http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/442797
My first encounter with Mr. Nduka Otiono was during my undergraduate days at the University of Ibadan where he lectured my class as a visiting scholar to the Department of English, and successfully initiated us into the cult of Metaphysical Poetry. Then he was still General Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) and had carved a niche for himself as one of the leading lights of the literary movement in Nigeria. Mr. Otiono’s stay with us at the department was short. He soon left the University, leaving us to battle with the wits and conceits of the metaphysical poets. That was four years ago, and I had lost touch with him until about two months ago when I located him on Facebook one of the world’s fastest growing online social utility networks. So it was a meeting I eagerly looked forward to when I received a message from him on Friday 25 July, 2008 asking me to meet him the next day at the Transcorp Hilton on a brief visit to Nigeria from Canada where he relocated in the face of the depressing demands of the Nigerian system.

I had anticipated a short meeting. But it was not to be. We spent over five hours sharing thoughts on the travails of the Nigerian nation. Our discussion moved from the poverty and hunger in the land to the Niger Delta crisis and then to the failure in leadership. For the first time in a long while, I was listening to an intellectually insightful dissection of the Nigerian conundrum. At a point, it became so emotional tears began to well up my eyes. We looked at the power sector in Nigeria, attempting a sincere analysis only to end up with an emotional paralysis. We had thought; if only Nigeria could just fix the energy problem, a large part of our problems would be solved. With $16 billion we could have generated 16, 000 megawatts of power, sufficient to help drive the Nigerian economy to unimaginable heights of economic rebirth. But today’s sad reality is a seemingly powerless probe on a power sector bedeviled by inefficiency, corruption and a harvest of scandals. What is the problem with us?

In the course of our discussion, we were soon joined by one Mr. John, a friend of Mr. Otiono who works in one of the banks as a customer relations manager and later my good friend Ferdinand Adimefe, a budding author and youth corper serving at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Abuja. Together, we all continued with this passionate talk about our national misfortunes. A little insight from the banking sector opened another can of worms. It was disturbing to hear how some of these financial houses had become homes to all kinds of immoral transactions. If you were not touched by the financial roguery, you only needed to hear how hundreds of Nigerian female graduates end up becoming sex merchants in some of these banks, many of which appear with attractively bright exteriors but thrive on the dealings of their ‘stinkingly’ rich interiors!

At a point, we were joined by Mr. Toni Kan Onwordi, Head of Corporate Communications, Visafone who exchanged banters with Mr. Otiono and then moved on. I had heard so much about Toni Kan (as he is popularly called), read a few of his write-ups and had come to admire him just like my big brother Tolu Ogunlesi who works in the same outfit. I wondered how the likes of this young man survived the frightful and sleazy conditions of the Nigerian media where you are constantly confronted with the two unpleasant options of starvation or having to embrace the brown envelopes. I saluted his resilience and prayed for some of my friends in the media who are fighting to remain men and women of honour in this untidy rat race of what may be termed for want of better description, a voodoo republic that thrives on the ‘lootocratic’ orgies of a heartless hegemony! I immediately recalled that Mr. Otiono had been in the Nigerian media for over a decade and once sat on the editorial board of the now world-famous Thisday newspapers. I do not intend to write Mr. Otiono’s biography. But I am convinced it was a good thing that happened to him when he experienced a paradigm shift from the Nigerian arena, proceeding overseas in order to retain the sanity of his body and mind.

The statistics are horrifying. I shivered with righteous indignation when UNODC boss Mario Costa mentioned that between 1960 and the present day, Nigerian leaders had stolen over $400 billion! With just $10 billion, the city of Lagos can be transformed to the mega city status it deserves with all basic infrastructures in place. Yet, recent research and development indices have revealed that the city of Lagos is a looming catastrophe. Thus, while cities like Dubai and Hong Kong continue to amaze the world with their advancement prowess, the city of Lagos has been marked as one of the disaster megapolis of the century – waiting to happen! Why should this happen to a nation so richly blessed? Our education sector has not fared any better. When Prof. Niyi Osundare, in his valedictory lecture at the University of Ibadan remarked that the universe has left our Universities, it was a death knell that sounded loud and clear. What is the state of our tertiary education today? What kind of graduates are we producing? Are we producing assets or liabilities to society? What is happening to the infrastructure, the laboratories, the libraries, the lecture rooms and the hostels? Is it not pathetic how much our Ivory Towers have fallen from the heights of social re-engineering to the depths of helplessness, becoming idle towers of subsidized illiteracy?

