RELIGION - AN OUTDATED PHENOMENON?

I have almost lost faith in religion. And not in its manifest deficiency  and incapacities in solving the problems of the world but because it constitutes itself into a very disturbing distraction from the real issues of human existence – the height of human reverence for the supernatural on this planet is definitely beyond the rites and passage of bowed heads and clasped hands at pre-determined time intervals. Again, the arrogance of human wisdom as it relates to religion is fatally addressed by new knowledge revealed on a daily basis from different corners of the known world. Mankind is at best at pre-kindergarten stage in understanding the world but we are too proud to admit that weakness. We have built empires and world powers on empty wisdom, on minute ounces of knowledge and on pockets of guesses latched into a chain of universal trial and error. Governments have engaged in bizarre behaviours, often justified and hailed by their rather unverified knowledge of the truth about our existence on earth. By all means, individuals are the seeming perpetual tools of this ignorant trade, individuals remain pawns in a most misunderstood maze of manoeuvres we term life, and at the end it is all just confusion. Let’s get into the issues.

Religion is essentially centered on belief in the supernatural, that, which extends beyond the physical to the metaphysical and to which mankind has no complete understanding. We are however, in our best efforts, again in a visceral and vicious cycle of bottomless reasoning in this endeavor. Often times, influenced by family or environment, we develop religious beliefs and convictions based on no external sources for truth beyond internal feelings, highly subjective to each individual in the human enterprise. There are therefore, countless potential Ibrahims in Christianity and another round of countless potential Johns living across the Gulf Countries of Arabia but who were born in ‘strange’ land. We would never be adherents to certain faiths had we not been earlier exposed to them and many times this is often a function of geography. The man that is born in Yobe State, Nigeria will more likely than the woman born in Switzerland be a Muslim than any other religion. The choice of Yobe as place of birth is however beyond that man. He did not choose to be born in Yobe. He is a product of some conjugal activity by two individuals, who themselves had no inkling as to how they were born where they were and so the chain goes on and on – albeit unexplained. If all of mankind can therefore not explain their biological origins which in turn, and most likely determines their religious leanings, why is religion such a big issue in the world today? Religion and religious wars have killed more people in the world than hunger. At the heart of all wars is a fundamental driving principle usually hinged on personal faiths which are unexplained, not fully understood but which are strong driving factors for social re-generation (or degeneration) for groups in the world. Religion has affected emotions, provoked hate, caused injury, ethnic disdain and heart breaks and will continue to do so until we again re-appraise our expectations for religion, its role in social development (if any) and its environment specific management. While not totally ruling out the many advantages that we have enjoyed on account of the evolution of religion in the world today, contemporary events call for a re-assessment of what we have come to accept as religion.

Wealth creation is a sister absurdity in my opinion. It is a myth, nothing more. I borrow from the laws of thermodynamics– the 2^nd Law states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed  – likewise money cannot be created or destroyed , its  ownership only changes hands. We only pinch money from one point to another in a continuum. We collect and retain and in retaining pass ownership to others who also pass ownership of the same money out. In the real operational sense of the phrase ‘rich people’, you talk only about people who have passed ownership of money at some earlier point. No rich man really ever has his money. His money travels round the world and the difference between him and another man is how much of his money he can call back for discretionary use, his money left him the moment that it got to a bank or some other interest. It literally, is mixed up with other people’s money and is forever lost. When he wants his money, it is not the same money that he thinks he owns that he gets, money, usually a fraction is called from another source and passed to him, and again he passes the ownership of that money to somebody else just as he did. When we make money, it is either for the bankers to use or for others to spend. It is NEVER our own.

 Having that basic understanding of exactly what money ownership or ‘riches’ is, should therefore prompt the question: where does all the money end up? And my immediate answer is nowhere. It is never really owned. It is homeless for lack of a better description and is in an unending flux. Nobody owns money. At best we just have a money management system which individuals subscribe to and which serves some purpose which may or may not be determined by the individual. This realization has totally re-addressed my appraisals of financial prosperity at an individual level and I live, having re-adjusted my expectations to the hard fact that I can never really own money. Better put, I cannot ‘have’ money in this lifetime.  Today, we place the pursuit of money almost above any other. It is prime and comes disguised in cloaks of career, entrepreneurship, leadership, government, etc We have all signed up for a race we will never win in the long run and contentment has been murdered by the greed foisted on us by society. We have been made addicted to ‘success’ often denominated by money and are unfortunately irredeemably lost on this count. We must understand that money is a masquerade, a façade, a trick of life that we must never fall for as shown, graphically in the stunning image of Earth from Saturn below:

