The Trumpet Newspaper Issue 622 (May 1 - 14 2024)
How the Mandela myth helped win the battle for democracy in South Africa
How the Mandela myth helped win the battle for democracy in South Africa
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<strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong><br />
Africans now have a voice... Founded in 1995<br />
V O L 30 N O <strong>622</strong> M AY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
Bronze statutes of Nelson and Winnie Mandela (Photo - Jay Galvin, Flickr CC 2.0)<br />
Convicted<br />
of rapes<br />
carried out<br />
over 15<br />
years ago<br />
Kurt Forbes<br />
How the Mandela<br />
myth helped win<br />
the battle for<br />
democracy in<br />
South Africa<br />
By Jonny Steinberg, Yale University<br />
Continued on Page 2><br />
Aman convicted of a series of<br />
rapes carried out more than<br />
15 years ago has been<br />
sentenced following an investigation<br />
by specialist detectives.<br />
Kurt Forbes of no fixed address,<br />
previously appeared at Wood Green<br />
Crown Court where he was found<br />
guilty by a jury of three counts of<br />
rape and one attempted rape.<br />
<strong>The</strong> offences, against a person<br />
known to him, took place in Hackney<br />
between 1998 and 2006.<br />
Detective Constable Thomas<br />
Millard, who led the investigation,<br />
said: “<strong>The</strong> victim in this case has<br />
shown extreme bravery, not only by<br />
coming forward to police but in<br />
providing extensive evidence at court<br />
which left the jury in no doubt as to<br />
Forbes’ guilt.<br />
“Despite the time passed since the<br />
offences took place, our team worked<br />
tirelessly to gather the evidence<br />
which proved Forbes had committed<br />
these horrific crimes.<br />
“We hope this demonstrates to<br />
any other victims that whenever<br />
sexual offences are reported to us,<br />
however long ago they took place, we<br />
will take them extremely seriously.”<br />
In July 2022, a man came forward<br />
to police to report that he had been<br />
raped on four occasions by a man<br />
known to him.<br />
Officers took a video recorded<br />
statement, and provided the victim<br />
with specialist support including a<br />
referral to an Independent Sexual<br />
Violence Advocate.<br />
A warrant was issued for Forbes’<br />
arrest but he continued to evade<br />
police. Following a manhunt, he was<br />
arrested in Ilford in January 2023.
Page2 <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
News<br />
How the Mandela myth helped win the<br />
battle for democracy in South Africa<br />
Continued from Page 1<<br />
Political History scholar Jonny<br />
Steinberg’s 2023 book Winnie &<br />
Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage<br />
is a double biography of South Africa’s<br />
most famous political figures – Nelson<br />
Mandela and Winnie Madikizela<br />
Mandela – and their role in the<br />
country’s struggle for democracy. It’s<br />
also a book that shatters countless<br />
myths about the couple and the<br />
liberation struggle that have been<br />
formed in popular culture and even<br />
academic tellings of history. As South<br />
Africa commemorates 30 years of<br />
democracy, we asked Steinberg for his<br />
views on how and why these historical<br />
myths are formed.<br />
How did Winnie and Nelson<br />
become so mythologised?<br />
It may be best to start with a<br />
working definition of myth. I don’t take<br />
myth to mean fiction; to mythologise<br />
isn’t necessarily to make things up that<br />
are not true. To say that a person is<br />
mythologised means that their personal<br />
story is told in a way that exemplifies<br />
something bigger, generally a lesson,<br />
like how the oppressed should respond<br />
to their own suffering, or how<br />
oppressive systems of rule should end.<br />
To begin with, Winnie and Nelson<br />
mythologised themselves. Both<br />
intuitively understood that their greatest<br />
talent lay in public performance. Not<br />
just any public performance, but the<br />
sort that is exemplary, that embodies a<br />
collective spirit, a set of yearnings.<br />
When Nelson went underground to<br />
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start the military wing of the African<br />
National Congress (ANC) liberation<br />
movement Umkhonto we Sizwe he<br />
understood not just that he must wage<br />
an armed struggle, but that people must<br />
see what a black man who chooses to<br />
fight looks like.<br />
Same with Winnie. When she<br />
appeared in court in Johannesburg<br />
when Nelson was arrested in 1962, she<br />
brought two pairs of clothes: a<br />
traditional <strong>The</strong>mbu outfit for the<br />
courtroom to match the jackal-skin<br />
kaross she knew he would be wearing,<br />
and a business suit for the illegal march<br />
that would commence in the street after<br />
the hearing. She understood that for a<br />
black woman to confront the enemy in<br />
style was not a trivial matter or a mere<br />
detail. <strong>The</strong>y both knew that wars were<br />
won and lost by the power of the myths<br />
one’s appearance tells.<br />
But while Nelson and Winnie were<br />
responsible for the beginning of their<br />
mythologisation, others came on board<br />
later. In the late 1970s, ANC leader<br />
Oliver Tambo was approached with the<br />
idea of celebrating Mandela’s 60th<br />
birthday. He understood immediately<br />
that he’d been presented with the<br />
opportunity of crafting a hero figure to<br />
embody the struggle for freedom. He<br />
did not consult with the ANC executive<br />
because he knew they’d shout it down,<br />
warning of personality cults and so<br />
forth.<br />
And so he gave the ANC the most<br />
powerful weapon imaginable, a simple<br />
Nelson and Winnie Mandela (Photo - Archives de la Ville de Montréal CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)<br />
story about a good man and a good<br />
woman who loved one another and had<br />
been torn asunder by an evil regime.<br />
Stories like that are worth their weight<br />
in gold. Imagine if the Palestinians had<br />
a story like that at their disposal now in<br />
their fight against Israeli occupation.<br />
How does this play into the<br />
broader popular narrative about<br />
liberation?<br />
Well, it meant that the very idea of<br />
freedom was embodied in a person,<br />
Nelson Mandela, which is an<br />
extraordinary thing, when you think<br />
about it. Would South Africa have been<br />
torn apart by civil war without the myth<br />
of Nelson Mandela? It’s a<br />
counterfactual question, the answer to<br />
which we’ll never know. But it’s<br />
certainly plausible to argue that we<br />
could not have crossed the bridge from<br />
apartheid to democracy without a<br />
blinding myth to mesmerise us all, so<br />
that we could walk together into the<br />
unknown.<br />
That’s the positive side of the story.<br />
<strong>The</strong> negative side is that myths conceal<br />
a great deal. Tambo told colleagues<br />
quite bluntly that he promoted the myth<br />
of Mandela because Mandela was ANC<br />
and if the myth worked, rivals like the<br />
Pan Africanist Congress and the Black<br />
Consciousness Movement would lose.<br />
And so leaders of those movements like<br />
Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko faded.<br />
ANC partisan history became<br />
hegemonic history. Vital,<br />
uncomfortable questions were<br />
suppressed. Like what it meant to be<br />
black and to reconcile with whites and<br />
on what terms such reconciliation was<br />
acceptable.<br />
How did you arrive at a different<br />
telling of their stories?<br />
I think that the Mandelas really did<br />
embody the story of their people’s<br />
struggle for freedom, but not in ways<br />
that they could control. I was so moved<br />
to discover that Nelson thought his life<br />
tragic in much the same way that the<br />
lives of so many black men under<br />
apartheid were tragic. He was a<br />
patriarch, and he was robbed of the<br />
means to protect his family. This<br />
humiliated and embittered him. It’s a<br />
quintessential South African story.<br />
Winnie, too. <strong>The</strong> insurrectionary<br />
violence of the 1980s was so scarring.<br />
So many people lost control over the<br />
violence they wielded. She was one of<br />
those people.<br />
Winnie and Nelson’s story<br />
exemplifies all the pain and damage<br />
this country went through. <strong>The</strong>y arrived<br />
at their freedom, but, just like their<br />
people, they did so battered and<br />
bruised. That they both had the strength<br />
to conceal the extent to which they<br />
were damaged seems heroic to me.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y understood that they carried the<br />
myth of their people on their shoulders,<br />
and that if they broke, so would their<br />
people.<br />
Continued on Page 3
News<br />
MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong> <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> Page3<br />
How the Mandela myth helped win the<br />
Continued from Page 2<<br />
Is South Africa ready to view this<br />
struggle history through a clear lens?<br />
If you’re asking whether there can<br />
ever be a single, objective way of<br />
understanding the past, one that we can<br />
all agree on, the answer is surely No.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is far too much of the past in the<br />
present for it ever to become<br />
uncontentious. But I do think that it is<br />
both possible and very important to<br />
fight against the falsification of the<br />
past.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re’s a big difference between<br />
mythologisation and falsification. <strong>The</strong><br />
former is about fashioning the facts of<br />
the past to tell a value-laden story,<br />
which is fine. <strong>The</strong> latter is to make up<br />
facts about the past, which is truly<br />
scary.<br />
battle for democracy in South Africa<br />
When people say that Winnie didn’t<br />
hurt anyone in the late 1980s, that it<br />
was all fabricated by a shadowy enemy,<br />
they are doing harm. Similarly, when<br />
people say that Nelson did not beat his<br />
first wife, Evelyn Mase, when there is<br />
plain evidence that he did, they are<br />
doing harm. It is possible both to<br />
mythologise the past and to be brave<br />
enough to confront what actually<br />
happened there.<br />
Jonny Steinberg is a Senior lecturer<br />
in African Studies at Yale University.<br />
