final axis of Kenobi debate on Ribaduism
I tender an unreserved apology for my error in making you what you are not - a lawyer.
I was mistaken not just from Chidi's (with the benefit of hindsight, the lawyer there was Osita) but also from discourse while working with CA,& Oyebisi towards the FOIC retreat that never was, in which a lawyer Kenobi featured. This of course is an explanation and not an excuse. I do sincerely admit my error.
I must say that, if pointing out the error was all you did, I would simply have apologised...without even the explanation. I had zeroed my mind off responding to whatever you would say on this issue for three reasons: I was done with it as I pointed out earlier -there being little in terms of knowledge or perspectives for any one to benefit from anymore, positions had either been stated or where fixed in emotive concrete; out of deference to the mood and feelings of others on the serve who I believe might have started getting bored with this discussion and rightly so (this is not in contradiction to the liveliness it as well threw up); I am less concerned about wanting a last word, on the contrary one of the views I deferred to was that which saw a "triumphalist" thread in the discourse, rightly or wrongly.
You however leave me no choice when you cheaply insinuate thus: "Because if he could arrive at that erroneous conclusion.. .. then...." It strikes me as straw grabbing and in a less than honourable manner too. You have the liberty to egg you way out of an expired discussion in which as I pointed out time and again that the issues I raised with evidence remain unvitiated (Osita actually buttresses this in pointing out one of the mechanisms which the Post-Washington Consensus utilised). You also have the liberty to stop reading anything at any point where you find an error...as you claim (even if I find that funny for an intellectual). But do not with a sleight of hand or the with a contrivance of 'nit-picking' step over the issue in a manner that seeks to impugn on my integrity. Replace NBA with Itsekiri, Urhobo, Ibo or Yoruba union or St. Franciscan order, or Catholic church or Lutheran Church or boys scouts or deep valley editorial board or any other sphere of human inter-subjectivities outside the state, family or labour process, it doesn't remove a dot of an 'i' or the cross on a 't' in my formulation's scientific validity.
And while we are at it please, I am not with Ribadu....nor am I for Ibori (the zero sum options Osita gives) as my position through out this 'debate' is clear on. I do not intend to engage on this issue as reference to even Osita's earlier position on Libya, etc suffices.
I however support your call for others to air their views. And even beyond that, I would propose we engage practical issues as well, while not avoiding the more theoretical discourse. The proposals from Otive/Chid/Jibo's earlier submission still need to be tackled. I do think that while we could not hold an FOI retreat as earlier planned, the Conference by BF's chambers did our FOI quest a collective goo in coming up with some resolutions. How can we move from the black and white of these to action? I will be ready to play any role I can from afar on the practical issues as much as with theoretical engagement.
I do apologise to the serve for taking space and time again to come back to this issue. As I pointed out earlier, I was left with little choice.
My appeal though to all, is for us to make progress beyond this issue, on this serve at this time. As for me, I will endeavour to resist any temptation to make further responses on the issue and adopt the iwofa l' enu ......(trans; any body's mouth is his or her slave to treat or use as s/he likes), philosophy on the matter here, henceforth.
Thank you
Baba AyeSkype name: iron1lion
- Bob Marley
"We will no longer hear your command, we'll seize the control from your hands
we will fan the flames of our anger and pain....Amandla, Ngawethu"
- UB 40
--- On Mon, 1/5/09, Deep Valley
From: Deep Valley
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition] Otive What Next As Per Ribadu? Attn: kenobi
To: FOIcoalition@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 5:38 PM
Thanks for all responses. Let us give others a chance to air their views...
DK
From: akinnola richard
To: FOIcoalition@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Monday, January 5, 2009 6:51:39 AM
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition] Otive What Next As Per Ribadu? Attn: kenobi
--- On Mon, 1/5/09, Chom Bagu
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition] Otive What Next As Per Ribadu? Attn: kenobi
To: FOIcoalition@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 3:19 AM
If ever i needed to respond on why Ribadu must be punished, my friend Ezeazu has provided all that is needed. Thanks Emma, knowing you as I do, I am sure that you have suffered this while hearing this nonsense about Ribadu. The struggle must continue. Chom
--- On Sat, 1/3/09, emma ezeazu
From: emma ezeazu
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition] Otive What Next As Per Ribadu? Attn: kenobi
To: FOIcoalition@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Saturday, January 3, 2009, 10:48 AM
Dear Kenobi,
Your underlying entry on the Ribadu saga is full of intellectual energy and fervor for our dear country. Unfortunately no one enters this debate without soiling ones hands at the level of ideas and commitment to justice. Some levels of hate writings have even entered the space from the different sides of this saga. Sometime after 1999 or perhaps in 1999 a group of young people in PDP organized an ideas meeting for the leadership of PDP at the ECOWAS Secretariat Abuja. Most of the leaders of PDP including Babangida were in attendance. The meeting was addressed by people from different backgrounds including myself from the human rights community. I told the audience that any fight against corruption that looked discriminatory will fail.
I'm not a fan of Ribadu and I don't hate him. As a civil rights "activist" I will defend his rights to fair hearing and processes. Though I personally suffered in the hands of the Babangida and Abacha regimes, I will defend their rights and that of their accomplices to fair processes. This is very hard, as hard as someone whose loved one was murdered by armed robbers pleading genuinely that the robber should not face the death penalty. The moment I begin to make discrimination in my quest for justice I become an absurdity, a distortion, a dissembler, a confusionist etc. Not only will I become all the above I will also create the same dimension in the minds of people, the community and the nation. If I want to build a coherent community based on the ideas of fair processes, then I must avoid discrimination. People say Ribadu was selective and that is an understatement. He was discriminatory and this is a better defined crime/injustice than the phrase selective treatment. Selective treatment can be lofty in many contexts but discrimination is not. It is a full blown injustice/crime. Many on this listserve know the history of the problems that discrimination as a force has caused humanity and I do not need to bore anybody with that. Indeed the history of human right violation may well be reduced to the history of discrimination.