If that is not enough to jolt you, Nigeria currently has about 10 million school age children out of school; 4.5 million are potential primary schools pupils and the other 5.5 million, young men and women who should be in secondary school. When you combine that with the about 60 million adult illiterates in the country, one can hardly see any light at the end of the tunnel. Maternal mortality rate in the country is put at 1000 to 100, 000 births in our labour rooms. That is equivalent to 10 plane crashes everyday! The Nigerian situation is akin to a grotesque theatre of the absurd whose spectators are a ruthless elite sitting, watching and satiated by this spectacle of blood, tears and sorrow. In the midst of this disillusionment, the mass of the Nigerian people remain resilient. This is still their country, their home and their fatherland. They are deeply troubled and are forced to ask questions. They want to know why poverty reigns in their fatherland. They want to know why those in the positions of responsibility continue to let this great country down. Nigerians are asking questions, but are they receiving and acting on the right answers?

I come to one sad conclusion. The problems of this great country are man-made and if there will be any solutions, it will have to come from Nigerians themselves. But who is ready to bell the Cat? Who can rescue this rogue republic from the hands of these pirates? Here again lies the tragic irony. We have a nation populated by some of the brightest brains on the face of the earth who individually are geniuses in their own rights but have never been able to collectively fix any problem they set out to solve. It is a tragedy that swings the way of pessimism, but history does not prove me wrong. We are confronted by a very strong cabal whose only interest in Nigeria is driven by their devious doctrine of self-preservation at all costs. They are deadly and dangerous. They are few in numbers, yet very powerful. I also understand they have devised an efficient machine programmed to resist the change we desire in this great nation. They can get you sacked from your jobs, and make life unbearable when they think you have become a threat. That is why the efforts we have made so far amounts to little or nothing, because all this talk does little or nothing to them. They hardly even read or hear you talk.

But should we give up? A million times, NO! The change that we seek must prevail. We will not join them because we can beat them. It has not been an easy battle, but we must continue the fight and I see victory over this reign of mediocrity.
]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:15:00 EDT http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/442797 http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/335831
One of the biggest challenges confronting the Nigerian state today is the issue of corruption. World over, corruption has become an issue of great concern. While some consider it the bane of constructive efforts towards the building of a virile society, it is for others a necessary tool for accessing and securing personal fortunes. Sadly enough, the Nigerian experience is a careless harbinger of deferred dreams. Efforts geared towards the advance of project Nigeria, have been continuously truncated by the terrifying conditions of a system bedeviled by corruption. In the midst of this deepening crisis and perhaps the quest for a potent way out of the corruption quagmire, the Fix Nigeria Initiative (FNI), the civil society interface of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) invited youths from the six-geopolitical zones of Nigeria to the 1st National Youth Anti Corruption Summit which was held at Bolingo Hotel and Towers, Abuja on Monday 10 September, 2007.

According to the FNI, the aim of the summit was to bring together youths to deliberate on issues of corruption, integrity, accountability and the crisis of the Niger-Delta. I was one of the youths who attended the summit. At the end of the summit, it became clearer that the task of ridding our nation of the scourge of corruption was more Herculean than often imagined. A novel and imaginative way of problematising this in relation to the idea of building the Nigeria of our dreams, is a brief assessment of the role of the Nigerian media and its impact on the youths who are often considered the foundation of the future. Among the several presentations at the summit, I was particularly touched by the submissions of ace broadcaster Mrs. Eugenia Abu who herself a media practitioner, boldly chastised the Nigerian media for what she described as its promotion of consumerism and sex rather than our cherished moral values. According to her, “Today’s consumerism has ensured that there is so much representation of the power of money. The logic of profit prevents the discharge of the media’s responsibility to society.”

Indeed, the media, it is that safeguards the truths and moral values of society. As the Fourth Estate, as well as guard dog and conscience of society, it is a formidable force and potent tool in nation building. In consequence, its responsibility to society must not be compromised in a way that produces misrepresentations to young persons who are for the most part, observers of its social portraits. Hence the need for the media to embrace a paradigm shift and strive to continually portray cultural processes, whether African or Western, from a standpoint that provides sufficient subtext of the informing essence and context. The reality of our socio-cultural experience must not be allowed to disappear under the red light of reality TVs. Our soap operas must be strategic enough to cleanse the dirt which has permeated the fabric of society. Concerted efforts by the media to empower our youths must be prioritized over musical concerts and parties which only encourage materialism and bad role-modeling. Why do we preach patriotism to the fatherland when the media has forgotten that Taiwo Akinkunmi, the man who designed the Nigerian flag is still alive and has become a sickly beggar in the streets of Ibadan? Do we really expect young Nigerians to be patriotic to Nigeria when those celebrated by the media today are those who have imbibed the ideals of Hollywood while parading themselves as Nigerian versions of Shakira, Rihanna, Jay-Z, and 50 Cents? How many Nigerian movies are centered on contemporary Nigerian or African icons like Dora Akunyili, Nuhu Ribadu, and Nelson Mandela?