This article is republished from <strong>The</strong><br />
Conversation under a Creative<br />
Commons license.<br />
Read the original article at<br />
https://theconversation.com/how-themandela-myth-helped-win-the-battlefor-democracy-in-south-africa-228798
Page4<br />
<strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong><br />
MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
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Man who fired gun in<br />
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convicted<br />
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Aman who fired a gun at a<br />
group of rivals in a busy<br />
Tottenham street has been<br />
convicted of firearms offences after<br />
Metropolitan Police detectives<br />
tracked him down.<br />
21-year-old Ricardo Anderson of<br />
Manor Road, Tottenham, was<br />
convicted at the Central Criminal<br />
Court (the Old Bailey) of possession<br />
of a firearm with intent to endanger<br />
life, possession of ammunition with<br />
intent to endanger life and attempted<br />
grievous bodily harm.<br />
Investigating officer - Detective<br />
Constable Rhiain John said: “This<br />
incident took place in a busy street,<br />
on a warm Summer’s evening<br />
where people were out and shops<br />
were open. Terrified onlookers<br />
including children sought refuge in<br />
shops and scrambled for safety<br />
behind parked cars.<br />
“Ricardo Anderson had<br />
absolutely no concern for them at<br />
all. But for sheer luck, this could<br />
have been a murder investigation.<br />
“From our enquiries, we<br />
established the incident was part of<br />
an ongoing dispute involving rival<br />
gangs in the area.<br />
“We worked tirelessly using<br />
CCTV, witness and forensic<br />
evidence that would help prove<br />
Anderson’s guilt. <strong>The</strong>se kinds of<br />
offences are taken incredibly<br />
seriously and we do everything in<br />
our power to identify and prosecute<br />
those responsible.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> court heard that at 20:00hrs<br />
on 27 <strong>May</strong> 2023, a blue R-Type VW<br />
Golf sped along Park Lane, N17<br />
before coming to an abrupt stop in<br />
the middle of the road.<br />
A man wearing a balaclava was<br />
seen pulling a firearm from his<br />
waistband, which he then fired<br />
wildly towards the vehicle.<br />
An occupant of the vehicle also<br />
had a gun and attempted to fire back<br />
but the weapon jammed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> car sped off while the man<br />
left the scene on foot.<br />
Specialist firearms officers<br />
deployed and scoured the area but<br />
those involved could not be found.<br />
Detectives began investigating<br />
immediately and recovered a<br />
number of shell casings.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y began examining CCTV<br />
and found that only around half an<br />
hour earlier, a group had been<br />
congregating in the area to film a<br />
music video.<br />
One man was captured wearing a<br />
distinctive blue North Face<br />
tracksuit, black trainers, and a<br />
balaclava. He would be the man<br />
later seen firing at the car.<br />
CCTV footage from a nearby<br />
shop captured the same man without<br />
his face covered, allowing officers<br />
to identify him as Ricardo<br />
Anderson.<br />
He was arrested on 31 <strong>May</strong> and<br />
Ricardo Anderson<br />
charged on 1 June 2023.<br />
He will be sentenced on<br />
Wednesday, 22 <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong>.<br />
<strong>The</strong> vehicle involved was later<br />
traced and found to have been<br />
stolen. Despite extensive enquiries,<br />
the occupants were not identified.<br />
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Opinion<br />
<strong>The</strong> Yoruba Nation<br />
“secessionists” of<br />
Ibadan<br />
MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong><br />
BY REUBEN ABATI<br />
Page5<br />
On Saturday, April 13, a group of<br />
18 masked persons dressed in<br />
army camouflage, armed with<br />
rifles, charms and Oodua Nation flags<br />
attempted to take over the Oyo State<br />
House of Assembly and Government<br />
Secretariat to proclaim the emergence<br />
of a Yoruba Nation. <strong>The</strong>y caused some<br />
commotion as they insisted on hoisting<br />
a flag, but the rag-tag team of<br />
insurrectionists were soon overpowered<br />
and arrested by officers of the Nigerian<br />
Police Command. Well, not quite. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
resisted the police but when soldiers<br />
from the 2 Div. of the Nigerian Army<br />
arrived on the scene, the Oodua boys<br />
took to their heels. Cowards! <strong>The</strong>y<br />
should have waited and argue with the<br />
soldiers over the integrity and<br />
sovereignty of Nigeria. But the twist in<br />
the tale turned out to be the appearance<br />
of a woman on several platforms -<br />
Modupe Onitiri Abiola, who endorsed<br />
the action of the Oodua 18 and<br />
proclaimed that a Democratic Republic<br />
of Yoruba had emerged with effect<br />
from April 13, <strong>2024</strong>. <strong>The</strong> additional<br />
twist in the tale is that the woman<br />
introduced herself as a widow of Chief<br />
MKO Abiola, the undeclared winner of<br />
the June 12, 1993 Presidential election,<br />
pillar of sports in Africa, entrepreneur,<br />
philanthropist and a martyr of<br />
democracy.<br />
Nigerians are probably used to<br />
persons, groups – ethnic and sociocultural<br />
- threatening to leave Nigeria<br />
and declare their own separate country,<br />
to as they argue correct the mistake of<br />
19<strong>14</strong>, so-called, or to seek meaning in a<br />
new association. Afterall, in February<br />
1966, Isaac Adaka Boro, an Ijaw ethnic<br />
minority rights activist, formed a group<br />
known as the Niger Delta Volunteer<br />
Force and declared the formation of a<br />
Niger Delta Republic. He and his<br />
group fought the Nigerian Forces for 12<br />
days before they were overwhelmed,<br />
arrested, tried for treason and thrown<br />
into jail. This was the first major<br />
rebellion against the Nigerian State.<br />
<strong>The</strong> same year, following the Unitary<br />
Decree No 34 of the Aguiyi Ironsi<br />
military government, the people of<br />
Northern Nigeria were so dissatisfied<br />
with the turn of events in Nigeria; they<br />
openly talked about “Araba” – meaning<br />
“let us separate.” In January 1966,<br />
there had been a military coup which<br />
resulted in the death of Northern<br />
leaders and others, notably Prime<br />
Minister Tafawa Balewa, Sir Ahmadu<br />
Bello, Northern Region Premier, Chief<br />
Ladoke Akintola, Premier of the<br />
Western Region, and Festus Okotie-<br />
Eboh, Minister of Finance.<br />
<strong>The</strong> coup was led by Kaduna<br />
Nzeogwu, an Ibo man, and with that<br />
collapse of Nigeria’s First Republic, the<br />
new leader was also an Ibo man,<br />
General Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-<br />
Ironsi, the first military Head of State<br />
of Nigeria. <strong>The</strong> North had wanted to<br />
separate but eventually there was a<br />
counter coup in July 1966, which<br />
ousted the Ironsi regime, which further<br />
widened the centrifugal ethnic fissures<br />
in Nigeria. In July 1967, the Ibos fought<br />
back. Led by Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka<br />
Odimegwu Ojukwu, they declared the<br />
Republic of Biafra, meaning they were<br />
<strong>The</strong> Yoruba Nation activists arrested<br />
determined to secede from Nigeria. <strong>The</strong><br />
war that ensued lasted three years: 6<br />
July 1967 – 15 January 1970. That was<br />
54 years ago, but there are signs that the<br />
civil war in Nigeria has not really<br />
ended. Nigeria took a turn for the<br />
worse. <strong>The</strong> rain began to beat us.<br />
<strong>The</strong> separatist spirit would again<br />
show up on April 22, 1990 in the coup<br />
speech by Major Gideon Orkar whose<br />
plan, as announced, included the<br />
excision of five Northern States of<br />
Bauchi, Borno, Katsina, Kano and<br />
Sokoto from Nigeria. <strong>The</strong> Orkar group<br />
was convinced that the people from<br />
these five States were the problem with<br />
Nigeria and they should just get out and<br />
form their own country. Thus, Orkar<br />
and 41 of his colleagues wanted to seize<br />
government and re-draw the map of<br />
Nigeria. <strong>The</strong>y were captured by<br />
government troops, charged for treason,<br />
convicted and executed by firing squad.<br />
However, the fact that treason attracts<br />
the punishment of death has not<br />
deterred those who think that Nigeria<br />
must be dismembered, or that the map<br />
must be re-drawn. <strong>The</strong> year 2012<br />
witnessed the emergence of a separatist,<br />
nativist, Igbo nationalism, anti-Fulani,<br />
neo-Biafra group called the Indigenous<br />
People Of Biafra (IPOB) which aims to<br />
restore and actualize the dream of<br />
Biafra. IPOB is led by Mazi Nnamdi<br />
Kanu who has been facing trial for<br />
treasonable felony since 2016. Before<br />
IPOB, there was also Radio Biafra<br />
established by Mazi Kanu in 2009,<br />
there was Movement for the<br />
Actualization of the Sovereign State of<br />
Biafra led by Ralph Uwazurike (1999)<br />
and there was the Biafra Zionist<br />
Movement (BZM) led by Benjamin<br />
Igwe Onwuka (2012). <strong>The</strong>re have also<br />
been talks about the possibility of an<br />
Arewa Republic.<br />
A common thread in the foregoing<br />
is that every attempt at separation in<br />
Nigeria has been driven by frustration<br />
with the Nigerian arrangement, protests<br />
against bad governance, cries of<br />
marginalization or victimization, with<br />
ethnic identity and questions of<br />
federalism, religion and resource<br />
control thrown into the mix. For<br />
example, in 1993, following the<br />
annulment of the June 12, 1993<br />
Presidential election which denied<br />
MKO Abiola, a Yoruba man, victory,<br />
the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC)<br />
was formed to defend Yoruba rights and<br />
to remind the Babangida military junta<br />
that Yoruba people would not be<br />
cheated. OPC was founded and led by<br />
Dr. Frederick Fasheun. It was also<br />
known as the Oodua Liberation<br />
Movement, or the Revolutionary<br />
Council of Nigeria. <strong>The</strong>re would later<br />
