

My sister that lives in Enugu also needed God’s saving grace when she fell ill several years ago. She didn’t want to risk the public hospitals so went private. She was then diagnosed with kidney stones and had an operation to remove them. But she kept passing out after the operation and failed to make a full recovery. The doctors didn’t have a clue what was wrong with her. The hospital didn’t even have the equipment for routine tests and had to keep sending a hospitalised patient several miles across town, driven there by her son, to UNTH for blood and urine tests. As she deteriorated, she came to London and was finally diagnosed accurately of having a blocked bile duct that required a bypass that thankfully, was successful. I always wonder what would have become of her if she didn’t have the opportunity to come to London for treatment.

I also can’t help but wonder how many Nigerians have died, lost sight or limb due to the state of our hospitals that those with the responsibility to fix them are too scared to use. The short-sightedness of our rulers means they think that they are immune from the dangers of Nigeria’s healthscare system because they can afford access to foreign hospitals. But being able to afford foreign treatment may not be enough to help you in an emergency. A six-hour flight to the UK or Germany may be too long in certain situations that call for adequate and immediate intervention with adequate equipment.

I remember reading a report in 2001 when Bola Ige then attorney-general of Nigeria was shot in his Ibadan home, stating that he was driven around town in search of a hospital that could treat him and he bled to death before they finally got to Oluyoro Hospital. If true, would he have survived if adequate hospitals were nearby? We will never know for sure.

But what is absolutely certain is that your chances of survival in an emergency are improved if adequate treatment is within reach within the critical period. By doing precious little to improve the state of Nigerian hospitals for the benefit of all Nigerians, Nigeria’s rulers could be practically digging their own graves.

Last week President Goodluck Jonathan suffered the severe embarrassment of being stood up by the Oba of Benin at his palace, in the full gaze of the media.

The prez was in town for a PDP rally and the protocol with these things involves stopping by at the Oba’s palace for a “courtesy call”. Jonathan arrived, took his seat at the palace, only for the king to refuse to come out of his royal chamber. There has been much speculation why the Oba refused to step out. There was a claim that the king supports the incumbent governor Adams Oshiomhole from the opposition ACN and has been royally pissed off with the PDP. One “source” in the report above volunteered that the gods “made it impossible” for the king to welcome the prez.

Have the Bini gods been hearing the cries of frustration across the land about Jonathan’s incapacity to deal with the problems plaguing Nigeria? They must have concluded that mere Goodluck was no remedy to chronic insecurity, crumbling infrastructure, rising poverty, etc.

Maybe the gods had decided that another Nero-like cavorting in the palace was a bit too much to take as Nigeria burned. This was especially so as Jonathan had just come back from a much-derided and insensitive junket in Rio in the middle of a crisis in Kaduna State that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Nigerians. The gods must have surely not been amused and who can blame them for instructing the Oba to cease and desist from exchanging pleasantries with Jonathan as life was made extremely unpleasant for the majority of Nigerians.

Who can blame Bini gods for “making it impossible” for the king to meet and greet with Jonathan when his regime has made it near impossible to drive on federal roads, to receive a decent education in public schools, to survive a serious illness in public hospitals, to live without the constant fear of murderous violence, to have uninterrupted power supply, etc? Was there a power failure as the Oba tried to invoke the gods’ permission to welcome the prez? Can you blame the gods to read this as a bad omen and conclude that Goodluck was portending bad luck? His reign has been nothing but bad news for Nigeria and I can’t fault the gods for raining on his parade at the palace.

The Ibori Boomerang

The British government was in self-congratulatory mode as James Ibori, the former governor of Delta State was convicted in a London court of money-laundering, with a 13-year prison sentence.

Andrew Mitchell the UK’s international development secretary said: “Corruption is a cancer in developing countries and the Coalition Government has a zero tolerance approach to it. We are committed to rooting out corruption where ever it is undermining development, and will help bring its perpetrators like Ibori to justice and return stolen funds to help the world’s poorest. Our work with both the Metropolitan and City of London Police is an example of how the Coalition Government’s innovative and collaborative approach is making a real difference. Funding investigations such as these helps to recover valuable stolen funds which can be returned to Nigeria to be used for development. Doing this is making a major contribution to Nigeria’s development, on a scale far in excess of the cost of the investigation itself. It is good value for Nigeria and for the British taxpayer.”

