The Jonathan-Must-Go Army and the Rest of Us

I am not a fan of President Goodluck Jonathan. I think that as president he had a chance to use the people’s goodwill to advance a more egalitarian society and he abused that goodwill on the altar of cronyism, clannishness and general misunderstanding of the essence of leadership.

I think that were he to decidedly fight corruption for instance, he’d easily win many Nigerians to his side. As it is, he appears very much in consort with corruption. Even he subtly admitted that in one of his speeches when he said a particular world leader praised him for the conduct of the 2011 elections but in the president’s words, the said world leader then said “but corruption! Corruption! You must do something about that.”

It did not look like the president understood the full import of what even he was describing. Corruption is a major cog in the wheel of Nigeria’s progress and no matter how any Nigerian leader is intent on getting things right, you will always fail if you don’t fight corruption. To do that, you’d of course have to hurt even your own friends and allies. They are naturally likely to be the ones to dare steal from the national treasury. But while corruption may be an issue in our polity, I personally consider hypocrisy as Nigeria’s number one challenge.

Ours is a society that continues to suffer from hypocrisy. The loudest noise in our polity today is, “Jonathan Must Go!” and if you listen hard enough, that noise comes with a sub-text, “when he goes, Nigeria will be fine!” The point a non-observant onlooker would miss is that the noise has not offered anything in terms of a fact-based “why?”

Take the APC. In an ideal world, the APC would be the alternative government. They would be the ones telling us what they’d do differently from the government of the day. We have the 2014 Appropriation Bill at the National Assembly and this offers the alternative government a platform to tell the people not just what is wrong with the proposed budget but how it could be made right.

Now that the APC has more seats at the House of Representatives, what would its members do about the N150 billion yearly bazaar allocation to the National Assembly? It would never be enough to tell us what the PDP is not doing right if they cannot make right what the PDP used to do the wrong way.

Nigerians are not interested in the battle for political power among the elite; Nigerians just want to see a country that works. Saying the president should not run for a 2nd term will not work for those who want him out. It is not enough to be united in their obsession about sweeping away the Jonathan presidency; they need to show that they are about much more. They need to show Nigerians the alternative to the Jonathan presidency that is about growth, development and all the issues that have to do with building a country that works.

Let the political class not fool themselves. The ordinary Nigerian does not think one side is fundamentally different from the other. It is even more difficult to differentiate between them with the continued movement between both parties that now makes it look like an ideological adiabatic process between both parties, where the ideological difference between both entities is tending towards zero as elements move from one end to the other.

Of course 2015 will never be about ideologies. Our politics is very much far from that level. We are at the level of absolute transitional politics. A president wants to stay in power, he shares oil blocs and appointments; the people want food they give their votes, and the politicians want votes they give food.

We are stuck at the very foot of human desires. Living strictly based on what we can see, what we can feed on, and what we can get. The idea of beliefs, values and conscience where they exist quickly get relegated for this quest to feed the Neanderthal within most of us. Some of us can of course do better but what would you expect from the rest of us who cannot feed except they beg or exchange their dignity for bread?

 

By Japheth Omojuwa

How Hath the Young Aged

I hate to think of it but ten years have passed since I left secondary school; a decade and a year to be sincere. Only a few years ago, it seems, I was a schoolgirl, wearing cornrows and no makeup, mis-matching colours before colour-blocking became fashionable, and at times criminally matching colours― blue jeans, pink top, pink shoes, pink earrings. Just yesterday, I was an undergraduate. Overnight, the people I considered children have achieved the same feat and some have gone even further.

It is a difficult reality, the admission of one’s (old) age. It is sad to grow from one about whom it was said with a tone of envious felicitation, ‘really, so you are now in the university, how fast?’ to being the one perplexed about the velocity of time and the growth and development of children of nowadays.