be a more militant faction of the group,<br />
a breakaway faction, led by Gani<br />
Adams, who is now the Aaare Ona<br />
Kakanfo of Yorubaland, that is the<br />
Yoruba Generalissimo, defender of the<br />
Yoruba realm. <strong>The</strong> OPC never really<br />
pushed the idea of leaving Nigeria: the<br />
group, Fasheun or Gani Adams faction<br />
has consistently focused on defending<br />
Yorubaland against any form of attack<br />
or aggression from other groups and to<br />
protect Yorubaland, covering both the<br />
Continued on Page 9
Page6 <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
Opinion<br />
Onakoya: Playing Chess from<br />
<strong>The</strong> Slum to World Record<br />
By Reuben Abati<br />
Tunde Onakoya, the 29-year-old<br />
Nigerian Chess Master who has<br />
just broken the World Record for<br />
the longest chess marathon is most<br />
appropriately an embodiment of the<br />
Nigerian can-do spirit, the capacity of the<br />
average Nigerian to snatch victory from<br />
the depths of despair, indeed just when<br />
you think it is over, the Nigerian is so<br />
resilient, he keeps foraging for<br />
faith. Nigerian President Bola Ahmed<br />
Tinubu has praised Onakoya’s audacity.<br />
He has been hailed as a worthy<br />
ambassador, in whom the spirit of<br />
excellence flowers by Vice President<br />
Kashim Shettima, former Vice President<br />
Professor Yemi Osinbajo, and Lagos State<br />
Governor - Babajide Sanwoolu. He has<br />
done well. He is doing well. Nigerians<br />
have every reason to be proud of him. He<br />
has demonstrated that the true Nigerians<br />
are not those who bemoan their fate and<br />
resort to the antics of the lower depths, but<br />
those who turn even the smallest of<br />
opportunities that come their way into an<br />
avenue for glorious achievement with<br />
determination and hard work.<br />
And so it is with Tunde Onakoya, who<br />
played chess from Wed, April 17, <strong>2024</strong> till<br />
Saturday, April 21 (2. 40 a.m.), to beat the<br />
world record of 56 hours, 9 minutes and<br />
37 seconds set in 2018 by two<br />
Norwegians – Hallvard Flatebo and Sjur<br />
Ferkingstad. Tunde Onakoya teamed up<br />
with the American Chess Master, Shawn<br />
Martinez, to play chess for 60 hours nonstop.<br />
He was unbeaten in more than 170<br />
games. <strong>The</strong> World Guinness Book of<br />
Records organization requires for its<br />
purpose two players, playing against each<br />
other and others, with short breaks of five<br />
minutes for every hour or a longer 30-<br />
minute break every six hours. <strong>The</strong> new<br />
record is yet to be officially announced,<br />
this may take a few weeks, but Onakoya’s<br />
feat was not hidden - it was in the open, at<br />
the Times Square in New York, with<br />
spectators watching every move on the<br />
board of play. History has been made and<br />
it has come from the most unlikely place<br />
for Nigeria – chess, in a country that often<br />
fails to pay attention to other sports.<br />
Onakoya himself alluded to this when he<br />
said that “it is possible to do great things<br />
from a small place.”<br />
Indeed, it is possible for small things<br />
and small places to result in significant<br />
human experience of great proportions as<br />
we have seen in that novel titled “<strong>The</strong><br />
God of Small Things” (1997) by Indian<br />
writer - Arundhati Roy, and the 2008<br />
British movie, “Slumdog Millionaire” set<br />
in Mumbai. <strong>The</strong> idea of the slum as place<br />
and metaphor is a strong referent in<br />
Nigerian popular imagination more so the<br />
fact that great things do happen in small<br />
places. It is not the smallness of things<br />
that matter but the greatness, the humanity<br />
that is embedded in the most unthinkable<br />
places. Ajegunle, for example, is a slum<br />
neighbourhood in the city of Lagos: it is<br />
probably the most popular location for<br />
most of the creative outputs in the<br />
country, the source of the music of<br />
contemporary artistic talents such as<br />
Daddy Fresh, Daddy Showkey, Baba<br />
Fryo, Oritsefemi, Nico Gravity, Father U-<br />
Turn, Don Jazzy, Basket Mouth, KC<br />
Presh and the artistry of some of Nigeria’s<br />
well-known footballers – Peter Rufai,<br />
Taribo West, Samson Siasia, Victor Agali,<br />
Emmanuel Amunike, Odion Ighalo. <strong>The</strong><br />
slum as an incubation hub for talent and<br />
innovation is a fascinating subject for<br />
further inquiry into the interconnectedness<br />
of space, spirit and effort.<br />
Tunde Onakoya, the chess-master, it<br />
must be noted, learnt to play chess in a<br />
slum in Ikorodu, Lagos State, precisely at<br />
a barber’s shop. Now something about the<br />
barber’s shop is that it is a very traditional<br />
meeting point in communities in parts of<br />
Nigeria, very much like the newspaper<br />
stands of old which produced “Free<br />
<strong>Newspaper</strong> Readers Associations” across<br />
the country. <strong>The</strong> barber’s shop was an<br />
ecosystem for games. While you waited<br />
to have your hair cut, or you just happen<br />
to show up as a spectator, you were bound<br />
to see people playing draught, chess, ludo,<br />
card, snake and ladder, or the more local,<br />
Ayo game. Somewhere in a corner would<br />
be a board displaying all the possible hair<br />
styles: “Girls Follow Me”; “Rico Bay”,<br />
“Gorimapa”, but over the years, the<br />
haircut styles became trendier: “Line Up”,<br />
“Waves”, “Twisted Curls”, “Afro”. <strong>The</strong><br />
barber has always been a wise man: he<br />
attracts customers and company with<br />
games and music. I know one person who<br />
shall remain nameless, a veteran of the<br />
barber’s shop ayo games of old, who went<br />
on to become a Governor and an elder<br />
statesman. <strong>The</strong> same ecosystem has now<br />
produced a World Champion in Chess.<br />
<strong>The</strong> good news about Tunde Onakoya<br />
is his kindness and the fact that he never<br />
Onakoya first saw a Chess board in a Barber's shop 19 years ago<br />
forgot his humble beginnings. He kept<br />
playing chess, and ended up as the<br />
Number 13 Chess player in Nigeria. As a<br />
student at the Yaba College of<br />
Technology, he won prizes playing chess.<br />
He is also a board member of <strong>The</strong> Gift of<br />
Chess, a non-profit in New York, United<br />
States. In 2018, he established a volunteer<br />
non-profit group known as Chess in<br />
Slums Africa under the auspices of which<br />
he trained young persons, mostly from the<br />
slums like Makoko in Lagos, and through<br />
partnerships, the group promoted chess as<br />
an educational tool. By 2021, Chess in<br />
Africa Slums had trained over 1,000<br />
children, and organized chess<br />
competitions that even produced a 10-<br />
year-old-boy with cerebral palsy as a<br />
chess champion. One of his students once<br />
defeated the acting Canadian High<br />
Commissioner to Nigeria, Kevin Tokar in<br />
a chess exhibition game. He plans to train<br />
over one million children within the next<br />
five years. Onakoya has pursued his<br />
passion further by seeking to break the<br />
extant Guinness World Record for the<br />
longest chess marathon, not for personal<br />
glory, but to raise US One million dollars<br />
for the education of children in Africa,<br />
and to build a free chess academy and a<br />
STEM innovation lab in Lagos. He may<br />
not have immediately achieved the<br />
$1million mark, but he has given more<br />
popularity to chess, and provided an<br />
opportunity for the appreciation of the<br />
Nigerian spirit. While the marathon<br />
happened, many Nigerians trooped to<br />
New York Times Square to cheer him on.<br />
<strong>The</strong> cheer leaders included music stars,<br />
Davido and Adekunle Gold, drummers,<br />
and Nigerians in Diaspora in general who<br />
counted the hours and were inspired by<br />
the enthusiasm of being Nigerian,<br />
witnessing the possibility of another<br />
Nigerian making history. <strong>The</strong> weather was<br />
wintry cold, but it did not matter. During<br />
the intervals, the Nigerians played music<br />
and danced. It was no longer just chess,<br />
but culture, nationalism, art and diasporic<br />
fraternity all rolled into one capsule, to<br />
create memories and history.<br />
This trope, for me, was strongly<br />
captured in Tunde Onakoya’s post-victory<br />
statement on his X handle (@Tunde_OD)<br />
when he wrote as follows: “Catching up<br />
on social media now and I’ve constantly<br />
fought back tears. Love you guys very<br />
much. I’ll do a proper post when I find the<br />
right words to express all of the emotions<br />
I feel right now. Let me delve into this<br />
Jollof rice for now. It’s my first meal in<br />
almost four days. I had some food<br />
poisoning during the marathon so I<br />
couldn’t eat anything at all. Just water.”<br />
Such endurance. Such patriotism.<br />
Onakoya was advised to discontinue the<br />
marathon when he developed stomach<br />
problems, but he insisted he would see the<br />
mission to the end, and he did. He didn’t<br />
eat for four days. “Just water.” He<br />
refused to quit on the kids. This is the stuff<br />
of endurance and determination. And<br />
when the goal had been reached and<br />
victory secured, his first meal was Jollof<br />
Rice. Those who know would proclaim<br />
the symbolism of the choice of jollof rice.<br />
It is a subtle way of flying the Nigerian<br />
flag. Jollof rice is a special delicacy for<br />
Nigerians and the argument has not yet<br />
been resolved about which country cooks<br />
the best jollof rice in West Africa, between<br />
Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal. Onakoya<br />
Continued on Page 7
Opinion<br />
MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong> <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong><br />
Onakoya: Playing Chess from<br />
Page7<br />
<strong>The</strong> Slum to World Record<br />
Continued from Page 6<<br />
has projected Nigerian Jollof Rice, as the<br />
choice brand by announcing it as his first<br />
meal after his victory at a Marathon. <strong>May</strong><br />
the God of Nigerian Jollof Rice continue<br />
to bless him!<br />
But I suppose the more important<br />
thing about the euphoria would be the<br />
lessons that we can learn from his<br />
example. He is a young man of 29, who<br />
has never seen what a silver spoon looks<br />
like, but with the talent that God has given<br />
