23 minute read
Op.Ed
OPINION
2023: May the Sun Rise from the East
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By Tope Oke
The immense resonation of the message itself birthed a movement known as the “Obidients”. The frenzy behind the movement has shifted his potential gear of winning from being “impossible” to “possibly but improbable”. While momentum is swelling, there are still so many hurdles to cross. Apart from the armored ethnoreligious glass he has to break, he is up against two old, experienced warhorses who will go to any length to ensure the existing hegemony isn’t usurped.
Despite a variety of accounts from direct participants and observers, there is still a lack of consensus or closure on the real motive behind the events that took place on the morning of January 15, 1966. While some have claimed that the coup was motivated by patriotism, others believe it was simply an Igbo Coup – a phrase for a violent attempt to grab and perpetuate the Easterners in power. Another school describes the young Majors as naïve revolutionaries who were just brimming with youthful exuberance and had no sense of direction or purpose.
If perception is devoid of any molecule of emotion and sentiments, it looked like an Igbo coup! First off, amongst all the military and civilian casualties, only one was Igbo and among all the lynchpins of the coup, only one was non – Igbo! Of course, northern officers and politicians suffered the most. The subsequent gloating of the Easterners in the aftermath of the coup further enraged their northern counterparts. Imagine the mindset of the northern officers when they saw that famous interview where their colleague, Major Nzeogwu, described how they “got” their revered leader, the Premier, amongst his wife and children. It was therefore sacrilegious for the ultimate benefactor of the coup, who also happened to be an Igbo to defer upholding the military fraternity’s sacred laws against treason by bringing the mutineers to justice. Instead, they still received their wages while in moderate detention, and in all fairness to the northern officers, they exercised restraint for a whole six months. To naively and effectively seal his own fate, General Ironsi introduced the infamous Unification Decree 34 which sucked more power to the center, accentuating the northerners’ belief in a grand plan for the Igbos to consolidate their dominance.
His legendary crocodile-shaped staff couldn’t save him when a mutiny erupted in the peaceful town of Abeokuta on July 29, 1966. That night ushered in a new era of northern hegemony, politically and economically, and simultaneously relegated the Igbos to the backseat of Nigeria’s power and politics. Many of the actors on that night still control the power rungs today one way or the other.
Without a doubt, the perpetual subliminal bias towards the Easterners from the rest of the country is rooted in the aforementioned events. Perennially disdained by the Northerners for obvious reasons and held in cynicism by others for upturning the Nigerian political applecart. Even those around their neighborhood are quick to remind anyone who cares that they’re not Igbo. Often viewed with suspicion, many are even wary of entering into any economic relationship with an Igbo for some uncanny reasons but they somehow, have managed to become the most enterprising and some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country. This is not to say that the Igbos do not deserve some of the flak that they get. However, In the dark history of mortals, there are certainly no saints, and therefore it will be reckless to paint any nation or tribe as absolute victims or villains
It is in this preceding context that it is a welcome coincidence that for the first time since 1979, Nigeria is heading into a presidential election with the leading candidates representing the three major tribes, and even more significantly one of them is an Igbo candidate that has garnered sufficient goodwill and support to put a finger on the trigger for a shot at the highest office in the land. Whether he can win remains to be seen but Peter Obi is certainly riding on a wave of a popular, organic movement that cascaded from the EndSars protests which erupted across the country two years ago. Perhaps, it may not have been the case if the two leading parties had read the room and put a lead on the monetization of their primaries which produced two geriatric politicians in Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar for the ruling APC and the opposition PDP respectively.
While the ruling party was able to rally around to ultimately conduct a primary that produced its National Leader as its candidate, the opposition party is still enmeshed in some sort of political fratricide after an injury-time maneuver in their nocturnal primaries ultimately edged out long-time party stalwart and Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike out of any place on the ticket.