Permit me this; I am not advocating an anti-showbiz Nigerian media. I still enjoy good music, movies and soaps, whether Nigerian or foreign. But the prevailing truth is that the media must get its priorities right. What Nigeria needs at this time in her historic journey to national greatness, is a responsible media that understands its powers as a vital tool for social construction. So profound is the strength of the media that it can turn good people into bad people and otherwise. Thus, the media must be able to re-evaluate itself.

While media responsibility to society cannot be overemphasized, it is instructive to those who care enough that the task of building the Nigeria of our dreams is a task for all. So much is required to rescue the Nigerian state out of its current state of pollution. There are many who have expressed uncompromising belief in the dawn of a new Nigeria, but very few have actually taken bold steps towards orchestrating the desired national rebirth. Fela Durotoye is one notable Nigerian of my generation I admire so much for his great passion in the task of rebuilding the Nigerian nation. At 35, he is a retired successful entrepreneur who has undertaken the task of seeing Nigeria become the most desirable nation to live in by December 31, 2025. To this end, practical steps are already being taken to actualize the vision preciously tagged: “Gemstone 2025.” We need more hands like him.

For some, the foregoing represents a trite picture of an idea too lofty. Such critics only bring to mind a foretaste of the ill-naturedness of the human mind and its inherent pessimism. Without doubt, we can attain the Nigeria of our dreams. However, the way out of the Nigerian crisis is a distant journey into the innermost recesses of our minds. What we need is not a revolution of guns and machetes. We desire a revolution of the mind – an arrival at the threshold of the charity that truly begins at home. Every Nigerian must attain that distillation of spirit where service to the fatherland is prioritised over personal interests. From the lawmaker to the clergy, and the aristocrat to the so-called hoi polloi, let there be a sense and sameness of direction. We must not allow the diversity of our cultures to blur the clarity of our glorious future. Patriotism must not be viewed as an alien term that begins and ends in our newspapers when our journalists make references to the systems of the West. Nigerians must arrive at the crossroads in their cultural and socio-political odyssey where historic decisions about their future will be taken without risky hesitations or dangerous compromises.
]]> Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:39:00 EST http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/335831 http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/319307
The publications of allegations against Ribadu arise from the attempts by two lawyers to compel the Inspector General of Police to initiate investigation into allegations that Mr. Ribadu purchased and owns properties in Abuja and Dubai. They are also praying the court to compel EFCC to render the Commission’s audited accounts and submit same to the National Assembly.

Mr. Ribadu wishes to state categorically that:

1. He DOES NOT own houses in Abuja or Dubai or any other part of the world, other than his personal house built in his village in Yola, in the early 1990s;
2. Apart from that, Mr. Ribadu owns a yet-to-be-developed plot of land in Katampe, an undeveloped district of Abuja, which was acquired in 1998;
3. Apart from his official EFCC salary account, Mr. Ribadu does not operate a bank account anywhere else in the world;
4. Like other Fulani, Mr. Ribadu also owns cows which he rears in his village;
5. Mr. Ribadu hereby grants express permission to anyone who finds that he has assets other than those declared above, to seize them without further reference to him;
6. When his official residence which belonged to the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) was, in line with the policy of the last administration, offered for sale along with other houses in the area, Mr. Ribadu could not muster the funds to purchase the said house. However, sensitive to the possibility of a conflict of interest arising if he approached banks for a loan, given his position as EFCC Chairman, Ribadu nearly lost the house until his father-in-law, Professor Iya Abubakar, intervened. It was the Professor who bid for the house at a public auction and took a facility from his bankers, Fidelity Bank, to purchase the house, which cost N44m. As it is, Mr. Ribadu and his family are presently living in the Mambilla street house thanks to his father-in-law. All records pertaining to this transaction are available at the FCDA for anyone who wishes to check.

7. It must be stated that as a public officer, Mr. Ribadu has dutifully sworn to oaths declaring his assets as and when due. The declarations are public documents and can be accessed at the appropriate agency for purposes of verification, seizure of undeclared assets and prosecution if need be.

