Baba Aye's

Dear Kenobi, Yes, action is good, in fact all turenchi without action would make pako eleja a dead end. But I would suggest we avoid the approach of the tortoise who had been in deep shit for two months and when being pulled out screamed 'hurry, hurry, this place stinks'. I do not think whoever has not tired over the last two months would tire now. The discussions of the 56, the earlier, submissions, by the first triumvirate, Chinedum, TA, Eugene, me, and even what you have put together below and any input from any other member of the serve as well, I would propose be taken into consideration by the Working Paper drafting committee as it commences its deliberations over the weekend. Personally, I would agree that the role of the NCNC in the struggle for our independence as a nation can not but be commended. The August 26, 1944 Glover Hall Conference summoned by the first organised generation of Great Nigerian students which gave birth to the NCNC (first then as the National C...

I must say above any other thing, I do agree with you, Sam and join you in calling on your two colleagues to join in and put together the Working Paper. You actually occupy the primary baton-changing position having served in the convening triumvirate and now being the only one of the earlier three in this next and immediate phase. With regards to the CDC triumvirate, I must say that, that is another thing entirely. I would have been of the opinion that communiques should be adopted at meetings and taken away by those in attendance. If for any reason, 'i's are to be dotted and 't's to be crossed it should not be more than days after the conference. The longer a communique's issuance is dated from the conference whose resolutions it embodies the more questions of legitimacy, mandate and relevance arise. That haven been said, I see no reason why Hilary and co should not now release it this week. While really, there might be lessons to learn from your excursion into th...

Dear Sina and Biola, First I must say to Sina that time never gets on any person or revolutionary group's side. On the contrary, we have to get to the side of time. The old GG (as against the Darah we now know) spoke at a guest lecture we organized on the PAYCO platform in 1992. An analogy he used stuck in my mind. He considered the revolution as the biblical groom that five wise and five foolish maidens were waiting for. The five wise maidens represented a revolutionary movement's existence and readiness. The foolish ones whose oil had run out of course were the 'revolutionaries' full of lots of talk and little or no oil to last the night. How many times will we say all we need is to get organised more than ever only to repeat it again year in, year out? And Biola, I not only pointed out our 'past failed efforts'. Any movement or revolutionary tradition without such is one that never really exists...The problem is not even just that of our continued current and...

Otive, TA & All, On getting the postings of OI and TA, I went back to the Concept Note, TA's submission, my submission and all the email exchanges in the process leading to March 21. I then put down the first line above. It however struck me that I would not have the time to make the statement I will now make then, since I had to pay attention to practical engagements including making my own inputs into materials for the new minimum wage campaign starting on Wednesday and a programme that took me through the whole of yesterday. I consider the issues involved, flowing from Otive's as very important with regards to the post-March 21 inertia and, as he put it, 'beyond the FOI listserve', bearing on our capacity as intellectuals and activist to move our society closer to its transformation. It is in this light that I make this submission. Before going on though, in the course of going through the emails, I could not but get to wonder at the silence of persons who had ma...

Dear Chinedum, Thanx for your posting, please. I had earlier emailed Otive, Sam and Carol, demanding the issuance of the Conference's documents as a signpost of the way forward after March 21, through discussions on the serve. Carol responded pointing out that the triumvirate had done its bit and commendably (I totally agree with that view, not only did it take them much less than tor organise the Conference than the the time it seems to be taking for the results of the same Conference to come out (!); they also gave us an immediate synopsis of the meeting vide Otive's posting in less than 24 hours after). She referred me to the members of the Communique and Working paper drafting committees. I forwarded the same email to the CDC (since I saw its task as preceding that of the Working Paper Committee's as at then). There was and has been no response whatsoever to this by any of the following that are its members: Boniface, Kenneth and Hilary. My thinking has been: if the Co...

Dear Biola, I read yours a couple of times for several reasons. Since our first encounter at Fajuyi hall in June 1990, you have in your own way been maintained a presence in the struggle for change and do still, as far as I know, subscribe to socialist struggle and the revolutionary pathway as the road to social transformation. Your position for moving beyond internet activism (which is not unimportant, but left as the sole or major plank of intervention. ...can not but be sterile), is one I wholly subscribe to. But what disturbs my mind is always trying to start from zero, making our various struggles merely episodic rather than stringing them as beads in a rosary...tying them together and thus building not only continuity but the ethos and praxis of movement-building. Had we all on this serve not agreed to moving beyond internet activism by summoning and resolving on building a movement for social change at Rockview hotel on March 21? What happened to all that: the passion, the think...

Dear DK, I went back to Kayode's posting again, after I read yours. I do not think that the logic your ascribe to it is its crux. I personally see nothing wrong in continuing lamponning Bolaji or any body. For that matter I do not see anything in itself wrong with condemnations of what took place at Ekiti. The problem I see is that all these amount to side dishes. The main dish which, in my view, is at the heart of Kay's bears on the question: 'what is to be done'. Okenyodo, I would say, addressed this and rightly so thus: So what should we do? Well, the meeting that began in March could be our rallying avenue. Let us begin contributing financially (and intellectually) to that platform; we cannot move an inch without a common platform. From there, we start taking action. Similarly Cyril Oleh did a brilliant one, pointing out thus on our continued tradition of empty bombast:: We saw this type of drudgery after the 2007 (S)elections. First, like the hen whose chick is sto...