I first came to the realisation that I was no longer young in my early twenties. It had been a tolerable notion. That idea has since evolved and it has dawned on me that I am actually getting old. The diamond birthday may signify the full coming into old age, but the process starts long before, in the late twenties. Here, about this time, is the beginning of old age. Evidence of ageing asserts itself in more ways than wrinkles. The transition is gradual and continuous.

The neighbour’s son, who I baby-sat from infancy through nursery school, is grown lanky and does not  acknowledge my sacrifices of love, neither does he recognise me, however hard I try to sell to him the story of his childhood. The neighbour’s daughter, too, whose coarse hair I plaited every Sunday, has trouble recalling the past. Like other children in the neighbourhood, I know the time and circumstances of their births but they do not know me.

When one of these children passed by without salutation, I thought, ‘what is wrong with these kids?’ The origin of my indignation can be traced to an age-induced sense of entitlement, an indicator of advancement in age. More signs of the times abound: appropriating the authority to deal punishment to an erring preteen cousin; neighbours of their free-will bestowing on you the title of ‘aunty’; mum, after exhausting her restraint, asking if there are any plans for, any inclination towards marriage, which she deems her final maternal obligation.

This is the era of indulging in aphorisms like ‘age is just a number’, ‘it is not how fast, but how well’. Later, it would be time to adopt the concept of being ‘young at heart’, even though deep inside feels rusty, corroded by age. For the moment, the compliment, ‘you look younger than your age’, is of great value.

I look with pity on excited corps members as I know that this phase for them, too, shall pass away. I, too, was once a corps member. I felt like a youth, I felt young, especially considering the environment in which I served. People would reinforce that feeling, marvelling and saying I was too young to be a 'corper.' That was the last time I felt young, the apex and end of youth.

Now, I am not too young for anything. I am older than everyone I know. Everyone doing what I do at this level is younger. Sometimes I feel underachieved. Time would not be still for a second. My self-imposed deadline for about every dream has long passed. I am five years behind schedule. Eleanor Catton, at just 28, has won the Booker Prize.

There is no record to be broken, no schedule to be met. Now I am free of anxiety. I live at my own pace. On my next birthday though, when well-wishers gather and sing me a birthday song and ask, ‘how old are you now?’ I might well answer, ‘very old’.

 

By Ladi Opaluwa

Abuja, through the eyes of a Lagosian (2)

***
Last week we saw the images conjured by a Lagos mind on visiting Abuja [ Abuja, through the eyes of a Logasian (1) ]. This is the second and final part of Pearl Osibu’s  Abuja observations. ***

We have by now all heard that Abuja is such an expensive place. But I am beginning to wonder if it isn’t a case of penny wise, pound foolish; at least as it compares with Lagos. Now, this comparison I’m about to make is hardly representative of all of Lagos, or all of Abuja.

My older sister, Racheal pays the same rent as I do; but while hers is a self-contained apartment, mine is a two-bedroom house. Automatically, this would lead me to say that her house is more expensive. But then I begin to think about it. Her neighbourhood is nicer. That neighbourhood that seems pretty regular in Abuja, would be somewhere in Lekki or Victoria Island if it were in Lagos. And so in Lagos, her house would have been more expensive than it is in Abuja.

Secondly, Racheal spends N3500 monthly on electricity, waste management, sanitation, and security. I spend the same amount on electricity alone and another N4000 or so on the others. Both our rents cover water but while her water from Water Board is regular and safe for drinking, my water which is hardly safe for drinking, comes from a borehole that is subject to the whims of power supply. As a result, I buy about N3000’s worth of drinking water and when there is no power, I spend another N2000 to buy water for domestic use.

Racheal does not even own a generator. In the nine days I spent there, power failed only three times – a few hours the first time and not more than ten minutes the other two times. I on the other hand, spent almost N60,000 to buy a generator, then spend between N10,000 to N15,000 a month on fuel, and this does not include the cost of servicing or repair of the generator.