him, he has tried to help encourage and<br />
assist street children and the<br />
underprivileged to give them hope. Many<br />
Nigerian leaders who have been wielding<br />
stolen silver spoons have no vision of<br />
doing anything for anybody. It is always<br />
about their self-interest, and not public<br />
interest and it is the reason there is so<br />
much angst and despair in the land, and<br />
so much lack of trust between Nigerian<br />
leaders and the people. We need leaders,<br />
including those who are products of<br />
privilege to learn to commit to the<br />
common good, not their own ego and<br />
insecurities. It is encouraging that<br />
Nigerian leaders including the President<br />
are full of praise for Tunde Onakoya. It is<br />
people like him that should be on the next<br />
National Honours List of Nigeria, not the<br />
money-miss-road, chieftaincy title crowd.<br />
Every year, we miss out most people who<br />
are true ambassadors for our nation and<br />
give big honours to the most undeserving.<br />
President Tinubu must reverse that ugly<br />
trend.<br />
Meanwhile, Tunde Onakoya is the<br />
latest Nigerian to seek and emerge,<br />
pending confirmation, as a Guinness<br />
Book World Record holder. <strong>The</strong> frenzy<br />
would seem to have hit the roof when Ms<br />
Hilda Effiong Bassey, Hilda Baci for<br />
short, won a marathon cooking record<br />
with 93 hours and 11 minutes in <strong>May</strong><br />
2023. Her record was surpassed later that<br />
same year by Irish chef Alan Fisher but<br />
her feat ignited a World Record fever in<br />
Nigeria, the imprint of which continues to<br />
endure. Nigerians love opportunities.<br />
When they identify one, or someone<br />
points them in a direction, they would<br />
rush as if they were competing for gold.<br />
Hilda Baci became an instant celebrity:<br />
receptions were organized for her by<br />
governments and companies, she got plots<br />
of land and many gifts, she became an<br />
actress, and with her beauty and culinary<br />
skills, she became the darling of suitors<br />
and men who ogled her pictures. <strong>The</strong><br />
Madonna University graduate had done<br />
everyone so proud that many Nigerians<br />
actually wanted to cook too. Less than a<br />
month after her victory, one Chef Dammy<br />
of Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State entered the<br />
kitchen in search of a Guinness World<br />
Record that would beat Baci’s record. In<br />
Ondo State, there was a Chef Deo who<br />
wanted to cook for 150 hours. In Oyo<br />
State, there was Chef Adebayo, a <strong>14</strong>0-<br />
hour aspirant. <strong>The</strong>re have been other<br />
attempts as well. A computer Science<br />
lecturer, Joshua Hassan Bature of the<br />
Department of Computer Science, Federal<br />
University of Technology, Ado Ekiti<br />
reportedly announced a 150-hour teaching<br />
marathon.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was also Alejo Pataki who<br />
announced a 200-hour singing marathon.<br />
In Ekiti State, one Sugartee proposed a<br />
kissing marathon – kiss-a-thon. He ended<br />
up not kissing anybody, but Sugartee<br />
generated some interest and even got<br />
invited to Government House! One Joyce<br />
Ijeoma embarked on a body massaging<br />
Marathon. She collapsed in the<br />
process. In more recent cases, there is<br />
Zahan Isaac Kuma (aka Mr. Reliable)<br />
who wants to do a marathon Ironing<br />
Festival in pursuit of a Guinness World<br />
Onakoya playing at Times Square in New York<br />
Record (23 – 28 April, <strong>2024</strong>) in Abuja at<br />
the Jabi Lake Mall, he says - “for the sake<br />
of that little child on the street.” When.<br />
Mr. Reliable appeared on <strong>The</strong> Morning<br />
Show of Arise News yesterday, I had<br />
asked him questions about electricity<br />
supply – availability and cost -<br />
considering the fact that the Jabi Lake<br />
Mall is a Band A location on the<br />
electricity spectrum. He sounded upbeat<br />
and confident. He said people should<br />
bring their clothes for ironing. I pray he<br />
does not burn anybody’s cloth, just in case<br />
he gets tired or there is a power surge -<br />
because that could add a new twist to the<br />
story.<br />
What is noteworthy is that the<br />
attempts by Nigerians have inspired<br />
others across the border in Ghana and also<br />
in Cameroon, where one lady said she<br />
wanted a sex-a-thon – sex with strong<br />
men for 200 hours. Imagine!<br />
Tunde Onakoya sets a different<br />
example and represents a far more<br />
ennobling engagement. <strong>The</strong> Nigerian<br />
government should through his Times<br />
Square outing see that chess has the<br />
potential of becoming an important sport<br />
in Nigeria and thereby make the necessary<br />
effort to promote it in the country.<br />
Onakoya was raised in a slum in Ikorodu,<br />
now he is in New York, jollofing! <strong>The</strong> first<br />
time he boarded a plane and travelled<br />
abroad was only about two years ago.<br />
Now his story is on every major news<br />
channel in the world, and the front pages<br />
of newspapers, all because he started<br />
playing chess in one small place on the<br />
map called Ikorodu, and turned it into a<br />
life-long passion. Truly, “it is possible to<br />
do great things from a small place” – an<br />
inspiration for every young person out<br />
there in search of meaning and<br />
purpose. Congratulations, Tunde<br />
Onakoya and to everyone who supported<br />
him along the way, well done.
Page8 <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
Opinion<br />
Afenifere and the<br />
progressive camp (2)<br />
In the course of the week, I had cause to<br />
be at the Akure, Ondo State-home of<br />
the Afenifere Leader, Reuben<br />
Fasoranti, and I saw modesty in its raw<br />
form. From Fasoranti’s symbolic<br />
bungalow which has played host to<br />
Presidents, Governors and other crème-dela-crème<br />
of the society in their monstrous<br />
agbada or Babarigas, to the information<br />
gleaned from Nigerians in and around his<br />
residence, yours sincerely couldn’t stop<br />
marveling at the Spartan lifestyle of this<br />
97-year-old Awoist. Anyway, that’s a story<br />
for another day!<br />
Well, the threatening truth is that<br />
Afenifere is down and the progressive<br />
camp is beaten! So, when will Yorubaland<br />
laugh and when will the progressive camp<br />
shout uhuru? When will our land smile<br />
again and when will Yoruba leaders wake<br />
up and face reality? When will they<br />
appropriate the social capital as it was in<br />
the days of Egbe Omo Oduduwa, whose<br />
existence wasn’t structured around tea<br />
party or ‘owambe’? Right now, the<br />
Yorubas are behind in terms of capital<br />
formation, financial intermediation and<br />
allied stuff. Of course, we have never been<br />
this behind in a century and a half! Even at<br />
the time of the Kiriji War, the Lagos<br />
Colony was very advanced, vis-à-vis the<br />
rest of Africa, save for South Africa.<br />
For now, what Yorubaland refers to as<br />
strength is just the property values of a few<br />
capital cities like Lagos and Ibadan. Take<br />
that away, what remains is zero capital<br />
strength, compared to what obtained in the<br />
1920s and the 1940s, up to the 1960s. So<br />
it’s like basking in the euphoria of past<br />
glories! Take, for example, the Banks<br />
created by our heroes past were not just<br />
Banks but strategic financial institutions.<br />
Had successful generations of Yoruba<br />
leaders stayed faithful to the cause,<br />
National Bank and Wema Bank would<br />
have become the biggest, dominant<br />
financial institutions in Africa outside of<br />
Standard Bank in South Africa for, whereas<br />
Central Bank of Nigeria is talking about<br />
N500 billion naira paid-up capital,<br />
Standard Bank of South Africa already has<br />
a paid-up capital of $13 billion, which of<br />
course makes ours a joke.<br />
So, how can Afenifere restore the<br />
strength of the Yorubas and let their eyes<br />
receive sight and how can the progressive<br />
camp make everything perfect at its time?<br />
Interestingly, while the former seems to<br />
have been demobilized by political<br />
partisanship, the latter, as it is, is walking<br />
on its knees and somebody needs to create<br />
a positive narrative before players in the<br />
sector completely hijack its ideological<br />
relevance.<br />
Talking about the progressive camp,<br />
yours sincerely wasn’t a small boy during<br />
the ‘June 12’ crises and the roles played by<br />
Frank Ovie Kokori and other prominent<br />
Nigerians, all in a bid to bequeath a lasting<br />
democracy to Nigeria. <strong>The</strong> then Secretary<br />
General of the National Union of<br />
Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers<br />
(NUPENG) was hounded into prison and<br />
could only heave a sigh of relief after death<br />
struck Sani Abacha like a thief in the night.<br />
BY ABIODUN<br />
KOMOLAFE<br />
<strong>The</strong>reafter, Kokori lived unsung and died<br />
like a pauper, which was a devastating<br />
indictment on the progressives.<br />
When he launched his book, ‘Frank<br />
Kokori: <strong>The</strong> struggle for June 12’ in 20<strong>14</strong>,<br />
reports had it that only Segun Osoba<br />
attended the event among “the ensemble of<br />
characters who led the famous June 12<br />
struggle.” Others simply slept beside their<br />
wives in the comfort of their homes, which<br />
was a disgrace of monumental proportion<br />
to the bent. It’s even on record that when<br />
Kokori was in Bama Prison in Borno State,<br />
only Osoba was paying regular visits and<br />
rendering financial assistance to his<br />
(Kokori’s) family. Yes, that’s the kind of<br />
progressive class we are dealing with in<br />
Continued on Page 11<<br />
Mama Ijesa North
Opinion<br />
MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong> Yoruba Nation<br />
“secessionists” of Ibadan<br />
<strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong><br />
Page9<br />
Continued from Page 5<<br />
South Western States and Itsekiri-land<br />
in the Delta. <strong>The</strong> Itsekiri are cousins of<br />
the Yoruba. <strong>The</strong>y share cultural,<br />
linguistic and political heritage<br />
What we must note is that the<br />
Yoruba who had been maintaining a<br />
pacifist, federalist position in the matter<br />
soon began to talk about secession too,<br />
with the emergence under the Buhari<br />