About a week ago, NASA released images from the Cassini, an unmanned spacecraft that took pictures of earth from distant Saturn which is about 1 billion miles away.  Those images, if true, question the very crux upon which humans live and relate with themselves on earth. Earth is almost insignificant in the entire picture. We are, in actual fact just a dot in space. All the Towers of London and New York, The Taj Mahal, Hotels of Vegas and Malls of Dubai, The White House, Russia, China, Togo and Oshogbo are all but a speck. Obama, Putin, Obasanjo, Jonathan, PDP, the Republican Party, Communist Manifesto become invisible in the face of inter planetary revelation. They are not known, they are not seen and they cannot be heard. They might never be. The Pope with all his catholic power and might, Saudi Arabia with all the holiness of Meccah are contained in what is cosmic dust, a speck of dust in a constellation of heavenly bodies where earth plays as a minor. We pursue inter-faith domination and in the process discard sense and reason; endorsing practices that make us kill ourselves. We set earth, our earth on a suicide mission by our actions whereas all of these acts are not even known or recorded beyond this physical earth. Why do we do all the things we do in the name of religion when it ends up nowhere? The space camera of the Casinni records nothing extraordinary about us and we just might have been overlooked.  

We do not even qualify as pencil in the hands of a creative God who made the beautiful universe. In our smallness, we build castles in the air and live recklessly. If we lived on Saturn or a bigger planet, Heaven only, knows the kinds of wars we would have waged on account of religion. We would have fought battles that would have spun the cosmos beyond control but God in his infinite wisdom chose to put us, PDP and Boko Haram alike in that tiny part of the universe, and despite that, we have still not let him rest.

When you talk to the next person and think you have all it takes to be bowed to, remember the image from the Cassini of Earth from Saturn and see how the entire earth is quietly humble, sitting almost unnoticed in a world where the big worlds are the big worlds and earth remains just a dot in the picture. It is safe to have faith, but religion loses its relevance ultimately. So the ultimate question is this, if earth is but a dot, what are you in the picture? The answer? I have no interest in it. 

The April 16 Presidential elections: Unmasking the Political Immaturity of the ACN and CPC.

I have tried repeatedly to avoid making any serious political statements besides the allowances of the few words that a Facebook update permits but the times call for one because I see the despondency, the desperation and the near lack of faith demonstrated by Nigerian politicians in the opposition attaining damaging dimensions. I have often disregarded the thought that we could have an opposition devoid of the usual internal wranglings, bickerings and manifest political aggression as we have seen in the historical politics of our dear country Nigeria and have often been disappointed. Against very personal expectations, I believed that the Buhari-Bakare presidential ticket on the platform of the CPC was the ticket to right the many wrongs our dear country had suffered. I also believed that the vibrancy of youth as demonstrated by Ribadu and the socio-economic balance represented by Adeola on the ACN ticket was another worthy political combination. I am however disappointed that we retain the erroneous impression that a divided opposition can provide the capacity for a run-off in the 2011 presidential elections.

While the results of elections were trickling in at dusk on saturday the 9^th of April 2011, the day that the National Assembly elections held, my Blackberry was abuzz with "cheering news" about how the PDP had been upturned in the elections. Tinubu perfected his art and reclaimed the south west for the ACN and only news about PDP's losses was news. And the question on my mind was 'is the change here now?' I waited in measured caution knowing the kind of country I lived in. I also recall telling friends to be careful not to confuse results declared at polling booths as final results. That said, Facebook from the Nigerian angle was all about results of polling units. As a matter of fact, my friends who ordinarily would pay no dime for anything political became e-returning officers. 'Results' were everywhere like LASTMA officials and in our usual style and pattern began to hail the electoral process as overseen by Professor Atahiru Jega, the wise one who has had the fortune of having his name become a Nigerian verb, as 'free and fair'. So we went to town hailing a process which outcomes we were yet unsure of.

That in itself held a trap - free and fair elections? Well, the losers at the elections were now hushed, silenced by the drowning praises sounding out that the elections were like June 12. Yours sincerely described it as Nigeria's first and we went rejoicing when we heard polling unit results showing that the PDP had been battered. Saharareporters described the elections as 'shock and awe'. I mean how would Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP lose in the Aso Rock presidential villa? That was like saying the Devil was fasting under Maurice Iwu's INEC. Where, for instance in the world does that ever happen? We were however counting chicks while the hens were mating. The results of the elections as I type this note are 75% in favour of the PDP and the rest political parties in the country sharing 25%. That result as it stands today represents NIGERIA. Our very own dear land where it is a surprise to be surprised. We have explanations the world has never seen. We have bus drivers driving in the most reckless fashion without hurt. We have millions living in darkness with beaming smiles in the day. We have suffering people but no, leadership is a divine allotment, so we must not question the gods! And then we parry away our commonwealth with explanations that I long to fully understand in the life hereafter.