Racheal’s house is pretty new; mine isn’t. Sometimes when there are issues, her landlady fixes them (although she is likely to use substandard stuff). I spend N8000 to N10,000 monthly fixing one thing or the other – if it isn’t the light, it’s the tank that needs washing, or the sewage pipe that has broken, or the sink that is leaking. Lagos landlords, or at least mine, take the rent, disappear and surface again when it is due.

Racheal’s street is well paved, and it is called a street. My street is in a terrible state of disrepair and it is called an estate. You cannot quantify the money that is spent by car owners who suffer damage as a result of the road which is getting worse every day.

A cab distance worth N400 in Abuja would be N2000 and above in Lagos.

Most of the food we eat comes from the North - staples like fruits, vegetables, cereals and meat. By the time they get here, cost doubles (and quality reduces). On this score, Abuja is again cheaper than Lagos by far.

Lagos traffic is a cliché not worth dwelling on. If anyone did a study of the man-hours lost in Lagos traffic and quantified it in monetary terms, it would be clear how expensive Lagos is on this score.

This is my humble submission – that Abuja only seems more expensive than Lagos, but this is not so when you count all the costs, real and derived.

A small caveat, however, would be that Lagos is so rife with opportunities and generous to the hustler, that it would be kinder to the beginner than Abuja could ever be.

For a city as organized as Abuja, the airport is appalling. You may not be able to tell right away – until you are late for your flight and have only a few minutes to check in before the counter closes, then it hits you. In Lagos and Calabar airports (and I’d like to think most sane places in the world), at the check-in counter, there are several queues, first to different destinations, and then for the same destinations, according to departure time. Not so Abuja airport. So those on a 3pm Lagos flight could find themselves at the end of a long queue by 2:15, while those flying to Port Harcourt by 6pm would be at the head of the very same queue. Doesn’t make any sense. I very nearly missed my flight for the second time a few weeks ago. It was really desperate. Perhaps that is the reason why the business of people who loiter around, ‘helping’ people check in for “anytin wey you get” is booming.

Trivia: Lagos airport buses are like cruise liners; Abuja’s are just ordinary.

But, I love Abuja.

-- PEARL OSIBU

New, New Year Resolutions

 

Resolutions are a tricky thing. They make us declare to be our best selves, which really isn’t our true selves. The true self is that selfish, greedy, gluttony guy at the back of the building heckling at the righteous guy in front reciting a manifesto. You silence him by ignoring his tirade or you show him how to behave by demonstrating a superior moral authority.

Or you make a Resolution.

Stripped of the noise, a resolution is really just a speech, a tacit invitation extended to the heckler to show why his way is better, why that extra helping, that extravagance, that extra-marital dalliance is a great idea. And be sure that he will. Stories abound about how the closer a wedding is, the increase in the number of temptations. A friend tells me he had never seen as many beautiful women as when he fixed a date for his wedding. Suddenly, the beer seems brewed in your name, and it would be rude to refuse.

No sooner had the president resolved to quash Boko Haram than the next headline proclaimed a heavy loss.

The easy way would be to stop making these promises one has no clear idea how to go about fulfilling. What changes, what gives man the illusion something can be altered? The man is same, the neighbour just as pretty, and the pounded yam just as starchy. Why then does he believe a statement, screamed or whispered, changes anything? I am thinking it is a way to cope with the flux of consciousness that is life— things move so fast, one way of holding on to an illusion of control is to effect a schedule of accomplishments. The 365 days would pass whether one is active or sedentary, but man puts up a calendar, marks days, sets goals and all is well with the world.

That is one way of looking at it. The other is via history. Christians may not be too impressed to learn that the self-improvement ritual at the start of the year can be traced to ancient Babylon, where the people made pledges to, among other things, pay up debts. It would seem pagans beat Christians to many practices. So maybe resolutions are an acknowledgment of something greater and a way to align our conduct to fit its prescriptions.

But who cares so long as resolutions help us to be better? Not so fast, it turns out. A majority of people fail at keeping these resolutions: one study puts the figure above 80 percent. Ridiculously high, it doesn’t bode well for anyone. What to do than to drink one more beer, and invite the pretty neighbour for a drink.