administration (2015 – 2023) of the<br />
likes of Professor Banji Akintoye, and<br />
the militant Sunday Igboho who<br />
announced an Oodua Republic with a<br />
group known as Ilana Omo Yoruba in<br />
response to what they considered the<br />
Fulanization of Nigeria by the Buhari<br />
government and the assault on Yoruba<br />
territories by Hausa-Fulani herders.<br />
Ideologically, their objective was to<br />
protect Yoruba territory against Fulani<br />
invasion, to avoid a repeat of the<br />
seizure of Ilorin, a Yoruba town, in the<br />
19 th century. <strong>The</strong> group petitioned the<br />
United Nations. <strong>The</strong> mainstream<br />
Yoruba position however had always<br />
been restructuring and federalism, as<br />
canvassed by the Awoist group, the<br />
OPC and the Afenifere. <strong>The</strong> idea of an<br />
Oodua Republic looked like a fall-back<br />
position.<br />
Sunday Igboho’s activism and<br />
militancy telegraphed what happened in<br />
Ibadan on Saturday. He is a selfdetermination<br />
activist who went<br />
beyond Professor Akintoye’s<br />
theoretical disposition to ask for an<br />
immediate declaration of an Oodua<br />
Republic. Of course, the Nigerian State<br />
went after him. He had to spend three<br />
years in exile and only recently<br />
returned for his mother’s burial. But<br />
that is another story. It would be<br />
recalled, however, that in April 2021,<br />
more than 100 self-determination<br />
groups stormed Ibadan to declare an<br />
Oduduwa Republic, and a Yoruba<br />
nation. <strong>The</strong>y included the Nigerian<br />
Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for<br />
Self-Determination (NINAS), the<br />
Youth Initiative, Itsekiri National Youth<br />
Council, Ilana Omo Oodua and the<br />
Homeland Group. <strong>The</strong>y were dispersed<br />
by the police. Now in <strong>2024</strong>, we have a<br />
Mrs. Modupe Onitiri-Abiola, leading a<br />
relatively unknown Ominira Yoruba<br />
group, trying to take over power in Oyo<br />
State. Special attention should be paid<br />
to the fact that the group has been<br />
disowned by both Professor Banji<br />
Akintoye and Sunday Igboho whose<br />
real name is actually Chief Sunday<br />
Adeyemo. Professor Akintoye says the<br />
group must be an agent of the Fulanis<br />
still desperate to destabilize<br />
Yorubaland. Igboho says he does not<br />
know the group, and that they are so<br />
“low-brained”. Akintoye and Igboho<br />
seem convinced that the Ibadan<br />
secessionists must be insane. No<br />
Yoruba leader has come out to identify<br />
with Mrs. Abiola’s group.<br />
My take however is that the Yoruba<br />
elite cannot distance themselves from<br />
what has happened. Each and every one<br />
of them who has been calling for this or<br />
that or else, is guilty. I refer them to<br />
Ebrahim Hussein’s Kinjekitile, a 1979<br />
play written by the Tanzanian<br />
playwright on the Maji Maji war. <strong>The</strong><br />
lesson of that play is that a word when<br />
spoken develops a life of its own,<br />
beyond the author of the word. You can<br />
break a community, nation and even the<br />
world, by the power of words spoken.<br />
Those who ask that the mistake of 19<strong>14</strong><br />
must be revisited and that Nigeria must<br />
be renegotiated have their point, but let<br />
them also think about the effect of their<br />
pronouncements. MASSOB created<br />
IPOB. Nnamdi Kanu gave birth to<br />
Simon Ekpa. Self-determination, the<br />
right of a people to decide their own<br />
destiny is a fundamental right under the<br />
UN Charter (Article 1 sub. 2), and we<br />
have seen that in the case of Kosovo,<br />
and Abhkazia, and the unresolved,<br />
ongoing cases of Kurdistan, Northern<br />
Cyprus, Quebec, Scotland, Western<br />
Sahara, Tibet and Taiwan. Nonetheless,<br />
the April secessionists of Ibadan led by<br />
Mrs. Onitiri -Abiola and others of their<br />
ilk must be reminded that whereas<br />
Nigeria is a signatory to international<br />
laws and conventions, it remains a<br />
country governed by specific domestic<br />
laws, and this is where I think Mrs.<br />
Abiola and her band of 18 soldiers are<br />
in troubled waters. Section 2 of the<br />
Nigerian 1999 Constitution states<br />
clearly that Nigeria is “one indivisible<br />
and indissoluble sovereign State to be<br />
known by the name of the Federal<br />
Republic of Nigeria.” Section 37 of the<br />
Criminal Code prescribes the death<br />
penalty for anyone who tries to tamper<br />
with Nigeria’s sovereignty. <strong>The</strong> offence<br />
is defined as treason. In Sections 40 –<br />
43 of the same Code, the law refers to<br />
treasonable felony which attracts the<br />
punishment of a life imprisonment.<br />
Mrs. Abiola and her gang have<br />
definitely ran foul of the law. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
must be arrested, investigated, and<br />
prosecuted. Mrs. Onitiri-Abiola is said<br />
to be abroad; proceedings should be<br />
initiated post-haste for her extradition<br />
and interception wherever she may be<br />
in the world, and made to answer for<br />
her sin.<br />
She reportedly disclosed with her<br />
own mouth that she is a widow of Chief<br />
MKO Abiola, a man who struggled and<br />
died in the process, to rescue this<br />
country from sheer hopelessness. In<br />
1993, every section of Nigeria,<br />
including the North voted massively for<br />
Abiola in what was acknowledged as<br />
the freest and fairest election ever<br />
conducted in Nigeria. He was both a<br />
hero and a martyr of democracy. And<br />
just like that, here comes Mrs. Modupe<br />
Onitiri-Abiola, one of Chief’s many<br />
wives, suddenly showing up from<br />
Alhaji’s harem, many years after,<br />
spitting on his grave and legacy. Is she<br />
truly of the MKO stock? I think the<br />
Abiola family owes us a duty of issuing<br />
a statement to clarify at least one point:<br />
that Mrs. Onitiri-Abiola does not speak<br />
for the family. MKO Abiola is one of<br />
Yorubaland’s major icons of the 20 th<br />
and 21 st centuries, and a Nigerian hero.<br />
It is sad that anyone at all, would dare<br />
associate his name with less noble<br />
causes.<br />
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must<br />
feel personally embarrassed. He is<br />
President of Nigeria from the Yoruba<br />
stock and his own people, whoever they<br />
are, are trying to take over government?<br />
It is either he is terribly disconnected<br />
from his own people or he is not paying<br />
enough attention to certain details. <strong>The</strong><br />
other month, he came to Lagos and on<br />
his way to the mosque, his own people<br />
trooped out to complain about hunger.<br />
When he came back home for the Eidel-Fitri<br />
festival, a week ago, he<br />
conveniently restricted himself to Ikoyi<br />
and worshipped at a place not farther<br />
than the Dolphin Estate. Wait a<br />
moment. Are Yorubas in a position to<br />
even claim that they are marginalized<br />
now that they have their own kinsman<br />
and half of the tribe of Lagos in<br />
government? President Tinubu must<br />
address “the peculiar mess” that<br />
occurred in Ibadan on April 13. He<br />
should find out if there are certain fifth<br />
columnists seeking to embarrass his<br />
government, using Yorubaland as their<br />
play field. He took an oath to defend the<br />
Nigerian Constitution. Every Nigerian<br />
leader that I have worked or interacted<br />
with insists that they are sworn to an<br />
oath to protect the indivisibility of<br />
Nigeria under their watch. Tinubu must<br />
wake up. He must not allow a situation<br />
whereby his own people are the ones<br />
calling for the dissolution of Nigeria<br />
while he is President, whatever all the<br />
textbook arguments may be. Mrs.<br />
Modupe Onitiri-Abiola must be given<br />
the Nnamdi Kanu treatment!<br />
We had Chief Olabode George on<br />
<strong>The</strong> Morning Show (TMS) of Arise<br />
News yesterday and he drew attention<br />
to the failure of intelligence in the<br />
Ibadan matter. <strong>The</strong> old man was right. I<br />
share his view. How on earth did the<br />
Yoruba secessionists plan, organize and<br />
move to the Oyo State Government<br />
Secretariat without anybody catching a<br />
whiff of their intentions. <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
spokesperson lives abroad. <strong>The</strong>y must<br />
have been in touch with her through<br />
phone calls, messages and all that. And<br />
nobody picked that up? <strong>The</strong>y even<br />
bought and wore military camouflage.<br />
And all the spokespersons of the<br />
Service Chiefs will come and tell us<br />
that they are committed to the defence<br />
of the sovereignty of Nigeria? Please<br />
how do you and your troops defend this<br />
country when you sleep on duty? And<br />
where was the station manager of the<br />
Department of State Security (DSS) in<br />
Oyo State and all the other agencies?<br />
<strong>The</strong>y must all be called in for<br />
questioning. Sleeping on duty is not<br />
allowed. And one more point, where<br />
was the Nigerian Security and Civil<br />
Defence Corps? It is the duty of that<br />
agency to protect and defend public<br />
infrastructure. Section 3 of the Civil<br />
Defence Act as amended (2007) gives<br />
the agency broad powers “to assist in<br />
the maintenance of peace and order and<br />
in the protection and rescuing of the<br />
civil population during the period of<br />
emergency.” <strong>The</strong> agency also has<br />
powers under section 3 (f) “to arrest<br />
with or without warrant, detain,<br />
investigate and institute legal<br />
proceedings by or in the name of the<br />
Attorney General of the Federation in<br />
accordance with the provisions of the<br />
Constitution of the Federal Republic of<br />
Nigeria…” Where was Civil Defence<br />
even if the other agencies failed?<br />
<strong>The</strong> bigger issue that we have to<br />
deal with perhaps is the increasing,<br />
creeping failure of the Nigerian State.<br />
Much fewer people today believe in the<br />
idea of Nigeria. This is why we have<br />
people challenging the State either<br />
through secessionist or separatist<br />
moves or complete abandonment of the<br />
country, the Japa phenomenon, with<br />
many believing or thinking that they<br />
would be better off in foreign lands.<br />
When Nigeria becomes attractive to its<br />
own people, we would have managed<br />
to create a nation.