Smarting from recorded losses, it was apparent that the CPC was not as powerful as thought. The ACN was indeed for me the huge surprise as it claimed seats in PDP territories with relish and uncommon ease. I was quite impressed. The story and explanation I got about the performance of the CPC was that there was an understanding to have the North vote Buhari at the presidential elections and while I retained my doubts, I was hopeful that some degree of change would have been achieved in the country. I have however been a consistent advocate for an alliance between the CPC and the ACN to tackle the whittling influence of the PDP headlong. All the talks have failed till now and it beats me to figure out why! The North West and North East are supposed to provide Buhari leverage but I do not see Goodluck Jonathan having a poor showing there either. As a matter of opinion, I see him coming second in these two regions of the country. So if Goodluck Jonathan maintains second position (if the elections are not landslide victories in favour of Buhari-Bakare) will Buhari be able to record same in areas where Goodluck Jonathan has strength or the near neutral areas like the North Central?

Goodluck will certainly win the South South, the South East and the North Central. That leaves the South West, the North East and the North West for grabs between Jonathan, Buhari and Ribadu. If Buhari wins the North East and North West, the only other region that can give him an approximate political draw remains the South West. The South West may however be Buhari's waterloo. Ribadu the ACN candidate has the South West as the only region he is sure of winning under the current political situation in my opinion. If Ribadu holds the votes of the South West, then Goodluck Jonathan by virtue of the average showing he will likely enjoy in the North will emerge winner after the numbers of saturday's presidential elections. If any alliance however sees the South West votes going to Buhari, then a likely Buhari victory scenario emerges. In the absence of an alliance, Goodluck Jonathan may well be on his way to his election to the exalted office of Nigeria's president in a few days from now. I don't see Ribadu having a particularly strong pan Nigeria showing.

The ACN's national leadership is however undoubtedly corrupt too and I only see Buhari and Bakare as the symbols of integrity at the national level within the CPC. While the PDP retains the leadership position on corruption affairs, I know Goodluck Jonathan will have a sterling performance as president. The regret however will be that he may only be able to achieve just a third of his best intentions under a PDP government. That may be the punishment on us for indolence over the years. The pride and arrogance of Buhari and Tinubu will not allow the much needed unseating of the PDP. The core institutional elements of these parties too suffer the disease of ineptitude and corruption existing in our national mental psyche, else why wouldn't the ACN and the CPC come together? They seem to be in a drunken stupor, failing to understand the times.

I was called by an ACN representative on the phone today and I asked questions about a possible alliance, the response was an emphatic 'NO' and I thought within my mind, is Ribadu not a PDP agent?

Crucify me, I said that.

Wole Temidire Aguda

13/04/2011

NIGERIA @ 50: REASONS NOT TO BE SAD.

Nigeria in our time celebrates 50 years of national independence and there is much excitement in the air. Facebook status updates, Blackberry images, and the streets of Nigeria resonate with nationalistic passion. Huge resources have been committed to marking this auspicious moment of our national history and although many have described the euphoria as unreal and dangerously pretentious, we may still have reasons to celebrate. I have often wondered what the attainment of 50 years of independent existence holds for the unseen forces of darkness that have also hovered over our nation state since the Union Jack, the symbol of British imperialism was lowered to make way for the hoisting of the Green White Green coloured Nigerian flag in 1960. Many Nigerians my age bracket, really do not see anything to celebrate with a nation that has ridiculed the tenets of accountability in a fashion yet unseen in world history. They are of the conviction that the hype is a sheer and unfortunate celebration of mediocrity ably represented by the country with the highest number of black people the world over. This generation in their lifetime have yet to come to grasp exactly what it means to enjoy clean drinking water running from taps that never run dry or electricity supply which for years never blink. This generation remains confounded at huge resources expended to celebrate a nation where university graduates consider it a luxury to complete tertiary education unattended by industrial actions. This piece seeks to flip the coin of despondency and hopelessness that youths in Nigeria have being offered as representing our very essence as a people.

I have often had to defend Nigeria within circles of friends from different countries of the world but these defences are usually shallow and leave a gap on the inside of me when the reality of our circumstances stare me in the face. I make no pretence about our state and in my heart wish it was not so bad for us. I am however delighted to be a Nigerian whenever in the United Kingdom, I tune my decoder to Nigezie – a channel on the legendary SKY network dedicated to showcasing the eminently intimidating capacity of Nigerian youths for music production. Our youths today produce music easily comparable with what obtains in the Grammy winning albums of American music stars. There is no denying that Hip Hop is fast becoming a global culture and whether you like it or not, Nigerian artistes are recording deals in the region of tens of millions of Naira. It is not yet uhuru I quite easily agree but when placed side by side the characteristics of what the hustle in Nigeria represents, I want to sell my room to support these guys. The Nigeria that suffers excessive looting is not known to these guys. They hold it down for themselves and have learnt to forge without what is common place for their contemporaries in other parts of the world. They represent our generation, they represent our spirit – resilient, tough and goal focused.