As he faced his long stretch at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, Ibori, who was described by prosecutor Sacha Wass as a “petty thief with his hands in the till”, must have marvelled at the brazen hypocrisy of the British.  He was well acquainted with the criminal justice system in the UK, having been convicted twice for stealing from the DIY shop where he worked in the early 90s and for using a stolen credit card.  When he returned to Nigeria and became governor of the richest of Nigeria’s oil-producing states, Ibori may not have ever envisaged bouncing back to a London court’s dock like a boomerang.

As he faced his third UK conviction, Ibori could be forgiven a rueful smile as the likes of Andrew Mitchell postured about returning Ibori’s stolen millions to the poor people of Delta State.  For starters, who will manage the returned funds (assuming you can trust the Brits to return the money) on behalf of the folks of Delta State?  The governor is Ibori’s cousin Emmanuel Uduaghan.  He owes his position to his “godfather” Ibori, and the word is that Ibori still receives his “share” of the monthly allocation to Delta State from the federal government.  The state government has received since 1999 billions of dollars in oil revenue from the federal government. This is what is meant by “resource control” in that part of Nigeria – crooks, or rather “petty thieves” at state and local government level controlling the oil wealth that would otherwise had been stolen by crooks at federal level.

So with Uduaghan in cahoots with Ibori, what use is returning the millions confiscated from Ibori to the Delta State government?  It is more likely to bounce back to bank accounts controlled by Ibori and his cronies.

But the Brits acting as gamekeeper in arresting, prosecuting and convicting Ibori are not exactly “coming into equity with clean hands”.   The same Department for International Development that funded the Metropolitan Police investigation of Ibori’s fraud put in $47.5m in a private equity fund (Emerging Capital Partners) through its private enterprise arm the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) and this was invested in companies like Notore Chemicals, Celtel, Oando and Oceanic Bank that are allegedly linked to Ibori. 

The BBC’s Newsnight programe on 16 April 2012 shed more light on the activities of the CDC:

In January, Mr Mitchell issued an unreserved apology to an Anglo-Nigerian whistleblower after Newsnight revealed DfID had betrayed his identity to the people he was accusing.

Dotun Oloko had warned DfID about potential problems with CDC investments. The department passed a document containing Mr Oloko’s name to the private equity firm he had accused of investing in potential corruption.He then became the target of private investigators hired by the firm who followed his children to school and looked into his personal and business affairs in the UK and Nigeria.Mr Oloko told Newsnight he is delighted the Nigerian anti-corruption squad is now examining the issue.He also pointed to the fact that Britain’s development agency now stands accused of investing in the very corruption it has spent years helping to investigate.

“That’s the incredible paradox. The same people who’ve funded the prosecution are the people who’ve funded the activities which are now being investigated,” he said.

Considering British complicity in Ibori’s fraud, it is no wonder that very little has been said in official circles about prosecuting banks like Barclays, HSBC, Abbey National, etc for their active roles in facilitating his money laundering.  Robert Palmer from Global Witness, the campaign group against natural resource conflict and corruption said: “By doing business with Ibori and his associates, these banks facilitated his corrupt behaviour and allowed him to spend diverted state assets on a luxury lifestyle, including a private jet and expensive London houses, while many Nigerians continue to live in poverty.”

Daniel Bekele the Africa Director of Human Rights Watch stated that:  ”This case demonstrates the urgency of doing more to ensure that Nigeria’s oil wealth goes to help its citizens and not to line the pockets of corrupt politicians.”

“Doing more” must mean a rigorous investigation of British banks and the CDC to ensure the recovered loot doesn’t boomerang back to Ibori and cronies, facilitated by Barclays, HSBC, Abbey National, Uduaghan, etc.

Sovereign National Craziness

Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The widespread clamour in Nigeria for a “Sovereign National Conference” (SNC) surely fits that definition of insanity.

This SNC demand is not restricted to the baying mob of uninformed, but also comes from the chatterati in the media, the usual suspects from the elite with an eye on a bigger slice of the “national cake”, and even the likes of Wole Soyinka, who one would have expected to really know better. He claimed recently that Nigeria needed to bring together such a conference to resolve its problems.