Admittedly, it is quite understandable why some are backing the Jagaban. If Awolowo was the political god, then Tinubu is the demigod. With Lagos as his launchpad, he has capitalized on Nigeria’s peculiar politics to amass an enormous network of structures and resources and demonstrated enough strategic courage, patronage, and dexterity than anyone else for even his contemporaries to buy into his leadership style and surrender their loyalty to propel him to the presidency. If this was some years back, Tinubu would have secured bloc votes from his kinsmen but his entitled claim to the throne now comes at a time many are disgruntled and disillusioned by the misrule of his party and the candidate he sold to Nigerians seven years ago. If Nigeria wasn’t a paradox, his party the APC should be ostracized and not have the opportunity to smell power again for some time. However, for some reason, in a country so extremely bedeviled by the three core issues (Security, Corruption, and Unemployment) his party promised to fix in their campaign for power in 2015, the National Leader of that same party is the frontrunner to win the elections. It is nothing short of a diabolical spell and piercingly defines the extreme docility Nigerians are renowned for. Furthermore, and most crucially, if his controversial past is deflected, one cannot look away from his frail health. He clearly isn’t physically or mentally fit to stand the rigors of a role that his erstwhile sick predecessor could inflict on him. The controversial engagement in London at the Chatham House where he grotesquely outsourced the answers to questions thrown at him further amplifies the reservations many have about his cognitive abilities. It is gravely risky for the country to go from one unhealthy septuagenarian to another one and for those who conveniently compare Nigeria to Uncle Sam, they feign oblivion that our institutions are not as strong as the Americans, and neither do their leaders govern from a hospital bed abroad.
Like Tinubu, Atiku is cut from the same political cloth and has been dancing to similar political tunes since the third republic. If not for Atiku’s esurient thirst for power, they would have been dancing to the same music all along but his ambition to take one step further up the power rung has cast him in an image of a serial hopper who is in line to break the record for the most failed presidential attempts on the continent if and when he loses for the sixth time this year. The infinite amount of money and resources he has poured into each campaign only reveals he isn’t coming to serve. While he brands himself as a democrat and unifier, he financially maneuvered his way to his party’s candidacy, the result of which has torn his party right down the middle. A paradox. More so, early last year, the Deborah Matthew incident effectively portrayed him as a man who would do anything on the altar of political expediency to fulfill his ambition.
After the EndSars protests were quelled in the most barbaric manner by the government, stakeholders called for the young protesters to channel their frustrations at the polls. When you marry that with the sustained yearnings for a third force, the embodiment of that outgrowth is Peter Obi on the platform of the Labour Party. From being a running mate to one of his rivals on the opposition party’s platform barely 4 years ago, Obi has somehow, morphed into a symbol of a break from the establishment. His candidacy seems to have catalyzed a raise in the standard of electioneering campaigns with himself promising to lead a government of accountability, transparency, and prudence. The immense resonation of the message itself birthed a movement known as the “Obidients”. The frenzy behind the movement has shifted his potential gear of winning from being “impossible” to “possibly but improbable”. While momentum is swelling, there are still so many hurdles to cross. Apart from the armored ethnoreligious glass he has to break, he is up against two old, experienced warhorses who will go to any length to ensure the existing hegemony isn’t usurped. However, it is quite remarkable that the widespread support that critics have waved off as just being domiciled on social media is proliferating terrestrially. It is even rumored that the” gatekeepers” of Nigeria are offering him their support.
Tope Oke is a businessman and public affairs analyst. @teepenn44
New Year resolutions and the consistent self deceptions
By Clement Uwayah
The failed expectations arising from resolutions do not make the resolutions unwarranted or worthless, but the timing and follow ups always does. New year resolutions seem to me an automatic way of allowing procrastinations and delays to hinder and overshadow the necessary actions that needs be taken for one’s immediate and ultimate better outcome.
Human desires to regularly do away with identified weaknesses and traits that are considered unbefitting, unproductive, and inimical to the ultimate realisation of expected goals, as well as setting of new ones has assumed a seasonal affair and mostly tied to what has become a yearly routine exercise – the new year resolutions. The belief that amendments of undesirable lifestyles and opting for better run and outcomes are best sought and achieved at a particular point in time, especially at the beginning of a new calendar year has been an age long thing, hence it is actually the rationale behind such resolutions. Across the globe, it is a common practice.
Wikipedia records that, ‘a new year’s resolution` is a tradition, most common in the Western Hemisphere but also found in the Eastern Hemisphere, in which a person resolves to continue good practices, change an undesired trait or behaviour, to accomplish a personal goal, or otherwise improve their life’. Thus, every new year is supposed to make individuals better. But in reality, it would appear that rather than get better, most persons become even worst on same traits for which they had resolved to change. From inferential statistics, less than ten percent of people are able to keep up with their resolves. It therefore means that every year has a history of repeated vein human expectations, occasioned by unachieved resolutions. Arguably, new year resolutions have repeatedly resulted to fixed false beliefs that conflict with reality, and that is exactly a delusion.