What we have left as a healthcare sector is manned by Nigerian youths – Doctors, Pharmacists, Lab Scientists, Microbiologists – who well have the opportunity of profitably transferring knowledge and experience to other parts of the world but who for the faith in country remain within the shores of Nigeria to tend to the feeble, the beaten and weak Nigerians, a people who have been battered by the terminal and debilitating wounds of political corruption and economic sabotage. They go for calls in security risk areas and yet suffer delayed salaries. These professionals are posted to remote locations in Nigeria, fighting mosquitoes and the lack or near absence of good drinking water. They are the heroes of Nigerian independence and not necessarily the occupants of exotic cars filing out to the Eagle Square Abuja to pop champagne on the grounds of the same country that is home to slums and flood beaten villages. The contributions of these medical practitioners reflect the spirit of compassion and fraternal co-existence we imbibe from playgroups in primary schools and secondary schools. Although often overlooked, these ones are the beautiful of our earth. They are the budding hope of our generation. They are not politicians riding on the back of epidemics to build mansions. They are not the ones who employ the fight against HIV/AIDS as their personal fights against poverty. They have not converted funds meant for dispensaries and sick bays in hamlets and villages to the purchase of state-of-the-art office equipment. They, like a million others remain the unsung heroes of our national independence today.

Nigerian universities and tertiary institutions churn out tens of thousands of graduates a year on nearly nonexistent job opportunities. Nigerian youths lack jobs, not because they are incapable of hard work or without the requisite qualifications but because the jobs are simply not there. Despite that, computer village – a business district in Lagos without virtually any direct connect to government, is a ready hub for amazing wonders on computers, phones and other information technologies. The Computer Village to me reflects essentially the reality of being a youth in these days. Graduates and non graduates alike converge every morning to provide solutions to millions of Nigerians who themselves face the same economic hardship on the streets and to whom the discounts offered at the district is a major relief. Hate or like them, local ICT centres such as the Computer Village, GSM villages, and hardware repair stores spread across the length and breadth of Nigeria demonstrate the enormous capacities for self sufficiency, intellectual grooming, endurance and ultimately survival present in the youth of this generation. So while the goons in government sign ‘tripartite agreements’, ‘MOUs’, engage in ‘bilateral trade talks’, and ‘knowledge exchange’ on information technology and thereafter convert the contracts of such proceeds to fattened bank accounts while the Saheeds, Uches, Hamzats and Stephens battle under the Nigerian sun to install locally developed solutions to computers and laptops of many. They are not in air conditioned SUVs, transported to luxurious hotels to further plunder the nation, no. They are never in the minds of national leadership when ICT needs emerge. Every opportunity to these leaders is one for further self enrichment, computer village might as well burn.

Every year, thousands of Nigerian youths cross to the west in pursuit of western education. They pay exorbitant fees for what is known in local parlance as ‘foreign pali’ (internationally recognised educational qualifications). To demonstrate that the Nigerian youth is one and same irrespective of social status, I will cite the example of the willingness of many to resign positions where high income is guaranteed in Nigeria to venture to uncertainty terrain. Nigerian youths leave jobs in the oil and gas sector, banking, telecommunications and return to classrooms in the hundreds of universities in the UK and thousands in the United States of America, Malaysia, Ukraine, Sweden and many other countries which to many of us remain mere geographical names on maps. These youths are not under any form of scholarship. They do not enjoy any privilege of being Nigerian youths in the Diaspora yet excel in academic endeavours and ground breaking successes. Privileged locally as they are, they engage in menial job faring for survival seeing that the seemingly high income in Nigeria is nothing but a trifle overseas. Their focus is on progressive self development, young men and women who on their very own bring glory to self and country and who go the rounds of cleaning and washing London buses for survival. These educated Nigerian youths are not the ones with the executive appointments that seat atop government agencies desecrating constitutional mandates, they are not the ones bullying their ways through clearance from the Nigerian Senate, they are not the ones for whom sirens are blown. As a matter of fact, they are only known by kith and kin, and of course government attitude seems to be who send you go school for yankee?

We should not be sad because we have seen abuse of youth. We should continue to have enduring faith that with commitment to doing right, the Nigeria of our dreams will come. We have been raped we agree and have even been written off by some as incapable of providing national leadership but the same ones are the ones who took our country to the gods of destruction as squalid sacrifices. Given the time and space, I could continue to chronicle the sacrifices our youths have made to and for national development. We are not the focus of any celebrations but tomorrow is definitely ours. I have just highlighted a few from tonnes of contributions that we have made and painfully so. So while the roads in Abuja are still being painted in the morning of our independence anniversary (a reflection of the incompetence, bad planning and poor implementation of ideas of the old order) and majority of settlements will go through the day without electricity, let us rejoice for there is a tomorrow when the elements of oppression and corruption will be swept off. The hope we have will unite and strengthen us and for those of you (or us as the case may be) who will be alive in 50 years, may it never be this kind of superficial, decorative and cosmetic celebration. May they be celebrations of real success, of visible development, and of tangible progress.