Page10 <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
Opinion<br />
Chibok: Destroying the future<br />
of our tomorrow?<br />
By Abiodun Komolafe<br />
<strong>The</strong> 10 th anniversary of the<br />
abduction of 276 school children<br />
from the Government Girls<br />
Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria,<br />
has again brought an eerie feeling of<br />
despair and panic. <strong>The</strong> anniversary is a<br />
high point as it has again shown the entire<br />
security apparatus of Nigeria as gravely<br />
inept and compromised. That’s what it<br />
tells us!<br />
<strong>The</strong> most important thing about<br />
Chibok is not just that it happened! As a<br />
matter of fact, it ought not to have<br />
happened! Instead, it is about what the<br />
country has learnt in ten years! People’s<br />
lives have been destroyed but it seems as<br />
if Nigeria has moved on! According to<br />
reports, “48 of the victims’ parents have<br />
died since the girls were kidnapped.” So<br />
far, 22 rescued schoolgirls were said to<br />
have come back, with 37 children. In any<br />
case, that the school children even have<br />
children is in itself a social crisis!<br />
Of course, things happen! But the<br />
difference between Nigeria and other<br />
countries is that, whenever things happen<br />
in sane climes, they are used as an<br />
opportunity for an advance – to improve<br />
society as well as prevent a repeat. A<br />
good example was the cholera outbreak<br />
in the Lagos Colony in 1922. Of course,<br />
people died! But the colonial government<br />
made a lot of improvements in sanitation<br />
and sewage drainage. Indeed, that’s what<br />
led to the establishment of the<br />
Environmental Health Officers or<br />
Sanitary Inspectors, famously referred to<br />
as ‘woléwolé’. Since then, things have<br />
been improving in terms of<br />
environmental conditions, though not as<br />
much as one would have liked or wanted.<br />
But what has the Nigerian government<br />
learnt from the Chibok saga and how has<br />
it been managing the people’s<br />
expectations? From the look of things,<br />
Rescue our Chibok girls<br />
nothing so far!<br />
When the Chibok girls were abducted<br />
on April <strong>14</strong>, 20<strong>14</strong>, it wasn’t taken<br />
seriously by the Goodluck Jonathan-led<br />
until Nigerians became confronted with<br />
the open truth. A cross-section of<br />
Nigerians even opined that Leah Sharibu<br />
happened under the Muhammadu<br />
Buhari-led administration because<br />
nobody supervised Defence spending and<br />
contracts. To them, lots of things<br />
happened under the immediate-past<br />
regime and those who reaped from the<br />
ruination of the country would not want<br />
to give up without fighting back. But for<br />
how long will the Bola Tinubu<br />
administration bear them?<br />
Chibok! Dapchi! Kuriga! It is pathetic<br />
to note that the Safe School Initiative<br />
looks like just another scam! Yes,<br />
humongous sums of money were sourced<br />
from far and near for the scheme but how<br />
many of our schools have become safe<br />
through, say, parameter fencing? All the<br />
more reason President Tinubu must<br />
commission a Judicial Panel of Inquiry<br />
and an audit to carry out an audit on how<br />
the funds have been spent since<br />
inception, the impact it has made and the<br />
modus operandi for (its) revampment.<br />
Arguably, it is difficult to kidnap<br />
students from St. Charles Grammar<br />
School, Osogbo because it is in the<br />
metropolis but one doesn’t have to be a<br />
military strategist to know that Chibok<br />
cannot be too far from an exposed<br />
environment like Urban Day Grammar<br />
School in Ijebu-Jesa. <strong>The</strong>refore, simple<br />
elementary common sense demands that<br />
the environment be cleared two miles<br />
before the school to dissuade criminal<br />
minds and tendencies. Have the handlers<br />
of our education system done that?<br />
Well, we can deceive ourselves as<br />
much as we like but it is unfortunate that<br />
the whole stuff has become what<br />
America’s 34 th President, Dwight D.<br />
Eisenhower described as the Military<br />
Industrial Complex. In the words of the<br />
Singaporean author and political<br />
commentator, Chua Chin Leng, “When<br />
there is peace in the world, the Americans<br />
would have to create jobs for themselves,<br />
to make themselves useful again as<br />
responsible people, not warmongers and<br />
murderers, not merchants of war. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
will be no one to buy their expensive war<br />
machine, no more needs for military<br />
gangs aka allies.” Of course, that’s why<br />
America has to be going around, looking<br />
for conflicts to win. Otherwise, how will<br />
‘God’s own country’ keep its people<br />
employed? It therefore goes to say that,<br />
once we allow a conflict to take root, it<br />
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becomes an economy. Tragically, Boko<br />
Haram and ISWAP have become part of<br />
Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product<br />
(GDP). <strong>The</strong> only challenge is that it<br />
cannot be measured. To Nigerians, it has<br />
become a way of life on all sides; and it is<br />
fear-provoking!<br />
<strong>May</strong> the Lamb of God, who takes<br />
away the sin of the world, grant us peace<br />
in Nigeria!<br />
Komolafe wrote in from Ijebu-Jesa,<br />
Osun State, Nigeria<br />
(ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)<br />
Re: Afenifere and the progressive<br />
camp<br />
I read your column on April 6, <strong>2024</strong><br />
and I was impressed by the Afenifere<br />
story and the need to reawaken the<br />
Yoruba people and re-ignite the streak of<br />
development in a nation trapped in the<br />
tragic crossroads of development<br />
planning and elite complacency.<br />
It is unfortunate that the dynamics of<br />
time have left Afenifere behind. So, only<br />
ARG can chart a new path of visionary<br />
progress and renewed doctrine of<br />
socialism which the current generation<br />
can key into.<br />
Emmanuel Awe,<br />
Abeokuta, Ogun State.<br />
____________________________<br />
From what our gentleman (Mr<br />
Abiodun Komolafe) has written, it shows<br />
that he is an insider. I rejoice with him for<br />
being alive to reveal to Nigerians a<br />
fractional part of what he actually knew<br />
about ARG and our elders in Yorubaland.<br />
To all our elders, this is the actual time<br />
we have to make good use of our talented<br />
gentlemen. If we do, we are going to<br />
recover what we have lost as a result of<br />
our unfeeling attitude.<br />
Chief Olusola Fayemi,<br />
Osogbo, Osun State.<br />
____________________________<br />
As you have pointed out, the DAWN<br />
Document isn’t a separatist agenda; it’s<br />
for the social, economic, educational and<br />
psychological development of the<br />
Southwest.<br />
DAWN is all about charity beginning<br />
at home: if we can’t control the whole,<br />
let’s control and develop our region! So,<br />
the gospel of DAWN is the only way to<br />
go for the region to get back on track.<br />
Unless the DAWN Document is<br />
implemented wholeheartedly by the<br />
States; and, unless it becomes their<br />
guiding principle and working tool, the<br />
zone will forever be lost and wandering.<br />
So, Afenifere must first believe in the<br />
DAWN initiative. Until that’s done, it<br />
Continued on Page 11
Opinion<br />
MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong> <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong><br />
Afenifere and the progressive<br />
Page11<br />
camp (2)<br />
Continued from Page 8<<br />
Nigeria!<br />
But Kokori wasn’t alone in this<br />
progressive embarrassment. Ola Oni!Akin<br />
Makinde! Chima Ubani! And others!<br />
<strong>The</strong>y’re an unforgettable part of the<br />
struggles that eventually brought Nigeria<br />
to where she is. But didn’t the country they<br />
served with all their strengths abandon<br />
them when they needed it most? I doubt if<br />
any of the friends in power even<br />
remembers the likes of Alfred Rewane,<br />
Babatunde Elegbede, Olu Omotehinwa,<br />
Bisoye Tejuosho, Suliat Adedeji, Shola<br />
Omosola and Bagauda Kaltho who paid<br />
the ultimate price for us to get to this pass!<br />
Abiola and Kudirat, his wife, are only<br />
lucky that they have some few monuments<br />
named after them; and the reason is simple!<br />
We are even hearing that Governor<br />
Ademola Adeleke is planning to rename<br />
MKO Abiola Airport in Ido Osun, Osun<br />
State after Isiaka Adetunji, his late brother<br />
and former Governor of the State. Well,<br />
Nigerians hope it’s fake news; and it had<br />
better be!<br />
In sane climes, the progressives are<br />
supposed to be the main drivers of social<br />
change. But is that happening in this part<br />
of the world? If we couldn’t honour people<br />
like Kokori for their active, frontline roles<br />
while they lived, it only goes to show that<br />
everything about democracy in Nigeria is<br />
self-centered, half-hearted and<br />
transactional. Had Kokori for example<br />
been honoured, maybe the man would still<br />
be alive today!<br />
John McCain was an American Senator<br />
who had his own distinct mind. He went to<br />
school. He also maintained tradition. He<br />
was a “soldier of soldiers” who fought for<br />
his fatherland. In the process, he was<br />
captured and almost killed. But, as fate<br />
would have it, McCain ‘graduated’ to a<br />
Prisoner of War (POW). After his release,<br />
he came back to the USA, again, to serve<br />
his fatherland until death. Even, in death,<br />
the Senator from Arizona remained<br />
justified for the actions he took while he<br />
lived. Now, look at McCain’s children and<br />
what they are achieving for selves and<br />
fatherland?<br />
In the considered opinion of this writer,<br />
this is not the time to forget those who<br />
risked what they had for what the country<br />
needed but now lack the voice and the<br />
mobility because of dispensational factors<br />