The recent SNC hysteria has been induced by the very serious security threat posed by Boko Haram terror and the regular rumblings across the country about how the nation’s resources are shared. As a result, the argument is that Nigeria’s “component parts” should come together at this conference and decide whether we should be together, and if so, how we can live together. But there are many fundamental issues that Soyinka and his co-travellers on the SNC bandwagon have never coherently addressed in peddling the blinding insanity that any gathering of Nigerians would find a silver bullet to the myriad of problems that afflict the county.

Those proposing this gathering of “component parts” have never really got their minds round who should attend and whose interests they should represent. As I sat in a taxi on the way to Abuja Airport last February, I listened to an SNC advocate on a radio talk show claiming that the different “ethnic nationalities” that made up Nigeria should be represented at the conference. When asked how those reps would be chosen he suggested elections or by the appointment with the “leaders” of those nationalities representing their people.

Well, we already have a National Assembly with senators and congressmen/women purportedly elected to represent their constituents. You don’t need to be Einstein to know that they have failed to represent anyone but their forever-enlarging and bulging pockets. So elections in Nigeria don’t really seem to be a clever way of selecting whoever should truly represent any group of people. The alternative of self-appointed “leaders” attending on behalf of their ethnic nationalities raises a lot of questions about whether self interest would trump group interest. Most of these people do not really have a history of putting their people above and beyond their primary goal of accumulating wealth.

The other misguided assumption made by advocates of an SNC based on the “federating units” that make up Nigeria gathering for a talk-shop is the notion that each of those “units” or groups that make up Nigeria have corporate interests peculiar to each group, which all or at least a majority that belong to the group have signed up to. And these interests can be packaged as a list of demands that could be negotiated at the conference. This notion doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

I am an Igbo man from Enugu State and I would like to know what the interests of the Igbos are, and how those interests set us apart from other Nigerians. In my opinion, most Igbos want to live in safety and peace in whatever corner of Nigeria they dwell in, with their human rights respected. They want decent infrastructure in order to go about their daily business with relative ease. They want public services like education, healthcare, water supply, etc to improve beyond the current dire conditions. They want their votes to count in order to elect rulers accountable to the people and responsive to their needs. I think most Nigerians would sign up to these interests. So why are SNC advocates trying to misrepresent what is a universal pursuit of life, liberty and happiness as ethnic-based interests in which each ethnic group shares some mythical interests that set them apart from the others and can only be ironed out at the SNC?

There are possibly three reasons for this. Firstly, among those who want to see such a conference are self-appointed “leaders” of various ethnic groups who owe their relevance to the pretence that they are championing the cause of their people, while in reality it is just a vehicle for feathering their nests at the expense of their people.

Secondly, you have among the advocates many that despite their education, titles and loads of alphabets behind their names, have never really gone beyond viewing the world with ethnicity-tinted glasses. This group tends to see the problems of Nigeria as usually being the fault of others. “Other” here can be in terms of religion, region, or ethnicity. Among the virulently xenophobic, any Boko Haram-related atrocity is always evidence that the “north” is a problem, Islam is the issue, and the solution is an SNC where we all decide whether we want to “live together” with “these people” who are causing us all these problems. No attempt is made to critically understand the issue or place it in the right context.

The third factor in the SNC notion gathering momentum is just plain old ignorance. Way too many Nigerians do not have the foggiest notion of what is wrong with the country, so are spectacularly ill-equipped to find a solution. Among people like this, the SNC idea gains traction with endless repetition.
I tried to highlight the need for accurate diagnosis in terms of Nigeria’s grave problems in a previous blog entry.

Nigeria’s problems are rooted in our historical experiences and among the most significant are the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate and colonial rule. Historical context forms the basis on which we should try to be looking for solutions to the issues that afflict the country. And issues like corruption can’t be removed from a country that was set up by the British in order for its resources to be plundered. Former oil minister Tam David-West said recently that corruption and not Boko Haram was more likely to tear Nigeria apart.