To the youths of Nigeria, Happy Independence anniversary. God bless you and your dreams.

Wole Aguda

ZONING: Our Quick – Fix, Mediocre Panacea

I recall picking up university matriculation examination forms more than a decade and half ago and going through the accompanying brochure. It was interesting to observe that some states in Nigeria fell under a classification “Educationally Less Developed States (ELDS)” and I recall wishing that I hailed from one of those states, because the university entry requirements for those states were less ‘stressful’ than it was for the rest of the country. It was after a few years that I began to understand what I call the Standard Operating Procedures of our fast failing Nigerian state. Shortly after, I discovered that there was an ‘indigenisation’ policy present in many state owned institutions. That, I thought, was probably designed to even educational development among geo-political divisions of the states. It was however subsequently disturbing to observe that Federal Universities (a commonwealth of every citizen of Nigeria) was beginning to adopt the same retrogressive approach as well. There was still more ahead. Others I recall are ‘catchment area’, ‘derivation formula’, ‘littoral states’ ‘rotational presidency’, etc Many years have passed now and today I look back and with a heavy heart at the state of our nation – reeking of failures – known and unknown from non-existent infrastructure. The truth to be told is that electricity supply is a national embarrassment, our airports are as problematic as their conveyor belts, the air is heavily polluted by generator fumes and there is almost nothing of pride – not even the Super Eagles.

The gory state of our dear country did not however start off with us when we gained independence from British Lords. Nigeria was once the pride of Africa. We had Africa as the focus of our foreign policy. We were the bastion of the renowned cultural heritage of black people the world over. We once had a national currency stronger than the American Dollar. Ghanaians flocked to Nigeria in hordes to enjoy from our wealth and we were generally a happy people. But like every bad thing ends, so does the good. We had bad leaders take over and selfishly entrenching sectarian values. We had leaders dividing rather than uniting. Nigeria lost it and we began to create easy paths to bad successes. We became a nation of shortcuts. ‘Educationally Less Developed States’ as a policy is nothing but a philosophy of laziness -one that corrupts the development of the mind. If all of Nigeria got independence at the same time, such a concept has no permanent place. It is this thinking, this philosophy of nothingness, replicated in converging patterns in organs largely responsible for our development that has practically brought the nation to her knees abegging basic development. Enrolment in these ELDS has not in any way improved the educational status of the states enjoying that unfortunate status. A check with all examination bodies will reveal that much. We abhor merit. It is anathema to us - reason why we have nothing to show for 50 years of independence.

Today we are continuously erring along the same paths. The North believes in zoning today but didn’t believe it in over 30 years of ruling the nation. The South South believe it is ‘their time’ but not because they have a particularly defined and serious path to Nigerian glory save that they have a son in the saddle and ‘it is their turn’ anyway. Mediocrity left, right and center. Remember the South West was ‘compensated’ with an Obasanjo presidency – a presidency that was all noise without any eye on the future. We are in the days of politics without leadership, compensation above capability, zoning over prosperity. Political concepts and ideas that are terminally diminutive, nationally ineffectual, endemically sickening. Is this the Nigeria that can groom a world cup team? Hell NO! The best hands hardly get the jobs. The best hands, whether they are from minority or majority, recognised or unrecognised, with tribal marks or stretch marks should get the job and get the job done. Nigeria needs to rise beyond the trivial issues of our political philosophies of transient fixes as a nation. If elections were rigged for the best hands, we may have been half worse off but elections are rigged for people who have no clues about the deliverables of their offices. The distribution and administration of financial largesse seems to be the primary responsibilities of public office holders today and so long as we continue to accommodate this, we may never have that life of our dreams anytime soon.

As much as political expediency may necessitate certain interventions such as zoning, a nation and her people should pursue the overriding interest of all through processes that are transparently designed to increase the potentials for a better life. If we continue to colour our perspectives with ethnic sentiments, demographic characteristics, educational heroics, entrepreneurial dominance, we may as well continue with the macabre dance to the unknown. If Jonathan Goodluck should win a party’s ticket, it should be because the party is convinced he is better able to deliver on governance requirements as opposed to the design of the cap on his head. We choose the best for those we love. We love Nigeria and should want to do the best for her by adopting meritocracy – so that we can actually develop. Every section of this country can fill any position. The other approaches have failed and as they say, you cannot achieve change doing the same failing thing.


Wole T. Aguda
29/06/2010

THE NEPA/PHCN TRAP: ARE WE FALLEN?