You were probably going to fail anyway.

Then again, in 2014, maybe a different track can be followed. Rather than give up, switch up. Rather than saying a reduction of beer bottles per week, why not try a different brand, eh? Try a low tar cigarette instead, wave to the neighbour, stop semovita and move up to pounded yam, instead of football, follow tennis. Give up twitter and log on to Linkedin, halt television binging and turn on the radio, stop sloth and start sleeping.

Chances are you'd outgrow major vices and their variations by the year’s end, rendering doomed-to-fail-resolutions needless by 2015.
Your mileage may vary. So, if unsuccessful repeat as directed.

Of course, you can thank me later. Or better still, send a six-pack over.

By Oris Aigbokhaevbolo

The Beauty of a New Year

There was no actual difference between December 31st 2013 and January 1st 2014; the sun rose and set on both days in exactly the same way and you looked exactly the same before you crossed over the threshold from one year to the next. All that has actually, truly changed is that when you now write today’s date you have to remember to put a 4 where the 3 had occupied for 12 months.

Somebody once described New Year’s Eve celebrations as “waiting for the world’s biggest non-event”; faux festivity over another set of 24 hours, much ado over just another day. Millions gather for the countdown, huge firework displays are timed to perfection and television cameras are set to record elated global reactions to...midnight of a new day.

Yet there’s something thrilling about entering a new year. There’s a feeling of freshness, of cleanliness, of starting over again. It’s as if all the mistakes and pain and fears and failures of the past year, of your past life even, have been forgotten, and a blank slate has been given to you on which you can write a better, happier story of your life. No matter which position we finished last year, we get to return to the starting line to restart the race, confident that we’ll run a better race this year.

The power of January 1st is the best example of humanity’s ever-hopeful bent, where anything that proclaims a new start (a new baby, a new marriage, a new job, a new home or a new school) brings with a natural hope of it ushering in something drastically different, despite experience holding overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We want to believe that things can change; we want to believe that a new date on the calendar will signal new life and promises of dreams coming true.

We look back at ‘the past,’ which was really only days and hours and minutes ago, and it takes on a sepia-coloured tinge of history and is already fading away into memory as we look forward to all the Technicolor glory 2014 will surely hold.

So we wish each other a Happy New Year and send out messages full of blessings and expectations of prospective progress in the 12 months ahead. We make New Year’s resolutions and set out our goals in our hearts and write them out on paper, and rub our hands together with glee in anticipation of what the just entered New Year could hold for us.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. It is this unexplainable, irrepressible hope of transformation, of being born again once a year that separates us from the animals, this belief that one day can hold more promise than another. Hope springs eternal, and once annually too.

Since the Gregorian calendar based on Aloysius Lilius’ precepts united the world under a system of 365 days in accordance with the earth’s orbit around the sun, we have strictly adhered to its count and celebrated each new cycle of 365 days with glee.

It is a tradition borne of the indomitable human spirit to always hope for better. It gives those that need it a new lease on life and unites us all in wanting to be better versions of ourselves, for a few days into the new year at least.

 

By Kimberly Ward

 

The Beauty of a New Year

There was no actual difference between December 31st 2013 and January 1st 2014; the sun rose and set on both days in exactly the same way and you looked exactly the same before you crossed over the threshold from one year to the next. All that has actually, truly changed is that when you now write today’s date you have to remember to put a 4 where the 3 had occupied for 12 months.

Somebody once described New Year’s Eve celebrations as “waiting for the world’s biggest non-event”; faux festivity over another set of 24 hours, much ado over just another day. Millions gather for the countdown, huge firework displays are timed to perfection and television cameras are set to record elated global reactions to...midnight of a new day.