Kenobi, there is a way in which one will read your entry on Edgar and one will come to the conclusion that you will sanction the slavery of a people ( maybe your family, your friends or your ethnic group) if that slavery will bring about the development of Nigeria. Anything can go provided it brings about "progress" After all slave trade and slavery "created the conditions" for the emergence of America as a developed country. Dear Kenobi I know you will not sanction slavery for your people. But you know that slavery started from small origins of the purported "benefits" of discrimination. The world knows better today and has abolished slavery for good.
Despite the abolition of slavery, the dictum that you need to be unfair to some people to enable the production of "public good" still prevails in social and political doctrines and indeed on this listserve. Some call it the doctrine of the end justifies the means. I see you love Machiavelli and I don't mean anything horrible by this inference. Hitler believed that the end will justify the means so he gassed millions of Jews because according to him they are the "embodiment of crime". Not just the Jews he also slaughtered his own Aryan race because they were guilty of associating with Jews. Hitler wanted to build a formidable nation based on discriminative idea. To you Hitler may have brought his ship home. Is that a fair derivation from your allegory? World Bank apologists have urged African govts to wage war against the poor and "dash" money to the rich so as to bring about development. With such a discriminatory idea planted in our leaders poverty has become a difficult thing to fight.
By using the power of the state in a discriminatory manner, Ribadu may have achieved "something" but he ended up distorting the logic of the anti corruption movement. His tactics united the kleptocrats against the movement and gave them a lifeline of a distorted notion of rule of law. If OBJ had succeeded in his third term bid due to the "good works" of Ribadu and there is social tension he would have sacked Ribadu under a hollow slogan of rule of law. You said that Ribadu and OBJ brought their ship home. What ship are you referring to? The ship of anti corruption? the ship of third term? The ship of national under development or is it the minimum ship of electoral justice which every liberal democracy must bring in for a start? Yes you may be right, maybe they brought home their ship but certainly not ridden and weather beaten Ship as you intoned. They came home with a bullet proof yacht decorated with the demons of our democracy and nation. Their ship came loaded with distorted concepts of justice, rule of law, democracy and development. They came with a yacht loaded with our broken hopes and caged freedoms. Their ship would have come with worse cargoes if not for the agitations of our people. Obasanjo and Ribadu set to sail with a discriminatory charge and that is why we have the present situation in our country. Those in the listserve that condemn OBJ and eulogize Ribadu are playing the Ostrich game. The Yar' Adua govt was imposed on this nation by OBJ and his men. Did the OBJ men try to outsmart him and impose another member of the cabal as the rumor goes, it could not have made any difference, indeed any difference could have been worse.
Ribadu's idea of fighting corruption makes the anti corruption movement look absurd, contradictory and divided. His style diminished our overall sense of justice. Some say he was courageous. You even likened him to Edgar. The later was courageous but Ribadu was not. Edgar had two missions: to fight the enemies of the system from within and without. Edgar charged on the enemies of the system inside and outside without discrimination. That was why he was reviled by all the presidents he worked under. The presidents he worked under could not sack him because they understood the strategic role he was playing. He was brave and he was rewarded by the system he strove to uphold without discrimination. Ribadu was discriminatory and convenient and was not brave like the people you mentioned in your analysis. He went after the enemies of OBJ with total cover by the state. Those who say he was brave tend to evoke the impression that He was like a Palestinian kid throwing stones at Israeli armored vehicles. He was not, he was brutish. He did not speak truth to the man in real charge of power in Nigeria. I personally do not think that any serious anti corruption movement in Nigeria can model itself after Ribadu.
In the 1930s and 40s Delano Roosevelt the American president that was crippled rallied his nation together to fight economic recession and particularly to fight unscrupulous money peddlers and changers whose corruption contributed to the economic woes of the time. He shut down all the financial houses and gave them marching orders. He won the battle because he did not discriminate in the choice of which money lender or corporation to discipline. In our country the situation was different under OBJ and Ribadu. Those business men or politicians with business interest who opposed OBJ were haunted and their business targeted for destruction without due process. The nation was effectively under the reign of terror.
Before this intervention gets too lengthy let me say that the world has come a long way in the protection and codification of human rights that it is no longer advisable to use the human rights violating methods used in the past to bring about human progress. I belief that Africa is strategically placed to lead and teach the world the true meaning of participatory development and the true meaning of democracy. Africa and Nigeria in particular has a burden of history they must discharge. We have lived under centuries of internal slavery, almost a century of transatlantic slave trade, another of colonialism and neo colonialism; we have lived under the most atrocious military and civilian rules. No one can now define human rights in a token for us. We are a continent in underdevelopment at a time when the clearest definition of human rights and participatory development is available for our use. Therein lay the place that we should seek to bring home our ship. In this area Ribadu’s right to fair hearing must be guaranteed to him but the eulogy of historical absurdity must cease.
It is clear that our genuine anti corruption fighter must not be like Ribadu. He or she must hold the flame of justice unequivocally aglow.General Secretary
Alliance for Credible Elections
ACE-NIGERIA
Jima Plaza, Garki 2, Area 11
Abuja
Comments