The failed expectations arising from resolutions do not make the resolutions unwarranted or worthless, but the timing and follow ups always does. New year resolutions seem to me an automatic way of allowing procrastinations and delays to hinder and overshadow the necessary actions that needs be taken for one’s immediate and ultimate better outcome. The attachment of resolutions to New year’s seemed to have introduced a measure of significance to some form of calendar related possibilities with respect to desired habit changes and expectations. Rather than a yearly resolve, it makes more sense to adopt some form of timeless resolves that gives the flexibility for immediate redress. When people fail in their yearly resolutions, they seem to await another full circle to make a comeback trial of the issue for which they desired a change. In the long run, ‘yearly’ resolutions most often leave people in a perpetual state of retardation and inability to carry through.
More often, new year resolutions have had to do with an intent to correct undesirable habits than that of purposeful planning for better outcomes. Recalling that habits hardly die, one would rather propose for a more purposeful approach in the form of Personal Development Plan (PDP). Embracing such would in a way fight such undesired habits, even without knowing it, thus making it a case of habit replacement. For instance, rather than resolve to be less combative, insultive or quarrelsome, one could plan to be very slow to answering back or refrain from talking much generally. In the same vein, one who desires to change from being a drunk or from other habits may plan to become engaged at such times of indulgences in such activities. A shift from or change of friends, acquaintances and even routes may also come handy.
The hallmarks of human success and prosperity is deeply rooted in an ability to constantly rise up whenever he falls or fails in any given attempt. However, the often wrong impression associated with new year resolutions tends to make people give up on something so easily, terming themselves as failures and hoping for another opportunity in another year. For instance, does it not amount to self-deception or practical insanity for someone to declare January of a new year as termination of his own self-identified dislikes, as if it were on practice handed through a contractual agreement over a given course of time? Should the desire to change an undesired trait not be a mindset rather than the calendar timing we seemed to have so embraced? The saying that anytime we are aware of a thing means it is calling for attention or actions has taken flight with our reliance on new year resolutions to initiate changes
Truth remains that the power to bring about changes is always more spiritual than physical and must be deeply rooted from inside (mindset) than a mere wish and reliance on some external forces, especially a point in time in a calendar year. Until the mind is conditioned to assume the position that ultimately alters a certain status quo, nothing can happen. For resolutions to yield its desired results, it should be considered as a manifestation activity rather than an expectation event. It is all tied to our belief system. Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny.
The quest for one’s betterment cannot be downplayed on, hence resolutions should not be restricted to New Year’s as it only promotes procrastination and perpetuity in wrong doings. Importantly, it must be noted that the ultimate force that creates the enabling possibility for the effective and positive outcome of resolutions is the recognition of God’s Power and Grace. Rather than work with the God of years, we often get carried away with the thought that a new year carries the power of change. This is in conformity with the thoughts of Reno Omokri, who warned that ‘The New Year Will Not Lead To A New You If You Don’t Make New Decisions. Never Believe That A Calendar Occurrence Will Just Bring You Blessings On Its Own Without You Taking Action To Agree With What God Says About You. A Date Can’t Make You Great”.
In the final analysis, it is to be affirmed that our abilities to reposition ourselves towards better outcomes is not and can never be hinged on the delusional resolutions we make yearly. It is vein expectations to expect that resolutions would work out because it is tied to a particular calendar period. Indeed, it always amounts to procrastinations when one refuses to take immediate actions towards remedying an undesired state. Anytime a thing is known is the time attention to it is necessary. Procrastinations are thieves of time and that is one associated inclination we often harbour concerning making our desired changes using the instrumentality of new year resolutions. Clement Uwayah writes from Edo State.
PEOPLES DAILY, WEDNESDAY JANUARY 4, 2023 COMMENT
Witch hunting churches and pastors in 21st century Nigeria
By Leo Igwe
Self-styled prophets, men and women of God, like Adetuberu, use these events to destroy families and poison relationships between couples and their in laws, parents and their children, people who live in cities, and those who live in the villages. Pastors have used these events to turn siblings against siblings, relatives against relatives, men against men, men against women, and adults against children.