or nature of their creation. To get out of the<br />
woods therefore, Afenifere has to set out<br />
the real development agenda with the<br />
ferocious finesse that will define its very<br />
boundaries and prescribe the landscape of<br />
institutional democracy for the Yoruba<br />
nation. It is unfortunate that the region is<br />
falling so behind, especially in times of<br />
credit and this is not too good for us! So,<br />
we need a leadership that will celebrate not<br />
only the generations of love among us but<br />
also the legacy, inspiration and the<br />
testimony of our founding fathers.<br />
More than ever, the Yoruba nation<br />
needs an established culture of political<br />
consciousness that can demand and stand<br />
for its rights and a Development Agenda<br />
that can truly negotiate the future, capture<br />
the interests of the race, synthesize and<br />
stick to the needs of the people, and<br />
entrench a system of democratic awareness<br />
Pa Reuben<br />
Fasoranti<br />
in the people. Again, this is where DAWN<br />
Document and Yoruba Academy come in!<br />
Let Afenifere rethink its vision and work<br />
with the State governments in the region<br />
on how to make things happen!<br />
As a Yorubaman, President Bola<br />
Tinubu has an important role to play in<br />
ensuring that the race doesn’t go extinct<br />
and this is a historic opportunity for him to<br />
spearhead a federalist agenda, which was<br />
what Awolowo and, indeed, most of his<br />
colleagues from the other regions, had<br />
always believed in and fought for. A proper<br />
federalism is what is of utmost benefit to<br />
Yorubaland and everything will fall into<br />
place! Of course, that’s the biggest legacy<br />
Tinubu can bequeath to Nigerians!<br />
Last of all, isn’t there an urgent need for<br />
the progressive icons in Nigeria to call a<br />
solemn assembly for the revival of the<br />
hopes of their forefathers?<br />
<strong>May</strong> the Lamb of God, who takes away<br />
the sin of the world, grant us peace in<br />
Nigeria!<br />
Concluded.<br />
Komolafe wrote in from Ijebu-Jesa,<br />
Osun State, Nigeria<br />
(ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)<br />
Chibok: Destroying the future<br />
of our tomorrow?<br />
Continued from Page 10<<br />
will remain a toothless bulldog and an<br />
insignificant wailing wailer!<br />
Gideon Ogunleye,<br />
Lagos, Nigeria.<br />
____________________________<br />
Hmmm! This is a deep and thoughtprovoking<br />
piece.<br />
But where did we lose it?<br />
Unfortunately, successive leaders are<br />
only interested in themselves, not<br />
communal togetherness.<br />
Many of the ARG members who have<br />
had access to power seemed to have<br />
forgotten where they were coming from.<br />
<strong>May</strong> God help us!<br />
Ahmed Lawal,<br />
Aramoko-Ekiti, Ekiti State.<br />
____________________________<br />
I like this good piece on Afenifere.<br />
But who breaks the Berlin Wall<br />
between the factional groups in<br />
Afenifere?<br />
My brother, Afenifere is no more!<br />
Dr. Jimoh Agboola,<br />
Osogbo, Osun State<br />
____________________________<br />
Those who inherited Afenifere only<br />
did so for political gains, not service to<br />
the Southwest. Since they’re not attuned<br />
to the attributes of its founding fathers,<br />
we can now see the effects of the absence<br />
of ideology on the part of those parading<br />
themselves as Afenifere/ARG.<br />
In the olden days, whenever Afenifere<br />
spoke, it was with one voice and the<br />
country would be shaken to its<br />
foundation. Unfortunately, that attribute<br />
has been sold for selfish interests! It is<br />
sad!<br />
One way forward is to collapse all the<br />
factional and fractional groups of<br />
Fasoranti, Adebanjo and ARG to become<br />
one old and bold Afenifere, because<br />
united we stand, divided we fall! This can<br />
be done by way of the Afenifere Peace<br />
Summit, involving the three groups.<br />
Chief Biodun Aguda,<br />
Iloro-Ekiti, Ekiti State.<br />
____________________________<br />
Is Tinubu a candidate of Afenifere? If<br />
not, it will be morally wrong for<br />
Afenifere to set Yoruba Agenda for the<br />
President.<br />
Besides, Afenifere is to protect and<br />
promote Yoruba Agenda. So, how on<br />
earth would a socio-ethnic organisation<br />
support a candidate outside its territory?<br />
Tunde A. Akinpelu,<br />
Ibadan, Oyo State.
Page12 <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
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MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong> <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong><br />
Page13
Opinion<br />
Page<strong>14</strong> <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
Fuel Scarcity, Abidoshaker and<br />
other stories<br />
By Reuben Abati<br />
are you coping with this<br />
fuel scarcity? Fuel queues<br />
“How<br />
everywhere. Even the bus<br />
stops are crowded. People waiting for<br />
buses that also do not have fuel.”<br />
“What I don’t understand is why<br />
every administration since 1999,<br />
marking the return to civilian rule, has<br />
had to deal with exactly the same<br />
problems: fuel scarcity, a big debt<br />
burden, lack of electricity supply,<br />
unemployment, big corruption, terrorism<br />
and banditry. Sometimes, I take a look at<br />
this democracy and I am like: what really<br />
have we gained putting civilians in<br />
power?”<br />
“<strong>The</strong> worst civilian government is<br />
better than the best military<br />
government.”<br />
“I hear that all the time, yes. But why<br />
are we not making progress? Can you<br />
believe that one of my brothers had to<br />
contact me to ask if I could help get fuel.<br />
How am I supposed to do that from<br />
Lagos, when I am also looking for fuel.”<br />
“Don’t worry when the Dangote<br />
refinery starts producing PMS and the<br />
Warri refinery kicks off, everything will<br />
be fine.”<br />
“I have been hearing that for about a<br />
year. Were we not also told that the Port<br />
Harcourt Refinery has been<br />
mechanically completed? A mechanical<br />
refinery that has refused to produce<br />
petrol. We don’t need mechanical stories<br />
we want fuel at the filling stations”<br />
“President Tinubu has advised us to<br />
be patient. At the Special Meeting of the<br />
World Economic Forum in Riyadh,<br />
Saudi Arabia, he told his audience that<br />
his government had to remove fuel<br />
subsidy and manage the foreign<br />
exchange market to prevent the country<br />
from slipping into bankruptcy.”<br />
“I watched the video. He spoke well,<br />
ex tempore. He keeps doing a good job<br />
of marketing the country and selling the<br />
country as an important destination for<br />
Foreign Direct Investment. Good outing<br />
overall. You know City Boy is a show<br />
man. He met with the Dutch Prime<br />
Minister, Bill Gates, Chairman of<br />
shipping giant AP Moeller-Maersk, CEO<br />
of Samsung. But he didn’t tell the full<br />
story”<br />
“Which full story do you want him to<br />
tell the international community? Which<br />
story?”<br />
“He should have been honest enough<br />
to tell the business community that<br />
Nigeria under his watch is still a work in<br />
progress. Electricity supply is epileptic.<br />
Diesel is expensive. <strong>The</strong> cost of business<br />
is so high many businesses are leaving<br />
the country, the latest being PZ Cussons<br />
which has been in West Africa for more<br />
than <strong>14</strong>0 years. Even the businesses that<br />
are still in the country are raising prices.<br />
Multichoice has increased its<br />
subscription rates, effective <strong>May</strong> 1. <strong>The</strong><br />
Telecom companies have also served<br />
notice that call rates will go up…”<br />
“Market forces. Companies are doing<br />
business not charity. <strong>The</strong>y have to make<br />
ends meet. For a business to be<br />
profitable, the Return on Investment<br />
(ROI) must be higher than the Cost of<br />
Investment. If you can’t afford to pay for<br />
Multichoice Premium, the same<br />
company offers you other options. If the<br />
Telcos increase their call rates, you<br />
simply talk less and reduce the number<br />
of calls you make.”<br />
“But are you aware that one court has<br />
barred MultiChoice from increasing its<br />
subscription rates? And I guess the same<br />
thing will happen to the telcos. And if<br />
they cannot make ends meet, some of<br />
these companies will also close shop.”<br />
“Just hearing that from you.”<br />
“That is why I am talking about<br />
honesty. You are asking me to adjust and<br />
adapt. President Tinubu should have told<br />
his audience that back home IPMAN has<br />
announced that this fuel scarcity will<br />
linger for two weeks, further making life<br />
difficult for businesses and persons.”<br />
“IPMAN talked about fuel scarcity<br />
and supply chain problems. <strong>The</strong><br />
Independent Petroleum Marketers did<br />
not say there will be fuel queues for two<br />
weeks.”<br />
“What is the difference?”<br />
“So, what do you expect President<br />
Tinubu to do? To promise potential<br />
investors an enabling environment and<br />
then at the same time, de-market his own<br />
country? Trust is the biggest element in<br />
international trade. President Tinubu<br />
only needs potential investors to trust<br />
him. Or do you want him to behave like<br />
President Buhari who used to go abroad<br />
to tell people that Nigerian youths are<br />
lazy, or that a woman’s place belongs in<br />
the other room? Sorry, Tinubu is much<br />
smarter.”<br />
“But why was he behaving like that<br />
during the campaigns making it look like<br />
he could not complete his sentences and<br />
had to be assisted to complete ordinary<br />
tasks like climbing the stairs. <strong>The</strong> same<br />
man is now energetic and bouncing,<br />
prancing, with energy and panache.”<br />
“Strategy my friend. People<br />
underestimated Asiwaju Bola Tinubu,<br />
even within his own Party. He<br />
outsmarted them all, even with the power<br />
of the tongue. Strategy is the soul of<br />
politics.”<br />