Yet there’s something thrilling about entering a new year. There’s a feeling of freshness, of cleanliness, of starting over again. It’s as if all the mistakes and pain and fears and failures of the past year, of your past life even, have been forgotten, and a blank slate has been given to you on which you can write a better, happier story of your life. No matter which position we finished last year, we get to return to the starting line to restart the race, confident that we’ll run a better race this year.

The power of January 1st is the best example of humanity’s ever-hopeful bent, where anything that proclaims a new start (a new baby, a new marriage, a new job, a new home or a new school) brings with a natural hope of it ushering in something drastically different, despite experience holding overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We want to believe that things can change; we want to believe that a new date on the calendar will signal new life and promises of dreams coming true.

We look back at ‘the past,’ which was really only days and hours and minutes ago, and it takes on a sepia-coloured tinge of history and is already fading away into memory as we look forward to all the Technicolor glory 2014 will surely hold.

So we wish each other a Happy New Year and send out messages full of blessings and expectations of prospective progress in the 12 months ahead. We make New Year’s resolutions and set out our goals in our hearts and write them out on paper, and rub our hands together with glee in anticipation of what the just entered New Year could hold for us.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. It is this unexplainable, irrepressible hope of transformation, of being born again once a year that separates us from the animals, this belief that one day can hold more promise than another. Hope springs eternal, and once annually too.

Since the Gregorian calendar based on Aloysius Lilius’ precepts united the world under a system of 365 days in accordance with the earth’s orbit around the sun, we have strictly adhered to its count and celebrated each new cycle of 365 days with glee.

It is a tradition borne of the indomitable human spirit to always hope for better. It gives those that need it a new lease on life and unites us all in wanting to be better versions of ourselves, for a few days into the new year at least.

 

By Kimberly Ward

 

What Makes A Great Year?

Is it still a new year? It must depend on who is answering. To a Manchester United fan, for instance, what is new about a year where they have already lost twice at the once dreaded Theatre of Dreams? And what is new about the year to those who spent all their salaries on the Christmas and new year celebrations? We are back to where we were, back to work, back to school, back to being jobless and, for some who made resolutions on new year’s day, back to the pre-resolution acts. It is funny, isn’t it? The more things seem to change, the more we don’t seem to recognize the change.

I have a personal code for dealing with life, people, new years and all that. I break the whole into parts, decide what I want out of the whole, and then deal with the parts according to the whole plan. Is that confusing? It should not be. Take the year as the whole, that whole has parts, that is days, weeks, months, quarters, and half-years. It is fine to have yearly plans and to write yearly goals, it is even better to decide when these goals are expected to be realized, but the best bet when it comes to achieving yearly goals is to check on the plan daily. It is almost impossible to fail on a goal you do something about daily than it is about a goal you just expect to achieve during the year without breaking into parts.

I don’t do new year resolutions. That is not to say those who do are doing anything wrong. Let us reason together: if a resolution is about fixing what is bad or making a good thing better, when is the best time to do that? I’d think the best time to fix what is bad is the time one discovers it. So, if I discover a better way to answer questions posed by journalists because of a media gaffe say in June of a particular year, would it be better to learn from the lessons right away and apply the lessons learned immediately or would it be right to wait till the end of the year before deciding to input the lessons into my lifestyle? I think we over-rate January 1st. Please don’t get me wrong. It is always, and will always be, a great feeling to see a new year even though these new years were decided by fellow men at a time in history. What we must never lose sight of is the essence of each day.

Men decided when to start the year, they decided what months were best to end the year and what months to have 30 and 31 days and 28 or 29 days, but no man decided the birth of each day. It is the most natural of time’s parts. It is the single most important factor on the calendar. The most successful men and women are those who respect and understand the essence of a new day. If you must do anything about your year, you must remember these things.

Whatever needs to be changed or fixed must be fixed as soon as the need is discovered. Each new day and the feeling that comes from seeing it should be as important, if not more important, as that that comes from each new year. If you make the hours of each day count as much as possible, you need not even bother about the year. As the day is the building block of the year, so are your daily successes the building blocks of your yearly goals. Make the day count!