A Nigerian friend and I had an engaging conversation about the challenges of living in the UK after school and in the course of that discussion touched on the efficiency which we have so easily associated living in Europe and the United States with. As expected we bemoaned the huge wealth we had as a nation and regretted the waste that we have been made to endure. One of the highlights of our chat was the ever increasing challenges of living in Nigeria either as a literate or an illiterate citizen, man or woman, boy or girl. I rewound our conversation on my head as we parted ways that evening and realised that there exists an unintended deadening of our national senses. How do I mean? I realise that most of the time we have group conversations, electricity supply and its mathematics dominates our conversations? We are either comparing ourselves with Ghana, the new bride of ECOWAS or with countries that have hosted us in other personal pursuits. We are most times inundated with talk about how many of our parents may pass on to the great beyond without ever witnessing steady supply of electricity for most of their lifetimes or with the sacrifices of having to run generators and its many troubles. Electricity seems to be our only problem and in that thinking lies a most malignant fallacy, an unimpeded trumping of our virtual reality and a rerouting of thinking appropriate for our people and our nation.

I have been engaged in discussions regarding the seven point agenda of the current administration and I am amazed to note that in continuation of the deadening process, we have also resigned ourselves to the possible and very likely failure of the current administration in achieving anything close to seven points. “Seven points!?”, I am asked and usually told, “just let him deliver one and we are fine”. One point for a nation whose budget runs into billions of dollars? One point for a country where a serving government official was “rumoured” to have spent a whopping $1Million on a private social event in 2009? One point for a country that has the highest number of international students of African origin in the United States and the United Kingdom? Friends, are we okay with just one point from the largest oil exporter on the African continent? One point – that is it. Nigerians are content with the current administration providing basic electricity on a constant basis to their homes and businesses. That is unfortunately the sorry state of Nigerians expectations. It is a sordid reminder of the pain of failed political processes and promises, irresponsible politicians and leaders known only for huge embezzlement of entrusted national wealth, unwittingly giving licence to the likes of Sony Corporation and their friends who have turned Nigeria and her people to the whipping boy for global multimedia representation of corruption. This situation to me, is the reprehensible lessening of the standards of legitimate question asking and demand making that the electorate have on the elected – Nigerian style.

To ask for seven points now seems like a dream, a wish in the dark alleys of a nonexistent realm. We are an innovative people and every Nigerian generation has a gift to the world in the persons of Wole Soyinka, Ali Mazrui, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Chinamanda Adichie, Etannibi Alemika, Chinua Achebe, Philip Emegwali, Obi Ezekwesili, Chioma Ajunwa and many others but asking for seven points from our leadership appears a tall order. Today what we complain about is the near lack of electricity supply to homes, offices and businesses. The emphasis is justifiable considering the huge role power plays in the world today. I am however disturbed that we are losing a huge battle when we are overly distracted by one huge national problem and hope that by the time that solutions have been articulated and executed for that, other national problems will come tumbling down like the famed walls of Jericho. The centrepiece of this writing is to correct that erroneous perception. Quite admittedly a lot of our social problems may be half solved if we had constant electricity supply, we may however be so overwhelmed by these others that have been unduly relegated that the comforts presented by constant electricity supply may be short lived and almost immediately dwarfed by equally basic but absent or nearly dead infrastructure. When the scales are finally out of our eyes, we may then wake up to our future reality. A lot of talk has gone into discussing the problems and citizens have voiced complaints more than they could ever do in a lifetime. Governments have also expended huge resources in a bid to solve this problem but there is a danger inherent in all these activities.

Has anyone driven round the city of Abuja recently? Abuja, our supposed national Beverley Hills is fast becoming a headache for drivers on weekdays. Make an attempt to drive through the Ahmadu Bello strip for instance in the afternoons and see how long it takes to drive to Wuse 2. A trip of 10 minutes on the average may take longer than twice that time today. More enthusiastic Nigerians are moving to the “land flowing with Naira” and many foreign NGOs and corporate organisations are fast taking up space in this beautiful city. Despite increasing viable and admirable changes that the Fashola administration is introducing to Lagos, Abuja is fast winning over thousands of youths tired with the Lagos hustle and bustle and desire the tranquil life that Abuja offers. This may be healthy for national integration on the on the one hand but stretching for the young and budding city of Abuja on the other. Had our governments understood the need to adopt holistic approaches to problem solving, they would by now be thinking about not only road expansions but alternative means of transportation. Can Abuja for instance have a rail system beyond political jingle making and fraudulent contract signings to actual construction of rail lines or even building tubes like there is in London? Can we have short haul flights in and out of Abuja? Can we have alternatives to the impressive-but-fast-choked up roads of Abuja? Are there planners who are today making projections about the impending explosion of population of people in Abuja for instance and proposing workable solutions on how to deal with these?