Problems like terrorism and insecurity in Nigeria are rooted in the desire by the ruling elite to loot the public treasury. No amount of conferences attended by the same looters, ten-percenters, rent-seekers and sponsors of terrorists would come up with any solution that remotely addresses the issues at the core of Nigeria’s problems. Even if they miraculously came up with a solution, there is no evidence that the powers that be in whatever dispensation they come up with post-SNC would pay any attention to the piece of paper the agreement was written on. We already have a constitution that clearly states that issues such as having Sharia law in the penal code is unconstitutional, that the promotion of a state religion is illegal, that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”, etc.

Not surprisingly, the constitution is roundly ignored by those that swore to uphold it when they took office. So any piece of paper from any conference would be just as worthless as Neville Chamberlain’s Anglo-German Declaration with Adolf Hitler in 1938 that was meant to guarantee “Peace for our time”.

It’s insane to think otherwise.

I should have known better

I had to visit the motherland for a wedding in Abuja early this month. I usually patronise airlines that fly direct to Nigeria from Heathrow. So my choices were limited to British Airways and the Nigerian-owned Arik Air.

My default position is to support Nigerian businesses because their investment in the country should create employment, which contributes towards a reduction in the social tensions that have plagued us for ages. But previous experience, for example with some Nigerian travel agents, has left me with serious misgivings about the cavalier attitude towards customer service by some Nigerian businesses.

Anyhow, following the pisspoor service I got from BA when I last visited Nigeria, I had decided to always boycott them as long as I had an option. So Arik it was then, and I arrived at Heathrow for a flight scheduled to leave on a Thursday night, arriving in Abuja the next morning, which should have given me enough downtime before the wedding on Saturday. I should have known better.

I found out at the airport that the flight was cancelled. I thought to myself: “Not the Nigerian Airways experience again, when you had to keep going to the airport for several days before you finally boarded a plane”. I then discovered that despite routes from London to Nigeria being among the most lucrative for airlines, Arik didn’t have any staff at Heathrow and possibly none in London.

Their business at the airport is contracted out to an airline services company. That company’s staff first told me that I should wait till 6pm before they could deal with my inquiry. No one seemed to be able to provide any cogent explanation for the flight cancellation, apart from a female official mumbling something about aircraft maintenance. Afterwards, I was told they couldn’t log into the Arik computer system to rebook my flight and couldn’t get hold of Arik IT staff to resolve the issue. After standing in front of the desk for about half an hour, they finally logged into the Arik system and informed me that my requested option to get on the Lagos-bound plane was not possible because the plane was full.

I was then rebooked for the flight scheduled the next evening and due in Abuja on the day of the wedding. I originally intended to return on Sunday, but was informed that that flight was also cancelled. So they rescheduled my return for the following day, messing up all the plans I had made following my return. As I traipsed out of the airport, I considered myself lucky because I live in London and could get back home with relative ease because I had left the car at the car park. Some others were not so lucky, including a young woman that came down from Birmingham and a family from Cambridge. The woman from Birmingham said this was her first experience with Arik and would be her last.

My brother-in-law later said I should have told him before I bought the ticket and he would have informed me about his woes flying with Arik. He said it was a “miracle” whenever they took off on the scheduled day.

I thought Arik would have upped their game following the diplomatic row late last year between Nigeria and the British authorities over the cancellation of slots for Arik into Heathrow from Abuja (possibly done to favour BA by crippling their competitors). The Nigerian government threatened to reduce BA flights to Lagos in retaliation and this forced the Brits to back down and allow Arik to fly from Abuja to Heathrow seven days a week. Instead of taking advantage of the huge customer base on the London to Nigeria route and cultivating their patronage with better deals and a more efficient service that would shift Nigerian travellers away from competitors, Arik has chosen to offer the same shoddy customer service, chronic inefficiency and unreliability that plagued Nigeria Airways. This has given mileage to stuff I heard on the grapevine about the airline being in the throes of bankruptcy. The flight to Abuja was only about a quarter full and the return flight was even emptier.

I have always argued that Nigeria’s private sector is just as bad as the public sector, mirroring each other with the same ills. This is hardly surprising since there is an incestuous link between both. There are some indications that Arik is actually owned by an ex-president and former governor of a state in the Niger Delta using fronts. They seem on course to bring to corporate governance the same maladministration that bedevilled their rule.