The Advocacy for Alleged Witches urges the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to call its witch-hunting pastors to order and restrain them from inciting violence and hatred in the name of witchcraft and exorcism. This call has become necessary following a recent Christian witch-hunting event in Ibadan in Southwest Nigeria. On Friday, November 25, 2022, the Faith and Miracle International Church organized an Ibadan city-wide crusade. Tagged “Destroying the Power of Witchcraft and Marine Spirit”, this event took place at the Indoor Sports Hall of the Liberty Stadium Ibadan, Oyo State. Senior Prophet G F Adetuberu presided over this program. It is worrisome that the event happened in contemporary Nigeria.
The AfAW is deeply concerned over this activity because similar programs have been linked to cases of witch persecution and related abuses in the communities. Unfortunately, pastors are using witchcraft to assert legitimacy and power. They are stoking witchcraft fears and anxieties and getting people to attribute their everyday problems and existential challenges to the assumed magical powers of their relatives. Pastors have used these crusades to validate and sanctify abuses and violations of alleged witches; they have made a religious service out of torturing and maltreating supposed human perpetrators of occult harm.
Self-styled prophets, men and women of God, like Adetuberu, use these events to destroy families and poison relationships between couples and their in laws, parents and their children, people who live in cities, and those who live in the villages. Pastors have used these events to turn siblings against siblings, relatives against relatives, men against men, men against women, and adults against children. They have planted and reinforced suspicions and mistrust in the communities.
Christian witch-hunting continues to ravage the country because of the inaction of the Christian Association of Nigeria. The CAN has continued to turn a blind eye to these witch hunting events. Organizations such as the CAN have refused to take a strong stand against witch-hunting churches such as the Faith and Miracle International Church and witch-hunting pastors such as Adetuberu. Some CAN officials offer flimsy excuses. They claim that these pastors are not true men or women of God; that their churches do not belong to the CAN. But the Christian Association of Nigeria should know that: whether these pastors are a part of the CAN or not, their witch hunting activities negatively reflect on the Nigerian church.
It is pertinent to remind the CAN that witchcraft imputation is a crime under Nigerian law. Section 210 of the criminal code, and section 216 of the penal code state that anyone who accuses or threatens to accuse any person of being a witch or having the power of witchcraft is guilty of misdemeanor and liable to imprisonment for two years. The CAN should not allow churches and pastors to indulge in criminal activities or activities that aid and abet crimes. The CAN has a moral obligation to provide leadership and stop giving excuses for their inability and reluctance to rein in witch-hunting churches and pastors. At a time that churches in the west are issuing apologies for their role in witch hunting in early modern Europe, the church in Nigeria should sanction witch hunting churches and pastors. The CAN should take other necessary measures to end abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs and exorcism in 21st century Nigeria.
Leo Igwe is a Public Affairs Analyst.
This 2023 Nigerians deserve to breathe again
By Azuka Onwuka
It is said that a people deserve the leaders they get, but one wonders if Nigerians deserve their leaders. Since 1960 when Nigeria got her independence, Nigeria has moved from one mediocre leadership to another. The people are usually desirous to have transformative leaders, but somehow, they keep getting disappointed. Between February and March of this 2023, Nigeria will go to the polls again to elect another president as well as legislators, state governors and state legislators.
With the parlous state of the Nigerian economy and security, most Nigerians believe that this year’s election is a defining one: It has the possibility to offer Nigeria the opportunity to break from its past of wastefulness and mediocrity and start the arduous task of rebuilding the country. But to achieve that, Nigerians are expected to elect leaders based on their pedigree and capacity rather than their status as “power brokers” or ethniccum-religious allies.
The current Nigerian attitude to material possession is cancerous. It has eaten deeply into the internal organs of Nigeria and created some of the grave problems that have paralysed Nigeria. Money has become the god of Nigeria for some decades now. Most of the churches and mosques preach and worship it week after week. Even when they claim that they don’t promote materialism, the constant pressure they give their worshippers and the special attention and honour they give to the big donors still make the loud statement that money is the king and god of Nigeria, and those who have a lot of it and dole it out profusely get all the accolades and honours.