Transportation around the world today is a precursor of business. I do not intend to discuss here the roles of a sound transportation system in national development but I would love to highlight that development of communities is hinged on physical access. Accessibility itself is a direct function of the transportation subsystem so it makes commonsense again to link a sound transportation system with social development. There is however an evil that the lack of reliable energy to our homes is costing our dear nation. It is distorting our sense of planning and our sense of a national future. It is sapping our energies and our creativity as a people. We are myopic now in even our own legitimate demands of those whom we have “elected” into political office. We have been made beggars of that which we are naturally endowed with. All we think of and dread as Nigerians living abroad most of the time is the “NEPA/PHCN challenge”. We have truncated our sense of innovation and have restricted vibrant discourse to how and what is to be gained from constant supply of electricity. We have inadvertently belittled our sense of national intellectualism and our collective drive for the unique branding of the Nigerian ethos. What we so desire is “light” and I feel ashamed a lot of times at this reductionist mentality.

Therein lies that evil. We are concerned about NEPA (a reductionist attitude) but not disturbed about the transportation system because we have been overly distracted. Have we questioned the state of our national health institutions? Are we thinking about alternative sources of energy and developing environment friendly solutions to the dangers of global warming? Are we giving room for the grooming of innovation and ideas that Nigerians are known for? Are we questioning the thrusts of our foreign policies and consolidating our place on the continent? Are our local industries generating employment and contributing to national growth? How about our sports which is still the strongest social uniting factor in Nigeria? Are we honing in on our advantages or tearing them down? Are we sufficiently mobilised for credible electioneering? Can Ghanaians now come to Nigeria to adore our vast tourist havens? Do you have credit lines available for even mobile phones? Do our legislators understand basic issues of national development?

I am afraid that by the time we are able to generate, distribute and transmit the required electricity to our homes, we would have been overwhelmed by other issues of national importance and there again begin another fire brigade approach to solving the next problem in line. That probably explains why ASUU strikes seem so normal. Friends and readers, any ASUU strike is a drawback and indicative of a very sick system. We have so many problems but we must not be so subsumed in them that we treat with levity others which should be treated with urgency. Our education suffers but because we want light we don’t cry about the state of our tertiary institutions until there is a rot that will now require a surgery that will cost us more than it would if we adopted a holistic approach to solving national problems. Look around you, there is a systematic degradation of our health services, transportation, education, communication and many more. We need light we agree but we must also not lose sense of the fact that becoming permissive to corrosive neglect of other aspects of our national lives is doing ourselves in and limiting. That too, must be resisted.


'Wole Aguda

"UP NEPA!"

"Up NEPA!". Does anybody recall that refrain? In the 1980s in Nigeria, it was an experience of exhilaration, joy and youthful excitement that signalled the restoration of electric power to homes. Then, it was a near automatic come- back-home call...sometimes stronger than the voice of my mother calling to me to return home from play. That shout echoed in homes and streets across Nigeria and for those who had television sets, they came on seconds afterwards. It used to be such a gesture worth celebrating from NEPA (we used to think) who were the the national mainstream electricity suppliers. At a point in my imagination, it seemed as though soap operas such as "Behind the Clouds", "Ripples", " Checkmate" and the likes were more interesting to watch if NEPA had just restored light. The experience of being without electricity (a sense of deprivation) and its eventual availability seemed to add colour and even more excitement to the prospects of watching TV. But why so?

There is an old saying that "You don't know what you have until you lose it" and that seemed to explain Nigerian's attitudes to the experience of enjoying electricity supply. You had to immediately bring out clothes for ironing in order to be decently dressed either to school or to work for the week. I recall how in secondary school, in my mother's 'cottage' then, we used to form queues for ironing clothes because you could never tell when NEPA would do the needful. Back to the question of why NEPA used to be a tonic for more enjoyment of watching TV, we used to hope that the timing of the restoration of electricity would be such that favoured our personal preferences for TV programming. So for my father who was an ardent follower of Nigeria's popular NTA News at 9pm, affirmative action from NEPA would be when electricity is restored between 8.30 pm and 9 pm as there was assurance that he would be able to watch and listen to the news without fear of a disruption. That would mean a loss of 30 minutes on our best soap operas if they held on Thursdays for "Checkmate" "Ripples" on Fridays, or on Tuesdays for "Behind the Clouds". It was a game of luck, NEPA could strike at any hour and their return was nearly as unknown as the second coming of Christ. When electricity was therefore restored, it was usually a matter of joy unspeakable.