“Okay, congratulations. Let him solve<br />
the problem of electricity, fuel supply,<br />
foreign exchange and the hunger in the<br />
land. Soon, it will be <strong>May</strong> 29, one year<br />
since he assumed office. Enough of the<br />
promises of hope. I want action, results.”<br />
“You have to be patient. You cannot<br />
expect Tinubu to fix eight years of<br />
maladministration in one year. But come<br />
to think of it, I think in a mysterious<br />
manner, Nigeria has just stumbled on a<br />
divine solution.”<br />
“Beware of blasphemy. Leave God<br />
out of this. Our problems in Nigeria are<br />
man-made. Nobody should blame God.”<br />
“I said divine. I didn’t mention God<br />
but you know God works through human<br />
beings. God has sent unto us one of his<br />
prophets to solve our problems.”<br />
“And who is that?”<br />
“Prophet Odumeje. Abidoshaker.<br />
Ganduka Gandusa. Indaboski. <strong>The</strong><br />
Liquid Metal. <strong>The</strong> man has acquired<br />
powers. He says with his powers, he<br />
brought down the value of the dollar<br />
against the Naira and the Naira<br />
appreciated. But he left town for London<br />
with his powers, the Naira lost a little<br />
value and now that he is back, he will fix<br />
the Naira.”<br />
“What powers?”<br />
“Citadel. Pandemic. Epidemic.<br />
Pandemonium. Sanctus Sanitorias and<br />
Burning Fire.”<br />
“Listen to that meaningless mumbojumbo.<br />
And who is Abido Shaker?”<br />
“Man of God.”<br />
“I think he is a clown. A comedian.<br />
Prophet Odumeje<br />
An entertainer. I think he should be in<br />
Nollywood, not anywhere near a pulpit.<br />
You people worship pastors, not God.<br />
You actually believe that a prophet is the<br />
solution to Nigeria’s problems?”<br />
“When the man went to London,<br />
people rushed to the airport to receive<br />
him. <strong>The</strong>y even paid to watch him<br />
perform his latest song: Powers. He<br />
attracted a large crowd. When he<br />
returned to Nigeria, he was received by a<br />
large crowd, dancing and singing his<br />
praises. <strong>The</strong> man has his own style.”<br />
“Nigerians like entertainment and<br />
that pastor is good at making skits. I am<br />
not surprised.”<br />
“I hear he can use his powers to<br />
ensure steady electricity supply, generate<br />
employment and place Nigeria on the<br />
path of growth. You never know with<br />
these spiritualists. Don’t you think he<br />
should be consulted by the Nigerian<br />
government? Yemi Cardoso and Wale<br />
Edun can invite him to a meeting and<br />
explore ways of how his powers can be<br />
unleashed to fix monetary and fiscal<br />
policies.”<br />
“He should be given a stern warning<br />
to stop misleading people. One of these<br />
days he would cause a pandemonium.<br />
<strong>The</strong> person that actually shocks me is<br />
that musician called Flavour. What does<br />
he hope to gain doing a collabo with<br />
Indaboski?”<br />
“He probably hopes to get powers<br />
that would jump-start his musical<br />
Continued on Page 15
Opinion<br />
MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong> <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> Page15<br />
Fuel Scarcity, Abidoshaker and<br />
other stories<br />
Continued from Page <strong>14</strong><<br />
career.”<br />
“I sympathize with him if that is the<br />
case. He doesn’t need powers to do well<br />
as an artiste. Let him go and work hard<br />
on his talent and concentrate on his craft.<br />
Can’t he see that Indaboski is using him?<br />
Nonsense.”<br />
“His choice. This is a free country. He<br />
is responsible for his own brand and<br />
identity. And in any case, I don’t think<br />
anybody is using anybody. <strong>The</strong>y are both<br />
using each other. You will be surprised<br />
that their song may end up as a bestseller<br />
on the charts.”<br />
“What I know is that people make<br />
stupid choices in this country. Like those<br />
young men who went to protest at the<br />
EFCC Headquarters yesterday. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
turned EFCC vs. Alhaji Yahaya Bello<br />
into an Ebira youths vs Igalla youths<br />
conflict. I hear the protesters were ethnic<br />
gladiators.”<br />
“Everything in Nigeria is always<br />
ethnicized. With so much unemployment<br />
in the country, you will always find more<br />
than enough idle youths to support any<br />
cause.”<br />
“EFCC has already staged enough<br />
drama around this case. It should not get<br />
involved in Ebira or Igalla politics. <strong>The</strong><br />
matter is already in court. <strong>The</strong> courts will<br />
decide on the weight of evidence<br />
provided. Enough of the circus and all<br />
you television lawyers should beware of<br />
running foul of the law.”<br />
“I understand what you are saying.<br />
<strong>The</strong> part of the story that shocks me,<br />
actually, is the fact that people spend<br />
Fuel scarcity in Nigeria has resulted in long queues at Petrol stations<br />
foreign currency in this country as if it<br />
were the national currency. <strong>The</strong> Chinese<br />
supermarket that was shut down in Abuja<br />
the other day, we were told designates<br />
items in Chinese and price tags in Yuan,<br />
not Naira. <strong>The</strong>re are many schools, real<br />
estate companies, and luxury stores that<br />
transact business in dollars only.”<br />
“Even some government agencies<br />
collect tariffs in dollars and claim that it<br />
is because their business is international.<br />
Nigeria’s crude oil is sold in dollars for<br />
example.”<br />
“So, how do we expect the Naira to<br />
remain stable? I think what the American<br />
International School Abuja (AISA)’s<br />
involvement in the Bello case so far is<br />
that the government must move swiftly<br />
to outlaw the use of dollars for basic<br />
transactions in the country, instead of<br />
chasing people who are spraying small<br />
change at social parties.”<br />
“Even that is an offence. <strong>The</strong>re is no<br />
such thing as a small offence. <strong>The</strong> law is<br />
the law.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong> law must be seen to be fair to all<br />
parties concerned. This is why I support<br />
the idea of a justice sector reform. For<br />
Heaven’s sake, we can’t even maintain<br />
correctional facilities. <strong>The</strong>re was a small<br />
downpour the other day in Suleja and the<br />
perimeter wall of the correctional facility<br />
gave way. Over 100 inmates escaped.<br />
Before now, there have been jail breaks<br />
in Koton Karfe in Kogi State, Benin and<br />
Oko in Edo State, Kuje in FCT, and<br />
Okitipupa in Ondo State. Every incident<br />
has been traced to the poor management<br />
of the correctional facilities.”<br />
“But what has this got to do with<br />
justice sector reform?”<br />
“Everything. Justice administration is<br />
a chain from law enforcement to the<br />
judicial system to the custodial centres.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is no justice if the prisons are<br />
congested, if children are kept in<br />
maximum prison facilities, if security<br />
dogs are fed with N800 per day and<br />
inmates N700 per day. <strong>The</strong>re is no justice<br />
when cases are delayed and the prisons<br />
are full of awaiting trial persons.”<br />
“I am really sorry. I don’t want to talk<br />
about the plight of prisoners. Even those<br />
of us who are not in custodial centres are<br />
in prison in real terms. This country is a<br />
big prison yard.”<br />
“I won’t put it like that. I guess we<br />
should at least be grateful for the little<br />
opportunities we get. <strong>The</strong>re is nothing<br />
like being free, and having tomorrow to<br />
look forward to. Look at one example.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Edo State Government has just<br />
increased the minimum wage in the State<br />
to N70,000. That is good news.”<br />
“I hear Lagos has also done the same<br />
thing.”<br />
“No. That story has been debunked<br />
by Gbenga Omotoso, the Lagos<br />
Commissioner for Information. What<br />
Lagos has in place is a comprehensive<br />
welfare programme called Eko Cares<br />
which covers food, healthcare and<br />
transportation.”<br />
“Lagos can in fact pay up to<br />
N100,000 if it so decides. Afterall, the<br />
Governor’s nickname is Sanwo Eko. Let<br />
him bring out the money. Sanwo Eko,<br />
show us the money. What is money?”<br />
“Just confess that your sister works<br />
with the Lagos State Government and<br />
you want her to earn more.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re is nothing wrong with that.<br />
We are in a country where you have to<br />
look out for yourself.”<br />
“This is why we are where we are”<br />
“That is why Africa is the way it is.”<br />
“Look at South Africa. Thirty years<br />
after the end of apartheid rule, the racist<br />
masters have been replaced by a local<br />
elite which has not really done much for<br />
the poor black majority. Our leaders in<br />
Africa only want power for power’s<br />
sake. If the ANC is not careful, it may not<br />
even get up to 40% in the <strong>May</strong> 29<br />
elections. Obsession with power and<br />
corruption have broken up the party.”<br />
“Typically African. South Africa after<br />
Mandela.”<br />
“Look at Togo where the people went<br />
to the polls yesterday in a parliamentary<br />
election.”<br />
“Is that an election? Faure<br />
Gnassingbe amended the Constitution to<br />
keep him in power till 2033. <strong>The</strong>re is also<br />
the chance that he will remain President<br />
for life. He has been in power since 2005,<br />
the year that he seized power as<br />
birthright. His family has been ruling<br />
Togo since 1967.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong> opposition parties do not stand<br />
any chance in Togo.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Black man is the biggest<br />
problem to himself and to others.”
Page16 <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> MAY 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
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