Further, Mr. Ribadu is saddened that otherwise learned gentlemen lend themselves as vehicles for the purveyance of obviously false allegations that the Commission has not been making annual renditions to the National Assembly in line with Sections 35 and 36 of the EFCC Establishment Act, 2004. The simplest check that people can carry out is to ask their representatives in both chambers of the National Assembly to find out whether the Commission had ever neglected to comply with those provisions of the Act and if indeed it has been submitting details of its audited accounts and a compendium of its activities, every year, since its inception.

EFCC wishes to state that being sensitive to the peculiarities of its operations and environment, the Commission has even gone beyond the demands of the Act to engage highly professional external auditors (other than government-appointed auditors) to audit and re-audit its books. These reports have been routinely submitted to the National Assembly before the 30th day of September, every year, since 2003.

A cursory study of the allegations not only shows that they are pitiably shallow, but also throws up the unmitigated desperation of certain groups of people who have an axe to grind with the EFCC, to employ all tactics to embarrass its key officials, divert attention from their justified investigation and prosecution and ultimately derail the work of the Commission.

While Mr. Ribadu is saddened by the fact that enemies of the anti-corruption war would stop at nothing in the bid to sully its image, he welcomes the opportunity offered by the lawyers to deal squarely with the wild and resurgent allegations from which have regrettably spawned endless pepper soup joint plots for the Nigerian theatre of the absurd.

The attention of Nigerians is drawn to the fact that these kinds of wild allegations have always attended the work of the Commission. Right from inception in 2003, EFCC has faced all manners of unsubstantiated allegations, from operating torture chambers, to grand corruption. Even as we made to conclude this response, we learnt that gun-running has been added to the long list of dreamt-up allegations against EFCC. The attempts at blackmails would definitely continue as long as EFCC continues to do carry out its functions with determination. But, Nigerians are advised to be wary and to always be guided by what we have said in the past that, “When you fight corruption, it fights you back.”

Dapo Olorunyomi
Chief of Staff to the Executive Chairman.
]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:43:00 EST http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/319307 http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/318379
On December 27, 2007, Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro announced that he had ordered Nuhu Ribadu, the head of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), to resign his office to attend a one-year course of study at a Nigerian policy institute. Because sole authority to remove Ribadu rests with Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua, the transfer appears intended to prevent political fallout from an outright firing of Ribadu, who is pursuing politically sensitive investigations into the corrupt activities of powerful ruling party officials.

“The moves against the anti-corruption chief are a thinly veiled attempt to gut the only law enforcement agency that has tried to hold prominent ruling party politicians to account for their many crimes,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The credibility of President Yar’Adua’s rhetoric about promoting of the rule of law is at stake.”

Corruption lies at the heart of Nigeria’s most pressing human rights problems. Since the end of military rule in 1999, many politicians have used stolen government revenues to sponsor political violence in order to rig elections marked by violence and fraud. More than 12,000 Nigerians have died in violent clashes since 1999, and many of those clashes have been incited for political reasons. Corruption has also led to the waste and theft of windfall oil revenues that could have begun to realize Nigerians’ rights to health, education and other basic human rights.

Human Rights Watch has documented the links between the corrupt tactics of several leading politicians and some of Nigeria’s worst human rights abuses (http://hrw.org/reports/2007/nigeria1007/). Former Rivers State Governor Peter Odili presided over the theft and mismanagement of several billion dollars in oil revenues during eight years in office. He used those revenues to arm and hire violent gangs, fueling conflict in the restive Niger Delta. Andy Uba, a powerful advisor to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, deployed massive revenues to hire criminal gangs in an attempt to rig the 2007 gubernatorial elections in his home state of Anambra. Nigeria’s compromised police force has consistently turned a blind eye to these and other abuses by well-connected politicians. Only the EFCC has pursued criminal investigations into the activities of Odili, Uba and other tainted ruling-party scions.

Several weeks ago, the EFCC sent shockwaves through the political establishment by arresting powerful former Delta State Governor James Ibori and charging him with 103 counts of corruption. Among myriad charges leveled against Ibori was an attempt to bribe EFCC officials with US$15 million in cash to drop the case against him. Ibori has also consistently been implicated as a central figure in fomenting violence in the strife-torn Niger Delta.