It is the same thing in the social or communal life. The Nigerian society has made it clear that only those who have money and flaunt it deserve respect. They are the ones who get all the chieftaincy titles and awards. They are celebrated at every opportunity as examples of success.
The sad part is that unlike in the past, the source of people’s wealth is no longer questioned in Nigeria. Until the mid-1980s, Nigerians still questioned people’s source of wealth before celebrating it. Parents would not accept monetary or material gifts from their children, if they were not sure of the source of wealth of such children. People tried as much as possible to dissociate themselves from those who were perceived as tainted.
In recent times, because of the desire to be wealthy and influential and be celebrated, crime has continued to soar in Nigeria. That many Nigerians engage in drug trafficking, even in countries where drug trafficking attracts the death penalty, is because of the consuming desire to get rich by any means. Many people say that it is better to die trying to be rich than to be alive without being rich and celebrated.
The same thing goes for kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery and internet scams. There is no repulsion for these crimes anymore. Those who engage in them even create justifications for them. They blame society for not providing jobs for them, even though most of them would reject jobs because no job in Nigeria will pay a young person millions of naira every month like crime does. There is also the justification that those in political positions steal much more.
The continuous rise in the level of corruption exhibited by those in the civil service and even those in the private service also has its roots in this worship of money. When most people talk about their tenure in the civil service, governance, judiciary, media, public relations, advertising, marketing, manufacturing, banking, etc, it is usually as one without blemish, but when the salary and other forms of remuneration of such people are compared with the amount of money and assets they have amassed, one sees a clear disconnect. There is no way all their earnings can give rise to the amount of wealth they have amassed, no matter how savvy they are in investment.
An associate faced such a challenge and pressure based on the amount of money his townsman working in the same organisation was donating at home and the assets he was acquiring. His father asked him why he was not doing as well as his kinsman working in the same office, and advised him to get close to him and learn how to progress in life. Any time the man contacted his kinsman to tell him how he was making such huge financial progress, the answer he got was: “My brother, work hard, invest and trust in God.”
This continued until something led to a probe of his activities in the public relations department where he was working. It was found out that for years he was fleecing the organisation. He would raise a budget of gifts in cash and kind to reporters, editors and publishers for the sake of getting constant positive media reports. But much of the money was going into his bank account and that of his colleague in the same department. And just as security funds are treated with secrecy, encouraging corruption, so are public relations funds too. And this is rampant because the Nigerian media, which should be watchdogs, also join in the corruption of demanding or accepting gratification to kill negative stories and publish positive stories. Even though some media houses frown at such practices and punish journalists who engage in such, many journalists still find shrewd ways to engage in them.
Nigeria has been so badly infected that it has become virtually impossible for one to survive here without being tainted. Corruption has been so ingrained that the few who genuinely want to avoid it are seen as misfits. The more they try, the more they are victimised and more hurdles placed on their path, so as to make them succumb. Even their rights like their pension, gratuity, property, freedom, life, etc, are targeted, so as to make them succumb to corruption. Their family members, friends and religious leaders even tell them to “apply wisdom” by giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God, all in a bid to make them play ball like most other people and stop losing what is their right. Therefore, anybody who lives in Nigeria but is completely untainted by corruption is an extraordinary human being: almost a saint.
Wealth without enterprise has pauperised Nigeria and created desperation in Nigerians. There is the belief that after one has acquired wealth by any possible means, one can always make huge donations to religious organisations, the poor and different institutions as a way to ‘clean’ the money. One can even build a church or mosque with the hope that such is a befitting atonement.
Therefore, pulling Nigeria out of this pit requires a firm and strategic reorientation led by a trusted leadership. The leader must be someone who can lead by example and show that money is not the be-all and end-all of life. Such a leader will also be one that will take practical measures to fish out and prosecute those who are tainted by corruption or crime, even if they are his cronies. That is why it is vital that Nigerians elect someone who has the capability to destroy the current compromised Nigerian foundation and build a new one. This new foundation will require Nigerians rekindling their belief in the country and taking ownership of Nigeria. It will require Nigerians to raise the alarm whenever any big gun tries to jump the queue.
That attitude will help to restore sanity and hope in Nigeria. It will not be easy to achieve but it is possible. All it requires is for Nigerians to have a leader they can trust and work with, a leader who will make sacrifices while telling Nigerians to make sacrifices. – Twitter: @BrandAzuka