Today the shouts of "Up NEPA" are gone. Now not necessarily because of a name change from NEPA to PHCN but because the experience has wearied the voices of millions of Nigerians whose voices have become tired from decades of screaming. Shouting is an energy sapping experience and sometimes the "Up NEPA" chorus used to be accompanied with some dancing. I'm not sure I did not do a Michael Jackson dance at least once to a NEPA favour! The long expectations of Nigerians of having electricity restored to their homes have left them mentally desolate and unwilling to prolong the tenure of pain and loss that NEPA has dealt them and their families psychologically. Nigerians have waited for years believing and hoping that one day we will be given what is a birthright in less endowed nations of the world but no, our corrupt leadership would have nothing of that. So rather than die in self pity, Nigerians have resorted to self help (the undertone of successfully living in Nigeria in the 21st century) and are today governments in their own homes. Nigerians buy their water and generate the water supply themselves. Electricity is provided by generators which you fuel from hard earned income. You create the fun and excitement which leadership has deprived a vast majority of Nigerians. Our youth resorted to the now infamous 'Yahoo Yahoo' exit route (by the way you need guts and brains to do that) while parents looked for other means of getting the life that seemed to pass them by without much help. NEPA realised this and went for broke. Generators became our own NEPA, which functioning depended heavily on the strength of our pockets.

It was only in the first five years of my life I recall I did not pay attention to the existence of NEPA, I have lived to adulthood and about to start a family of my own and dread the fact that my kids will come into a Nigeria grappling with finding her voice to shout "Up NEPA". We have had waste upon waste, governments have been just avenues for looting, state governors dip hands into states treasuries, ministers were reckless with funds, ordinary citizens soon realised they were not in the picture of development and started their own survival tactics. Militancy is a response to our leadership challenges.
I reiterate my call to the youths of today, we have been victims of irresponsible elders let us not do same to generations we will bear. Children that will come from us should not have these values translated to them for any reason. The future is what we make of teaching our young ones today. Our orientations are been formed, when we have opportunity please let us do right and teach our own children the values that our preceding generations abandoned. These are the values that place service about self enrichment, the greater good of all against narrow minded egotistic behaviour. Let us hope that we will in our time have the privilege to shout a final "Up NEPA" and never have to worry about when electricity will be taken away from us again.

God bless you and keep believing in the Nigeria of our future.

'Wole Aguda

THE ASUU STRIKE AND YOUR ROLE (culled from the Facebook "NIGERIANS UNITE AGAINST ELECTORAL FRAUD IN 2011 ELECTIONS" forum's page.)

It is particularly not the happiest of times for Nigerians especially Nigerian youths who have to contend with the recklessness of unaccountable leadership. With all due respect to President Umar Yar'Adua and the leadership of ASUU, the place of education seems to be of no priority to both the Federal Government and to ASUU as well or else why should the ongoing strike action by university lecturers linger since June 2009? If the FG insist that ASUU returns to the classrooms before negotiations can continue, ASUU may well just do that and watch to see if the FG keep to their own side of the bargain. This may be common sense to many but the reality of the Nigerian experience is that if ASUU returns to the classroom, government will likely renege on their promises and employ political ways out of a problem that will again rear its ugly head hence ASUU's painful insistence.

The mistrust between ASUU and the FG is unfortunately at the expense of students who are forced to stay home without electricity to even monitor developments. This is a call to all students in this forum that while the two elephants fight, get engaged with some work, vocation or new learning. Take the opportunity to add value to yourself or your community. Learn a new language, develop new ideas by just imagining them, improve your computer skills or study the history of industrial disputes in Nigeria. You never can tell how these things play out. You may watch movies for recreational purposes but be careful what you watch. Give to your church or mosque service that is not necessarily monetary.

It may be useful to just improve your spelling skills at this time rather than the overdependence on Microsoft Word for spelling corrections. Learn spellings such as committee, hierarchy, superintendent, diarrhoea, macabre, etc that we normally gloss over.

This is an appeal to members of this forum too who have thriving businesses to look around your neighbourhood and reach out to one of these students. Not everything is about money so you could just reach out to impart knowledge, share experience or articulate redefinitions of the Nigerian state. The bottom line is that you remember this stay-at-home with some meaningful purpose attached to it. This will affect the call up for national service for some (I waited for three batches to pass before mine due to needless squabbles) but then there is always a gold lining to even clouds!

While we await a paradigm shift in governance in Nigeria, let us remain hopeful. Let us remain positive. Let us trust God and work with our hearts, hands and minds for a greater nation, one that defies the evils of educational instability, infrastructural lack, financial corruption, immoral social coexistence and shallow mindedness.

Remember to invite your friends to the forum. Many of us have done that already and I would like to specifically thank Adeoye Tope Jacob, Wallace Imoudu, Morenike Omidiji, Aina Ayinbode, Ene Odeh, Chike Nweke amongst many others. It is simple, you just go to the forum page and select 'invite friends to join'. The process is easier from there.

Remember your vote counts. Demand credible elections wherever you are.

'Wole Aguda