The EFCC’s decision to prosecute Ibori was especially dramatic because the former governor was widely seen as politically untouchable. He is reportedly among the wealthiest of all Nigerian politicians and was a major financier of Yar’Adua’s election campaign. Yar’Adua’s own attorney general, Michael Aondoakaa, sparked a diplomatic protest by UK police officials when he attempted to derail attempts to prosecute Ibori on charges of money laundering in a London court. The attempt to sack Ribadu comes just two weeks after Ibori’s arrest.

Under Nigerian law, only the president can remove the EFCC’s chairman from office prior to the expiration of his term in office, due to end in 2011. Ribadu is a long-serving officer in the police force, but according to leading Nigerian lawyers the police hierarchy has no authority over him in his current position.

“The government seems to be attempting a crude end-run around the law by casting Ribadu’s firing as a routine administrative move by the police,” Takirambudde said. “But in effect Ribadu is being sacked, and sole responsibility for that move lies with President Yar’Adua.”

Since 2003, the EFCC has scored unprecedented successes including the corruption convictions of former police Chief Tafa Balogun and former Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha. But the institution’s credibility was badly tarnished by its selective prosecution of government opponents ahead of the rigged 2007 polls that brought the current government to power.

In recent months, the EFCC had begun to rebuild its credibility by initiating prosecutions against several former governors. Not least among these was Ayo Fayose of Ekiti state; Fayose is implicated in acts of murder and corruption, and spent Christmas in prison awaiting trial along with Ibori. One high-ranking EFCC official told Human Rights Watch that Ribadu was being fired in order to “dilute the independence of the EFCC” and “halt the investigation and prosecution of former governors.”

“The EFCC’s important prosecutorial successes were marred by the disgraceful political witch hunts the institution embarked upon ahead of Nigeria’s 2007 elections,” Takirambudde said. “But rather than repair the agency, the Yar’Adua government has now set about dismantling the challenge to impunity that it represents.”

President Yar’Adua came into office pledging to restore integrity to federal anti-corruption efforts by allowing the EFCC to pursue an impartial “zero-tolerance” effort to hold corrupt officials to account. Many Nigerian activists were skeptical of this commitment, arguing that Yar’Adua was too beholden to the corrupt and violent politicians who helped rig him into office to pursue them for their crimes. Yar’Adua’s own election, which was rigged by some of the same officials the EFCC is now pursuing, is being challenged before Nigeria’s election tribunals.

“The government’s efforts against Ribadu show the need for a government agency with the independence and capacity needed to attack the impunity that props up Nigeria’s corrupt and unaccountable political system,” Takirambudde said. “Politics as usual is precisely the thing that has kept Nigeria’s people mired in poverty and violence for 47 years.”

For more of Human Rights Watch’s work on Nigeria, please visit:
http://hrw.org/doc/?t=africac=nigeri

For more information, please contact:
In Washington, DC, Christopher Albin-Lackey (English, French): +1-202-612-4343; or +1-347-886-7733 (mobile)
]]> Wed, 02 Jan 2008 07:46:00 EST http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/318379 http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/318253
There have been several attempts from the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation to give Ribadu a bad name so as to hang him. Mr. Aondoakaa failed woefully, and only succeeded in attracting public condemnation. Now, the next move is for the police authorities to send him away for one year on a study leave! Please, leave Ribadu alone! Let it be instructive that this sinister plan to remove Ribadu at all costs will hit the rocks again and all those enemies of democracy will be put to shame. Or is it now that the EFCC anti-corruption machine has begun a bountiful harvest of the once ''untouchable'' ex-governors that the IGP has realised that Ribadu needs more training? Haba! Let somebody tell Okiro that Nigerians are not ready to release Ribadu on any study leave for one day. We outrightly reject it.

President Yar'Adua is a man I respect so much for his tenacious commitment to the principles of due process and the rule of law. I know he will not sit back and watch this aberration occur at this critical point of our national advancement. The EFCC Act is very clear on the processes of removing any officer of the commission including its chairman. We must not forget due process now that it affects the anti-corruption czar - Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. Mr. President, please intervene. In this case, silence is not golden. Tell them to leave Ribadu alone.]]> Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:29:00 EST http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/318253 http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/318243
I intend to attempt a brief, albeit seemingly digressive nosedive into the collateral manifestations of this growing media disproportion in African societies. The entertainment industry is no doubt a very profitable venture. So much progress has come to Africa through exploits in the arts, with music, theatre, etc. remaining the dominant genres of this sector. But a close look at music in Africa reveals a frightening descent from its critical status as an art form with great potential for social reconstruction, to a massive playground for sex and consumerism which are today considered ‘strategic’ tools for effective communication in Western media. But how did we relapse so fast into such distressing times?

It is shameful that the media in Africa continues in its sheepish admiration and regurgitation of negative portraits in Western media. Rather than getting involved in more public advocacy for greater sex education, our media have unwittingly collaborated with the Western media in its flagrant display of Western societies as sexually liberated, a situation which has created global sexual inequalities between Africa and the West. As a consequence, we have begun to pay the ultimate price for this socio-cultural derailment. The result is today’s disaster metropolis we call Africa – a continent despoiled by untold penury, famine and disease. If it is not bad enough that poverty continues to demobilize an increasing African population, the November 2007 UNAIDS/WHO report on people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) world over, which puts Africa on the top of the chart with an estimated 22.5 million adults and children in sub-Saharan Africa alone, calls for sober reflection. This is out of the estimated global total of 33.2 million PLWHAs! Increasingly, sex has been identified as the major means of transmission. How then do we talk about real development with such media irresponsibility to society?

Let me now focus on the situation at the home front. Here again in Nigeria comes another opportunity for media slumber. The Kora Awards, the most popular awards of the recording industry in Africa is coming to Nigeria . Founded by Ernest Adjovi in 1994, the ceremony enjoys great media attention annually and rightly so, because it is patterned after the American Grammy Awards which is the biggest and most renowned music awards for deserving musical artistes in various music genres worldwide. The Kora Awards, being its African prototype has strived since its inception to live up to the standards of the Grammys. Perhaps, in a bid to broaden the scope of the event, the organizers are throwing the carrot to Nigeria . Nigeria , I understand has been granted the hosting rights for the next five editions. This indeed, is a welcome development. It is another milestone in the Nigerian entertainment industry and a good omen too for tourist exploits in Nigeria . I have no problem with the Koras coming to town.

The media launch announcing the awards in Nigeria has been scheduled for 20 December 2007 at the Abuja International Centre. And as is usual with such events, there will be a dinner. I would have been glad to stop here at this point of the event plan and wish the organizers a very happy launch. But my attention was drawn to the outrageous idea of dinner tables of ten (10) seats being available for N1 million! Yes, I mean N1 million for just one seat! But what is wrong with that? Somebody is bound to ask. Really, I do not expect much hue and cry from a nation where scandals involving billions of dollars have become more popular than the names of our national heroes. But the danger in adopting what may be called a trite-matter position on this N1 million per dinner seat, is the seemingly harmless but precarious infiltration of our national psyche by the spirit of corruption. It is critical to call attention to how we think we are building our society. Why do we spend so much on the ethereal at the expense of enterprising social ventures? What do we invest our time and resources in? Through this continued love for pleasure and fanfare, are we not entrenching a feudal order over a fast disappearing middle class? What is happening to our consciousness? Why on earth will a dinner seat for just one night be worth N1 million? Is the food from Mars? Maybe you have the answers, but a quick introspection into the fall of the flamboyant Bourbon monarchy of France is instructive to those who care enough.

My problem with this N1 million per dinner seat should not be misconstrued as an attempt to undermine the idea of the Kora Awards or efforts by the organizers to showcase a world-class event. I am particular about the extraneous trappings of their fund-raising strategy. It is true a lot of money is required to stage an event as the Kora Awards. But there is room for corporate sponsorships and philanthropy. Even the Grammy Awards which is approaching its 50th anniversary depends on corporate sponsorships, and has established the Grammy Foundation since 1989 in its attempt to develop a give-back mechanism to the American society. For whatever it is worth, the Kora Award launch has succeeded in portraying Africans again as bad imitators of foreign concepts. This is happening in Nigeria, a country where poverty is still a major issue. Or is this the new face of philanthropy in fund-raising? It appears the organizers are over-fascinated with the status symbol or VIP syndrome which has heightened the race for money at all costs, especially among our youths today. I strongly believe the organizers could have raised more funds if they had welcomed generous donations from organizations and individuals in the spirit of charity. It is instructive that with the growing civil consensus against corruption (thanks to the anti-corruption agencies) we must eliminate opportunities that promote the laundering of stolen funds.

Indeed, not a few Nigerians can afford the luxury of a dinner seat for N1 million. We had seen even more ostentatious display of ill-gotten wealth before the EFCC anti-graft guillotine started taking its toll. But what do we expect from a country with a sickly tax-paying system? Let’s not even talk about Aso Rock where eye glasses and daily refreshments enjoy an obese budget of N1.5 million and N2.3 million respectively!

]]> Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:24:00 EST http://MrFixNigeria.tigblog.org/post/318243